We are celebrating our 1 year Anniversary on the Road!
Well, living in 375 square feet isn't for the faint of heart, but we are managing! I know this part of our website has been absent content for about a year but in a way, I wanted to have a year of living in Hermione behind us to be able to give you the truth, the lowdown and the 411 on how you can do it, too.
To be honest with you, I wasn't totally onboard with getting rid of a house and putting our most precious possessions (photographs and antiques) into storage and hitting the road. It wasn't in my 5 year plan, or even my 10 year plan...but I can honestly say after living this way for a year and looking at the financial, physical and emotional costs, we are just fine.
Robert had been planning this for several years. He has always said that he has seen the United States from 30,000' above the ground and always wondered "where does that road go?" We both love to travel but our travels usually took us to a Marriott hotel or a timeshare with a king size bed, a shower separated from a nice big bath tub. Usually a pool and hot tub where involved. But honestly, I get most of those things in our RV.
What kind of rig do we own? Hermione is a 35' Class A, Thor Hurricane that runs on gas. We have a RV king bed that we have added a 3' topper to so that it is comfortable. We also took out our Jackknife couch and put in a full size desk that we store important papers and I sometimes sit at to work. But most of the time, I sit at the table with my laptop, editing images that we've taken, creating and uploading videos to YouTube and working on our blog.
What comes standard in our rig? In our rig we have a propane stove/oven, a microwave that will work when we are on shore power and when we need to run the generator. That part is super handy as I can hit up leftovers when we are on the road for lunch. It also has a residential size refrigerator that has an ice maker in the freezer! That's right! We never have to buy bags of ice which means we also travel with a very small cooler in our Jeep when we go out hiking of exploring. The rig also came with an area to put a washer and dryer unit but we opted to use it food storage. In essence, it's my pantry. We modified the shelves so that they could carry a bit more weight and it has worked out great. There are two theater seats with cup holders but the cup holders are awful. Either not deep enough for our Yeti cups and you definitely don't want to put a wine glass in them. The table can drop down and make into a small bed for a grandchild but the best part is that they are part of our storage. Extra blankets, games and even our Instant Pot gets stored there. When traveling, the front cab is pretty comfortable. Bruce Wayne has a bed that goes up by my feet and he even has a doggie window to look out while we are traveling. I keep my camera and GoPro up there on travel days but when we are parked, it becomes the laundry room and catch all. I would love to do that space a little differently and am looking into getting full length curtains to go on a tension rod to block out how messy it looks up there. The curtains will also serve as a way to keep the heat from coming into the living area.
Do we have televisions? As far as tv's go, the rig came with 4. Can you believe it? Who needs 4 televisions? We got rid of two of them that were on the inside. The outside tv gets used when the weather is nice but we replaced the main tv with one that we had a home. We now use an Amazon Fire HDMI plug in so that we don't have to use the Apple tv set up anymore. It is so easy now. Robert purchased a Sony sound bar unit with a subwoofer and we have excellent sound quality now. In fact, it can get to be too loud at times in such a small space. The sound bar sits on top of the desk under the 60" tv and the subwoofer sits under the desk opening. Speaking of the desk opening. It also gets used as a storage space. Dog food, computer bags and anything else that needs to be stored safely when we are on the road gets put there.
What happens on travel days? On travel days, all the kitchen utensils that are out, along with paper towel holder, scale, rugs, trash can and laundry basket get stored on either the bed or behind the bed. The extra dog bed goes up on one of the theater chairs and all the fans get stowed under the table along with the laundry detergents and products. I sometimes work while Robert is driving so I have a skid proof mat that I put under my laptop and we use a Verizon hotspot to keep up with our internet needs as best as possible.
How do you stay online? Speaking of internet, here is what we use. Our phones have service through AT&T, we have a Verizon hotspot and when the campground or rv park has internet and it's faster, we will use it. I've found if we are following an interstate, I can stay connected for almost the entire trip but we have been in the West this year and internet is spotty in the mountains.
Where do you store things? Storage is always an issue in a rig. Smaller rigs have less storage areas than bigger rigs, typically but we have made it work for us. When we got our rig, the color scheme is blue, gray and brown, so I started looking for baskets that were gray to match the coach's interior. I then used a combination of gray and beige baskets (actually I already had these at my home in Conroe) to put coats, hats and winter items in above our bed. Two of them will fit nicely over my side of the bed and then the camera equipment, tripods, my cross stitch and items that we don't use on a regular basis go there. Then I put another basket in our hanging clothes closet to put extra shoes in like flip flops, water shoes and boots. Under our bed there is plenty of storage for more camera equipment, our first aid box (which was supplied from all the items I had in our bathrooms at home), external drives, and a few books. Behind the tv that is in the bedroom, we have a place to store books and our portable Bissell vacuum. I hang up my necklaces and bracelets on a small towel rod that is stuck to the wall and keep the remote and a sundry of items in the drawers next to my bed. We have 1 drawer that we have dedicated to work out clothes, bathing suits and bike pants and then the other drawer is a catch all drawer. You know, the junk drawer! Batteries, 3M tape, charging cords of all sorts and tape measure go in that drawer. Oh my goodness, it's a mess just like my junk drawer at home. I did put in some dividers I bought on Amazon to keep it as tidy as possible but it still is overflowing. I have a basket that sits on my side of the table that I put my camera charger in, a notebook, our Farkle game and anything else that goes with the GoPro. Then there is one more on the desk that we keep our riding gloves, our masks and our National Park maps. We also use the desk to keep important papers in, printer paper, pencils and pens, bills, etc. Plus I have my Wacom tablet there when I need to use it.
Where do you keep your grill, chairs and other camping needs? For the most part, all of that goes under the rig. At each location before we throw out the passenger slide, Robert will ask me what we need. We have a 21" Blackstone, and a Weber Grill that come out if we are some place for more than two days and we have two folding chairs with side tables that we love to sit in. We did away with our Zero Gravity chair because I didn't like it that much and it took up too much room. We keep an outdoor rug underneath, a heavy duty mat to put at the front door and any grilling items. We also have a place for suitcases for impromptu plane trips which also double as a place to store out of season clothes. The rest of the rig has hoses, tools and anything else that Robert needs for the setting up of the electrical, sewer and water.
With all this in mind, the rig has become our home. We have found our routine which doesn't mean we are always outside on the go! The past two days, I've been updated our website, working on YouTube videos and editing pictures. Robert pays bills, read his mail, watches TV and does the normal every day activities.
Check back here for more content soon to come on how we plan our trips and how we decide what we are going to do when we get there!
Thanks for joining us on this pretty EPIC Adventure of ours. We are glad to share anything we have learned so please don't hesitate to shoot us a question.