Full-Time RV Life: 5 Costly Mistakes We Made as Newbies
Ouch — can we have a do-over?
After years of dreaming and months of planning to become full-time RV-ers, my husband and I set out on our journey to see the U.S. in an RV. Even with all the preparation we did, we made some costly beginner mistakes. It’s the “you don’t know what you don’t know” malady. In full transparency, here is what we did wrong — I hope this helps someone avoid these costly mishaps.
Didn’t shop around for insurance for our RV. My insurance agent assured me that the company we had been with would cover our RV too, so I waited until we were ready to take possession of our rig to ask him for a quote. The quote was shockingly high and came with an enormous deductible. We were down to the wire and there was no time to do comparisons so I paid the premium and made the promise to switch to a better plan as soon as we got settled. One day into our trip and we had an accident! I am now stuck paying out that huge deductible because I didn’t do my due diligence.
Didn’t measure the bed in the RV. The dealer assured us that the bed was a “true king” — not a short king so we saw no problem in ditching that uncomfortable RV mattress and putting our luxurious Select Comfort mattress in its place. Wrong assumption! The Select Comfort mattress is too long and a smidgen too wide. Let’s just say making the bed is akin to a good workout at the gym. After wrestling with the beast I found out that Select Comfort makes RV-specific mattresses. If I’d only known…or done my research!
Overestimated our energy and underestimated drive time when pulling a large RV. Drive time hauling a 16,000 pound 5th-wheel is not the same as drive time in your comfy, gas-saving car. It’s like football minutes are to real minutes — everything takes longer. Averaging about 8 mpg means we have to stop often to fuel and plan stops that accommodate a large RV. Add two hyper dogs to the mix and we stop at least every two hours. Keep in mind that there are other forced stops like the “oops-we forgot to close the storage door” stop or the “why is our side door coming open” stop and things like that.
Pulling a heavy vehicle requires an extra bit of concentration on the road and even though my husband is an experienced truck driver, he needs to rest along the way. We’ve learned to abide by the rule of 3s that popular RV YouTubers have espoused:
*don’t drive more than 3 hours without taking a break (not a problem due to our pups and fuel needs) *try not to drive more than 300 miles in one day *try to arrive by 3 pm
Learning the hard way that a 4-hour trip really means 5 or 6 hours, we’ve learned to plan our trips accordingly and be realistic about how much ground we can cover in one day.
Didn’t read the RV owner’s manual before hitting the road. Admittedly, there is a LOT to read in a new RV manual, but I highly recommend reading over the basics like leveling, hitching, and water and tank maintenance. We trusted the RV dealer to go over the important things with us as we took notes and videoed everything she showed us. Unfortunately, she was incorrect about a couple of small things, and one very important thing: how to level the RV after we parked.
After doing the leveling incorrectly a few times, we realized that what she told us didn’t make a lot of sense. Once we checked the owner’s manual, it confirmed that our intuition (and all the RV owners on Facebook!) were right: always level the RV before bringing the slides out. Why she told us otherwise I do not know but had we checked the owner’s manual right away we would have discovered this error sooner.
Bought things before moving into the RV. We were so excited to get on the road and set up our new home that we started visiting places like The Container Store and Ikea to find space-saving options for the kitchen, my office, and the bath.
We may have gone a little overboard at Ikea because, well, have you ever been to Ikea? Everything looked like a good idea and we visualized all the ways we would hang our kitchen utensils and utilize wall space. It turned out we didn’t use most of the stuff we bought at Ikea and had to take a trip to return them. Just like buying a new house: live in it a little while before you spend a lot of money decorating and furnishing it.
I have no doubt there will be many more things we learn as we continue on this adventure and someday these mishaps will all seem funny.
If you’re dreaming about living the full-time RV life here are some resources I recommend to get you started so you can avoid some costly mistakes as newbies:
Changing Lanes — very thorough YouTube videos that cover everything from hitching, getting started, and even internet on the road. Chad and Tara do a bang-up job with their videos.
Facebook groups such as The RV Bunch and Full-Time Rvers can be helpful for ideas and support.
Happy trails! ~Mary
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