The Wendlands share a list of RVing lessons based on their experiences.
By Mike Wendland, F426141
November 2014
The odometer turned 60,000 miles on our Roadtrek Etrek Type B motorhome as we pulled into our Michigan driveway after our latest trip: four months on the road through 21 states, taking us from Cape Cod to the Pacific Northwest. When you add that to the 15,000 miles we drove in our first RV, it means that in 2 1/2 years, we have 75,000 miles under our collective wheels.
Along the way, we’ve learned a few things. And we’ve made some mistakes. Here are some of the RVing rules we now embrace.
1. There is no hurry. Okay, sometimes you really do have to be somewhere at a certain time but, in general, RV travel should be flexible. To enjoy it to the max, you need to be able to stop when you want, where you want. Setting an agenda, over-planning, and plotting out stop-by-stop overnights is way too organized for us and causes us to miss the things not found in a book or through online research, like taking a road far off the interstate just because it looks interesting. It almost always is, unless it’s U.S. 20 in Iowa. But hey, even that was worth driving, because we can cite it as the world’s most boring drive.
2. Don’t believe interstate exit signs. I credit U.S. 20 as the inspiration for this, too. A sign along the interstate announced that fuel (diesel) was available at the next exit. I took it. At the top of the exit ramp, the diesel sign pointed to the left. That fuel station was 5.4 miles away in a town, meaning a time-wasting 10-plus-mile round trip. (I believe the RoadNinja app is the best tool for finding reliable fuel at exits.) And there’s more about these roads:
3. Stay off the interstates if possible. They are boring. You’ll wind up in a tunnel. Trapped on the concrete. Buffeted by trucks. Surrounded by roadside signs. Forced to drive at ridiculously fast speeds as everything around you blurs by. The only food available at the exits is fast food. Sometimes, of course, you have to use these roads. Around big cities, interstates help get you out of the congestion. But, generally, two-lane roads — the so-called blue highways — are more interesting and get you closer to the places and people that make the RV life so enjoyable.
4. GPS units can be unreliable. If you rely only on a GPS to get you somewhere, sooner or later you’re going to miss your mark and be lost. In my role as a tech reporter for NBC-TV affiliates, I’ve tried them all: the various brands of GPS devices, as well as the Google and Verizon apps, and the apps on Android and Apple devices. They all fail. They all provide incomplete navigation at times. Their maps differ. Plus, GPS dead spots can cause trouble. A GPS transceiver needs at least four satellites to determine a position accurately. Even on flat ground with a clear line of sight, there can be dead spots where two or more satellites aren’t available. So, the transceiver just gives up as though no satellites are there.
Our solution is to carry paper maps. We now have a shoebox full of state maps. We use them more and more.
5. Take less clothing. We use something called eBags — soft, little, easy-to-store bags that hold an amazing amount of clothing. Jennifer has three pink ones; I take two blue ones. One of my bags holds underwear, socks, and T-shirts — I pack five of each. The other is for shorts, jeans, and shirts. In our coach’s wardrobe closet hang a pair of dress slacks, one dress shirt, one sweater, plus a rain jacket and a warm sweatshirt. Jennifer has the female equivalents in the wardrobe as well. We hit a coin laundry or pick a campground that has a washer and dryer about every five or six days.
6. You can overnight in a rest area. Well, at least you can if you don’t set up camp early in the afternoon, put out the lawn chairs, and hang those twinkle string lights outside your front door. Rest areas are for rest. Pulling in after dark and leaving in the morning after a night’s sleep is not going to get you in trouble, unless you make it look as though you are spending the weekend.
7. Avoid commercial trucks when overnighting. Whether at a Walmart or a rest area, park away from big rig trucks, whose engines may run all night long. One evening, on a lonely stretch of U.S. 212 in Montana, we looked in vain for a national or state campground. Most of the area was reservation land for the Crow or Cheyenne Indians. Finally, about 11:00 p.m. near the town of Broadus, we found a state rest area and turned in. We even saw another Roadtrek like ours parked there, along with a handful of trucks.
We blissfully went to sleep, only to awake at 1:30 a.m. to the sound of rumbling engines and the smell of diesel fumes. And the place was bathed in light. Besides running their engines, many truck drivers keep their lights on all night. Every inch of space was taken up by trucks.
We could sleep no more in that place. We left and drove to South Dakota, where we found a KOA near Spearfish a little after 3:00 a.m.
8. Good camp chairs are a must. When we first started RVing, we used two collapsible, telescoping camper chairs. They fit in our motorhome’s rear storage compartment, but they weren’t very comfortable. This year, we bought two zero-gravity chairs, which let you lie back and look at the sky. (That’s what we call them — our “look-at-the-sky” chairs.) They’re not as easy to travel with, but are so worth it when we want to relax somewhere. We store them folded inside our coach.
9. Follow the 230 rule. A full-timer explained this to me early on. The 230 rule is that you stop when you have driven 230 miles or it’s 2:30 in the afternoon. A variation is the 300 rule. Drive no more than 300 miles or stop by 3:00 p.m. Regardless, the idea is get somewhere while it is still early enough to explore, chill, and enjoy the place when you’re not exhausted from driving mega miles. We are trying to adhere to that rule.
In our early days, I looked at the daily driving mileage as a challenge. The more, the better. I kept trying to set another personal best. (It’s 735 miles, by the way.) Silly. Stupid, really. Is there anything worse than pulling into a campsite after dark? Stopping early is our new mantra.
10. Put away the bed. This is a personal preference. I know many Type B owners use the two single beds in the rear and leave them made up as beds every day. We tried it, but we prefer to sleep with the bed made up as a king. Every morning, we put it and the bedding away and set up the rear sofa again. It’s neater, and it gives us more space to eat, work at the computer, and not feel cramped. On the few occasions we’ve left it as a bed, the coach felt very small.
11. Eat out often. This is where we differ from most RVers. It has worked best for our style, but may not be best for yours. I refuse to feel guilty about it. Most of the time, we eat at restaurants. We fix a simple breakfast in the coach, and we make our own coffee. We typically pick up lunch at a restaurant and, about every other day, find a local eatery for dinner. When we do fix dinner in the RV, it’s simple and light, such as grilled chicken strips over a salad. We use a Cuisinart Griddler for most of our cooking and grilling, instead of a charcoal or propane grill.
Local restaurants give you a feel for the people and place. It’s as much of a cultural exploration as a convenience. So we don’t fight it or feel ashamed because we’re not carrying lots of frozen dishes and preparing every meal in the motorhome. If we were full-timers, it might be different. But for now, we eat out.
12. Campground Wi-Fi is slow. Don’t even bother accessing it, unless you are the only campers around. Otherwise, the RVer three spaces down is streaming Netflix videos and has gobbled up all the bandwidth. Campground Wi-Fi is shared, which reduces its speed. We carry a Verizon Mi-Fi data card to create our own network. (All cellular carriers have similar devices.) But maybe I should quit talking about our data card, because this year it seemed that many other campers were doing the same thing. At some campgrounds, even the cell service was maxed out. See why we like boondocking?
13. Winter is just as much fun as summer. We camp out in our motorhome year-round. Alas, we do have to winterize, living in Michigan as we do. But other than having to drink from bottled water and flush the toilet with antifreeze, it’s just as easy to RV in the winter as it is in the summer. Winter RVing is awesome. The crowds are gone; the snow makes everything beautiful; and it is really, really fun. We’re again planning a winter camping trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in February.
14. Don’t make impulsive purchases. Here’s where I mess up. Case in point: I shelled out more than $1,200 for two folding bicycles at a rally this summer. Yes, they are cool, but we didn’t need them. We have two full-sized bikes at home. If we plan to bike a lot during a motorhome trip, I can attach them to a bike rack on the rear hitch. I’m going to try to sell the folding bikes and promise Jennifer to never again buy on impulse. I may also be listing the roof-mounted cargo box — a $700 impulse buy. Yes, it holds a lot of stuff, but the more we RV, the less we pack. And there’s also my drone — another impulsive purchase. I’ve used the camera-equipped quadricopter fewer than a half dozen times on our trips. Maybe I will sell it, too.
15. Everything in moderation. We spent a week at a very nice campground, where parties and happy hours were scheduled every night. Fellow RVers, many of them seasonal residents, partied like seniors on a perpetual spring break, and some probably should not have gotten behind the wheel of their golf carts afterward. The RV lifestyle can be unhealthful if one isn’t careful.
So there. Fifteen lessons we’ve learned that have become our rules for the road. I’m sure there will be more in the future. See you out there.