It’s no secret I’m really enjoying traveling for weeks on end in our motorhome. I’ve gone on and on about why I dig it so much… and how much fun we’re having seeing parts of the country we’ve never been to before.
But it’s not all fun all the time.
Traveling by RV isn’t easy. It requires a lot of planning and prep. For example, I spent at least 3 hours Sunday mapping out the final couple weeks of this multi-week trip. We weren’t super clear where we were going next after spending 4 nights in New Hampshire parked in my mom’s driveway. So we had to sit down with our RVParky trip-planning app and make sure we weren’t overextending ourselves — with Quent’s driving days too long — while trying to fit in a few places we wanted to get to before our trip ends in Colorado at the beginning of October.
Then I had to figure out where to book campgrounds. Autumn weekends fill up at some popular state parks, so we had to pinch hit a bit. Reading user reviews, checking availability, booking sites… it all takes time. It’s fun to check out the variety of campgrounds (e.g., privately owned, town campgrounds, state parks), but at times overwhelming with all the options — or frustrating with the lack of options.
But besides the travel planning, it’s the RV that requires work. Even our nearly new motorhome! In fact, we had a few unexpected discoveries with CC in recent weeks:
- Even before we pulled out of our driveway to start this trip at the end of August, we discovered a couple leaks. One seemed to be coming from the ice maker in the freezer. We’ve turned that off. Also, the hot water bypass was leaking; Quent was able to fix that. (No idea what the hot water bypass is…)
- Then we realized we had a chip in the windshield. That’s under warranty, so Quent took that to a local place to get it fixed. Not a big deal, just annoying.
- When we reached our very first campground, Quent went to open the biggest slide and forgot it was locked (we didn’t have the locking feature on BB!), so the slide went off the rail. It still closed all the way — with a shove — but it was crooked when all the way open. We thought we’d have to go to an RV mechanic to get it fixed. But thankfully I am married to MacGyver. Quent came up with a plan to use a socket taped to the cog wheel to get it back on track. Whew.
- Also within the first day of travel our propane detector kept chirping at random times. I was convinced we had a propane leak, and the RV might blow up (slightly irrational), so I insisted we turn it off. Even with the propane turned off, it chirped an alarm warning sign. Turns out, the detector was just broken, so we stopped by a Camping World in Denver on our way to our second campground, bought a new one for $60, Quent installed it, and we haven’t had any chirping since. (But why the heck was this broken when the RV is just a year old? Hmmmm.)
- At that same stop in Denver, we went to Lowe’s to buy some washers to fix a refrigerator door that wasn’t closing all the way. I tell ya, it is SO HELPFUL to be married to someone who can figure out solutions to pretty much anything mechanical.
- We have a wind sensor on our awning (cool), but the sensor kept going off (not cool) even when it wasn’t windy. So we turned that off and will have to get it fixed on return from our trip.
Then there are a few random things that occur along the way that are more annoying than anything — again, time consuming issues where expenses do add up:
- We ran over a nail in our “toad” (our Honda CRV we’re towing), and a mechanic in NH couldn’t fix it because of the nail location, so we just have this slow leak going on for the rest of the trip. We’ll replace the four tires when we get home (we’re due anyway) and we just use the air compressor we brought (smart husband!) to fill it every so often.
- The extension cord we brought to plug into my mom’s house (a significant distance from where we were parked) was too wimpy and wouldn’t run the RV’s air-conditioning, so we had to buy a new larger-gauge extension cord.
- As our trip goes on, we’re realizing that our auto-leveling jacks, which we use to keep the RV level when we’re parked at a campground, aren’t great. Sometimes it feels like I’m walking up (or down) a hill when I go from the back bedroom to the living area. Quent thinks we need to get them re-calibrated to work properly.
- We needed to get the RV tires rotated on this trip, in order to keep up the warranty, but you can’t just take an RV anywhere for service, so we planned to get it worked on at a tire shop for commercial trucks in New Hampshire. We were hoping to get a multi-point inspection, too, but the guy who does those was out sick. Will have to deal with this when we get home (same time we get wind sensor, jacks, and ice maker fixed).
On housekeeping and making mistakes
I often celebrate the fact that cleaning a 300-square foot motorhome is a lot easier than cleaning our multi-bedroom brick-and-mortar Colorado home. But, still, there’s plenty of housekeeping to be done:
- Quent deals with emptying our grey tank (sink/shower water) and black tank (toilet) at campground dump stations or in campsite sewers, praise all things. I wouldn’t know how to even start to do that, I don’t want to learn, and he takes on that dirty work.
- We don’t have an awning over one of our slides, so if we are parked under trees, Quent has to get up on the roof to sweep off pine needles and leaves before we close it up.
It sounds like Quent does a lot of the dirty work, right? Well, he does. There’s no way I’d be able to — or want to — travel for weeks in an RV without someone so handy and helpful, willing to take on the difficult stuff (which he claims, in his easygoing way, isn’t that difficult). Still, I am in charge of navigation (which continues to need work) and keeping track of campground reservations and amenities. And I mess that up sometimes, too.
For example, I forgot that we didn’t have water available at our campsite in Newport, Rhode Island, last week. So, instead of filling up the tanks at the campsite prior to Newport, Quent drained the tanks (better for gas mileage), and then I remembered we didn’t have water once we’d pulled into our Newport site. We had to drive out and fill the tanks at a community tap. Not a big deal! Everyone makes mistakes!
In fact, when driving on a narrow country road, Quent recently scraped our rolled-up awning against a telephone pole. No biggie.
But back to housekeeping and the effort involved with traveling by RV — and other annoying-but-dealable issues that come with RV travel:
- We don’t have a washer/dryer in CC (some motorhomes do!), so we have to do laundry at campgrounds or commercial centers every so often.
- Sometimes we have to up and leave a campground while the weather is horrific, so Quent is outside unhooking our electric, water, and sewer in the rain.
- Speaking of weather, on a past trip, we drove through a horrific wind storm in Texas. We were rattling and shaking down the highway outside of El Paso, and we didn’t even leave our camper once we got settled at a less-than-desirable campground (just parked there to sleep fitfully through the night!).
- Reliably good internet continues to elude us. It was a really big issue on our multi-week trip last year, when we were both working full-time, but now that we’re self-employed part-timers, it’s less of a major concern, more a minor annoyance. We look up campground reviews on sites like The Dyrt and Campendium, where users can note how good the provided wi-fi or cellular service is. However, this intel isn’t always reliable. We had planned to stay at one campground in upstate New York for 5 nights, but arrived to find the wi-fi down. We didn’t have cell service either, which meant no wireless hot spot. We canceled our last 3 nights and moved to another campground with stellar wi-fi. All the better to watch “Ted Lasso”!
- You can’t really pick your campground neighbors. In the large majority of places we’ve stayed in our past year of RVing (and I estimate we’ve overnighted in at least 50 different spots), fellow campers are delightful. Quent and I tend to keep to ourselves — especially as we continue to navigate the pandemic — but we’ll exchange pleasantries with neighbors regularly. However, we’ve also parked next to people who play their music way too loud (AC/DC after the sun goes down isn’t much fun). And we’ve encountered cigarette smoke wafting our way when we’re sitting outside. Then there are the folks who leave their barking dogs in their camper while they go off to sightsee (definitely not cool). But that comes with the territory, and we’ve always just gone with the flow, knowing we wouldn’t be camping in any one place for very long.
In sum, the work and patience that’s required to live on the road in a motorhome for several weeks isn’t so overwhelming or annoying that it’s stopping us from continuing to enjoy our adventure. And as I’ve noted several times, it’s immensely helpful to travel with a partner who knows his way all things mechanical!
After my last update, we traveled from upstate New York to eastern Connecticut, to Newport, Rhode Island, to Allenstown and Gilford, New Hampshire. Now we’re in Cape Cod, and that’ll be followed by… New York City! Follow along via my Instagram Posts and Stories!