We are full time RVers. What is a full time RVer? Well it is someone who has chosen a life of travel. It is an amazing lifestyle that allows our family to enjoy different places and different people.
I learned about the full time RVing lifestyle several years ago and began dreaming. I have never been good at staying in one place. I have always moved alot because I get tired of living in one place but until just a few years ago I never would have thought of living in a camper and moving from place to place. It never occured to me that campers or RV's could be for more than just vacations for people with money.
I did a lot of research on the Full Timing lifestyle. I learned that there are actually a lot of people who are living this lifestyle and that it has become a more popular lifestyle in recent years. I thought at first that it might only be for older, retired people, but I was wrong. People of all ages are living this life. Many parks and resorts offer work camping jobs for full timers.
What is workcamping? Workcamping or workamping means that for a few hours of work per week you can get your RV lot and utilities for free. Some places want you to work a few hours a week for your lot and others want you to work a few hours a week for your lot and more hours for pay.
At first we just wanted to learn what living in a campground was like, so we traveled to Georgia and stayed at our first RV park ever. Fair Harbor RV in Perry Georgia was a wonderful little park. The monthly rate was only $300 and we got our electricity, cable tv, and wifi along with our lot. We enjoyed getting to know the area, meeting new people and learning what it was like to live in our camper and in a park.
After about 2 months we moved on to a new park and found that not all parks are the same. Different parks seem to attract different kinds of people. Each park has it's own distict energy and charisma.
After another month we decided it was time to find a workamping position. We did some searches on places like roamingtimes.com and happyvagabonds.com. I created an online resume at bravenet.com and posted my own ad on Roamingtimes.com. Within a week of posting this ad we had 8 offers. We researched areas and campgrounds and chose our position.
Now we are working about 12 hours a week to pay for our site. We are in a beautiful campground, in a quiet peaceful area of the midwest. When we arrived the owners said "welcome home" and that is where we are, home. Well, at least for now, because after all home is where you park it.
Full timing is a choice. We carry our homes with us. I'm on a yahoo list on which someone asked how we deal with being called homeless. My family and I are not homeless but we could have been. We had been, for many years, discussing and dreaming about becoming full time RVers. My husband owned his own construction company and we were building and selling houses. The plan was 2 more and the profits were going to get us started on our road. Well, you know what they say about best laid plans. In the middle of the next to the last one the market started to turn on us. My husband then fell very ill and could not work. Now he is severely disabled and we lost the business and our own home. We took what we had left and bought our little camper. We decided that spirit was leading us. We took this not as a catastrophe but as an opportunity to begin our new life. Now we are workcamping and enjoying a different kind of life. We are living our dreams. But not everyone who goes through these kinds of events handles them in the same way.
We are NOT homeless. We carry our homes with us. We do have a home. I have never felt homeless even when I wasn't comfortable at one park. And I have been fortunate to meet other fulltimers and non-rvers alike who have been wonderful and understanding. And maybe because we had always planned to live this lifestyle, we never felt that this was a lower situation then living in a stable home. I love my life as a full timer. I CHOSE my life as a full timer. Maybe the situation that put us here at this particular time was not ideal but we had planned to do this anyway and here we are.
