Introducing Myself +1…
Hi, I’m Steve. I’m recently retired. My lovely +1 is still working (retirement-acct eligible from her current job mid-2027, but she has SS too & may bail on this job, depending on a bunch of considerations), in a couple of years. We have long considered a vanlife retirement; to get started, we’ve rented RVs for long weekends, etc, and recently had a monthlong stint in “extended stay” hotels, where our kitchen (stove, cupboards, etc) & clothing (drawers, closets, etc) were similar-capacity to those of the RVs; our mutual “happy place” is cuddled-up, we virtually never need time away from each other. It looks to us like we fit into VanLife space constraints pretty easily!
We’d love to grab a longer stint in a van/RV – ideally a month or more – but everything we’ve found runs $4K-and-over for the month, which feels really excessive to us… hints/advice welcome!
We have kids in both California & North Carolina, and don’t really want to “settle down” away from either, so it looks to us like vanlife’ing it is a good way to be bi-coastal; we tentatively are thinking of long stints on the coasts, punctuated by leisurely coast-to-coast drives.
So… yeah, that’s us in a nutshell, I guess.
Plenty more to say – and to ask here – but those feel like they aren’t really “intro” topics, so I’ll see y’all elsethread for those.
Welcome!
You might want to check into the Thousand Trails memberships. We’re paying ~$1500 a year for camping in any of their sites. Signed up a couple years ago, and spent the last 2 winters in Florida, and headed back again now. Even though we’ve only been using them 5-6 months of the year, it’s still a great deal.
I’ve spent many years as a nomad, exploring the country while working full time. Normally in a camper van or a motorhome while towing a runabout.
It can be a great life, and extremely cheap if you choose to be. There’s a lot of free or extremely cheap camping on federal and state lands & forests. I’ve also spent tons of time parked on city streets for free. Prior to the Thousand Trails membership, it was very rare for me to pay to camp anywhere.
There’s many good people here, and we’re always happy to help!
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Greetings & Welcome!
There are also the LTVA sites in CA & AZ, $180 for 7 months from Sept to April, and you can move between them. If you’re just passing through, I think it’s $40 for 2 weeks.
I’ve stayed at the one near Quartzsite AZ for the big RV show in January.
Cheers!
"Smiles are contagious, pass them on!" ~ Van_Dweller
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Thank you!
We’ll need to take a look at whether those “big” membership places (like Thousand Trails, KOA, Harvest Hosts, etc) make financial sense to us.
Our unusual consideration is that we’re mostly planning our longer stays to be at our “anchor points” near the kids… not huge stints anywhere in the middle. Maybe 8-10 months of the year near family, 2-4 months on the road.
We’re actually considering getting a “tinyhome” at one or both ends, fit it with a pad & all the shore connections. When we’re not in residence, we can AirB&B it out, maybe even renting it into the RV&vanlife communities, to help us offset those steep fixed costs.
And yes, I’ve stayed on those free federal lands! Once doing a family trip to Yellowstone/GrandTetons, we were unable to find an in-park place, but got a lovely free spot between the parks!
Cheers to you too!
TYVM for the LTVA tip. I’ve long known of free/cheap public-lands camping, but this specific program was new to me; that long-duration stay is striking!