It’s hard to believe our fifth year of traveling this great country has come to an end. A year ago we were holed up at an ownership resort in the mountains of eastern Arizona preparing for a summer in that hot state. The pandemic was raging and traveling had changed so much that the fun we normally had while moving around was greatly diminished and we decided to just stay put to see how things played out. Fast forward to now, we are on a private 1/2 acre lot just west of Asheville North Carolina near Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We are both fully vaccinated and things are beginning to look a bit more “normal”.
The intervening months between starting the summer in Arizona and starting the summer in North Carolina has definitely changed our travel philosophy. The pandemic caused us to slow down our travels and spend more time in spots. In some ways, what we are doing now is closer to what we might have naively thought full time travels would be like when we decided to bite the bullet and hit the road. From the beginning we knew to avoid falling into the trap of trying to see everything quickly. We didn’t want this to become a race to see for instance all the National Parks in a year or two. We set an arbitrary limit to how many miles we drive on any travel day (200 miles) to help slow the pace. We hoped this lifestyle would be a multiple year journey giving us time to more thoroughly explore areas of interest.Back in 2016, we were consuming boatloads of information from others that had gone the full time route. It might be hard to learn from other people’s experiences and mistakes, but we could use this insight to formulate our own plan. We sold the house and nearly everything that wasn’t coming along. A few boxes of keepsake items are stored with family but we knew not to pay for storage to hang on to furniture, tools and clothing. Too many others have come back to their storage unit after a few years of paying $100 per month only to realize the things they kept didn’t hold much value.
Was our plan perfect? Probably not, but we are still enjoying this lifestyle and haven’t killed each other yet! In the past five years, we have run into quite a few others like us at RV rallies or just randomly at campgrounds. There is definitely no “one size fits all” strategy. We’ve seen people full timing in small travel trailers while others have been in larger motorhomes pulling a huge enclosed trailer with all the things they “must have” with them. Some people will plan to do this lifestyle for just a year or two after retirement to see the USA and then settle down again. But we know one couple that has been doing it for 25 years and show no signs of slowing down. Then there is the movie ‘Nomadland’ - good movie that highlights some places we have visited - but nothing like our full time life, thank goodness!
We never formulated a plan to try to define how long we would continue. Each winter, we decide the general direction we want to head for the warmer months. And each summer we decide where we will winter. We just have gone with the simple approach: if we are still enjoying our travels and are still healthy enough to do so, we will travel. We have covered much of the country but it’s clear there are always more places to see. Plus there are always the great places we have already seen and want to revisit so I doubt lack of destinations will get us to come off the road.
Year five started out partway thru our 4 month stay in Show Low Arizona. At the time, 4 months was our longest stop. While the area was a bit remote, it kept us out of harms way, allowed us to get in some nice hiking and mountain biking and had the added benefit of access to a very nice woodworking shop. By summer’s end, we had to decide where to spend the winter. We’ve spent 3 of our 4 winters in Arizona and prefer it’s climate and recreation opportunities more than other spots, but having spent 256 nights of 2020 in Arizona, we needed a change. We found a place in Brooksville Florida that likely only had availability because the border was closed and most Canadian snowbirds were unable to come down.
We took a rather unconventional route from Arizona to Florida and spent 5 weeks heading across the country before settling into Brooksville for 5 full months. It was a nice chance for us to get some chores done on the motorhome and visit with family in the area for the winter. One of the things we did was order new furniture for our rig. Our furniture is suffering from peeling fake leather. We ordered it just before Thanksgiving. While there was a chance it would arrive before our departure date in April, we opted to have it delivered to the supplier we are working with in Elkhart Indiana.
Our spring plans left April and May flexible and headed up to Ohio for my niece’s wedding with the expectation we could go to Indiana when the furniture arrived. COVID and the Texas snow storm caused delays in supplies and our furniture has yet to arrive. So after wandering Ohio somewhat aimlessly for 5 weeks staying at 4 different state parks along the way, we headed south for our destination in the mountains of western North Carolina where we will spend June thru the end of September. Hopefully by October we can head up to Indiana and get our furniture!
Enough rambling about year #5, let’s get to some of the facts and stats for the year. Below is a snapshot of our route from the Google Map I use to keep track of our stops. The link below the map will open up the actual Google Map and permit others to zoom in for more detail. For each stop, clicking on the pin will pop up a window with a link to the blog post(s) for that stop.
Like I have done in years past, I have created “heat maps” that shows in a shaded manner where we have camped. The first one just shows year #5 and the 15 states we have visited. The second map combines all 5 years into one map. The past year did add two more states (Kansas and Mississippi) bringing our total to 43 states we have camped in while fulltiming.
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| Heat Map for Year #5 |
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| Heat Map for First 5 Years of Fulltime |
How did year #5 compare to the prior years? The table below condenses the main travel data in one place. We decreased the number of stops we made by 20% compared to the prior year and is fewer than half of the stops in year #1. This drove our average number of nights per stop to nearly 17 nights. Whether we will maintain this slower travel place in the coming years remains to be seen. We do have plans to head back to Florida for 5 months this coming winter but have not even begun to plan our travels for next year.
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| Condensed Stats |
Our motorhome miles went up slightly but this is mainly because we repositioned from west to east. It’s still much lower than our prior 4 year average. Our diesel cost dropped to 30 cents per mile partly because all of this year’s fuel stops have been using our TSD fuel card. Well over three quarters of our stops have been at private campgrounds but given our current travel style that’s to be expected. Stops at both Elks Lodges and boondocking also dropped this past year. This isn’t an indication of lack of interest in either of these, simply those options didn’t fit in as well with our travels on the eastern side of the country. We are pretty pleased with our average of about $26.50 per night for this past year. Our camping style has always been geared more to the general location of the campground rather than the amenities at the place. A state park with hiking opportunities appeals to us much more than a fancy RV resort with line dancing, pickle ball and bingo.
In the past reviews, we would list off the top few places we visited in the past year and give a brief description as well as a favorite picture from the stop. I was recently going over our previous blog posts and making a list of all the hikes we have done over the years and decided to mix it up a bit and describe our top hikes of the past year. I will still list the top locations but do so in the year end reviews. If I get ambitious, I might put out a special blog post listing the top hikes so far in our travels. In chronological order, here are the top 6 hikes in year #5 with a link to the blog post that gives more detail about the hike.
- East Baldy Trail #95 - Greer AZ We tackled this hike in late September in an attempt to beat the heat that had settled over Arizona during the summer of 2020. The trailhead is at an elevation of 9,400 feet and will reach nearly 11,000 feet if the full 11.7 mile hike is completed. We only did 8 miles getting up to 10,500 feet. It’s a very pretty hike with combinations of open meadows, thick mature woods and large rock outcroppings. If you’re into backpacking and tent camping, the full 16.5 mile loop would be an ideal 2 or 3 day trip. Blog post with East Baldy Hike
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| Spectacular View Along East Baldy Trail |
- Seven Bridges Trail - North Cheyenne Cañon Park near Colorado Springs One of several hikes we did during our 5 nights at the Colorado Springs Elks Lodge. Listed as a 3.8 mile hike with 1046 feet of elevation gain at an average elevation of 8,000 feet. The trail follows Cheyenne Creek up the valley. While not a slot canyon, it is narrow enough that you definitely feel like you’re in a canyon with steep rock walls on both sides. The trail’s name comes from the 7 bridges you go over crossing the creek on your way up the trail. Blog post with Seven Bridges Hike
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| View in the Valley of Seven Bridges Hike |
- Seven Hollows Trail - Petit Jean State Park 70 miles outside of Little Rock Arkansas Purely coincidental that another favorite hike has Seven in its name. Petit Jean was a wonderful state park to camp in with lots of other hikes in the park. However this 4.5 mile trail with 600 feet of elevation gain was by far the best one we hiked. Being a loop trail, there were always new things to see along the way. There are numerous rock formations including an arch and a natural bridge and a slight side spur to the Grotto. It’s a popular trail but wasn’t too crowded the day we hiked. Blog post with Seven Hollows Hike
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| Trail Along Rock Outcropping |
- Ledges Trail - Cuyahoga Valley National Park In Hudson Ohio The Ledges Trail in Cuyahoga Valley National Park is only a 2.3 mile loop without much change in elevation. The national park is situated between the cities of Akron and Cleveland Ohio which makes the unique rock formations of this hike all that more unexpected. There are many crevices that can be explored with mosses growing on the rock face. Large trees cling to the side of the ledges and a stone staircase built by the CCC goes between the upper and lower levels. Blog post with Ledges Hike
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| Into a Crevice |
- Hawk Creek Valley Suspension Bridge Trail near London Kentucky This trail is part of the longer Sheltowee Trace that runs 319 miles from northern Kentucky south into northern Tennessee. We can’t vouch for the full trail, but we did find two sections of it near our campground in London Kentucky that were outstanding hikes. The first was Hawk Creek Valley Suspension Bridge Trail (starts near mile marker 180.5) that's a 3.8 mile out and back hike and is mostly forested with some large rock formations along the way. The suspension bridge mentioned in the name was taken out by a large tree since last winter but it was still a pretty hike. Blog post with Hawk Creek Hike.
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| Beautiful Trail in the Woods |
- Van Hook Falls and Cane Creek Valley Trail near London Kentucky A bit further south on the Sheltowee (near mile marker 198) is a section named the Van Hook Falls and Cane Creek Valley Trail. This is a 5.7 mile out and back hike that has several waterfalls along the way. While Van Hook Falls was a nice place to stop for lunch, our real treat were the numerous butterflies at the Cane Creek crossing. Blog post with Van Hook Falls hike.
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| Small Waterfall Along Trail |
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| Tiger Swallowtails "Puddling" |
The following map has a pin for every stop in the past 5 years - well over 200 of them. For additional info on any of them, click on the link below the map and then on the pin for the desired location. If you’re into hiking, mountain biking, geocaching or general nature photography, you may find some of the blog posts interesting if you happen to visit an area we’ve explored.
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