If you want to go RVing full time in the big rig, you gotta know your mission and your time frame!

So, you want to go full time RVing?

In our first post in this series we discussed the importance of being flexible and your mindset for living in an RV full time.

So here we get to the next important step in the process of planning your full time RV trip, mission and time frame.

What’s Your RVing Mission?

It may seem kind of obvious, but without this you’re going to wander around aimlessly as you try to plan your full time RV trip. You full time RV mission could be any number of things, but the most important thing in this step is to figure out what you want to accomplish with your family.

So what do you really want to see? Some ideas to answer this question include:

• National Parks in every state?

• Baseball fields across the US?

• Historical sites?

• Amusement parks?

• Antique shows?

• Museums?

• Natural wonders?

• Craft Fairs?

• Your 72 cousins spread across the country?

• The 4^th grade curriculum of the western movement?

• All of the restaurants that you’ve seen featured on “ Diners, Drive-ins and Dives”?

It could be any of these goals (or more) or a combination of them all. Whatever it is, start there.

Map It Out

Start by creating a list of your “must  see’s” and plot them on a map.  Now, for each member of your family this could mean a different  genre.

If your husband is a history buff (like mine), historical sites and battlefields were top priority to him, as were the baseball fields; you know that he had to get his MLB fix too!

For me, the history was ever so important:  I just HAD to see Laura Ingalls Wilder’s house, the Henry Ford Museum, and Abe Lincoln’s house too.

For our family, we tried to build much of the trip around the kid’s school curriculum that way we could tie lessons plans into real life exposure.

Get Some Travel Books

This is a good point to get some travel books on both full time RVing and travel in the US and Canada. You may stumble upon some other areas of interest to add to your itinerary.

Some of our favorites:

• 1,000 Places to See Before You Die

• Life: Heaven on Earth: 100 Places to See in Your Lifetime

• Frommer’s Exploring America by RV

• Off the Beaten Path: A Travel Guide to More Than 1000 Scenic and Interesting Places Still Uncrowded and Inviting

• Live Your Road Trip Dream: Travel for a Year for the Cost of Staying Home

• Road Trip America: A State-By-State Tour Guide to Offbeat Destinations

Whatever it is for your family, start there and then you can connect the dots to develop your route.

After you have done this then its time to figure out your time frame…

Determine Your Time Frame

What is the duration of your trip?  Is it a summer?  A year?  Decide how long you have and how much time you want to allocate to each general area of the trip.  For example one month in the Northeast, go for a full year cross country or by September you want to be in Seattle.

Write it down and decide how long you’ll be away.

• Decide how long you want to stay at each spot 

Do you like to set up, do a quickie of the area, see the sites and get out within a couple of days?  Or do you like to unpack, call it home for a week or two and enjoy the surroundings as a local?

• RV driving considerations

Its very important to take into account the amount of driving that you want to do in between destinations.  We knew that we never wanted more than a 6 or 7 hour driving day.  Others don’t mind a 12 hour day behind the wheel if it gets them to the next location.

• Events to plan around?

Also are there any events that you have to get to be a certain time?  For example, we want to be at Uncle Lou’s family reunion in Nebraska by July 4^th or we want to see the Rose Bowl parade in January in California?

Or maybe you want to plan a trip home for a “visit” in the middle of your trip.

For us, we planned a trip home for November and December.  As a family, having never been away from home for this duration of time, we wanted a scheduled-in time to go home and see our family and friends.  The holidays seemed the perfect time to go home for a visit, catch up, regroup, and avoid the winter roads.

Lots of things to consider when planning an RV trip full time.

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