OK, lets look at "What kind of RV" first. This is most likely the hardest thing to decide and even when you end up making the decision you may question your decision for some time because as the old saying goes, "the grass is always greener"

Let me say this, take your time, first figure out what you desire to be doing, you see both are great for full timers, however keep in mind they offer different things. Lets look at the 5th wheel first, they seem to offer some of the roomiest floor plans, some are like apartments on wheels. The front living room floor plans offer three separate living areas with the living room and dining room separate. Many floor plans tie them together into one area. The first thing you need to decide is where is it you want to sleep? If you get a front bedroom floor plan, you will hear everyone driving past your unit while you are parked in a campground at night and of course walking. The people that like the front bedroom also like the back windows that are open to look out onto a lake or pond. (They always shown that way) the problem is, in campgrounds most sites do not have that, most of the time you are backed up against trees or another RV. Which sort of defeats the purpose.

Lets look at some more positive things about a 5th wheel before I get into the negative aspects. Most all have room for washer/dryer (stackable and not) almost all offer one huge storage area, (notice I said one) they can be set up for months at a time and of course while they are set, you have the tow vehicle to drive around in. Now that brings up another good point. The tow vehicle, I have found that the reason given by a lot of people for having a 5th wheel is just that, they have a vehicle to use once parked. I need to point out here that no matter what you use as an RV you will need another for transportation. Be it a "dingy" or the unit you use to two your RV with. A "dingy" is what people in Motor homes pull behind them when they travel. Now some put their "dingy" into a garage that they pull behind them (a enclosed trailer they drive their car into and out of) some have motor scooters as well as what they pull and for those that pull a garage, they keep the extra toys in the garage with the cars.

Now some 5th wheel trailers are so big that you need a heavy tow truck, some tow trucks are as big as the big rigs on the roads. With the slides on 5th wheel trailers a lot of times the floor plans only allow usage when the rooms are slid out, while others offer some usage with them closed. Once they are set up they look and feel more permanent than a Motorhome parked.

Now lets look at the problem area's of a 5th wheel, the biggest I see is storage, if you want to take a boat, or motorcycle it is one of the hardest things to do with a 5th wheel if not 100% imposable. With the one storage area, the things that you need to take with you may need to be stored outside below. When it comes time to retrieve the item, it may easily be buried in the middle of the large storage area. That makes it hard to get to pull out and use. If there is a weakness of the 5th wheel trailers it has to be that, storage, you will find you can carry more in a Motorhome with greater flexibility over a 5th wheel. I am saying greater amount and normally easier to get to when you need the item stored outside below. So the moral of it all is, more floor plan flexibility, more living area inside, with less outside storage and flexibility along with not able to take the toys along.

Now lets look at a Motorhome, first off, the floorplans are smaller and limited (not as many to choose from,) with the slides today, you can still only do so much, even with the new triple and four slides on the market, remember this, "everything is a trade off" in order to get one thing, they have to ALWAYS trade off someplace else. Lets look at slides for a moment, with a Motorhome that has two slides, you will have additional room inside AND you will be able to get to your storage compartments not under the slides without getting on your hands and knees. (Even with sliding trays, you have to get on your knees to slide them out IF they are under any slide)

Now if you have no problem getting up and down on your knees, and a nice strong back, this will not be a problem. What has happen lately is, everyone walks into an open Motorhome seeing the slides out and fall in love with the inside. The outside only comes to light when it comes time to put something away or get an item out with the slide out. You see, a good salesperson will show you the outside storage first when the slides are in so you don't have to get on your hands and knees to see them. Of course if the slides were open he/she would close them after showing you the inside so they can show you all the great storage underneath. This is not a trick, it is a way to show off the great features of a unit, with out showing you the trade off's to get them.

Now if you have no problem getting up and down on your knees, and a nice strong back, this will not be a problem. What has happen lately is, everyone walks into an open Motorhome seeing the slides out and fall in love with the inside. The outside only comes to light when it comes time to put something away or get an item out with the slide out. You see, a good salesperson will show you the outside storage first when the slides are in so you don't have to get on your hands and knees to see them. Of course if the slides were open he/she would close them after showing you the inside so they can show you all the great storage underneath. This is not a trick, it is a way to show off the great features of a unit, with out showing you the trade off's to get them.

We are diverse and people purchase diverse, some (like ourselves) purchased because of floorplan and creature features. While our unit is Gas, we could not get the floorplan and features in a Diesel, if we could have maybe we would be in one, (maybe not) What is so strange today is, there are Large Diesel Motorhomes on the market that COST LESS than some Gas Motorhomes. I have a luxury Gas Motorhome for sale that cost over 135k AND I can sell you a 40' Diesel Motorhome that cost 125K granted the diesel has lots of things BUT it is not a luxury unit, those run up in the 200+ range (some less and lots more) The point is today we have something for everyone at prices they can afford.

Ok lets get back to getting on the road, one of the hardest things to do is move into the smaller space of a Motorhome as well as being with your partner 24/7 Oh yea, think about that, 24/7 every minute, every thing together. Just how well do you get along now? Of everything to prepare for this has to be the one item at the top of your list. We prepared for this over time, first we took weekends, then long weekends, which turned into weeks and longer. We both knew that no matter how much we both wanted to do this (go full time) if we were not happy together 24/7 we were in trouble and we should forget about the idea. To be honest around the second month we both thought we made a huge mistake. You see I was the driver which left the navigation to my partner, Now Linda never knew how to read any kind of any map, and lets just say her learning curve was not as fast as I thought it would be.

Once we decided to get an inexpensive GPS to attach to our laptop everything was perfect. So what I can pass on over that experience is, if the navigator is not confident and knowledgeable, get a "co-pilot" they come in three forms, hand held, larger table model and the kind we ended up getting that consisted of an antenna and software. Oh you can spend thousands of dollars in a GPS system but none will be any better than the co-pilot GPS system that we purchased at Camping World, which cost us $300.00

Ok back on track, the house, Gee that is a big one, some are and some aren't. I don't care how small the house is, even an apartment, moving into a Motorhome or 5th wheel to go full time is not easy. I mean IT IS NOT EASY. If you have kids think about this a moment, you have three choices, (maybe four) you can have yard sale after yard sale, give away your things or you can divide them among your children. Or a combination of the three. What we did was have a BBQ and all the children over, we handed them Post-its and told them to pick out what they wanted (works better than any estate sale) if we found two or three post-its on any item we would decide. (With eight kids we decided on a few things) what was left over we gave to friends and then the yard sales began. After a few weeks and getting tired of it all, what was left over that we did not want, went to salvation army (obviously we had set aside the things we were taking to Butte MT and on the road)

It took me almost three months to prepare my garage (that is what I call my trailer that we pull behind us on the road.) My garage has in it what most garages do, car, bicycles, tools, ladder, boat, motor, gas cans, lawn chairs, BBQ, air tools, extra generator, lots of fire wood for the campfires, fishing gear, tires, jacks and I am sure the same things that are in your garage right now, yes the motorcycle was NOT left behind, like I said, with a 5th wheel, you just can't take all the extra stuff. If you go with pulling a "Dinghy" you can always keep things in the back of it, after all why waste a good storage area like an empty trunk? Hey look at the wasted space if you are pulling a small pickup. One last thing about "Dinghy's", if (IF) you do not have grandchildren that you are going to spend time with and you will not need a 4-seater "dinghy" that is one thing, BUT, if you do have grand children that you plan to visit, a 2-seater sports car (while cute) is not practical and neither is that small pickup that only sits two in the cab.

Storage, Now with or without a garage behind you, storage inside the Motorhomes is important, another very important thing is weight, you have to make sure you do not go over your Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) Now drawer space is the one thing that is normally at a premium. (You just never have enough drawer space.) One way around this is to use the bottom of your closet space with the see through stacking storage boxes that you can pick up at Target, Wal-Mart and K-mart stores. They cost around 9 bucks and lock together. In fact with the different sizes available you can but them under the sofa, in the basement storage to keep things separate (and dry)

Clothing, That is easy, if you plan to travel and stay out of the cold, just take the summer cloths and light jackets. You need a storage place for the extra's you may feel the need to keep and not giveaway. We did thins by storing things at our children's homes across the country, we have things in Calif., Butte, New York, & Okalahoma. I have met others that have rented storage unites to store the items they did not wish to get rid of or take with them on the road. What we found worked good for us is, if we do not use something for a year, we stop carrying it around and we store it at one of the kids houses.

OK lets look at "Working on The Road", it is funny when I look back at this subject, when I retired I decided I would never work again, after all, we really did not need to financially. I had my Military retirement, my wife had her retirement, we had stocks and savings. So we just drove across the USA visiting here and there, just as if we were on a permanent vacation. You know things always change, the stock market hurt us a little but not enough to require us to give up our "dream" we did look around at things right from the start to help us out with the extra's, When we hit the road our income dropped from $4,500 a month (prior to going full time) to $1,000 so it was just under a fourth. Now when you change life style, you also change the need for the income. With our grand coming in we only pulled from savings to pay for food and the extras. I kept looking for something to help us avoid dipping into the stocks and savings right from the start. While that is why we had the savings and stocks, I wanted to see if there was a way to slow down the drain. Before going on the road we had an On-line store, catalog, let me just say that while it was a great idea, it just did not work. It was one of those things that would have been nice but it wasn't needed for us to do our traveling.

We kept meeting others like ourselves out on the road, they had gotten bored and began doing things to keep busy as well as bring in some extra cash. Some people were working at campgrounds, others would do season work at seasonal entertainment parks. (Dollywood, Disney, places like that.) Then the working camp host who would work 3-4 hours days at a RV park for free parking. Even sales people that move around. I met a man who was 93 years old in Kaleen TX. That worked at Billy Young Lincoln Mercury. When I asked him why he worked he told me that if he didn't, he would die. He lived to work and worked to live, I did not understand it then (I was 37 then) I understand it today. You have to keep busy, and trust me you can be busy as can be driving around this country shopping, eating, seeing family and friends but even that can get mundane and old.

I came up with a steering wheel table idea. When we parked our Motorhome for any length of time the one place we just could not use was the driver's area when parked. It was nothing but an empty space and I had seen others had little tables attached to the driver's steering wheel. After checking into them I found they ran right at $50.00 I could not believe something so small had to cost so much. I decided to make my own, I found I could make it for under $8.00, so hanging out s little sign, I would end up "custom making" one or two steering wheel tables when would be stopped parked in an RV camp ground. I liked this because it kept me busy and by selling them for $20.00 I made a little profit that paid for my 20-30 minute work. I also released that I enjoyed doing it to break the daily routine of sitting around watching TV when we were not out and about. (Of course the little bit of money didn't hurt either)

We have also discovered that it is nice to do things while traveling that generates income, but what can you do? I have seen painters on the road, (artist) people that pulled a concession stand and worked weekend's only selling Race memorabilia, cotton candy, hamburgers, T-shirts and many other things. Now I know if I wanted to I could "work weekends" but why? I mean if I wanted to work I would, I would stop traveling, get back into a house and go back to work to make money, I do not want to work, I want to travel, so what kind of thing would fill both needs? If I wanted to make some real money on the road I would need to find something that would work everywhere, something needed, something wanted and something that did not cost me an arm and leg to get started. My brother told me about this telephone company that he worked for and Bingo I had it.

Now we can pull into a city, place an ad in the local paper, go do everything we want to do, drop off some flyers and click onto our website watching people sign on signing up for our local and long distance service. We get a monthly residual income coming in (just like a toll both on a toll road) little effort yet great return and security. (There is more to it than that, but it really is that simple.) Here this is one of our on the road websites where people go to, do work on the road "www.mywebprez.com/FreeAtLast/vartec" that wish to have something to do on the road. Our Home website is www.excelir.com/free-at-last. Now you may feel now as we felt once we retired an got on the road. You may feel that you do not want to work anymore what so ever. I have to say this, while there is so much to see, and so much to do out there, it does become a routine. Even being on the road can become boring. Be it a hobby, or some kind of part time job. Some people after being on the road for a while find a hobby and then turn it into a part time job.

While some are on the road for a while and then stumble into a great partime or full time job they can do on the road. If you read my Bio, (on our home page here) you also know of another thing that I am involved with while on the road. I became involved with helping others get "On the Road" by selling RV's. Call it an accident, call it anything you wish, Normally (in the past) we would stay no longer than two weeks at any one place. For many reasons we planned to stay up in New York the summer of 2002 with our daughter and grandchildren. Since we were not at any RV park I did not have my steering wheel tables to keep me busy, I was not involved with the Excel Telephone Communications yet, I was not buying and selling my minerals yet, (see Jo-Ann's, my partners wife site) So I decided to see if I could get back into sales, and since I loved the RV life style so much, I decided to would try that first.

I got involved with Alpin Haus in Amsterdam New York. I liked working there so much that two months turned into three, then four, then the rest of the year. I spoke of going back on the road next season and it would give us a chance to see just how well our Motorhome would held up in a cold winter. Since our daughter told us how mild the winters are in New York, (she lied) we knew it would be an experience that we had not had yet, it was! By staying through one of the hardest, coldest winters. I knew that I would be part of the big move into the new building where Alpin Haus and Camping World became partners. Alpin Haus leased out a part of their huge new building to Camping World along side I-90 in New York. (I had to stay and see how that would work you know, just so I could brag about it later that I was a part of that.) One thing led to another and now it is "just one more winter"

The date has already been set for our departure date in 2004, we will head out back on the road Oct 30th 2004 in time to spend Thanksgiving in Oklahoma with our other daughter. Now with all that we have to keep us busy, the Local and Long Distance Telephone service, the RV sales from the internet and my Minerals, I can't see how I will ever get bored traveling around this great country. Oh yes, I will also be looking forward to selling my steering wheel tables again as well.

I have sold many an RV (5th wheels and Motorhomes) to people going full time, some tell me they will never work again, and others plan to run their business from a RV rather from their home base. Giving them greater freedom. You see, you can go full time on vacation, or you can work on the road while you travel. What works for us may not work for you, and maybe I have given you some ideas. I am sure I could sit down and write a book about this subject alone, but it would be just one more book to the many all ready out in print. Besides, if you have a question about working on the road call me on my toll free telephone number at 877-899-1684 or just send me an e-mail, I'll be happy to respond and share with you more about working on the road.

Now what about the "Cost"? Let's look at the start up and what it cost to be on the road. First of all, it can cost you one of two ways, affordable or "very costly". To a very large group I'll address the "affordable" Let me start by saying that how amazed I was to discover that we could retire at a young age rather than wait until we were older. Age is all relative, I know to a teenager 30 is old, if your 30, 50 is old, if your 50, 70 is old.

On a trip down to Mexico the winter of 1998 we met people our age (in their fifty's) that had retired, they were living on pensions of less than $1,000.0 a month and they were living rather well. Up until that time both my wife and I thought that retirement would be after 65 (or so) for us, seeing them, opened up a whole new world of idea's. (Remember what I said about everything is relative?) Well in everyday living it holds true also. In order to live the lifestyle we had, we had to both work, and we needed every penny of that $4,500 coming in a month. The three cars, the house, utilities, motorcycles, pool, hot tub, and yard work everywhere we turned, we had money going out. We had a 1500 square foot home, however we lived in only four of the rooms. Think about it a moment, Don't you? We lived in the Kitchen, Den, bedroom and Office. (4 rooms), yet we had a huge living room that collected dust, along with the two other vacant bedrooms and a small guesthouse. Add in the insurance for everything, and it cost us plenty every month just to have the "stuff". We were working to live the way we lived, all of our money seemed to be spent on "things" rather than "us"

When I realized that by getting rid of our big expense, maybe we could retire, so we took a long hard look at everything. What would we need to eat every month? What if we sold our pace arrow and bought a new RV? Could we live on my Military pension? If not, just how much more would I need? Experience had shown me that working off of a budget works, so just what would we need? First of all we planned for 50% of the budget to go to a new Motorhome payment leaving the other 50% for the necessities. Things like a Cell phone, (you have to have a home phone you know) DSS (I had to have my TV) insurance, and of course fuel. Another words if I could manage for everything but our food to come off our pension we could do it.

It took maybe an hour to work the plan all out. Because we figured if we pulled out 1 grand from saving a month for food and extras, we would be able to do it. The next step was to figure out what that $500.00 translated into as far as an RV goes. That worked out to financing around 60K (at the time) so then it was a matter of how much to pull from savings and what we could sell our Pace arrow for to add to it. After a very long and in-depth look, we found what we felt is the perfect full time Motorhome. The 5th wheel as much as we loved a front living room floor plan just did not have the space for the extra's we wanted to take with us. So we put down the amount necessary to finance just the 60K. (Our Motorhome came out of the factory at 135K we worked out a great deal, and saved a great deal on it.)

Now the cost of traveling arose, what would it cost us to drive and drive and drive? It could be argued that this could go under "living expense" but maybe not, that is the next topic, so if you wish you can group them together. First we knew we planned to travel, and you may (or may not know) Motorhomes do not get the best mileage now our Motorhome has a 100 Gal tank. And if I drove it sensibility, let me clarify that first. I decided that being retired that there was no need to drive fast anymore, I had driven fast my whole life (on and off the job) I realized that there just was not any need to, in fact we found that by driving slow we saw more, sure it took us longer to get places, but so what? I have to admit that I got a charge out of being able to get the higher fuel mileage than others on the road. By driving at 50 miles per hour, the worse mileage I ever got was 7.4 I did get 14.7 a few times (but that was on flat lands, and with tail winds) average was around 10 -12. Keep in mind that since the speed was the only constant, the difference was always the terrain, and headwind.

It helps knowing just how far you can go on a tank of fuel, so I knew the "average" worse I would be getting was 1,000 - 1,200 miles per tank. So the idea was drive 6-7 hours a day and stop for a while, Now that could be overnight OR two weeks. So using the 50 miles an hour as our constant it would work out to about 300 miles per day, (some less and some more) The only change would be if we had a date to be someplace (notice I said date not time) one in a great while because I love driving at night I would rather keep going to be at one of the kids house by a certain date. The point is, knowing this made it easy to figure out what we needed for our fuel with figuring in the cost per gal. I hate to say this but when we first hit the road, which was 99 cents a gal. In our travels we did see it higher, one time coming out of San Diego I pulled into a gas station that had the gas at $3.00 a gal. (I did not top off) Just filling the tank there would have blown our monthly $300.00 set aside for our monthly fuel cost.

You see, you have to figure out the constant in monthly your cost to go full time on any budget, and then do just that. Budget out your payments, in our case, the Motorhome, cell phone, insurance, Satellite TV and the fuel. Then the only variable is food and extras along the way. If you want to keep in touch by e-mail the easy way to do that is using a laptop or one of the hand held e-mail phones. Again you need to figure in the monthly cost to your budget. Another big important expense is repairs, If (IF) you do not have expended warranty on your Motorhome, a repair could hurt (depending on your budget) so we set aside a little every month that goes into our saving account (Oh yes we still feel the need to save) to hopefully cover any breakdowns and/or repairs along the way. Another important cost is RV campgrounds.

Now here is an area that can vary so much you have to experience it to believe it. We have spent nights. Days and weeks in RV parks that cost people that stayed at them between $30.00 - $55.00 a night. Now we did not pay that and here is why. Before getting on the road my best friend informed me of a way to get around the high price RV camp grounds, (not all of them, but close to it.) There is one more cost I have not spoken of, it is the Campground yearly maintenance fees. In order to have a maintenance fee you need to be a member of a Campground. At first we joined a Campground in GA. Since we at the time lived in Calif. when we joined because of the rules of the membership clubs we could go to any one of the associated parks and stay over night for the cost of $5.00 or $6.00 per night. So while we parked in a lovely well-groomed RV park our neighbors if they were not a member to RPI or Cost-to-Coast paid the $30-55 dollars a night.

So you need to figure in these additional cost, initial membership fees, yearly maintenance fee and of course the $180.00 a month for staying at $6.00 a night) RPI cost yearly 49.95, Coast-to-Cost cost 69.95. Our maintenance at Southern trails in GA. Is $50.00 a year. Since getting on the road we have changed our "home park" to Thousand Trails that has a higher yearly maintenance cost ($385.00) but NO over night fees to any of the assorted parks. Of which we can stay in each park for a period of two weeks at a time then travel to another park and stay there for two weeks. There are so many parks in their system we can stay (if we wanted to) in one park every two weeks and never get out of the system in one year as well as not going back to the same park once every two years. And never paying another dime for overnight (or weekly) parking. So using the $385.00 divide by 365 and it works out to be $1.05 per day

OK I began touching on that above, lets get more detailed, you have your Motorhome (or 5th wheel) payment (if you finance) your fuel cost, parking cost, TV, Phone, along with setting money aside for repairs (Motorhomes and 5th wheels need work from time to time.) So just what do you need to budget? Well let me speculate that you a budget of $1,000.00 a month coming in from a retirement fund of some kind.

Now what I am going to advise may or may not work for you, it is just an idea of how you could work out a budget if you were so inclined. If you use 50% for your RV what ever type it is it will leave you the other 50% for necessities In order to travel fuel is important, now that brings up the next item. Just how much will you be traveling? You see that is an important factor, if you plan to travel and spend just overnight stays, then naturally it is going to cost more to travel around than if you stay a two or three week stay at a time. Then of course when you do travel what kind of distance will you go? Then what are you looking for in cost for the stays.

Overnight stays can be costly I have seen RV parks that charge $49.95 a night and many that cost less. There are so many different programs for people that travel in their RV's. One club that we are members of cost us a yearly membership fee of $49.95 and from that point every night stay is $5.00 a night so we can stay a week at a RV park for ONLY $35.00 that is charging other RV campers (that are not members of the program.) $30. - $50.00 a night. There is another program that cost a yearly membership of $69.00 and in that program it cost $6.00 a night so when we use that program is would cost us $42.00 to stay a week at a time. Now let me say at this point this only the tip of the iceberg (so to speak0 there are so many other plans, We are also members of one organization that we can stay at any of the RV parks in their system ((getting close to 100 across the United States (and Mexico.) As members we can stay in one of the parks for a period of two weeks at a time WITH OUT PAYING one penny. As a member we pay a yearly maintenance fee of $380.00 every January.

What about Wal-Marts? Boy now that is a good question, I cannot speak for the wal-mart corporation, I can only speak from experience. I have seen in almost every Wal-mart parking lot near any interstate signs that state "No overnight parking" In Albany New York while watching the news I saw an interview done with a Wal-mart manager who was explaining why from that night on no overnight parking would be allowed at his store or any in the area. According to him, before that week he had an open parking lot welcoming any and all to park their RV's overnight. A week earlier he had asked an owner of a Motorhome to move it because it was blocking the sign.. According to the manager the owner of the RV told him that since there were no posted signs to prevent him, that he would not move his Motorhome and would be staying a full week. When the police were called they could do nothing since the signs were not up and the public needed to be notified. That was why the TV station was assisting getting the word out.

The point is simple, it only takes one jerk so ruin it for everyone else. For years and years RV owners were welcome at wal-mart parking lots, now they are far and few between. There is a solution, which I will cover, in "Overnight stopping" just keep in mind when you are on the road, everyone looks at RV's differently. Some look at us driving around the country as "Lucky or Smart" to be able to do such a thing. While others look at RV owners as Gypsies, people with no roots and no homes. Of course those same people may live in a house that cost under 100 Thousand, or live in an apartment or rented house. They look at a Motorhome that cost $130,000.00 to $500,000.00 or a 5th wheel and truck that combined can cost as much or more. Yep, those homeless gypsies driving around aimlessly all free and easy across the United States, Oh yea, they should stop that, get a house and do what they do, sit around and gripe about life as they do…. (Hey I found a place to be a little sarcastic) As for now, we are still welcome at Cracker Barrels, Camping Worlds, Good Sam's, but again they will be addressed later.

While on the road it is very important to have a way for the family to contact you, after all if you are going to travel around the United States you still need a "Home Phone" Cell phones are great BUT, they are not all equal. Again I am speaking from experience as well as trial and error. When we first started out we had Nextel, Boy they were great in any city that was the only problem, we needed to be near a big city in order to use our Nextel. To when we were out on the open road we could not make or place calls even in "Roaming" mode. So hating to give up such a great "walki talky" we needed a home phone. So on to "Sprint" we changed, that was a great disappointment, they advertised clear phones, but they were worse than Nextel when it came to reception. Oh sure in the big cities they worked great but get 40 to 60 miles out in roaming, there just wasn't any reception. Another item that was very important was e-mails. So we connected our Laptop to our Cell phone. "Bam" we go down the road connected to the Internet. (When we had the reception) We changed two more times before ending up with AT&T. I can honestly tell you that in all the miles on the road, from coat to cost we have ALWAYS had a signal and able to place and receive phone calls as well as get on the net. Now over the years they have all improved, so what did not work two years ago may work today, I plan to stay with AT&T until I know for sure.

Every cell phone company had so many choices of phone plans, they ranged from the Teens to over a hundred dollars a month, the thing is you need to figure in your budget an amount to cover your "home phone" while on the road.

There are some that can go the rest of their life with out watching any more TV, then there are others like myself, people who want their TV to watch no matter where they are, so for us, Satellite TV is the perfect companion for us. So again, just figure in your monthly cost for the programs you desire. You can have the basic service or go all out. With all the different system available today, it is easy and affordable to get the TV reception you desire.

I have touched on fuel, Campgrounds, Phone, & TV. Once you figure out your needs, and what you will be doing on the road, these will come into place easier. When we first hit the road, we drove a lot, sometimes driving 7-8 hours. Now we like to drive 4-5 hours a day (when we travel). Now we try to stay for two weeks at a time, well it was that way before we came into contact with Alpin Haus and of course my desire to stay working with them once I began.

Ok I touched on this earlier a little, now let me go into a little more detail. Like mentioned above, you can still find places to stay overnight, places like Wal-marts that are still allowing overnight parking, Good Sam Clubs, Cracker Barrels and of course Camping Worlds. While every States has "rest stops" some of them are just that, nothing more than a place to stop for a few hours. We have a little book that has the State laws in it about parking in Rest stops. Some rest stops in States have water and dump sites that are free and open to the public. On the Ohio Turnpike (toll road) they have electric hook-ups as well. I suggest that if you can not find a book like we have that you check with each State information booth as you enter it, they are a wealth of knowledge, not only finding out about the state laws, but to find the attractions to see.

I once met two ladies that spent almost whole year seeing sights just in the State of Montana. After seeing what the different states have to offer, I can see how easley you could get caught up in doing just that. But that would not be an "overnight stay" now would it.

If you plan to travel the interstates, one place to stop at that you will be welcome at are the Truck stops. There are many national truck stops that have set up separate parking just for people like us that want to stop for a night or two. Giant Truck stop comes to mind as well as T/A and Williams, but the one that I think started the movement is the "Flying J" truck stops, they are building new truck stops that cater to RV's. About 90% of them have free dumpsites, free water, free "dry" camping, and stores that have on hand anything you would need to purchase at reasonable pricing.

One time I wanted to see if we could go Coast to Coast with out using a RV campground. It was easy, in fact so easy that some days we would only drive three or four hours between "Flying J's" another thing that we liked about them is the food. They have an "all you can eat" buffet breakfast for $5.99 and a supper "all you can eat" buffet for a cost of $7.99, so this makes a days travel rather inexpensive.

I would suggest that if you choose to stop over night at a Business such as Cracker Barrel, Good Sam's (it is better to be a member if you stop there) or even Camping Worlds, to check in with the store manager so you park in an area they have set aside that will not interfere with their normal business day. Doing this as a courtesy, off sets the jerks like the one that hurt other RV er's in the Albany New York area. When you do make contact with the managers they normally ask how long do we plan to stay, they ask us to park in a certain area and of course they ask us to police our area not leaving trash. There is one thing about parking at one of the stores like that. By the next morning I relies that I would have saved money by going to a RV park rather than stopping overnight in the parking lot.

I cannot recall ever going to a Wal-Mart, Good Sam, Cracker Barrel or Camping world that I did not spend less than $50.00. Now I can say in all honesty that I have stayed at the Truck stops and not spent that for the most part, but for some reason I have found it impossible to park in the parking lot with out going inside the stores. Even with the restaurants Cracker barrel has a lot of small stuff in their little country store that you have to go through to get into the restaurant section, so it all adds up. Now at the Flying J, we always eat the dinner and breakfast buffet. We use the waste dump about every other day and of course refill our water tank. Since they do not charge for this service, I make it a point to fill up my fuel and propane tanks when I am on the road with them. I have found that they are normally the least expensive station in the area that they are in. they are what I call "RV friendly."

I was asked if we felt "safe" in our Motorhome while parked at rest stops as well as truck stops a few times over the years, Hmm, now when ever I get asked that question I realize that the question it self is one that makes me think. While I do realize that the person asking the question is concerned, I have never felt concerned myself. One thing about a Motorhome (over a 5th wheel trailer (or any trailer for that matter) you are self contained, if in an emergency, a person could get out of bed and into the drivers seat with out leaving the RV. Since the windows are to high off of the ground, it makes it difficult for anyone to "break in" with 90% of Motorhomes there is only one door (in or out) control of the access makes it safer than a house. And in case of fires, RV's have emergency exits controlled from the inside. So when it comes to safety in overnight parking, I feel very safe inside our Motorhome. Now I do not advocate carrying un registered weapon's with you, I just happen to feel as American's having the right to bear arms and own weapons, it makes us safer traveling when we have our hunting rifles with us. I know I feel a whole lot better with my shotgun in my closet.

When you travel as we do, you will find that overnight stays (be it at a truck stop or a campground) have its duties or things that need to be done each day. The biggest difference is of course the Electric. At a campground of course you normally have full hook up's, except in the new England states, In the New England states it is the "norm" for camp grounds to have one or two "dump sites and the parking sites just have water and electric hook ups. It took some time for us to realize this when we asked if they had "full hook up's" The point there is, at truck stops if you want electricity you have to run your generator. Now the one good AND bad thing about parking in a truck stop is the "quite time" the good thing about parking in the truck stops is you do not have a quite time, so if you do need to run your generator you don't have to worry if it is past 10 PM. And the bad thing about parking in truck stops overnight is the noise, if you have to have silence I suggest that you stay away from rest stops AND truck stops,

When you stay overnight at Wal-marts, cracker barrels or any parking lot like that, it is customary to NOT run your on board generator between the hours of 10 PM - 6 AM (the quite hours) I don't know who the person was that set those hours, but they are the accepted hours of people in RV's that travel to NOT run their loud on board generators. Now there are those of us that went electricity in that time frame and still are concerned not to bother our neighbors with the generator noise, so we carry a portable super quite Honda 2000 that we use for those hours. They are the quite generators built and when I place mine in our garage that we pull (the trailer our car is in) so you can stand right next to the garage and you will never know that it is on. Our garage (trailer) is set up with exhaust vent out the top.

Now stopping at night at a campground, we have our routine. I have my things to do and my wife has hers, I put out the rooms, hook up the water as well as the sewer (if there is a sewer connection at the site.) I take the car out of the garage and put up the awning. I would tell you my wife's chores but sure as I do, I'll leave something out and guess who pays for that? Trust me she has lots of her own things to do while I am busy. Sometimes I finish before she does and other times I don't.

Now at a truck stop or rest stop that allows for overnight parking, the RV's park in an area together (around each other) and it is different. Oh we do put out the rooms, but that is it. Normally we leave the car in the garage, we do not have hook ups and if the weather is warm, I normally do not even run the portable generator. What is so great about an RV is, we are fully self-contained. That means we can run off battery power and our running water comes from our tanks that we carry on board. Now in cold weather the largest drain on the batteries is the furnace motor, so if we stop and the furnace needs to be ran, I normally will run the generator in the garage to keep the house batteries fully charged. That way we can have our cake and get to eat it too (so to speak). While at the truck stops and rest stops, it is not customary to put out awnings as well as pull out the BBQ and lawn chairs. It is just not customary to BBQ out side your Motorhome as you can at a campsite.

Now the next morning before you leave (I should say we leave) it is customary to 'police" the area. I want to make sure that we leave nothing what so ever that would make the manager of the store sorry that he allowed us to stay overnight. I may want to stop in again and I do not want to burn any bridges so to speak. I have at times policed up the area because my neighbors did not take that into consideration when they left. If I am at a truck stop we eat in the restaurant and top off our tanks, (water and fuel) I try and never let our fuel tank get below ¾ full. This way if I come into an area that has very expensive fuel (like New York and Calif.) I won't feel bad filling my tank 25 gals at a high price sure beats 100 gals.

Sometimes it is necessary to put down your leveling jack for an overnight stay, if it does become necessary, make sure you do not damage the parking lot. The Motorhomes weigh "tons" and if the surface is warm, you can push right through the surface and cause a hole/s. doing something like that, would but a bad taste in the mouth of any manager.

What about stopping in at a relative's house overnight? Over the years we have found that Cities are not all the same, while some do not have a problem with RV's parking overnight, others have regulations against that. I feel it is safe to say that in "GENERAL" if you pull up in the afternoon and are gone the next day you won't be bothered. When we visit our kids, we have parked in front, in the driveways, and AT CAMP GORUNDS. While it can be convenient at times, it can also be an eye sore to others. Now if we upset others while visiting when we leave our family can't so we try to make sure we are not bothering anyone. Our thinking is, is anyone and we mean ANYONE has the slightest problem with us staying at the kid's house we are out of there.

What is so great about being self-contained like an RV is, it makes the vacation or travel not only affordable, it makes it comfortable. We are in our bedroom, in our living room, in our kitchen and bath. No one has to clean up after us. All unlike a Motel or staying in the "guest room"

One last thing about overnight stays, remember the old honda ad that said, "You meet the nicest People on a Honda"? (Gee I guess I'm telling my age now) well I feel that applies to recreational vehicles owners as well. I say today, "You meet the nicest people in RV's"

Here is a great subject and one that does not need a lot of rhetoric. The one thing here is to figure out how you are going to travel. Are you going to drive and soak in the sites? Are you just going from point A to point B? This is the simplest way to break it down. If you were going from point A to B, then I would think you would desire to "get there" so in that case the interstate highways may be the best way to travel. That way you cut down on your stopping and slower highway speeds.

Our first year traveling we pretty much stayed on the State highway systems, and off of the Interstates. You see all my life it was hurry here, hurry there, even on vacation it was hurry and pack, hurry to get out of town before the others hit the road. Hurry up and get there so we could stay longer and enjoy it more. Today if I want to hurry, I park the motorhome, pull out the car from the garage and go, otherwise our motohome goes at 50 miles per hour. On the State highways there is so much to see. You can see things at highway speeds that you fly by and can't see from the interstates. Many of our fondest memories are the wonderful towns and cities that we have seen while on the State Highways. It is on these roads that you find the real sites and treasures of our wonderful country.

There is something very important to consider while traveling these roads. YOU'RE SIZE, be it a motorhome or 5th wheel trailer, most of the time the city streets were not built with you in mind. This means the other people on the road with you may do things that amuse you, or make you shake your head in amazement. The key is your length and the laws. It is important for you to know your full length as well as your height. On some older highways you could find yourself looking at an underpass that is 11 feet high and your RV stands 11 feet 8 inches. That means only one thing. IF you try it, damage will be done, since your RV is made of fiberglass and such, chances are, the most damage will be down to your RV rather to the bridge or underpass it self, so know your height.

The one thing about the laws, some states have limits as to what length of vehicle can travel on it's roads, we are 63 feet long (with our 23 foot garage behind us) and in two states if I drive on their roads I would be subject to a fine. That is why it is great to have a book about the state laws with you. Now knowing that I have never been stopped or have I seen any one stopped were the measuring tape came out and tickets issued again it comes down to wanting to put the best foot forward. There are some RV owners that think only of themselves, while I feel 99% of the RV owners out here on the road think of others.

Here is another short topic, the length of stay may vary, depending on your location. And of course there are things to consider as well. Even though you may be self-contained, your waste tanks will fill up and need to be emptied. Your water tank will need to be replenished. And on top of all that, don't forget about the other people around. Are three days too long to park in front of a relatives house or in their driveway? Well in some areas yes, while in other area's you can go two or three weeks before it is time to leave.

I am now of the opinion that if it is more than two days we go to a nearby RV park UNLESS it is out in the country. I have gotten adapt to tapping into the electricity and sewer at the kids house's. I guess Dear Abby or Ann Landers can offer you better advice on just how long to stay is too long, Our rule of thumb is two weeks now. We have found that after two weeks we get bored, and want to get back on the road. Besides the idea of driving around in an RV seeing the country was to do just that.

From time to time I will be adding to this, as I come across little gems of knowledge to pass on. I have no idea if this has helped you or not, I hope it has but it was kind of fun to put down these things to help others get ready to get on the road. Maybe we will see you on the road someday, if so I look forward to meeting you and sitting down and share the life style with you. Have fun and stay safe out there.