I'm in my 40s so not near retiring. But I do look forward to the day when I hit the road. But I was wondering what it takes to be a full timer in a TD. Does this mean always being dirty and always eating out of one pot or cooking over a fire. What about washing your self or your clothes. Must be a difficult experience being in such a small place with no amenities and no comfort for a year or more. I'd love to hear your experiences. The challenges? The joy?
What does it take to be a full timer?
- Thread starter Ninjamini
- Start date
birder526
Novice
Hi! We are not full-timers yet but will be as of April 1st. We have a 550 Special being built as I write! We both will be retired at that point. We have done much tent camping and loaded bike touring around the US for several months at a time, over the years, so we have a real understanding about what we are getting into! The TD will be luxury compared to a tent!
The one thing that really appeals to us is that you live mostly outdoors rather than indoors. The galley extends our home outside and a tent will serve as a living room if it is raining or buggy. If we are at a campground, we'll have showers & toilet facilities; if we are free-camping we have a privacy tent and a solar shower and a portable loo.
We'll cook on a portable stove and have dishes to eat off of. We have a cooler and a refrigerator ordered to store our perishables. It doesn't have to be too "hard core"; you can definitely work in what you feel are "luxuries".
For us, there is a passion that we have for this outdoorsy lifestyle. The simplicity and mobility also have great appeal. We know we will make changes and re-do things as we gain trailer experience, but we really are looking forward to the experience of teardropping!!
Happy New Year!
The one thing that really appeals to us is that you live mostly outdoors rather than indoors. The galley extends our home outside and a tent will serve as a living room if it is raining or buggy. If we are at a campground, we'll have showers & toilet facilities; if we are free-camping we have a privacy tent and a solar shower and a portable loo.
We'll cook on a portable stove and have dishes to eat off of. We have a cooler and a refrigerator ordered to store our perishables. It doesn't have to be too "hard core"; you can definitely work in what you feel are "luxuries".
For us, there is a passion that we have for this outdoorsy lifestyle. The simplicity and mobility also have great appeal. We know we will make changes and re-do things as we gain trailer experience, but we really are looking forward to the experience of teardropping!!
Happy New Year!
MartiVltori
Novice
Diane & Michael,
I hope you two post a lot of pictures and tales here. I'm really looking forward to following you.
I hope you two post a lot of pictures and tales here. I'm really looking forward to following you.
Ninjamini,
Any camping style can mimic your chosen lifestyle. If you desire multi-course meals, china, crystal, all of the correct tableware, you can. If you prefer to use disposable plates, plastic ware, and red solo cups you can.
Living a full time teardrop lifestyle will be an adjustment. I have found completing ADL's (Activities of daily living) take longer. The home comforts are present, just in a different format. The shower may be a shared public facility or your own private solar shower. Laundry is shared, but you may be able to use multiple machines instead of one at a time at a home.
House cleaning is not a favorite activity, easy to allow piles to be created in a home, teardrops are about living with less, which is actually more in the long run. Keeping the teardrop organized, items put away takes a few minutes.
Which leads to one other observation, living in a teardrop, you are not responsible for yard upkeep! The hours I could save! Like a house needs routine preventive maintenance, so will the teardrop and tow vehicle.
Thousands upon thousands live fulltime in a variety of camping units from full size travel trailers to teardrops.
Jean
Any camping style can mimic your chosen lifestyle. If you desire multi-course meals, china, crystal, all of the correct tableware, you can. If you prefer to use disposable plates, plastic ware, and red solo cups you can.
Living a full time teardrop lifestyle will be an adjustment. I have found completing ADL's (Activities of daily living) take longer. The home comforts are present, just in a different format. The shower may be a shared public facility or your own private solar shower. Laundry is shared, but you may be able to use multiple machines instead of one at a time at a home.
House cleaning is not a favorite activity, easy to allow piles to be created in a home, teardrops are about living with less, which is actually more in the long run. Keeping the teardrop organized, items put away takes a few minutes.
Which leads to one other observation, living in a teardrop, you are not responsible for yard upkeep! The hours I could save! Like a house needs routine preventive maintenance, so will the teardrop and tow vehicle.
Thousands upon thousands live fulltime in a variety of camping units from full size travel trailers to teardrops.
Jean
MartiVltori
Novice
Jean W said:
House cleaning is a bit simpler though.
hiadventurer
Junior Ranger
This is something we are considering in 8 years or so. I would like sell everything that Missy will allow me to including the house, store the rest and travel for 2-3 year searching for a place to finally land and retire. It is a life style change that I could embrace not sure about Missy though! We will see, have 8 years to decide!
Les Izmore
Junior Ranger
Hi!
First, I think you would need to define what a full timer is. It sounds straight forward, but there are differing notions of what that entails. For instance, will you maintain a permanent residence while on the road? That adds a level of complexity and expense that makes the answer more complicated than it needs to be.
Alea and I recently decided that we will become full timers around Sept 2015. For us that means selling our house and rental property, and selling pretty much everything else (storing only irreplaceables - a few albums, some original art, the chest built by her great grandfather 125 years ago). We're hoping it will all fit in a 5x5 storage unit, but even that can cost $500 or more per year to maintain.
I met Alea while on a two year bicycle tour nearly 30 years ago. I loved that lifestyle - you knew where all of your possessions were and everything was within arms reach. The longer you were on the road, the less you carried, and life quickly got down to its essence. We'd love to do that again, but neither of us is interested in hauling gear and sleeping on the ground in the snow and rain, plus we have a dog, and I'm NOT going to be the one to pedal her around.
Part of our solution to being full timers will be a new Ford Transit Connect Cargo Van. The long wheelbase version will allow us to keep both of our bikes stored inside on Yakima Highroller bike racks bolted to the floor (out of the elements and hidden from thieves). It has a ton of space for gear, so we plan on blocking off the curbside door with a flat panel tv (with Bluetooth headphones so we don't disturb the neighbors), which will be part of our outdoor living room. The TV will actually be our PC Monitor, so the main use will be for things that our netbooks aren't so good at, as well as playing exercise videos, the occasional Redbox rental and OTA TV when we are within range of a station. Our plan is a series of tag-team bicycle tours throughout North America: I'll ride one day, while she and the dog drive to the campground, shop, plan meals, etc; the next day we'd reverse our roles.
Some key things to consider include: where to have your mail sent and how to get it forwarded, and your communications and internet access on the road. Some folks will have relatives to accumulate and forward mail for them (I did that while cycling through Europe, though one time my nephew dropped the ball and I had to scrape by for a week before the mail [and the traveller's checks] finally showed up). Some RV clubs also offer such services. The most straight forward option appears to be the UPS Store - you get a street address that you can use to establish residence for tax purposes (think of the half dozen or so states with no income tax), and their stores are just about everywhere.
For communications, to me the phone is the least useful technical gadget ever invented, but I'll have a simple pay-as-you-go cellphone for the rare times when a phone really is indispensable. We're thinking of going with Virgin Mobile's Broadband2Go MiFi so that we can have secure wifi on the road, at least when there is cell coverage.
Getting back to your original post, if you live a wash and wear lifestyle you'll thrive on the simplicity of living in a teardrop. If you have poofed up hair and a daily make up routine you'll quickly be longing for a castle-on-wheels with an adequate "throne room" (after all, the big rigs are basically mobile toilets with limitless optional add-ons). In short, ask yourself how you compare to Goldilocks? Does everything have to be just right, or is it OK that sometimes it's too dry, sometimes too wet, sometimes too hot and humid, sometimes too cold and windy? Goldilocks lives in a Glamper to make sure everything is just right. People who are happy living a simple life (by choice) live happily in teardrops.
-Steve
First, I think you would need to define what a full timer is. It sounds straight forward, but there are differing notions of what that entails. For instance, will you maintain a permanent residence while on the road? That adds a level of complexity and expense that makes the answer more complicated than it needs to be.
Alea and I recently decided that we will become full timers around Sept 2015. For us that means selling our house and rental property, and selling pretty much everything else (storing only irreplaceables - a few albums, some original art, the chest built by her great grandfather 125 years ago). We're hoping it will all fit in a 5x5 storage unit, but even that can cost $500 or more per year to maintain.
I met Alea while on a two year bicycle tour nearly 30 years ago. I loved that lifestyle - you knew where all of your possessions were and everything was within arms reach. The longer you were on the road, the less you carried, and life quickly got down to its essence. We'd love to do that again, but neither of us is interested in hauling gear and sleeping on the ground in the snow and rain, plus we have a dog, and I'm NOT going to be the one to pedal her around.
Part of our solution to being full timers will be a new Ford Transit Connect Cargo Van. The long wheelbase version will allow us to keep both of our bikes stored inside on Yakima Highroller bike racks bolted to the floor (out of the elements and hidden from thieves). It has a ton of space for gear, so we plan on blocking off the curbside door with a flat panel tv (with Bluetooth headphones so we don't disturb the neighbors), which will be part of our outdoor living room. The TV will actually be our PC Monitor, so the main use will be for things that our netbooks aren't so good at, as well as playing exercise videos, the occasional Redbox rental and OTA TV when we are within range of a station. Our plan is a series of tag-team bicycle tours throughout North America: I'll ride one day, while she and the dog drive to the campground, shop, plan meals, etc; the next day we'd reverse our roles.
Some key things to consider include: where to have your mail sent and how to get it forwarded, and your communications and internet access on the road. Some folks will have relatives to accumulate and forward mail for them (I did that while cycling through Europe, though one time my nephew dropped the ball and I had to scrape by for a week before the mail [and the traveller's checks] finally showed up). Some RV clubs also offer such services. The most straight forward option appears to be the UPS Store - you get a street address that you can use to establish residence for tax purposes (think of the half dozen or so states with no income tax), and their stores are just about everywhere.
For communications, to me the phone is the least useful technical gadget ever invented, but I'll have a simple pay-as-you-go cellphone for the rare times when a phone really is indispensable. We're thinking of going with Virgin Mobile's Broadband2Go MiFi so that we can have secure wifi on the road, at least when there is cell coverage.
Getting back to your original post, if you live a wash and wear lifestyle you'll thrive on the simplicity of living in a teardrop. If you have poofed up hair and a daily make up routine you'll quickly be longing for a castle-on-wheels with an adequate "throne room" (after all, the big rigs are basically mobile toilets with limitless optional add-ons). In short, ask yourself how you compare to Goldilocks? Does everything have to be just right, or is it OK that sometimes it's too dry, sometimes too wet, sometimes too hot and humid, sometimes too cold and windy? Goldilocks lives in a Glamper to make sure everything is just right. People who are happy living a simple life (by choice) live happily in teardrops.
-Steve
There are small washing machines that do not take electricity call the wonder wash. It has a crank you turn for 3 min. Empty, refill for the rinse, crank 3 min. It was Amazon's best seller. The alternative dryer does need electricity, but it is small and spin dry clothes so that they are almost dry. It sits on the counter top. You can go to " Laundry alternative" on the web and see all the neat things they have foe doing your laundry. Just make sure your buy the laundry soap that is eco friendly.