Cities would do well to begin setting aside properly maintained areas for the mobile homeless, whose numbers are sure to increase.

Wheel Estate

My name is Jim. My wife and I raised 5 kids and when the last one finished college in 2005, we sold our house, put the money in the bank and hit the road as full time RV’rs. We live in our 36 foot 5th Wheel trailer with three slide outs. We have all the conveniences of our old stick house and more. Things like a microwave oven, refrigerator freezer, central heat and air and modern plumbing. We use satellite internet and TV, we have a combination washer/dryer, roomy bathroom facilities, comfortable bed (my wife prefers having her own bed when traveling – she can’t stand hotel beds). We use a cell phone as our only telephone and we have a mail forwarding service. We pay most of our bills on line and with the ubiquitous ATM machine we have access to cash whenever we need it.

We are able to visit friends and family members all over the country and we get to do and see things we never dreamed of prior to taking up this lifestyle. We consider ourselves full time RV’rs and not campers as one is a lifestyle and the other is temporary recreation. As RV’rs we are environmentally friendly as we only have one vehicle and actually use less fuel now than when we both worked and drove cars in a daily commute.

You see, we don’t drive every day, we don’t have too. We find a nice RV park and stay a few weeks and explore the local area around the park. We are fully self contained (which means that during a power outage we still have full electrical power, water and sewer.) We consume less water and power and are therefore much more friendly to the environment than when we lived in our stick house. Full time RV’rs are fun and friendly people. We have a great time together, and it doesn’t take us long to make friends. I can honestly say that in one day’s time I get to know more people in a new RV park than I knew in our old stick house neighborhood.

Currently it is estimated that there are over one million full time RV’rs in the US. Many, like us, are fully retired (some with only Social Security and others with pensions) and others are “workcampers” who make good wages while living in their RVs. They can follow the work and many are raising children in this lifestyle through home-schooling. It’s one thing to read about the Alamo, but when your parents actually take you to all the places you read about, I think it makes history come alive for these kids. I wish I would have been raised this way! There is even a publication and website for “workcampers” that lists hundreds of job openings all over the country.

When people start getting evicted from their property because they had mortgages they couldn’t possibly afford, they will have limited basic living choices. Most will move in with relatives or rent if they can find a landlord willing to take the risk. But what if they did something entirely different? What if they took on an entirely different lifestyle and became full time “workcamper” RV’rs? Realistically you can purchase a nice used RV (there are many nice RVs on the market that are inexpensive) and become full time RV’rs. OK, where are they going to get the money to do that? You can do it for less than getting into a rental (first and last and security deposit and pet fee).

It beats the heck out of living with your relatives (your relatives will like you better if you just visit and use some of their electricity for your RV from time to time than if you just flat out move in with them). And hey, maybe the relatives would be willing to loan or sell their RVs to these folks just so they won’t move in with them.

Your readers and their friends need to know that foreclosure is not the end of the world – in fact it may be a new lease on life, the beginning of a bright new world of adventure for them as full time RV’rs. Here are a couple of web sites where you can obtain more information about the full time RV lifestyle:
rvtravel.com
escapees.com
workamper.com
trailerlife.com

See you on the road. Jim