People who don't own RVs have many misconceptions about fulltime travelers. Often in restaurants or on tours we are asked where we are from and when we say we are fulltime travelers we are asked a lot of questions. I also get emails daily from people asking about our lifestyle and having questions about RVs. I thought I would write about some of the misconceptions.

Don't you get tired of living in a little camper?

Actually we live in a motorhome that is 41 feet long, 8 1/2 feet wide and it has two slideouts. It is far from being a camper. It is more like a luxury condo on wheels.

Don't you get tired of eating in restaurants?

We like to eat in restaurants, but we cook most of our meals at home. (Yes, our motorhome is our home.) We have a three-burner range, a microwave/convection oven and a two-door refrigerator/freezer. We cook the same meals as we did when we lived in a house.

Do you cook all your meals on a grill?

We often cook on a grill, but usually cook in the motorhome.

Wouldn't you like to sleep in a real bed?

We do every night. We have a queen-size bed with a pillow-top mattress and a memory foam topper. It is the most comfortable bed we have ever slept in.

Can you take a shower in your camper or do you use campground facilities?

We have a beautiful large shower and it is much nicer than any campground shower.

Doesn't your camper get hot in the summer and cold in the winter?

Our motorhome is well insulated and the ceiling has an insulation value of R-24, about the same as most houses. We have dual-pane windows. The motorhome is equipped with two heat pump / air conditioners and a furnace and has dual climate controls, one for the bedroom and bathroom and one for the living and dining areas. Our motorhome is very comfortable whether it is 10 degrees or 100 degrees outside.

I have a friend who paid $30,000 for his motorhome, how much did you pay for yours?
Motorhomes are expensive and I can't afford to buy one.

New motorhomes can cost as little as $80,000 or more than a million dollars. Many fulltimers buy a motorhome equal to the cost of a nice house.

You must put a lot of miles on your motorhome. Do you get tired of driving it everywhere?

We drive to a location and park the motorhome and use our Honda CR-V for shopping and sightseeing. We average about 12,000 miles a year driving the motorhome and about 16,000 miles a year in the Honda.

I bet you can live cheap in a camper.
I bet it cost a lot to travel all the time.

The cost of living fulltime in a motorhome is about the same as living in a house fulltime.

Don't you get bored living in a little camper?

No, our motorhome has all the room we need and the entire country is our back yard.

Traveling fulltime would wear me out.

It would wear us out too. We average traveling in the motorhome one day a week and sightseeing about two days a week. The other four days a week we go shopping, do laundry, read and watch TV and do our hobbies.

I can't imagine leaving my children and grandchildren. Don't you miss living near them?

We didn't leave our children - they left us and that is the way it should be. They grew up, got jobs and left our home to settle in their own homes. We think our children deserve to have lives of their own without our daily interference. All of our children don't live in the same area so it would be hard to decide which one to live near. When we visit our children and grandchildren we have a quality time together and then we move on. No matter where we are, we are only a few hours from any of our children and grandchildren by airplane. If we need a grandparent fix we jump on an airplane.

I could not give up my house to travel fulltime.

Fulltiming is not for everybody and we a happy for that. There are already enough people traveling in RVs to take up the good camping spots.