We've noticed something lately and that is a lot of people and I do mean a lot of people are
leaving full-time RV living and after five years of us living the RV life both on a full-time and
a part-time basis I can tell you you're probably going to see more RVers come off of the road and
we're kind of predicting a shake-up in the RV industry which is actually really already begun
we're gonna break down exactly why that is and what's to come in this video I did
so if you're new here my name is charity and for the last five years my family and I have
been traveling the us in our RV on this channel we share tips and tricks storage hacks organizations
some of our fails great places to stay travel and some great food along the way so if that sounds
like something you're interested in make sure you hit that subscribe button to get notified
each time that we release a new video now in just the past few weeks and months we've seen
more and more of our friends in the RV Community Calling it Quits on full-time RV life so why are
so many people coming off of the road and leaving full-time RV life well the short answer is living
and traveling in an RV for most people isn't a viable long-term living situation we're not
talking about those that are living in an RV as a last resort to homelessness or people that are
you know in an RV because they don't have any other options for affordable living that's not
really what we're talking about here we're talking about people that came out of a Sticks and Bricks
environment and in to the RV lifestyle to be able to explore have freedom and be able to just live
a different Lifestyle on their own terms and see so much of this great country so something that's
important to realize most of your full-time rvers aren't really full timing as a permanent situation
the average is about two to three years and it's a phase or a season or really whatever you want
to call it people jump into this lifestyle to be able to explore but things change and needs
change and especially if you have kids I mean our kids have changed so much in their size I
mean they're just they're bigger than what they used to be they eat more than they used to and
their needs have changed is they get older now I mean if we had to do this all over again we would
have jumped into this lifestyle when our kids were much younger and much smaller because their needs
then are way less complex than they are now as teenagers and and pre-teens and then we've seen
people too where then needs change when grandkids come along maybe they've been out traveling and
now there's grandkids that are there and they want to be closer and more available for family and to
spend time with their grandkids now we have seen some rvers that are fortunate enough to be able
to have that situation where they have a family member and they can just move stock which would
mean they Park their RV on that family person's land but RVs really are not built to be lived
in for decades they're gonna break a lot and I do mean a lot especially the more that you
live in it and the more that you're moving things and the more that you're bringing slides in and
out to pack up and travel to the next destination and go down the highway and it's like this small
earthquake that happens and it's especially if you travel like I-10 in Louisiana or something
like that things are going to break and RV living when you're traveling from place to place it's not
cheaper you've got fuel you've got Campground costs even if you have a campground membership
for those of you that don't know we are really what we would call anytime rvers pretty much
what we have with our RV situation is we Erv when we want to be rving and when we need a
break we come back to our vacation rental we have a spot to be able to kind of park it for a little
bit call this home for a little bit and regroup and then go back out and travel again and so we
do have a mortgage payment on the vacation rental that we have so I was comparing notes with another
full-time family that does not have a mortgage payment and interestingly enough our monthly
budgets were about the same because by the time that they paid for fuel and by the time that they
paid for campgrounds and miscellaneous repairs and things that you just need more often when you're
traveling more often it was very interesting to see that our monthly budget was very very much
the same number even though we have a mortgage that's involved just interesting phenomenon that
really goes to show you the RV life when you're traveling isn't really necessarily cheaper than
a Sticks and Bricks life here's another phenomenon and another reason why for most people that jump
into this lifestyle on a full-time basis don't really do this for decades on end and that is
after a while after you've been out traveling for a while things really do start to feel a little
bit of the same so once you've checked off some of these what we call Big Rocks on your travel
bucket list maybe you've been to the Grand Canyon or you've been to Glacier National Park or you've
visited the pnw you've visited New England you visited the areas you really want to visit you
kind of find that you're ready for a break from all of the complications that full-time RV life
brings I mean you've got things like breakdowns we've had that happen to us multiple times when
those breakdowns occur you have things like Parts availability we've actually been stuck for
multiple days just because the parts weren't available right then and there they had to
be ordered in and FedEx and all of those things getting packages on the road is more complicated
than when you are stationary and all of this just becomes a way of life it's just the way
that things are and it's just not as fun anymore when you're two three four five years into this
lifestyle the other thing to think about is you really have no control over your neighbors right
so you maybe have a Thousand Trails membership you need to stay there for two weeks you come
in and the neighbors that are in the site next to you might just not be as kind and considerate
is you are of the situation and the fact that you're pretty close to your neighbors and all
of this after a while just starts to compound and it's just not as fun as it was when you first got
started now I am super excited to take a quick minute to tell you about this product that I
have fallen in love with for RV living and that is these laundry Feats from Earth Breeze which is
the sponsor of today's video now what I love about Earth Breeze is it's laundry soap in a
heat format that you can actually tear in half which makes it easier to use for our smaller
washer dryer unit in the RV now I have been using laundry pods which is actually really more soap
than what we need because our washer dryer does do smaller loads and yes I could have probably
gotten some liquid laundry detergent that comes in jugs but that takes a ton of space in the RV
and and finally recycling at an RV campground can be hard to do which is another reason that I love
using the Earth Breeze because the packaging takes up way less space than my laundry pods did and its
biodegradable cardboard which I can just rip up and throw away without any negative environmental
impact since it'll break down now the sheets dissolve 100 in water because it's soap in a
cheap form and you can get the sheets shipped to you for free and they have an easy subscription
option as well for a limited time you can save 40 percent when you go to earthbreeze.com forward
slash grateful glamper to get started with 40 off that's earthbreeze.com forward slash grateful
glamper to save 40 off on your subscription now back to the video and then the other thing that
we have noticed that with a lot of full-time rvers is so you get to this place you've you're
two three years in you've hit the big rocks you want to maybe go do something different you want
to take a flight to Hawaii you want to go on a cruise you want to fly maybe somewhere else
across the pond over into Europe now you're having to worry about where are you going to park your RV
will the RV be okay while you're gone what if power goes out at the campground while you're
away and you've got food in the fridge or just the complications go on and on and on when you're
trying to figure out a place to just leave your RV and when you're in the Sticks and Bricks you
really don't kind of have that thought of like is my house going to be okay well I'm away like
it's a house you usually have neighbors I mean there's not as much of a complication when you
want to take a flight somewhere when you're in a Sticks and Bricks type of environment we've seen
that most people end up doing is people either end up purchasing land where they can park their
RV on their land and still have kind of somewhat of a home base or maybe even build something like
a barn condominium where they can park the RV in the barndominium maybe have a living quarters in
the barn dominium or if they're living in their RV it's out of the elements or getting back into
a Sticks and Bricks type of environment and either finding a place where they can store the RV keep
it on site or sometimes selling the RV if that particular RV isn't really what they want to
continue to use to travel now what we have seen is most of these people that come off of the road in
many cases they're still our veers they are not giving up on the RV lifestyle they're just not
doing it on a full-time basis anymore now there's a really interesting Silver Lining that I want
to talk about a little bit later on this video and what all of it means suffice it to say life
is a series of seasons and we've all gone through different seasons in our life you have a season of
when you're a child you have a season maybe when you get married you have a season of maybe when
life changes and and things just go a different direction you've got a season of Raising chills
children of kids leaving home all of these Seasons right and RV life is another season for many
people and that full-time season does tend to come to a close for the majority of those that are full
timing some rvers that you probably actually know or maybe even have followed before that are not
full-time anymore are rvers like no ordinary path family of Nomads changing lanes our life we build
which used to go by oil's Grace tribe Lanes Less Traveled RV love Loftus party of six RV Odd Couple
the OG RV Lifestyle the list is going to keep going on and on because the bottom line is this
full-time RV living is just usually not a long-term solution RVs aren't built the same
they're not meant to last as a full-time dwelling for decades and decades to come now let's talk a
little bit about the shake-up that is coming to the RV industry and why that things are the way
they are now covet changed Life as We Know It And many people during covid re-evaluated what they
were doing and where they were living and it was really just a wake-up call for most of the world
and US included and as a result the RV industry number saw a record number of people buying RVs
and hitting the road and then during 2021 and 2022 campgrounds were literally bursting at the
seams and we can't even tell you like how hard it was to get into campgrounds especially around
popular destinations like we talked about earlier the average shelf life of a full-time rver is two
to three years well where are we right now we're about three years post covid and many full-time
rvers have hit that shelf life of two to three years of being being full-time on the road and we
never before have seen so many RVs for sale and the RV industry as a whole is down now we know
this because we spoke this summer with several of our contacts in the RV industry that are in
Elkhart and they were telling us about layoffs at companies reduced work weeks and even week-long
closures at many of the RV related Industries in Elkhart now the good news is this if you're
looking for a deal on a used RV now is a great time to pick up a used RV and a lot of even
really cool renovated RVs that are up for sale right now at a great price so if you're ready
to jump in to this full-time RV lifestyle and you're not one of these rvers that maybe you've
hit that place where you're ready to slow down for a little bit now's a great time to do that
and RV life has brought us so much and we have been blessed to have the opportunity to see so
many places meet some of the best people make new connections we've had the chance to be contestants
on the first ever season of RV unplugged and just so you guys know we have no plans of quitting RV
life it just looks different for us now versus how it used to look and we actually feel like
we're enjoying RV living more now and we've become really even more grateful Glam first to be able to
kind of have this ebb and flow to RV living where we're able to come back to our home-based vacation
rental take a little bit of a break regroup and go back out again so I'm going to leave a video right
up here about how and why you should have an exit strategy before you just sell it all and go full
time if we don't see you out on the road or around the campground we'll see you in the next video
well