My wife and I recently retired and am thinking about traveling for several months, any advice about tips that have helped you along the way? Managing mail, trip planning, protecting the RV during freezing temps,? We have a Grand Design 5W, that is advertised as "All Season", I don't know if that means all season in moderate climates, don't think we can stay all winter in North Idaho. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Advice for new fulltimers
- Thread starter poppycock
- Start date
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SeilerBird
Well-known member
Since you asked here is an article I wrote for the library. There are more articles in the library on full timing.
http://www.rvforum.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=435:fulltimeprep&catid=29&Itemid=132
http://www.rvforum.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=435:fulltimeprep&catid=29&Itemid=132
CLiNTon
Well-known member
99% of all [decent] RV parks will have some sort of mail system, campgrownds... not so much.
You should have no trouble with Amazon or other internet related purchases, or mail forwarding. I do this often.
TRIP PLANNING
Forget about paper maps and get with the 21st century, a decent GPS system and a phone map app, or a combo of both, will do nicely.
Just learn how to use it before you set out.
ArdraF
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2006
- Posts
- 10,695
Join Escapees and use their mail forwarding system which is excellent - unless there's someone at home looking after things in which case let them know when you're going to be at a specific place to which they can forward your mail. Also set up regular billings such as utilities so that they're paid automatically. We set up a separate checking account for this purpose and most of our snail mail now is magazines and/or junk mail so we don't worry about having it forwarded, say, every two weeks. Sometimes it's a month or more.
Make some kind of a spreadsheet on which to keep track of all your revenues and expenses. For example, revenues are payments you receive from retirement accounts, securities/bond accounts, and social security while expenses are payments you make like property taxes, IRS/state tax payments, utilities, etc. The purpose of this list is to keep up to date so you don't miss something important like paying a property tax. Our utilities are automatic but we have to check on our property tax amount before sending the payment.
I can't live without my PAPER maps in addition to the GPS, etc. (AAA maps are superior.) There are just some circumstances where a paper map provides a better perspective. We also prefer the paper version of the various campground directories, especially where we're near the junction of several states and need to look back and forth between states. It's easier to mark several paper pages while flipping between them. But then we don't usually have the computers out when we're driving.
ArdraF
Make some kind of a spreadsheet on which to keep track of all your revenues and expenses. For example, revenues are payments you receive from retirement accounts, securities/bond accounts, and social security while expenses are payments you make like property taxes, IRS/state tax payments, utilities, etc. The purpose of this list is to keep up to date so you don't miss something important like paying a property tax. Our utilities are automatic but we have to check on our property tax amount before sending the payment.
I can't live without my PAPER maps in addition to the GPS, etc. (AAA maps are superior.) There are just some circumstances where a paper map provides a better perspective. We also prefer the paper version of the various campground directories, especially where we're near the junction of several states and need to look back and forth between states. It's easier to mark several paper pages while flipping between them. But then we don't usually have the computers out when we're driving.
ArdraF
