Stormfather
Member
Hello everyone,
I've always wanted to travel, and I figured that since I'm single, in my late 20's, and have a job where I can work remote, now would be a perfect time. However, I've never done anything like this before, so I wanted to see what advice the RV community might have. A bit of information about my planned adventure:
My situation:
My plan (so far):
Other concerns:
This has turned into quite the long post! I apologize to, and commend, anyone who took the time to read the whole thing. If anyone has any advice, any insight on something I might have missed, anything at all that would be helpful in my research, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I've always wanted to travel, and I figured that since I'm single, in my late 20's, and have a job where I can work remote, now would be a perfect time. However, I've never done anything like this before, so I wanted to see what advice the RV community might have. A bit of information about my planned adventure:
My situation:
- At the moment, it's just me and my small dog. My brother might join too, but that's dependent on him getting a job where he can work remote.
- I have a house that I bought in 2020, no place to actually park an RV on the property.
- My current vehicles are a motorcycle and a Honda Civic.
My plan (so far):
- Do research over the course of this year, figuring out everything I will need. Buy an RV in the winter when demand (and hopefully, price) is lower. Spend a few weeks making adjustments, fixing whatever issues there might be, and moving into the RV. Begin traveling in early spring.
- Use a property management company to rent my house out. Judging by rental prices for similar homes in the area, I can probably make enough to cover the mortgage, plus a couple hundred extra dollars each month.
- Buy a motorhome or trailer (more on which one later), hopefully getting the monthly payment as low as possible, since this will be an expensive endeavor as it is, and I don't want to add additional costs while traveling.
- Take both my car and motorcycle with me. I would take just the motorcycle, but I expect this will take many months, and I don't want to risk getting caught in weather the motorcycle can't handle. On the other hand, I also don't want to just take the car, because the motorcycle is a lot more fun, when the weather does permit
- Work remote from a campsite throughout the week, go see the sights of wherever I am on the weekend. Do this for as many weeks as is needed to see everything I want to see in the area
- The main one is figuring out exactly what the setup is going be like. So far, I have a few ideas:
- Buy a toyhauler motorhome, so that I can store the motorcycle in its garage, and tow my car behind it
- So far, I haven't been able to find many of these online
- Those that I have found are usually quite new (and therefore more expensive than I'd like). Is this a newer type of motorhome, and so they haven't been in production for very long? Or am I missing something?
- The ones I have found tend to be longer than what I would like as well. It's been recommended to me that I not get anything longer than 35 feet in length, both due to the difficulty of driving it, and the fact that it's harder to find sites that can support longer RVs. Does that seem like a reasonable limit?
- Buy a regular motorhome, and get a tow dolly that can carry both the motorcycle and my car
- I've seen some tow dollies online that would serve this purpose, but only a few
- I haven't seen any consistent pricing on them, when there's pricing displayed at all.
- I also don't know where I would go to get one, or if an online service would deliver. This is something I'll have to look more into, but any advice would be appreciated (as with everything in this post)
- Sell my car, buy a truck, and use that to tow a toyhauler trailer that carries the motorcycle
- The downside here is, of course, selling my car and not having it once my trip is over
- I've also noticed while looking online that the trailers generally seem to be more cramped and sparsely furnished than the motorhomes. I don't need ultimate luxury (especially since I want to keep costs down), but if I'm going to be living in it long term, I would like at least a little bit of comfort and space. Is this disparity between the two types of RV all in my head, or is that actually a trend?
Other concerns:
- Safety
- I plan on taking a gun safety class and buying a handgun
- I would also like to get a concealed carry permit, but I need to figure out how that works going from state to state, with the varying laws each one has
- My dog
- Ideally, I would like to take him with me when I go out exploring and hiking. However, I know many trails don't allow dogs, so I would need to consider what to do with him in those cases. I think he should be fine if I leave him with appropriate heating/AC, but there may be some factors I haven't considered here
- My house
- While I do plan to rent out my house, I am not yet sure what I'll do with all my personal belongings in my house
- I'd prefer not to pay for a storage unit, since that's yet another expense to worry about, but I definitely can't take it all with me either
- I could probably put most of my things in storage containers and put those in the utility room or the garage, but there's no guarantee that whoever rents the house will leave them there
- I could potentially ask a friend if they have spare space to store my things, but if not then I'm not sure what a good solution would be
- Taxes
- How would I file for taxes in a situation like this?
- Would my primary residence still be my actual house, even though I'm not living there?
- Mail
- How would I get my mail?
- I know there are mail forwarding services (yet another expenditure to consider), but if I'm regularly on the move, how will I know where to have it forwarded to?
- How will I know when to have them start forwarding it to a new location?
- These problems are compounded by the fact that I don't have a hard-set itinerary for when and where I want to be. I am currently planning on just going wherever seems interesting and staying until I've seen all I want to see
- Are there other options besides mail forwarding that I haven't considered?
- Internet
- Since I will be working remotely, I will need reliable internet access at all times
- I have looked a little bit into Starlink, and that seems to be enough to solve this problem, but it's also pretty expensive ($200/month)
- Are there any equivalent services that might be cheaper?
- Electricity
- I know there are some RVs that come with a generator. If I end up getting one that does not (or maybe even if I get one that does), I am considering if it would be appropriate to get a generator myself, for emergencies or extended stays without an electrical hookup
- Would a solar generator be better or worse than a gasoline one?
- On the one hand, solar generators never really run out of fuel (the sun can be blocked, but even then solar generators get some power, just not as much). On the other hand, it seems you either need to run it off the battery (for however long that lasts), or else deal with a low power output while charging.
- Gasoline generators can give consistent power, but the fuel supply is also limited
This has turned into quite the long post! I apologize to, and commend, anyone who took the time to read the whole thing. If anyone has any advice, any insight on something I might have missed, anything at all that would be helpful in my research, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!