When we announced our ten year anniversary of fulltiming, a blog reader wrote to ask me what we would do differently if we had it to do over again, but knowing what we know now about the fulltime RV lifestyle. In thinking about it, there are several things that would have made our lives easier and saved us a lot of money and frustration in our early years on the road. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. So here’s my list of things I’d do differently.

1. Do more homework. I thought that I’d done a lot of research before we hit the road, but looking back, we sure had a lot to learn. I read several books on fulltiming, as well as all of the popular RV magazines, and learned quite a bit. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. If I were planning on becoming a fulltimer today, I’d read even more, spend a lot of time reading the various internet forums on RVing, and attend a couple of RV rallies as part of my research.

2. Join RV Consumer Group. The independent RV Consumer Group rates all RV makes and models for highway control, reliability, and value, and provides a wealth of information on what to look for, and what to avoid when making an RV purchase. I have had some people tell me that they don’t trust the RV Consumer Group’s ratings because they do not actually buy and test each individual model of every RV made. Instead they rely on a formula developed by their research. My feeling is that until somebody builds a better mousetrap, they are a valuable resource for RV shoppers. If we would have known about their material beforehand, we would have never purchased our first motorhome.

3. Buy a diesel pusher. There is no one best RV make or model to meet everyone’s needs. We all have different RVing styles and priorities. For our needs, a 38 to 40 foot diesel pusher by a quality manufacturer such as Allegro, Winnebago, or Newmar would have served us much better than the 36 foot gasoline powered motorhome we originally purchased.

4. Not buy a campground membership. Within our first month on the road, we purchased an expensive campground membership, which turned out to be a total waste of money. I always advise new fulltimers to wait at least a year before they buy a campground membership. It takes that long to develop your traveling style.

5. Join the Elks and Moose. My memberships in these two organizations have provided us many nights of free and low cost camping. Our membership dues and the donations we make to the lodges where we spend the night help them with their many good works in their communities, so it’s a two way street. I wish we had not waited several years before joining.

6. Avoid Camping World. It took us a couple of years to realize that just about anything we can buy at Camping World can be found for less money at many other retail locations and online.

7. Not join Good Sam Club. From the day we joined the Good Sam Club we were flooded with junk mail wanting us to upgrade our membership and buy some other product or service they offered. The small discount we got on camping at Good Sam parks was not worth the cost and hassle of the junk mail they sent us.

8. Buy a Blue Ox towbar. When we started fulltiming, we purchased a Roadmaster Falcon 5250 towbar, and fought with it for years. The release buttons were very stiff to push to disengage the arms, and if our dinghy was not perfectly straight , we could not unhook it. A few years ago we upgraded to a Blue Ox Aventa tow bar, which releases with levers, and we have found it to be a much more user friendly product.

9. Research health insurance issues. When we changed our legal domicile from Arizona to Texas, our insurance agent assured us we had full coverage, and we took his word for it. Eighteen months into our fulltime lifestyle, Miss Terry was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, and our insurance company denied the claim. As it turns out, there was a 24 month exclusion for cancer, and even though we had the policy long before we started fulltiming, the clock started ticking all over again the day we switched addresses. A bridge policy to cover the gap would have saved us a fortune.

10. I would have started a blog earlier. I’m a dinosaur, and when people first started talking about blogging, I did not pay any attention. Since then, my thinking has obviously changed. Blogging has become an important part of our income stream, and the commissions we receive from those little ads you see on the blog help us pay our bills. But even if we did not have a business, or any ad income, blogging is a great way for RVers to stay in touch with their family and friends, and to record their travels.

So there are my Top 10 Things I’d Do Over. I’m curious, what would you experienced RVers do differently if you could start all over again?

Thought For The Day – Don’t go to bed angry. Stay up and plot your revenge.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Wow, I announced in yesterday’s blog that registration was open for our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally, and e-mails starting pouring in! We must be doing something right, because we already have both returning vendors and attendees registering already.

If you are a member of the Escapees internet forum and find an e-mail in your in box saying you have a new private message, delete it. Just about anybody who is registered with the forum got the same e-mail, and it’s spam that will take you to a Russian teen sex website.

Don’t blame the Escapees. They are victims too. The sleazebag who launched the e-mails registered with the Escapees forum, jumped through all of the hoops necessary to get an account, and then sent out his garbage.

Someone asked me why a person would go to all of that trouble, and the answer is, obviously, money. You say that you’d never subscribe to a pornographic website? The creeps doing this don’t care if you do or don’t. They make money either way.

Just as we have Google ads on our websites and the blog, and we make a small commission every time a reader clicks on one of those ad links, these guys have set up a code that shows the clicks they set up are coming from them, not a legitimate website. So when you click on their “private message” link, you are really clicking on a link to a website that pays them a commission for every visitor. They can make a lot of money very fast doing this, and as soon as one victimized website discovers their intrusion and blocks them, they move on to the next one.  

This was a real problem a few years ago, and several good websites eventually shut down because they grew tired of constantly fighting this kind of trash.

How can you protect yourself from scams like this? It’s simple, but you have to be alert all of the time. Don’t click on links sent to you in any unsolicited e-mail. In the case of one like this, go to the actual website (Escapees, in this case) and check your messages there.

Also, read the URL address where an e-mail comes from. Is it something you recognize? Read carefully, is it similar, but not exact? When in doubt, don’t click.

A good virus program and a spam filter, such as AVG and Ad Aware can catch a lot of what comes to your inbox. Run them religiously. But remember, there are all kinds of jerks out there creating malicious crap to send out, and as soon as the good guys find a way to stop one, fifty more come up with something new to make internet users’ lives miserable. It’s just one of the woes of life in our high tech world.

Thought For The Day - The person who goes the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare; the “sure thing” boat never gets far from shore.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally