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Old 11-29-2013, 01:27 AM   #1
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Ok, you made the decision to "full time". Did you have a time frame target in mind that you thought would satisfy your goal ? One, Two, Five years or forever ? Did you continue longer than you thought, and why ? Did you stop sooner than you thought , and why ? I realize that there are probably some that have been there, done that, got it out of their system and probably are no longer on this forum, so the ones that have stopped will have lesser responses. Also I know that life has a way of derailing things, so sickness, accidents, and even the loss of a spouse or traveling companion would impact travel greatly.
Part two, if you have been traveling for several years, do you visit the same areas over and over or try to never repeat. My wife and I love to travel, but did some of it before RVing, so we have already seen Yosemite, Zion, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon etc., not that I couldn't spend more time there, unhurried. We want to full time, we like the relaxation, meeting people, seeing different scenery, etc., and I guess we will be like many of you, do it as long as we can and want to.
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Old 11-29-2013, 06:46 AM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigBill3111 View Post
Ok, you made the decision to "full time". Did you have a time frame target in mind that you thought would satisfy your goal ? One, Two, Five years or forever ? Did you continue longer than you thought, and why ? Did you stop sooner than you thought , and why ? I realize that there are probably some that have been there, done that, got it out of their system and probably are no longer on this forum, so the ones that have stopped will have lesser responses. Also I know that life has a way of derailing things, so sickness, accidents, and even the loss of a spouse or traveling companion would impact travel greatly.
Part two, if you have been traveling for several years, do you visit the same areas over and over or try to never repeat. My wife and I love to travel, but did some of it before RVing, so we have already seen Yosemite, Zion, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon etc., not that I couldn't spend more time there, unhurried. We want to full time, we like the relaxation, meeting people, seeing different scenery, etc., and I guess we will be like many of you, do it as long as we can and want to.

Your last sentence says it all, so why ask what others did, or are doing, especially when full-timing is, in the end, a "do it your way" endeavor.

However, my basic method is to Boondock in places I either know, or own, as the majority of people bore the heck out of me, and about five minutes of random though, idle conversation is about all I can take. I will do this as long as my health allows (and then maybe park it with me inside).

Also, I have finally came to the point where I no longer wish to DO anything specific, I'm content just BEING, and happy within myself.

Ed
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Old 11-29-2013, 07:11 AM   #3
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Started out to full time forever.
After 15 years it is still working.

I seen all lower 48 on a motorcycle and many more then once, before going full time. Covered many of them again for several years after starting full time in the MH.
I have slowed down seeing the tourist areas now. Been there done that.

Now spend 7 months in SE Florida and 5 in the north. Usually IN.(family) or IL. Last summer spent 3 months in MO.
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Old 11-29-2013, 07:52 AM   #4
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Our full time plans are open ended. It all depends on our health. But I can see eventually going back to a S&B. Hopefully at that time we can still part-time in a smaller rig.

Ken
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Old 11-29-2013, 08:16 AM   #5
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Following retirement, we went into full time travel with no goals... other than to have fun. We planned to do it for as long as we wanted and then do something else. I guess one "goal" we had, was to evaluate different parts of the country as possible places to "settle down".

We were about 3/4 time for three years and then full time for nearly two years before we bought another stick house near our grandkids in Arizona.

It was probably a little sooner than we expected but, with the real estate crash, we found a perfect house at a perfect price and jumped at it.

While traveling, we did make it a point to see all those big things on our bucket list but like Ed pointed out, we were content to just "be" in different places spending time. It was fun to decide we wanted to live at the beach for a while... or live in the forest for a while, etc.

Best of luck.

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Old 11-29-2013, 08:46 AM   #6
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We started off getting the RV so that I could go with Thom when he had to go traveling for work. He ended up getting several offers to stay while on a job site. He took one of the offers for a year contract. So since it was for only a year we decided to still stick with the RV. Then after the year another round of several companies vying for him, including his old to travel all over but we are staying at the same job site but a different company and we still have the RV. No longer traveling for work but we will stick in the RV using it to travel now for vacations and stuff. We have no plans to go back into a house or apartment. We can move when we want and we like that. We get tired of having the same neighbors for very long
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Old 11-29-2013, 08:52 AM   #7
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Around January of 2011, I was Internet surfing and came across the Escapee website and started reading about full timing. I had never even heard of full timing. I had already been RVing for about 11 years and me and my wife really enjoyed it. Talked to wife and she, to my surprise, also liked the idea. House was upside down, bills galore and our employer reduced our wages by 15 percent. So we decide on going FT around January of 2015, when wife was of age to retire.

We started paying off bills and saving for our FT rig. December of 2012, we did some finagling and were able to buy our FT rig, with plan to still go FTing around December of 2014 or January of 2015. June of 2013, a lady came by our house and said she wanted to buy it, I told her it was not for sale. The middle of July, she came back again wanting to buy my house. We wanted to sell, just not yet, way to soon. I again told her it was not for sale, but then something told me to show her our house. She fell in love. I threw out a high, but fair price just to see if she was real and she said ok. A month and a half later, all our stuff was given away, house closed escrow and we started living Fulltime in our RV. Escrow closed the first day of our 10 day vacation, so we took our new home to the beach and then the lake, awesome vacation, no packing or unpacking.

We are still working and living FT in Motorhome, no house, no storage, but still working. Since all the above happened, we are able to move our get on the road date/retirement date to July 4th of 2014, Independence Day. We still make it a point to take a trip at least every month.

Life is good, God is awesome, we are so blessed.
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Old 11-29-2013, 08:55 AM   #8
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Ed-Sommers, I love your response. After being in retail for years, I have basically had a belly full of people. But love to be in the RV and travel.
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Old 11-29-2013, 02:11 PM   #9
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I spent almost 2 years getting ready to leave full timing. I'm almost 2 months in and I really have no time line. I'll keep on until I'm totally sick of it. Then I'll go collect my utility trailer with my Yamaha scooter and some other stuff at my mom's house in Arkansas, then go up to Seattle and settle there.

I might just wait out getting a low cost apt living in this tiny motorhome, or I may get a good sized travel trailer that needs some TLC and do the work myself on it while living in it at a no-fills RV park where they probably won't mind if I work on it so long as I don't make a mess. Much like the RV park I'm in right now where a woman next door has an old beater trailer she's having some guys she knows work on for her to get it, in her own words "liveable" (while she is living in it).
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Old 11-29-2013, 02:38 PM   #10
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Beyond the freedom, adventure, miles and smiles, there are the practical issues.

Things that will never touch my hands again:
-Snow shovel
-Lawn mower
-Paint brush
-Real estate tax bill
-etc
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Old 11-29-2013, 07:18 PM   #11
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Well, we're not full-timing yet, but we're getting close - 5 yrs and counting till retirement! I just bought my FT TV last week, so I'll be ready to tow away my FT TT when I find it. We certainly don't plan to FT forever - just till we die - or worse, are unable to Ft anymore for health reasons, which amounts to the same thing in my case.

Chip
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Old 11-29-2013, 07:49 PM   #12
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Our full time plans are open ended. It all depends on our health. But I can see eventually going back to a S&B. Hopefully at that time we can still part-time in a smaller rig.

Ken
Exactly the same with is.
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Old 11-30-2013, 08:40 AM   #13
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When people would ask, "sure, but how long can you do that?" my response was always, "until the money, interest or health run out". My presumption has always been it will eventually be the latter that will have the bigger effect on our lifestyle.

We've been full time for a couple of years now. We've not travelled as much as some, but more than others. Many we've met in all of our years of RVing will own or rent two properties, one near their pre-retirement life, and family, and the other in some snow-bird location. I can see us maybe doing that when the old bones start to make the travel part of the lifestyle more of a challenge.

Since going full time we've met a number of people that were on the road for 5 to 10 years and then settled, not because of health or financial reasons, just because they had gotten the wanderlust out of their system and once again wanted to put down roots. Some of them had planned for that all along, others arrived at the decision to "park it" as part of their journey's evolution. What we take from all of this is, whatever our plans are today, they are likely to change further down the road, and it's all good. We have the freedom to change direction as we see fit, when the notion strikes us.
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Old 11-30-2013, 09:05 AM   #14
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We have been on the road for over 3 years now, still lovin it. Our "goal" is 20 years, at which time we will re-evaluate the safety of our driving. We are still exploring new places but making note of all the ones we like so we can return... life is good!
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