Read Part II: Favorite Midwest Places to Camp
Read Part III: Favorite Places to Camp in the East

Favorite RV Sites: Part I

Can you name your top 10 places to camp in North America? We would love to hear your favorite RV camping locations whether they’re boondocking in the sticks or living in luxury on beachfront property.

Recently a reader asked us to name our favorite places to camp. This was a real challenge, since one RVer’s paradise might be a dump to someone else. But here goes:

The following list features our favorite and most memorable destinations after nearly six years on the road. I’m going to present these in a three-part series since if you’re like me, you have the attention span of a gnat and want bite-sized summaries.

Favorite West Coast Destinations

As California natives, we’re biased when it comes to camping on the left coast. Our favorite places to park our RV include:

Washington: The Methow Valley and The Olympic Peninsula. They’re wet, moldy and damp most of the year but copious amounts of rainfall make these areas one of the most lush, prehistoric regions in the U.S. Along with ample humidity and moisture, you’ll also enjoy small bandanna belt micro-climates in places like Sequim and Twisp, which present a nice break from the year-round gloom and doom weather.

California: Some of California’s most scenic and remote areas you can access by RV include: Humboldt & Del Norte Counties, Lassen National Forest, Highway 395, The Slabs and Borrego Springs. Growing up in the Golden State, I was lucky enough to explore rugged mountains and coastlines back in the day when there were fewer people who had the same idea that we did.

Today many of our all-time favorite places to camp in California are either overpopulated or remote and not accessible by RV. However you’ll still find lots of great RV camping destinations from Eureka to El Centro. You can’t go wrong in Cali no matter what time of year you visit.

Favorite Southwest Destinations

The Southwest is our favorite place to escape winter. Forget the expensive east coast RV parks and dense cities, the southwest is cheap, big and desolate. Frugal RV living doesn’t get any better than places like:

Arizona: Organ Pipe National Monument, Bisbee. These two favorites are located along the Mexican border, but we’ve never felt like we were in danger while staying there. Bisbee is a funky art town that hasn’t yet been ruined by artsy New Yorkers, and Organ Pipe has so much border patrol activity you can’t be camped in a safer and more beautiful place.

Colorado. We found our dream property in Colorado after looking all over the U.S.. Need we say more?

Colorado has so many public camping options I can’t even try to name all of them. Our favorite spots include the Lake City region between Gunnison and Silverton, and the Roosevelt National Forest that surrounds our “Jerry’s Acres” property near Fort Collins.

New Mexico: New Mexico’s diverse camping options range from alpine mountains in the north to flat, big desert in the south. Our favorite places to camp include: Jemez Springs (Fenton Lake State Park), Bottomless Lakes State Park and Rodeo de Santa Fe. Although springtime winds can be brutal, a visit here any time of year is worthwhile. And when we’re sick of picking grit out of our teeth, we head to Santa Fe where we can park cheaply at the rodeo fairgrounds and enjoy a world-class art town with an unforgettable ambiance.

Utah: Anywhere in the Canyonlands region like Mexican Hat Capitol Reef National Park or Green River rank high on our list not just because you can find dozens of free places to camp on BLM land, but because Capitol Reef is where we got engaged in 1996!

Texas: West Texas, specifically the Big Bend and Black Gap, have become our all-time favorite places to winter. This vast, open region is about as close as you’re going to get to free camping in Texas since free public lands are as rare in Texas as a Democrat in Dallas.

But even if you have to pay to camp, rest assured that this is one area that’s worth the money. After the Big Bend, the Hill Country around New Braunfels is our second favorite because of its proximity to awesome music, food and scenery.

These are our favorite places to camp.  Now, how about yours?

Stay tuned for our next posts on our favorite places to camp in the Midwest, East Coast and Southeast.

Read Part II: Favorite Midwest Places to Camp
Read Part III: Favorite Places to Camp in the East

When you want to hit the road but aren’t sure how you’re going to pay for that adventure, a new book from Workamper News called “Live Your RV Dreams: The Beginners Guide to Workamping for the Part-Time or Full-Time RVer” will get your wheels turning faster.

For just $4.95 as an e-book or just $6.95 for print, Live Your RV Dreams will show you the ins and outs of paying for an adventurous lifestyle. By downloading the book you also get a free receive a free, 2-month trial membership to Workamper News if you’re a first time member.

The book is authored by Workamper News founder Steven Anderson and provides a basic overview of the full-time RVer lifestyle. You’ll learn about topics like:

• How to ditch the stick-house lifestyle
• Workamping job search tips and employment basics
• Real-life full-time RVer situations and logistical aspects to consider

Of course since it’s written by Anderson, you’ll also receive a generous overviews of the great benefits of joining the Workamper organization.

If we didn’t have firsthand experience with the Workamper organization, we would think this book was a self-serving pitch to get you to join. But Jim and I have been happy Workamper members since 2008 and we can honestly say that this is one group that’s worth the membership fee if you’re thinking about making this big lifestyle change.

Live Your RV Dreams is small but mighty and is a great place to begin your full-time RVer research. While you’ll definitely find more comprehensive books and resources in the Workamper News Bookstore, Live Your RV Dreams is the first place to plan your great escape.

After living this lifestyle for a while, it becomes obvious to your closest friends and family that you are no longer “on vacation.” That’s when your choice to live away from the mainstream can make you somewhat of a curious oddity to people who live the traditional life that you left behind.

If you’re new to full-time RVing or just thinking about it, I encourage you to come up with a 30 second comeback for strangers who ask the inevitable question: “So, where do you live?”

Having your comeback ready can quickly weed out the exciting conversations from the snoozers.

We don’t really live in one place

Last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting a highly successful local entrepreneur. Upon meeting him, he asked me the usual “So where do you live?” question that newly introduced usually strangers ask each other.

“Well, that’s a long story, but basically I live and work from my RV.

My husband and I are full-time RVers. We don’t really live in one place. We’re just visiting my family right now.”

A long pause hung in the air as he squinted at me, trying to process what I just said. I could see a big question mark lingering over his head and almost hear him wondering “Is she saying she’s homeless? A hobo? Huh?”

“What, are you retired?” he said, and laughed out loud.

“No,” I said smiling. “We do work, we just do it from wherever we want, in our RV.”

He shook his head, still not really grasping what I was saying. It was as if the thought of doing anything other than running the rat race never even occurred to him.

“Oh, that’s cool,” he said. No questions asked and our conversation pretty much died there.

Later that evening at a charity event, I sat next to a freelance artist in the L.A. film industry. When he found out about our full-time RVer lifestyle, his eyes lit up.

“Oh wow! My girlfriend and I have talked about doing that when we retire!” he said.

“Why wait until you retire?” I asked, and proceeded to explain to him how he could live this lifestyle, now. He proceeded to ask me dozens of questions about full-timing, and we had a nice conversation about the benefits of living on the road.

That’s when it occurred to me: the people who question everything in life will reap the biggest benefits from the experience of being alive. No amount of money or career success can do this for people; fulfillment and happiness results from your inner desire to inquire, to be bold and take action by coloring outside the lines.

Never stop questioning and you never stop living.

At the 2013 Quartzsite RV show, numerous “As Seen On TV” gizmos and gadgets made up a huge chunk of the exhibits once again.

But when all is said and done, there was only one extremely useful, cool  and affordable item on display that we think every fulltime RVer should have (and we aren’t even getting paid to say this!).

Protect My Papers

Leave it to geeks like us to bypass the telescoping flagpole displays, skip the over-seasoned dip mixes and beeline straight to the modest Protect My Papers exhibit.

This little credit-card sized travel buddy is capable of saving you hundreds of hours of time and heartache should disaster strike and wipe out your most valuable documents and electronic files.

Here’s how it works:

Available as a 1 or 4 GB flash drive, Protect My Papers stores your most valuable documents. This product combines scanning with data input, notes and PDFs to store and print your critical papers with an organized and detailed script of categories, like this sample for “Donald” and “Vanna”

The Protect My Papers program and your data is stored on the device. This means that if you have to leave your computer with a tech, or worst case scenario must suddenly evacuate your rig because of a weather disaster, this device is all you need to grab.

Think It Can’t Happen to You?

If you think disasters only happen to others, think again. Jim and I have been forced to evacuate our campsite four times in just five years of full-timing because of impending weather disasters.

No, we’re not storm chasers, oftentimes you can’t leave fast enough to ditch bad weather.

As RVers, our exposure is so much greater than stick house dwellers, you must have an evacuation plan and a way to take your most valuable documents with you when — not IF — disaster strikes.

Protect My Papers Review Coming Soon

Since we don’t have a scanner on board with us to scan in our passports and other vital documents, we plan on using the one at my parent’s house now that we’re in Los Angeles for a few weeks. Stay tuned for a complete Protect My Papers review coming soon!

Most people who aren’t living the full-time RVing lifestyle think that we must spend a fortune on fuel costs. However after nearly six years on the road, our fuel costs as a full-time RVer have de-bunked this myth.

We live and work from our Arctic Fox 24′ fifth wheel trailer, pulled by a Dodge Ram 2500 4×4 Cummins pickup that gets anywhere from 12  to 17 mpg depending on what roads we’re traveling. Our rig is small by many RVer’s standards, but our fuel cost savings are one big reason why we prefer to tow our tiny house.

Our Full-time RVing Fuel Costs Versus the Joneses

In 2012, we spent $4,618 on fuel, which equates to $385 a month, or approximately $96 a week.  According to this AAA report, our costs are just slightly more that of the average American household:

In 2012, the average household consumed some 1,140 gallons of gasoline for an annual average cost of $4,112. This was just slightly below the record $4,127 that an average household spent in 2011, when it consumed approximately 1,174 gallons of gasoline.

Although our costs were $506 higher than Joe and Jane America, part of that reason is because diesel is more expensive, and also because we traveled a lot more in 2012 than we normally do.

I cringe whenever we fill our tank, but in the end, I’m fine paying that extra $506, because it took us through 17 states, introduced us to unforgettable people and got us to workamping jobs with amazing office views like this:

$506 for all that? What a deal!

Over the last six years of our travels I’ve discovered that fulltime RVing is so much cheaper than living in a traditional sticks and bricks house. If you learn how to carefully track your expenses and maintain a cost-effective approach toward the lifestyle, I guarantee you’ll have the same experience.