5 year Full-Time RV Anniversary

Our fifth year of full-time RV life is in the books, and we are still committed to this lifestyle for the foreseeable future. We still love our 2013 43’ Newmar Dutchstar Class A RV, and are hoping that this will be our first and last RV, as it meets all of our requirements. We spent two weeks at Nappanee, IN at the Newmar Service Center this summer for standard maintenance and a few cosmetic upgrades, to keep our RV in excellent condition for many years to come.

RV life, like “sticks and bricks” life has its challenges and is not all fun and games. It is ideal that someone in your partnership is willing to do the research to maintain and fix things that go wrong. Thankfully, Mike has been up to the task. This year he has fixed two urgent issues: tow bar connection problem and a flat tire on our truck, as well as many routine maintenance and repair items.

We live in our RV full-time, however, we purchased an RV lot with a coach house in South Texas last year, to eliminate the hassle of booking a winter spot to avoid the cold each year, and to have a place for family and friends to stay when they visit. We do not stay stationary in the winter, however, and take several trips throughout the season.

One thing to note about our travel lifestyle; we plan ahead! We have already booked our 2024 travel and have 2025 planned. Good RV sites in highly sought after travel destinations can be hard to come by. Since we like concrete pads, space between RV’s, room for a large RV and our Ram 1500 Limited, nearby biking/hiking trails, good birding spots, and moderate temperatures; we have learned that we have better success when booking early. It is amazing how many good locations are booked more than a year in advance, or parks that we have to put on our calendar to book at 6:00 a.m. when sites become available. Occasionally weather or other issues change our plans, and we may lose a little money. We have found this risk to be more than worth it for us.

Here are a few facts from our 5th year of full-time RV life:

7,118 miles driven in our RV, an average of 593 miles per month
11,794 miles driven in our tow vehicle; an average of 983 miles per month
14 states visited: MI, IL, IN, UT, ID, OH, AR, IA, WY, MO, NE, OK, TX

Total states visited in our RV: 44
New this year: Michigan and the country of Canada

We stayed in 44 campgrounds:
27 RV parks
10 County Parks
5 State parks
1 RV Service Center (Newmar)
1 Our RV/Couch House site
Longest stay:48 days at our RV site with Coach House
Average stay per campsite: 8 days

The pictures below are the highlights of our journey this past year.