A NuRVers member recently posted this question in the Discussion Forums:

Hi all, I am hoping to be on the road by April. I am wondering what you “old timers” would do differently if you were just starting out?

While we don’t like to “should” all over ourselves, through the four years we’ve been on the road we’ve learned that there are some things we might have done differently when starting out.

1. Sign up for Passport America.

We hardly spend time or money at RV parks, but this club has saved our necks and our wallets several times. Nearly all camping membership clubs suck, but not Passport.

There are tons of participating RV parks, most without tight restrictions, and they cost half of what they normally would, some as little as $7 a night for full hookups!

Our first year out we spent far too much money paying full price for RV park stays. Now, I wouldn’t travel even halftime without a PA membership.

2. Join Escapees, become Texans and use their mail forwarding service.

It took us two years to figure out that the services you get from Escapees can’t be beat. Our first year out we had a family member do our mail for us (they volunteered). But it was a hassle for them, and we felt the weight of obligation after we knew this sabbatical was turning into a lifestyle.

We also would have saved a ton on our residency / vehicle fees had we turned Texan sooner.

3. Invest in a bigger solar system.

We started out knowing we would boondock, but we didn’t realize the extent of it, nor how much it could save us. Our system was adequate for a long-term vacation but not for making a living with.

We’ve slowly upgraded, but when we had the money four years ago we should’ve started out with a bigger system.

Boondocking gets us closer to our “real” camping roots as backpackers, by allowing us to get as far away from civilization as possible, without having to dig a craphole.

4. Travel without debt.

When we started out, we had not paid off our rig, even though we had the money in savings. I hated knowing that we had real bills to pay and no real income, but I didn’t want to see that pile go away.

Then we met a debt-free home-schoolin’ Christian family, and jumped on the Dave Ramsey bandwagon they riding. We paid off all of our debt and vowed to never take it on again.

For the first time in our lives, we truly felt the meaning of “freedom.” Living a with debt, much less fulltiming with a sporadic income and debt, is a big drag on happiness…at least to us it is.

That’s about all of the “should haves” we can think of. Remember, researching your road tripping lifestyle is key to long term success, and planning how you’ll be comfortable is critical. Don’t hit the road without doing either.

When you RV, you always learn something new. Whether it’s about how to avoid dropping weird stuff down the toilet,  or learning new boondocking tips, you’re always growing.

When we met Kelly and Al last winter in New Mexico, I couldn’t believe we had been on the road almost two years and didn’t know about the Escapees Day’s End Directory. We were on our way to Texas to join Escapees because we knew about all of their perks, but we didn’t know about this one until Al and Kelly (aka The Bayfield Bunch) told us about it.

The Day’s End Directory is a comprehensive collection of practically every low cost and free boondocking spot in North America, compiled by the folks who know best, Escapees members. For just $5, you can join this private Escapees group, the Day’s End Yahoo Group, and gain access to the directory. It has literally thousands of locations of free and cheap campsites, and members update the information regularly.

The only downside to the Day’s End Directory is that it’s created in oldschool format. The book is available as a CD or .rtf file only, and you need to rifle through about 500 pages to find locations by state and city. It’s laborious and time consuming, and cost-prohibitive to print. To get around that, I created a PDF of the Western states we are visiting this year, and sent the file to Kinkos for printing. It cost me $12 to print CA, AZ, NM and TX.

I hope some day the Escapees powers that be will pay a young geek to  take over the project and convert the listings to some kind of searchable database like our friend’s Jenn and Johnny’s FreeCampsites.net.

But until then, this behemoth book is still the best money you’ll spend if you like to get out into the wild, or just need an approved, safe place to crash for the night.