We're almost 6 months into FT RV'ing, thinking sometime in 2014 it might be nice to plan a vacation to the Caribbean or somewhere. We are both still working full - time so while we've had a couple of vacation weeks and a couple of long weekends since becoming FT'ers and find time to explore local museums, gardens, try a hike or paddle, etc. we still find ourselves working on the "to do" list for maintenance, work, cleaning, etc. We're thinking we might still want the occasional vacation away from our home on wheels just to get away from all those "to do" lists.
For those of you who have done this, would love to hear how you planned in advance, where do you leave your rig? Do you empty the fridge and have to totally restock all condiments or do you find a storage area where you have minimal plug ins? If you have solar (something we'll have installed next spring), does it maintain enough of a charge to keep the fridge going? How do you figure out the best boarding situation for your pet? What other things do we need to consider?
folivier said
07:58 AM Jan 2, 2014
We've been full timing for just a year and left our motorhome 3 times last year to fly back home. Twice was in a small town just east of Denver for a month and then a week. Had an electric/water site, talked to the owner and he kept an eye on things and gave us a nice discount. Then in Salt Lake we stayed for a month and during that time flew home for a long weekend. Didn't bother telling the campground we were leaving. Had no problems but of course we took perishables out of the fridge, turned off the water pump, unhooked hoses and just left the electric on with heater running.
We considered a storage area but couldn't find any that had good electric or weren't in a "not so good area" so decided a campground in a small town would be best.
We will definitely do that again as it's so nice to take a vacation or go see family when you're on the road all year.
sdman said
09:27 AM Jan 2, 2014
We have been full timing for the past 1.5 years and we fly back "home" for the winter holidays (Thanksgiving - Christmas). So we have done this twice now. Last year we flew back from south Florida. Our winter campground (stayed 3 months) also allowed us to store the 5th wheel and truck for the month we were away for $150. We cleaned out the fridge and fully turned off the rig. We started using up perishables about 2 weeks in advance. This was actually a good time to defrost the freezer and fully clean the fridge for us.
This year we stored the rig in south Texas for 33 days for a whopping $25. The truck, we made arrangements with a hotel near the airport where we stayed the night before we left to watch the truck for nothing.
For us, we wouldn't leave the rig powered up longer than just a few days unless we had someone we trusted looking after it. Probably then just for a week trip. Knowing that the power, including the battery, and the gas is off just makes us feel better while we are gone.
Each time we have guess we have thrown away and given away less than $20 worth of food so it really isn't a big deal for us. Just need to plan ahead and try to use up as much perishables as possible before you leave.
Mark
Technomadia said
11:29 AM Jan 2, 2014
We've done this many many times over our years on the road - from just a couple days to 5 months away.
If we're just taking off for a couple weeks or less, we'll usually find a campground where this is allowed (such as some public parks require someone to be sleeping in the camping unit every night). Sometimes the campgrounds will give you a storage rate and just toss you a power cord. Sometimes we just leave the rig in our site and let management & neighbors know. We prefer to have stayed in the park for a bit before taking off, to get a feel for it and the neighbors. For these shorter departures, we of course consume all our veggies and other perishables, but leave everything else.
For longer times away, such as when we went down to live in the Virgin Islands for 5 months, we found a friend with land who was willing to let us park there for our time away and kept an eye on things (we of course made sure he was appreciated). If a friend's land wasn't available, we'd find a storage lot. For longer term stays, we completely emptied anything that could perish, drained all tanks, cleaned out the fridge and left everything basically off. We just planned our meals leading up to our departure to minimize the amount we had to gift/toss.
For our cat - sometimes we find her someone to stay with, sometimes we take her with us or sometimes we find someone trustworthy to come visit her while staying in our RV.
- Cherie
Loretta said
11:40 AM Jan 2, 2014
I know that this RV park has a low storage fee and I would definitely leave our RV here if we were to leave it for awhile. We are planning a 2015 re-positioning cruise and will be gone almost a month so I would be interested in following this. Of course depending on where we start our cruise will determine where we will find temporary lodging for the cats. I would think that if you knew of someone workcamping at a certain park, near where you will be taking off from,they would be willing to check in on your rig while you are gone. Just a thought.
WestWardHo said
12:22 PM Jan 2, 2014
Great thread again Ruth,
We've found many small private parks do offer very low rates to keep a site and electrical hookup while away.
We're dying to go on a Viking River Cruise in Europe but the pets are the issue. Our kids are all crazy busy with their own lives and don't need added challenge of caring for our pets. Friends we trust have cats and dogs of their own, we've never boarded our pets. We're thinking of staying at a small private park where we know there is a trustworthy pet & house sitter but that takes real planning. Elma RV Park in WA State could offer all but we don't plan on being back there soon.
Maybe someone has a good suggestion(s)?
Sherry
GENECOP said
01:31 PM Jan 2, 2014
While in Florida we left for a 10 day cruise....left MH in Port St Lucie RV resort, drove to Ft Lauderdale dropping the three cats off at Chatue Poochie....Absolutely HATED leaving the cats but aside from being angry for a couple of days they where OK...
Loretta said
01:38 PM Jan 2, 2014
We have a couple that are here for the season that offer pet-sitting services. I would think that if there were people that offered this in the parks they would do quite well since alot of people are not comfortable with boarding unless the place has excellent reviews.
The Bear II said
01:51 PM Jan 2, 2014
We left the trailer at a park for 2 weeks. While we were gone a bad thunderstorm had come through the area. The ground became saturated and our front jacks sank down about a foot eventhough I had placed pads under them. That made the refrigerator off balance so it stopped cooling.
We came back to a foul smell in the rv from rotting food and a half of a day of work to get the trailer raised enough to hitch it up.
suse1023 said
09:18 AM Jan 4, 2014
hey fwiw i'm in central florida sans pets and have a terrible case of 'empty lap syndrome'.
we left our menagerie in Vermont with friends so I can help with pets if you need it.
NWescapee said
10:09 PM Jan 4, 2014
Thanks for all the replies, you've given us a lot to think about. It's all so new to us after having a house for so long and having pet sitters locally that we knew and trusted. However, after spending a couple of vacation weeks in our home on wheels where we had fun on vacation but also found ourselves doing a deep clean, maintenance of the rig, biz work, etc. we think we do need the occasional vacation away from the rig so we can ignore work, maintenance, etc.
Suse - we might be in touch if we actually move our rig to Florida next winter, we're thinking a fly away to St. Martens and we definitely have a kitty who is a very demanding lapcat when given the opportunity!!
We're almost 6 months into FT RV'ing, thinking sometime in 2014 it might be nice to plan a vacation to the Caribbean or somewhere. We are both still working full - time so while we've had a couple of vacation weeks and a couple of long weekends since becoming FT'ers and find time to explore local museums, gardens, try a hike or paddle, etc. we still find ourselves working on the "to do" list for maintenance, work, cleaning, etc. We're thinking we might still want the occasional vacation away from our home on wheels just to get away from all those "to do" lists.
For those of you who have done this, would love to hear how you planned in advance, where do you leave your rig? Do you empty the fridge and have to totally restock all condiments or do you find a storage area where you have minimal plug ins? If you have solar (something we'll have installed next spring), does it maintain enough of a charge to keep the fridge going? How do you figure out the best boarding situation for your pet? What other things do we need to consider?
We considered a storage area but couldn't find any that had good electric or weren't in a "not so good area" so decided a campground in a small town would be best.
We will definitely do that again as it's so nice to take a vacation or go see family when you're on the road all year.
We have been full timing for the past 1.5 years and we fly back "home" for the winter holidays (Thanksgiving - Christmas). So we have done this twice now. Last year we flew back from south Florida. Our winter campground (stayed 3 months) also allowed us to store the 5th wheel and truck for the month we were away for $150. We cleaned out the fridge and fully turned off the rig. We started using up perishables about 2 weeks in advance. This was actually a good time to defrost the freezer and fully clean the fridge for us.
This year we stored the rig in south Texas for 33 days for a whopping $25. The truck, we made arrangements with a hotel near the airport where we stayed the night before we left to watch the truck for nothing.
For us, we wouldn't leave the rig powered up longer than just a few days unless we had someone we trusted looking after it. Probably then just for a week trip. Knowing that the power, including the battery, and the gas is off just makes us feel better while we are gone.
Each time we have guess we have thrown away and given away less than $20 worth of food so it really isn't a big deal for us. Just need to plan ahead and try to use up as much perishables as possible before you leave.
Mark
If we're just taking off for a couple weeks or less, we'll usually find a campground where this is allowed (such as some public parks require someone to be sleeping in the camping unit every night). Sometimes the campgrounds will give you a storage rate and just toss you a power cord. Sometimes we just leave the rig in our site and let management & neighbors know. We prefer to have stayed in the park for a bit before taking off, to get a feel for it and the neighbors. For these shorter departures, we of course consume all our veggies and other perishables, but leave everything else.
For longer times away, such as when we went down to live in the Virgin Islands for 5 months, we found a friend with land who was willing to let us park there for our time away and kept an eye on things (we of course made sure he was appreciated). If a friend's land wasn't available, we'd find a storage lot. For longer term stays, we completely emptied anything that could perish, drained all tanks, cleaned out the fridge and left everything basically off. We just planned our meals leading up to our departure to minimize the amount we had to gift/toss.
For our cat - sometimes we find her someone to stay with, sometimes we take her with us or sometimes we find someone trustworthy to come visit her while staying in our RV.
- Cherie
I know that this RV park has a low storage fee and I would definitely leave our RV here if we were to leave it for awhile. We are planning a 2015 re-positioning cruise and will be gone almost a month so I would be interested in following this. Of course depending on where we start our cruise will determine where we will find temporary lodging for the cats. I would think that if you knew of someone workcamping at a certain park, near where you will be taking off from,they would be willing to check in on your rig while you are gone. Just a thought.
We've found many small private parks do offer very low rates to keep a site and electrical hookup while away.
We're dying to go on a Viking River Cruise in Europe but the pets are the issue. Our kids are all crazy busy with their own lives and don't need added challenge of caring for our pets. Friends we trust have cats and dogs of their own, we've never boarded our pets. We're thinking of staying at a small private park where we know there is a trustworthy pet & house sitter but that takes real planning. Elma RV Park in WA State could offer all but we don't plan on being back there soon.
Maybe someone has a good suggestion(s)?
Sherry
We have a couple that are here for the season that offer pet-sitting services. I would think that if there were people that offered this in the parks they would do quite well since alot of people are not comfortable with boarding unless the place has excellent reviews.
We came back to a foul smell in the rv from rotting food and a half of a day of work to get the trailer raised enough to hitch it up.
we left our menagerie in Vermont with friends so I can help with pets if you need it.
Suse - we might be in touch if we actually move our rig to Florida next winter, we're thinking a fly away to St. Martens and we definitely have a kitty who is a very demanding lapcat when given the opportunity!!