Permanent Address Revisited

[CascadeBob]

More good stuff and thanks everyone. Of course one question brings up ten more and I don't think we'll have an answer to everything before we buy into our rig and start traveling. There'll always be some risk and some unknowns. But, we're continuing our research as well and have a couple updates:


Health Insurance: I hadn't thought too much about this since I'm on Medicare, but since we started traveling last May we did buy traveler's health insurance from World Nomads which covers major medical costs anywhere in the world as long as you are 150 miles from your "home." Cost is $1,000 per year and we may renew for another year until we figure all of this out.


Buying land outside of you domicile state: Many people own multiple properties in multiples states. In our case the idea is to establish a second home, maybe in Washington State, where we would park for months at a time in summer. We've focused mostly on the tax burden for doing that and found that we'd pay the same property tax rate for a "second home" as a primary residence, but you can deduct the taxes on federal income tax returns circumstances (a small consolation).


Roadtrip Images: Jeeze, I hadn't even thought of a state cancelling drivers' licenses. Yet another reason to go to South Dakota as their DMV regulations specifically cite full time RVers as legal to hold a license in their state - it's written right into the law.


WendyG - Again thanks for your excellent advice and yes, we are leaning towards signing up with Americas Mailbox in South Dakota if for no other reason than the simplicity of it all (and good reviews from users). Getting ready to full-time RV is turning out to be more complicated than our decision last year to sell all our possessions and backpack through South America and we're getting overwhelmed.

[pasdad1]

Originally Posted by CascadeBob

which covers major medical costs anywhere in the world as long as you are 150 miles from your "home."

Can you clarify ? Is your "home" considered the RV ? Or the place where your residency (mailbox) was established?

[CascadeBob]

pasdad1, Last August when we bought the World Nomads insurance we didn't own a RV - we were traveling with backpacks through the western U.S., then into South America and Mexico. We used the address of the house we lived in near Seattle (and then sold) as our home address and we were covered anywhere in the world, including the United States, so long as we were 150 miles away from our Seattle area address.


Now we are "homeless" and preparing to get into full-time RVing (which was part of our plan before we even left last year). So, now we don't have any address anywhere except a mail forwarding service we set up in Seattle.


By the way, traveling all year through six foreign countries with just carry on size backpacks was great, but that's enough of that. We had some great experiences, and some not-so-great ones. Now we're ready for more travel, but in more comfort.


Also, we found that travel changes you - in a good way. When we left the Pacific Northwest last May we intended to come back since we both love the area. Now, though we still love the Northwest we aren't so sure. Pretty nice snorkeling on coral reefs or basking in the desert sun while the Northwest is dark, cold and wet. So, now we're looking more at joining the hordes of snowbirds heading south in winter, but returning somewhere in the north for summer.