Our decision to become full-time RVers meant a lot of adjustment for us – leaving our jobs, our friends, and our home of many years. Many people who have taken on the full time RVing lifestyle are able to downsized their worldly possessions, Mike and I both had things which we didn’t want to give up and which we couldn’t bring with us on the rig. Because we don’t know how long we’ll be traveling and living this way, that means storing the bulky stuff was necessary.
We had limited storage options with family, much of it spread out, and so for practical reasons, we had to look into purchasing a storage unit close to our old apartment. While the ongoing expense of owning a storage unit is something to be mindful of - in our case it offered many advantages. The main advantage was to downsize over time in storing our possessions instead of “all in one go.” And even now, a week in, we are finding things that we packed with us in the RV that we want to take to storage while it is still only a few hours away. As we packed up our lives and moved things into storage bit by bit, the slow trickle of boxes out of the apartment belied the magnitude of the lifestyle change that was coming for us.
Finding a quality yet inexpensive storage place was tricky. I’ve had bad experiences with storage units in the past, so we made sure to protect our property while in the unit. Mike’s experience with retail business storage was an asset – he made sure everything was placed on pallets to keep from flood water damage and any fabrics were covered by garbage bags and even sealed in a box. We prepaid for six months of storage for a few reasons, first it meant we could lock in a good rate for six months, second, it’s an expense that is behind us, and third, we don’t have to worry about paying it while on the road for now.
We follow other couples’ blogs who transitioned to the full time RVing lifestyle and read many websites and listened to many podcasts, but something that we learned for ourselves in this process is that no two people (or couples) transition in the same way – some people sell their house, others, like us, reach the end of an apartment lease. Some people can park their RV in their drive way for outfitting, others are not so lucky and have to park in it in a storage place over an hour’s drive away. Some people start out young before they have many possessions, and others start later in life, so they have to decide what to keep and what to part with. It is important to leap into a chance like this with both feet, but you have to be honest with yourself and your partner about what your long-term plans are in life. We are both looking at this right now as a step in our life – an important step, but not the last step. If you plan to live in an RV for the rest of your life, then by all means sell or give up all you cannot take with you, but if eventually you want to settle down into a “sticks and bricks” life then it doesn’t make sense to part with everything.
