If you’re a fulltime RVer or just thinking about it, be sure to visit Work for RVers and Campers, one of the premiere websites for RVers to visit when looking for ideas about how to make a living on the road.

Work for RVers and Campers is for RVers who want to earn money to support a traveling lifestyle. You’ll find free paid employment and volunteer workamper positions along with work-at-home business tips for travelers. Coleen’s newsletter also has inspirational tips and workamping ideas.

We found this resource during our early days of researching the road tripping lifestyle and we continue to pop in whenever we’re looking for new ways to generate income. Now, we’re thrilled to be featured on the Worker’s Profiles page!

Coleen and Bob are a real source of inspiration to us and if you’re thinking about this lifestyle, their story will inspire you too. They’re one of the web’s most well-known experts on making a living from the road. After all, they know a lot; they’ve been fulltiming since 1992! Here’s a little bit about this inspirational couple:

Bob and I spent over a decade living in a recreational vehicle of some kind or another. They included several travel trailers, a pickup camper, a park model trailer, and a motorhome. Along the way, we worked and supported ourselves. We are proof that it is not only possible, but practical, to earn a living while full-time RVing.

Much of what I write is based on our experience. Some of it comes from corresponding with thousands of campers and RVers. I also share what I’ve gleaned from employers and managers who hire and work with work campers and other RV workers.

If you’re dreaming of the fulltime RVing lifestyle or actively looking for work, we can’t recommend Work for RVers and Campers’s Resources enough. Visit today!

Until recently, full-time RVing with kids was uncharted territory for all but a handful of courageous families. But now for the first time ever there’s a comprehensive how-to book that can assist you in making this life changing decision.

Written by Full Time Families founder Kimberly Travaglino, “How to Hit the Road: Making Your Family’s Full Time RV Dreams a Reality,” explains how to start making your family’s RV dreams happen!

Get Your Family Full-Timing Faster

If you’re unsure about embarking on a full time RV adventure, fear not: How to Hit the Road takes you from the earliest stages of envisioning your ideal road tripping lifestyle with kids.

From sharing your RVing dreams with loved ones, to selecting the RV that works for your family, to finding ways to afford this unique lifestyle. Along the way you’ll read real-life testimonials from families who are creating unforgettable memories as they experience these joys together.

How to Hit the Road addresses everything your family should consider before you roll away. As a fellow Dave Ramsey follower, we love her advice to eliminate all debt prior to leaving.

While some aspects of How to Hit the Road doesn’t dive deep enough into important topics like budgeting and choosing a domicile, it provides resources for learning more. Overall, How to Hit the Road is a perfect place to begin planning your family’s full time RV adventure.

Make Your Dreams Happen
Buy How to Hit the Road Today!

Join Fearless Families Across the Country

Travalgino’s group, Full Time Families, is a support group for courageous parents who are living the full-timing dream. Check out FtF’s magazine, rallies and discussion forums for endless ways to make your dream happen.

Why wait? In our four years of traveling, we haven’t met one family who’s regretted their decision to fulfill their RV road trip dreams!

Do you road trip with debt? If so, does debt interfere with your ability to enjoy your nomadic freedom?

Roadtripping with debt didn’t seem like a problem to us in 2007. After all, this lifestyle was only supposed to last a year. After that, we were supposed to settle down and get back into the “normal” routine of a mortgage and living beyond our means with the miracle of plastic.

We didn’t know that being normal was dumb.

But when we discovered that we we loved the nomadic lifestyle too much to stop, we knew we had to scale back our spending to keep going.

We still had no idea where our income would be coming from, but our original road trip budget could last another year if we got out of debt. Meeting real life examples of debt free road trippers also helped.

Old Habits are Hard to Break

In 2008, we painstakingly cracked open our nest egg and paid off our last debt, the rig. But old habits are hard to break, and we kept using credit cards.

There’s something about the security of using a plastic when you don’t know how much money you’ll make each month.

Physically we were debt-free, but mentally we were still enslaved by the credit card security blanket. We paid off the balance each month but I would sweat as I scrambled to find the funds.

But I Pay My Balance Every Month!

Studies show that when you use plastic to shop, you’re automatically spending more than you would if you paid in cash. But somehow I thought I was different, and poo-pooed those studies thinking “Oh  not me! I’m always careful.”

But after some agonizing credit card billing hassles with Bank of World Domination earlier this year, we burned the security blanket and committed to paying cash for everything.

Because we have the most sporadic, unpredictable income, suddenly every purchase we made was under scrutiny. Knowing that we could suffer the embarrassing fate of being declined at the checkout counter gives us a self-discipline like we never had before. It was scary as hell the first two months, but now it feels “normal” to us.

The Results

Since we stopped using credit cards, I can’t say that our expenses have gone down a whole lot (after all, we were pretty frugal to begin with), but the peace of mind I find in knowing that everything in our possession, everything we eat or consume, is paid for on the spot.

Next week we’ll hit the road, completely, truly debt-free for the first time ever. I can’t wait!

Disclaimer: I’ll confess that we still use one piece of plastic to handle some aspects of our business. The efficiency and protection our card company offers when dealing with vendors, product returns and exchanges and other things that make our businesses run can’t compare with the lame customer service we get from our bank. I know Dave Ramsey would disagree, but since we don’t use the business card for normal everyday spending, I’m OK with it.

We still pay our balance every month, but until our business ventures stabilize our income to a level where I feel comfortable dealing with vendors in cash, we’ll continue wearing the credit card security blanket for the business.

And now with our new business venture, that shouldn’t last too much longer!

Recommended Reading:

Debt Free For Life: The Finish Rich Plan for Financial Freedom, by David Bach



Don’t Own, Don’t Rent, Live Well: How to be Debt Free, Build Your Nest Egg & Live Life on Your Own Terms, by Matthew & Fiona Peters

Today we’re dusting off a few of our best and most well-received blog posts from the last four years in honor of our recent nomination to Tripbase’s “My 7 Links” blog project.

The aim is to unite bloggers of all different topics to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again.

Here we go!

Our 7 Links

Most Popular Post: On A Budget, Build Your Own RV

Surprisingly, more than 150,000 readers have seen this brief, 25-word description of resources for building your own van conversion, camper, trailer, or boat, from the long defunct Simple Living Network. The cool homemade fifth wheel video we added must have helped!

Most Helpful Post: Troubleshooting the Norcold N821 RV Refrigerator

The ongoing discussion in the comments we continue to get on Jim’s post about troubleshooting our Norcold RV Refrigerator has proven more helpful than the post itself.

A Post Whose Success Surprised Me: Ringing Up the Dead in Forest Park Cemetery, Brunswick NY

Who would’ve thought our rather uneventful trip to Forest Park Cemetery would stir up so many eerie reports from one of the most haunted cemeteries in America.

Most Beautiful Post: RIP Spoonie Gee

Helpless is the only way to describe the feeling of learning about the death of a loved one when you’re on the road. Oh Spoonie. We wish we could have saved you from yourself.

Most Controversial Post: Stealth Greywater Dumping: Do You or Don’t You?

Only an RVer can talk about sewer dumps and stinky holding tanks over breakfast. Learn who does and who won’t let go of skanky water out in the hinterlands, one of the dirty little secrets of RVers.

 A Post that didn’t get the Attention it Deserved: How to Color Your Hair as a Fulltime RVer

Keeping my hair color in shape while living in a tiny space has been one of my biggest challenges since fulltime RVing. Am I the only one who struggles with this?

The Post that I am Most Proud of: Mad Max Meets Good Sam at the Slabs

Few places evoke such visceral reactions from RVers as Slab City USA. This objective article addresses the surprising, the beautiful and the entertaining aspects of the Last Free Place for weary travelers.

7 Links: Who’s Next?

And now, in the spirit of the My 7 links project, we are nominating the following bloggers to share their wisdom by publishing their 7 links on their blogs:

• Rhodester
• Technomadia
• Manifest Positivity
• Welcome to my Brain
• Tripawds

Watch for the best posts being shared everyday on the Tripbase Facebook  page and Twitter feed at #My7Links.

When it comes to your RV’s cost of ownership, is it what you expected?

Many RVers freely share worksheets showing what it costs to live on the road, but the elephant in the room is the long term costs of maintaining your RV and support vehicle.

This is my first post dedicated to long-term costs of towing our 2007 24′ Arctic Fox fifth wheel trailer with our 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 diesel 4×4 SLT quad cab.

Why We Chose This Combination

• You only deal with repairs on one engine
• The cost: we didn’t have to mortgage it.
• The Dodge Cummins diesel engine is the best EVER.
• Arctic Fox trailers are renowned for quality (there are exceptions, of course)

Dodge Pickup Cost of Ownership Revealed

With that being said, the Dodge pickup isn’t exactly known for a low cost of ownership. Edmunds says our 2006 model should be expected to cost about $56,561 over five years to own (including everything from taxes to repairs), while our dream truck, a 2011 Dodge with a built-in exhaust brake will cost $65,159 over five years.

So, how accurate are their numbers?

According to my records, we’ve spent a grand total of $29,513 on our Dodge since we bought it with about 24,000 miles on the engine in April, 2007. For numerically challenged people like myself, that’s $7,378 a year.

This figure includes everything including fuel, registration, insurance and repairs. Buying used probably helped reduce Edmond’s figure, assuming they include the hefty licensing and registration fees that accompany buying a new vehicle.

That makes me feel good! Especially considering the kind of wear and tear we put on the truck by hauling the house around. As our odometer hits 100,000 miles in the next season and our Cummins engine warranty expires, let’s hope we can keep this low cost of ownership up!

Arctic Fox Cost of Ownership Revealed

Here are our facts and figures for our Arctic Fox 24-5N fifth wheel.

Since we purchased it in 2007, we’ve spent $8,662 on everything from trailer brake repairs to solar upgrades to general maintenance.

That’s $2,156 a year.

RVers are left by the wayside when it comes to the real cost of ownership.

There are no sites like Edmunds (that I know of) which show RVers what to expect over the long haul for their make and model.

Maybe this is because RVs come with so many options and variables, some with more duct tape, some with less, some get hauled up, down and around the country, some hardly move at all.

This RV.net article is one of the best I’ve found when it comes to analyzing RV ownership facts and figures over a year, but it still doesn’t consider long-term variables.

One thing RVs all have in common is their rapid depreciation rate, which, like a car, is all the more reason to buy a slightly used model.

I confess that we didn’t buy a used trailer: at the time of our purchase, we weren’t living the debt-free lifestyle, and neither one of us had ever owned any brand new vehicles. We felt that a brand new trailer was our reward for knocking ourselves out over our business for the last decade. Even though debt-free guru Dave Ramsey would think we were morons for buying new, we both still agree that we made a good choice. I’m certain we wouldn’t do it again, however.

Our Choice Still Works for Us

Owning a RV isn’t cheap for anyone, but it’s the overall lifestyle itself that costs less than when you live in a stick house. Some RVs like ours are cheaper to own than others but they all have necessary repairs, which although they shouldn’t be a surprise, are always painful and happen when you least expect them to.

Most of our road ripping friends have gone through at least two different RVs since they started, but we still love our house on wheels.

The main reason for staying with what we have is also about money; getting into anything newer would require financing, which we just won’t do.

Our fifth wheel – truck combo has worked well for us and and while I would love to feel like a rock star in a Prevost or a Foretravel, I know I wouldn’t love the cost of paying for a single tire on one of those beasts, unless I could pay for every single related item in cash.

That ain’t gonna happen today, but hey, that’s the goal!

Summer is in full bloom here at 8,500 feet and we are loving it! But the other day, we had the talk.

“What do you want to do this winter?”

“Are we caretaking? Are we Slabbing? Renting a space with full hookups?”

Notice how workamping or getting a seasonal job didn’t come into the conversation.

We might consider caretaking if the right gig in Texas came along, but long ago we concluded after my last failed attempt to work for The Man that seasonal work was more emotional trauma than it was worth, and even the best  workamping job would take us away from that which we do best. So forget those ideas.

Winter 2011/2012: Now What?

The only thing we know for sure is that we don’t want to stay here as late as we did last year, when the snow was so deep we couldn’t find the trailer.

Originally we had grand plans of making another East Coast loop, but it looks like that idea’s getting shelved until our income is up and we can justify the expense.

East Coast RVing will drive low-budget snowbirds into the poorhouse.

For us, the West is the Best, and that is where we shall fly. Onward to the free boondocking lands of New Mexico, Arizona, California and then, finally, to our long-awaited return to all points east, west, south and north Texas (which isn’t all that cheap, but it sure is fun!).

So now our question is, What are YOU doing this winter?

Don’t you just love getting a whiff of that “new RV smell” whenever you open the door to your brand new house on wheels? We sure did!

But ever since learning that the new RV smell is really just the formaldehyde used in RV construction materials, it creeps me out. Short of gutting our RV and re-installing all eco-friendly materials, there’s not a lot we can do other than cooking the formaldehyde out and leaving windows open as much as possible.

Meanwhile, Jim and I take measures to live as healthy a life as possible to keep our immune systems strong and able to fight off toxins exposure. We’re on the road to even healthier living thanks to a book I recently won, courtesy of The Good Human, the web’s best resource for keeping you and the planet healthy.

The Healthy Home: Simple Truths to Protect Your Family from Hidden Household Dangers

I like to think I’m knowledgeable about living healthy. We eat semi-vegan, don’t use Teflon pans, stay away from toxic health and beauty products and make homemade cleaning products.

But The Healthy Home book is helping me understand many other risks I hardly think about, such as:

EMF Exposure: Electro Magnetic Frequencies (EMFs) are bombarding us more than ever and studies prove they increase a person’s risk of developing cancer. From cell phones to WiFi networks, humans are being exposed to more EMFs than at any other time in history. Now that we are at the 20-year mark of this technological advancement, cancers are starting to take hold.

So how do you decrease your exposure? Keep your wireless devices out of the bedroom and away from your head and turn off your WiFi when you’re offline.

Toxic Air: The air in our homes is more toxic than the air outside, thanks to all of the chemicals (especially in RV materials) and the toxins used in our daily lives. Consider that oil you burned in the pan last night at dinner, your bathroom air freshener and your cleaning products: they all emit toxins.  You can neutralize your home’s toxic air by keeping the windows open as much as you comfortably can to release these deadly fumes from your home.

Kitchen Risks: From the dangers of using plastic to cover your food in the microwave to cooking the minerals out of your vegetables,The Healthy Home presented lots of ways to make a healthy kitchen like mine even healthier. For example, I had no idea that over-chopping vegetables could lead to a huge loss of vitamins and minerals.

While I don’t plan on gnawing on uncut carrots for dinner, I’ll try to keep vegetables and fruits as whole as possible before eating.

These are just a few tips packed inside this well-written, quick read book. Although the authors presented some crazy scare tactics I disagreed with (like how CFL blubs are so mercury-laden we should opt for incandescent bulbs instead), overall The Healthy Home is a great way to examine all aspects of your home and health habits so you can live longer, healthier lives.

Check out the Healthy Home website for some great free tips and then buy the book from us !

When you’re boondocking, do you dump? Your grey water, that is.

Our wheels had barely started turning the first time anyone introduced us to the concept of dumping grey water somewhere other than a septic system.

Wisconsin’s Amish country beckoned but the nearest dump station was closed and our grey tanks were full.

We asked a farmer if he knew of another station.

“Yah sure, right there” he said as he pointed to his field.

Our heads spun ’round. “Are you kidding!” we asked. He wasn’t. “Just your greywater of course. Go ahead and pull in, the field needs it.”

We couldn’t believe it. As dedicated backpackers who took every precaution to avoid polluting water sources on the trail, we were horrified.

But our 35 gallon grey tanks were full and we had nowhere to go. So we did it.

The Blue Boy Blues

Avid boondockers know; when you’re settled into a spot, going to the dump is a huge ordeal.

Some folks haul a blue boy around. Many are brave enough to use the blue boy for blackwater dumping, which seems pretty disgusting. We would never, ever get that close to our own poo water (other than the occasional RV dump mishap).

You’ll see blue boy enthusiasts driving 3 miles per hour through Quartzsite, which appears to take longer than just pulling up stakes and moving the rig.

Our fifth wheel is too small to keep a blue boy, so that option is out for us.

Desert Dumping

Our boondocking experiences have taken us to many places where dumping greywater in an open field was accepted by the local population, whether they were land owners or fellow RVers. Usually it’s in the desert.

At the Slabs, it’s a given. Some folks push the envelope of decency by digging gopher holes for grey and black water. Trust me, we won’t go there. Ever.

Playing by the Rules

Stealth greywater dumping is always contingent on the dumping area being safely away from water, other campers and only in barren locations. And always at night (by daytime the puddle has evaporated). We only use biodegradeable soaps and never allow liquid kitchen wastes to go down the drain. That’s just smelly.

I know stealth RV greywater dumping horrifies a lot of people, but the reality is more of us do it than are willing to publicly admit.

So I’ll be the first to step forward. You’re next!

Do You or Don’t You?

If you do, or are considering the possibilities, here’s a handy little device made specifically for this purpose.

The Valterra T1020-5VP Gray Water Drain Adapter.

We saw a camper in Ajo, Arizona using one. Just attach a garden hose and point it away from your rig. Downhill, of course.

If we’ve lost any sort of respect you had for us over this, we apologize. But I’m just coming clean with our reality. It’s just like a saying among scuba scuba enthusiasts:

There are two kinds of divers out there: Those who pee in their wetsuits, and those who lie about it.

Weather is crazy everywhere right now but apparently in Northern Colorado, springtime weather extremes are a way of life.

We arrived  here naively thinking we had beat Mother Nature at her own game. The sun was out, the snow was melting and it was almost warm.

But Gaia had other plans. Instead of warmer days ahead, we’ve been pelted with snow, hail, thunder and rain since we arrived.

Tips for Flying South

The first question a lot of people ask us when we tell them we shut down the homestead and fly south is “Aren’t you afraid of what you’ll come home to?”

My answer is….not really. I do my best not to invite negativity into my life by thinking the worst. I hope for the best and do what I can to prevent mishaps in my life.

What Not to Leave Inside

Our place is in bear country and right about the time we come home, the bears are waking up. Leaving any edibles inside would be stupid. And, as this picture shows, messy.

We left a stash of wine here and are really lucky it didn’t uncork! This is the worst situation we’ve encountered after returning to Jerry’s Acres (find me some wood, quick!).

It says a lot about a place when the inside of an unheated house can get so cold that soda cans explode.

I can’t imagine living here during winter, even with the heater running.

Other things we do to protect the house from weather include winterizing the plumbing and setting out bear un-welcome mats.

That’s about it. There’s not a lot to think about when we fly south for the winter, except trying to find warm weather and figuring out how we’re going to pay for our adventure.

Had we chosen a place in a more populated area, I’m not sure we could live this lifestyle. I wouldn’t want to leave a vacant house with more people around.

But up here in the sticks, things sit untouched all winter while the snow falls.

Would you want to visit?

Summer Beckons

Home Cheapo isn’t getting our business the summer. The only business we’ll be taking care of is work that will help generate more income.

We have more RV adventures to share with you, but you won’t be reading about my high altitude gardening attempts either.

That’s because we’re  hitting the road again in August for another Hay Chronicles at Vickers Ranch over in Lake City, one of our favorite places in the world. Jim’s getting even more fit for some heavy hay lifting and I suppose I should try to recall how to clean cabins again.

Until then, can someone please tell me, where the heck is spring?

It’s freezing here!

As a full-time road tripper, do people you meet on the road ever say to you “Gee, you travel all the time? What, didja win the lotto?”

What do you say to them?

I hesitate to tell people how Jim and I live because most assume that we’re loaded (with money, that is). Which we are not. Ok, it’s all relative, but still.

We manage to do what we do because we keep our expenses extremely low and stay debt free. Our wallets are thin but our spirits are not.

Of course explaining this to a stranger takes more than a 15-second spiel, so I usually just say “we’re snowbirds.”

One of the ways we can do what we do and still eek out a living is through our Internet connections and by scouring the countryside for freebie spots like this one in Utah.

Last week, after taking an emotional beating over our dented Dodge, we hit the road and started heading back to our summer spot.

But before braving the Colorado cold, we stopped near Moab to soak up some sun and camp for a few more days.

Spring has sprung here and we wanted to see more. We also haven’t experienced any warm weather whatsoever since last summer, so I was hoping for high temperatures.

Some fellow road trippers told us about this pretty spot, which I’ve since added to the Escapees Day’s End Directory. (go buy a copy to find out where it is!).

These free spots are widely available to wintertime road trippers in Southwestern deserts. Winter brings many more options for finding solitude on the road.

It’s rare that I actually feel like I’m getting something for my tax dollars, but when we camp on free public land like this, I love knowing that my tax dollars paid for it.

As we prepared to leave Moab and head to Red Feather Lakes, news about President Obama’s awesomely stunning move broke on BBC News.

I never thought I would feel any sense of exhilaration over the death of an individual, but I surprised myself with my reaction when Jim screamed “They got Bin Laden!”

“GOOD!” I said. Yes, I was happy that they killed him. Ecstatic that this horrible human being was wiped off the face of the earth. Now it’s really time for the collective “We” to move forward toward better days ahead. Is that so wrong?

Thank you Mister President.

Now if we can just get rid of Fox News, I’d be even happier.

Land of the Free, indeed.