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How to get started traveling full-time in an RV or camper: Do your research

Shifting to full time RV living/traveling is entering into a massive life change and I believe you can be pretty prepared (especially accounting for all the resources online). So here's our perspective on getting ready.

How to get started traveling full-time in an RV or camper: Do your research

Posted August 06, 2021 by Bailey Mareu

I have shared before how I had a spark of an idea in November 2014 that led to us traveling full-time in a pop up camper. Less than 9 months later, we moved out of the Lawrence house we had been renting and started living and traveling in our camper. We didn't have a full time residence for over 4 more years when we moved into a house in Lawrence, Kansas in October 2019 (and then very quickly moved to Wilmington, NC in November 2019 for 14 months). A LOT happened in the 9 months from idea to execution. Initially, the idea was to travel for a few months (or maybe a semester since we lived in a college town and could potentially sublease the house we were in). Initially I thought we could get a Subaru and do a lot of tent camping with the occasional rental house or state park cabin. Eventually I stumbled onto the idea of having a portable home: an RV or camper of some sort.

The internet is a lot of things but it does have a lot of inspiration for doing life differently. And thankfully, there were videos and blog posts of how people were already full-time traveling: how they got internet on the road, where they stayed, how they got their mail, how they voted. There are endless answers out there. You just have to do your research!

Places to research:

  1. YouTube
  2. Blogs
  3. Facebook groups (I hate referring people to Facebook as I'm trying to avoid the platform, but that's where the community discussions are happening right now.)
My recommendations would be to look at various sources. Not just one YouTube channel or one Facebook group. We'll be providing a lot of info here on this website but we're not the sole owner of this information - these are our perspectives and our recommendations. Get opinions from multiple people. Look into the ways you can travel with your specific travel goals - and budget - in mind. In the Facebook groups, browse what's already there. There's a search function in every single Facebook group: if you are looking for a specific answer, USE the search to see what has already been discussed. (It's annoying to see the same question week after week in the same group).
There's a lot of answers out there for "how" to full time travel. And the info we provide on Mareu Life will be my perspective. But I would take all these resources as not "what to do" but an inspiration for crafting your own journey. Your motivation for traveling full-time is different from everyone else. So how you actually do it can be different too.

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