Let’s get one thing straight: RV living is awesome. Some benefits include exploring the open roads, checking off bucket list items, and visiting family.
However, there are trade-offs for everything.
Today, we’re exploring the not-so-fun side of RV living. These “seven RV nightmares” are important to consider before your next RV trip.
Let’s dive in!
1. Internet Connectivity
Internet connection is essential when you’re road-tripping in your RV. Whether you’re doing business or traveling as a family, a solid internet connection is a must.
We have multiple devices and internet providers, but the best tool in our arsenal is the WeBoost cellular booster. It allows us to boost unusable cell signals to strong signals capable of calls and Netflixing.
But, sometimes, we’re just stuck without the internet.
It took many bad experiences to convince us that RV living must have cell connectivity.
The most important reason to be connected is safety.
For us, at a remote boondocking location, we were stuck with no internet connection and had an emergency with our dog, River. With no cellular connection, were couldn’t research the nearest vet. We had to drive 15 miles from the campsite just to make a phone call.
2. Nasty Weather
When we lived in a sticks-and-bricks house, inclement weather was mostly annoying. Now, a strong windstorm is enough to rattle our bones!
We’ve experienced 60 mph winds, torrential downpours, and freezing cold nights; all of these conditions are amplified in an RV.
You can easily destroy your awning or slide toppers in heavy winds. Hail can ruin an Airstream. And, traveling in bad weather is a complete no-no.
On multiple occasions, we’ve had to seek shelter in campground buildings during tornado warnings.
The upside is also that our RV is on wheels; we are free to move if we stay on top of the weather conditions and have time to relocate. But, sometimes, the weather will creep up on us pretty quickly.
3. RV Storage Space
Traveling in an RV means you’re going to have to minimize. You can bring a lot, but you surely can’t bring everything.
After 7 years on the road, we’re still removing unused stuff. It’s amazing how few clothes we really need… but there’s never enough storage for kitchen items. Even if our kitchen items fit, they are the first to get rattled around and break on travel days.
We’ve discovered a few RV storage hacks that help, but nothing compares to a home’s storage space.
4. RV Maintenance
Screws (or, in our case, rivets) get rattled loose every week.
RV maintenance is an ongoing venture. We overhauled and renovated every system in our RV before hitting the road, but maintenance is never-ending. Once we fix a leak, the tires need attention, and so on…
We recommend as much preventative maintenance as possible, but it’ll never be enough.
Every RV we owned had issues, and the one RV we bought brand new, may have had more than all the others!
5. Laundry
Some huge RVs have washers & dryers… ours is not one of those. Even though it has an option to add them, we’d hate to add the additional weight to our load.
Each week, in every new town, we hunt for a laundromat and hope we have enough quarters. This issue annoyed me much more initially, but it’s become a therapeutic chore lately.
However, there are many dingy laundromats in the USA. We avoid those like the plague by reading reviews before we arrive.
A good rule to live by: always have a least $10 in quarters at any given time!
6. Being Lonely
A life of constant movement can easily turn into a life of solitude. We’ve found that slowing down our travel speed can help create new relationships with the locals.
We also joined a few RV groups (Escapees RV Club is our favorite) to build friendships with fellow RVers. Lastly, a phone call to the family can cure the nomad blues.
7. It Ain’t What it Used to Be
We began RV life in 2015…not really that long ago. But, after the 2020 RV boom, camping has never been the same.
Our favorite free camping spots have often become overcrowded (or worse, shut down), and campground prices have skyrocketed.
Like hotels, many RV parks have switched to a dynamic pricing system. This means prices are spiked during weekends, holidays, and special events.
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Good list, especially the Laundry one! I even bought more undies so I could go longer between laundromat trips. The only one that doesn’t apply for me is the lonliness one; I boondock almost exclusively, 365 days a year, and never get lonely as long as I have something to read!
Ah, the irony of laundry. Our college-aged son has a washer/dryer in his apartment. We full-time RV parents are the ones taking our dirty clothes to the laundromat every week! Did not see that one coming…
We’ve been lucky with laundry. When we’ve campground hosted, the state parks all had laundry facilities on site. Our big headaches have been maintenance — every time an RV moves, seams flex, screws vibrate, and seals around windows and elsewhere that we thought were watertight turn out to have leaks the next time it rains. Storage is the second biggest issue. We have plenty of it; it’s just not especially convenient. Lots of blind corners where it’s easy to forget exactly what all is in the compartment when you can’t see half of it or compartments where access to them involves getting down on the floor and seeing things from a snake’s perspective.
This winter we’ve been having condensation issues, which is not something we expected in Arizona. We probably should have because of the dramatic differences between day and night temperatures. The pads for the bunk over the cab got soaked from water building up on the inside of the window glass and then running down on to the bunk. We invested in a dehumidifier and that’s helped.
Internet has been the main issue for us. Free WiFi doesn’t always mean at your site, or a good connection from the clubhouse. We’ve upped our data twice and only been on the road 3 months.
We bought one of those little washer that suppose to spin, it doesn’t that has been a waste of space. But agree, we brought too many clothes. I’ll be cleaning out next month before we hit the road again.
And kitchen stuff,… it is spread all over the camper due to lack of actual kitchen storage.
Thanks for the tips. We’re just starting as full-timers-lots of questions
Your list is a good one, but as with any major life change it takes serious thought and a lot of consideration. My wife and I have been active RVers for 46 years, our dream was always to be full timers and travel. We host at State and National parks all over the US for about 9 to 10 months out of the year, we have been doing full time for 6 years. For us there is no better life, but our answer to everyone that asks, this life isn’t for everyone. There are plenty of things you must give up and likewise all kinds of gains. Even though we new we could handle the changes we did it for 2 years and kept our home until we were absolutely sure we wanted this life. I would say the thing on your list that most is at the top of our list is the weather, laundry and one you didn’t list, medical care. Heck most of the others you have even in a permenant home. The bigger the space the more you use, maintenence is needed on anything and so on. A very important fact is if your living in it buy a unit that has full time features. Ours has insulated windows, no sweat, cold weather package, extra heavy tires and axles, it was built to live in not just for camping weekends. We hope everyone has as much fun as we do, our travels have taken us across the US 6 times and across most of Canada.
We replaced our WeBoost Drive 4G-M with a Maximum Signal Max Amp RV cell booster/repeater, and found we are getting solid cell signals and good data speeds on both Verizon and AT&T even in some places the WeBoost gave us little or nothing. The Max Amp inside antenna also gives us a signal throughout our motorhome, instead just within a few feet of the inside antenna like the WeBoost. We’re obviously very pleased with the improvement!
[…] just read an article in Drivin’ & Vibin’ titled “The 6 Worst Things About Full Time RV Living.” Having dealt with all six of these issues, here is my view on how to handle these “6 […]
Awesome! Thanks for sharing!
We wouldn’t trade this lifestyle for anything! We love it and the challenges are so minimal really. We hope to do this for many years to come! Happy Trails!
We completely understand! Living in an RV is constant maintenance! We also have issues with condensation with our camper from time to time. I dont think we have anywhere to put a dehumidifier though.
Haha!
Can’t have too many undies!
All great things to know here. We both work remote so the internet/phone suggestions are particularly important. I would thought dealing with the black tank and small refrigerator would bother more people. Trying to find a place to dump your tank isn’t a pain? Plus, if your in ‘who knows where’ wilderness where will you store your food? Most campers we see come with the standard dorm frig.
We’re thinking of going full time RV living in April 2018. Class A or C. So much to consider my brain hurts.
We aren’t full timers, but are often out for up to 6 weeks in our truck camper…possibly longer when I retire. Our Chevy 3500 is a wi-fi hot spot and does have 4G OnStar telcomm as long as it has an unblocked southern orientation. Laundry has yet to prove a problem. We learned to use attended fluff and dry services in our 1st trip to Europe. We went out 2 pillow cases full of laundry after being out about 10 days. We got it back in 2 days with a $400 bill. Ten days later we found an attended laundromat…dropped it off, went to lunch, shopped and returned in 3 hours and paid about $50 with a nice tip. We’ve done that same thing camping in just about the same 10 day cycle. We don’t get into many winter situations, but when we have the 30,000 BTU heater in our insulated Bigfoot is more than adequate,..and we have not experienced any interior moisture.