Chickery's Travels

Chickery's Travels logo. A blue-green Earth globe with continents surrounded by dots with an arrow denoting movement or travel and "Chickery's Travels" as part of the dotted circle. Next to this is a photo of their blue and white Arctic Fox 5th Wheel with the awning out.
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      • Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure
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      • What We Wish We Knew Before Full-Time RVing – Stories from the Road
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      • Roadmap to Financial Freedom: Accountability Report April 2018
      • Roadmap to Financial Freedom: Accountability Report May 2018
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      • Roadmap to Financial Freedom: Accountability Report July 2018
      • Roadmap to Financial Freedom: Accountability Report August 2018
      • Roadmap to Financial Freedom: Accountability Report September/October 2018
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      • Attend An RV Show – Even If You Already Own An RV | Exciting Reasons Why
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October 2, 2017 by Julie 6 Comments

Top 3 Lessons Learned & Biggest Regret: 3 Years Full-Time RV Living

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Happy Nomadiversary to us! After three years of full-time RV living, we reflected on the top three lessons learned and our biggest regret of the full-time RV lifestyle.

Learn how to pay off debt, earn an income, and save money all while traveling full-time.

UPDATE: It’s been 3 years since we’ve written this article and we still agree with the lessons learned below. We’ve updated the video to include three more lessons…Watch our two part series: 6 Lessons Learned & our 2 Biggest Regrets after 6 Years Full-Time below.

  • Lesson #1: Take Your Time
  • Lesson #2: Be Flexible
  • Lesson #3: You Don’t Need as Much Room as you Think
  • Biggest Regret: Our RV Purchasing Mistakes
  • Related posts:

Lesson #1: Take Your Time

We realized early on that we get travel fatigue when we move too often. We prefer to stay at least one week and often up to a month per location. This allows us to take time to see the sights in the local area, as well as save on fuel costs.

Lesson #2: Be Flexible

I’m a planner and have reservations several months in advance. However, I’ve learned to be a little more flexible and only make reservations at places that have a liberal cancellation policy. In fact, my rule is that I don’t make a reservation at any place that will charge me more than $15 to cancel or make a change.

Lesson #3: You Don’t Need as Much Room as you Think

We thought because we had a large 2400 square foot home, that we needed a large RV. As a result we purchased a 44′ Fifth Wheel toy hauler. Now after three years on the road, we realize that we do not need such a large RV. See the interior tour below.

Update: We recently downsized to 30′ Arctic Fox Fifth Wheel. We love it! Learn why we choose the Arctic Fox below:

Biggest Regret: Our RV Purchasing Mistakes

We were not very savvy when we purchased our first RV. We bought brand new, paid too much, and financed the RV. While we spent a lot of time researching the type of RV we wanted, we didn’t really research costs. Click here to read our article on how painful depreciation can be. 

If you’re struggling with debt or creating a full-time RV budget, check out our Full-Time RV Finance program where we share our process for turning things around and paying off $137,000 in just two years. The program also includes exercises to help you assess your current situation, design your dream life, and identify ways to make money & save money on full-time RV travel.

Learn how to pay off debt, earn an income, and save money all while traveling full-time.

Sharing is caring! Feel free to share the image below on Pinterest. 

Read our lessons learned and biggest regret from 3 years RV living in a 5th wheel. We share tips and ideas to enjoy your RV life as a family. #RVlife

Related posts:

How to Keep Your RV Cool in the Summer
Are You Road-Ready? Emergency Preparedness Tips for RVers

Filed Under: Biggest Regret Full-Time RV Living, RV Resources, Top 3 Full-Time Lessons Learned Tagged With: 5th wheel living full time, biggest regret, biggest regrets in life, full time rv living, full-time rv, Lessons Learned, lessons learned full-time rv, my biggest regret full time rv, my biggest regret full timer rv, rv lessons learned, rv life, RV Living, rv living full time, rv living full time cost, rv living tips, rv regrets, RV travel, rv travel tips, what i learned living in rv

Comments

  1. Laura says

    October 2, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    Happy Nomadiversary! That is awesome!

    It’s funny that you mention the importance of traveling slowly and being more deliberate. We tried to do that from the beginning and still feel like we haven’t gotten it right. I am in the process of writing an article right now about how easy it is to go too fast and do too much. There’s just a lot to see and do and sometimes it’s difficult to say no!

    I also agree on staying flexible. I have such a hard time with the reservation issue. On the one hand, I know myself well enough to know that having reservations makes me less stressed out. On the other hand, we have missed out on some great opportunities because we didn’t want to lose deposit money at campgrounds. It’s just a hard thing to balance.

    Anyway, great post and congratulations again!

    Reply
    • Julie says

      October 2, 2017 at 8:17 pm

      Thanks, Laura! I enjoy reading about your travels. You seem to have a pretty good rhythm to me. 🙂

      Reply
  2. Sonya says

    October 2, 2017 at 7:38 pm

    Congratulations! Happy nomadiversary! We totally agree on taking your time. We work as well and find even 2 weeks is sometimes not enough. We were in Bar Harbor Maine in August and decided to extend our stay a week as we loved it so much. Fortunately the next campground we had booked was flexible and moved our dates without penalty. Congrats again and thanks for sharing your advice and knowledge with us.

    Reply
    • Julie says

      October 2, 2017 at 8:16 pm

      Thanks for reading my post! We visited Maine a couple of years ago and didn’t spend nearly as much time there as I would have liked.

      Reply
  3. Mark Rasmussen says

    October 7, 2017 at 6:17 pm

    Nice informative video. We are in the process of selling our houses, and we’ve picked out a ’16 Keystone Fusion Chrome 43′ TH, and a ’15 F350 diesel puller truck. We live in WI., and plan on staying in TX/NM/AZ area for winter, and back to the Midwest in the summer workamping. Liked some of the ideas you had for the pictures. We have so many!!! Also the Command strips. Hope to see you out and about in our travels!! Mark Rasmussen

    Reply
  4. Tammy says

    October 25, 2018 at 9:55 am

    I am amazed how good your couch still looks. We have a 2014 HD 3110 toyhauler. The couch is peeling so bad, one backrest is almost bald. Lippert offered 40% discount on another of their sofas in a color that wont work, but I can buy residential for same price AFTER their 40%. ANd we only used this gently for about 1 month a year.

    Reply

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