Fulltime Rving - Life on the road with dogs

I've been meaning to make this thread for a long time now. I've mentioned in bits and pieces over the years that my husband and I are fulltime travelers/RVers, who travel from coast to coast and everywhere in between regularly. Most of our traveling is based on a seasonal work pattern we have set up and follow every year, though we are opportunists, and have jumped on unexpected offers that have lead us to new adventures at the very last minute. During down times, usually early summer, we simply spend our time doing more or less whatever we feel like. We have a full solar system set up on our trailer, so we do a lot of boondocking in BLM (public land) and are still able to get electricity quite literally in the middle of nowhere.

Our dogs have been with us through it all. A lot of the questions I get from people are usually how our dogs enjoy this way of living, how they handle travel and living in a small space. The simple answer is that they absolutely love it, and while I can babble on and on about all the cool things we've done, I just don't think words can do it more justice then pics, and thus this thread is going to have quite a few of them.

Nevada​

New Orleans, LA​

Kentucky​

The thing I've come to find is that so long as you are taking care of their needs, they adapt very easily. All the people and places they get to experience aside, they simply seem to really love being with us constantly.


My husband has been hitch hiking the country long before I had met him. We met online, and he hitch hiked from AZ to NH to meet me in person. While traveling through Nashville on his cross country journey, he found Charlotte, when she ran into the open door of a friend's house, starving and beat up, apparently having been in some dog fights. But she was still in good spirits. She stayed with them for about a week and wouldn't leave, despite having the freedom to. When the owner of the house said they were going to dump her on animal control, my husband decided to keep her and take her with him.

My husband and Charlotte the day he officially adopted her. This was taken by the vet who spayed her


My husband and Charlotte now

A few more from their journey up north together. Char was so skinny I assure you she didn't stay that way long though.




We've calmed down a lot since our early days, but most of it was spent roadtripping the eastern united states and canada in a station wagon, camping and going on long distance bicycle rides with Charlotte being carted around in a bike trailer.


Eventually, we adopted Ma'ii because we figured Charlotte may want some canine companionship.


In January, we always returned to AZ faithfully, as my husband had a job in a tax office that he returned to every year. While there, a client of his told him about a seasonal job that hired fulltime RVers. This sounded really good to us, because this place paid good money, and on top of that they also paid for your spot at a campground. We didn't have an RV, but we applied anyways, and were surprised when we got hired. Since all we had at the time was our station wagon, we got a cheap pop up camper in NH to pull behind it and took off to KY, where the campsite host hooked us up in a boat storage shed.



At a Cabellas in PA




The new job was a huge success, but only took up half our year, and ended just before tax season, giving us enough time to get back to AZ. Eventually we upgraded to a motorhome, and then sold that and bought our truck and travel trailer we have now, and just kept doing the same job gigs every year. Eventually we advanced with the work camper program, and are traveling around the country to help them launch new facilities. Currently, we're in NJ, soon to be going to TN.

And that's our lives. We bounce around all over the place, working hard the majority of the year, then come summer time when we hit our "off season", we have enough money to live off our savings and just vacation around and do what we want for a while. Sometimes we take trips to visit family and friends, other times we stay in the general area and boondock on national forest land. Other times we get more adventurous and take off on backpacking or bike trips. One year we biked from northern california to San Francisco, then back again.

The dogs have been GREAT through out all of this, especially Charlotte, who from the very beginning was simply happy to just be loved by someone and to have a home to call her own. We are her home, no matter how small or awkward the space, weather it be an actual apartment or a tent in the woods, she's completely content so long as she has us. Ma'ii took time to learn and adjust to life with us, and for an unsocialized, reactive farm dog that was a lot to ask, but he has come such a long way, and like Charlotte, all he wants is to be with us, and so long as he gets to do that, he's willing to do anything.












Life pretty much rocks <3

Neat post! I always wondered how you got into this.

This is one of the coolest stories I've read on this forum. Thanks for sharing. I hope to hear more in the future.

Your life sounds adventurous

I am too much of a homebody to be able to do what you do...but I did really enjoy reading about your way of life. I bet you have a lot of very cool stories to share.

It's not for everyone. It can be very exausting at times. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I've met so many amazing people and seen so many great things, that it far outweighs the bad.

That sounds amazing! I need to make sure my dh doesnt see this lol...think it would fit him very well, unfortunately would not be a good fit for the kids or I lol.

It certainly is one giant, amazing country isn't it? How cool it must be to just go and enjoy it

That is absolutely awesome and I'm super jealous! SO and I have been talking about this as a possible retirement plan, but in the mean time we're pretty well grounded and will have to settle for vacation only travel.

I'd love to see what your "map" would look like with pins in all the towns you've been. HaHa.

If you don't mind me asking, why did you go Truck/Trailer over motorhome? We're looking into buying something for our road travel and are debating the Truck/Trailer or motorhome towing 2 motorcycles.

Well, everyone has their own preferences, but we decided to get a truck/trailer because we liked the open space and set up trailers had vs that of the old motorhome we had. Motorhomes tend to be a bit cluttered in regards to their layouts, which is okay if your just vacationing in them, but it sucks when your living fulltime in them and have to share your space with another person and two dogs. Travel trailers are more opened, so you can move about more freely and not feel like your living in a hallway LOL.

We're still toying with weather or not we want to keep the set up we have. We know we want something with slideouts. We've been in plenty of rvs that have them and they make a world of difference. We have plans to get a bigger, stronger truck next April, and from there we will talk about and plan on getting either a newer travel trailer with slideouts or something different like a 5th wheel or a large cab over. We don't want to go to big, because it gives you less options for boondocking in BLM, which is one of the best parts of doing this.

Wow, what a awesome life you're living. I'm glad you can travel and see the country. I'm looking forward to updates as you live your life on the road.

Wow, sooo envious. My dad has an RV so I go on occasional trips with him and we always bring the dogs. Jackson LOVES it. It's one of my dreams to bring Jackson along with me to a bunch of new cities and states and just get out there and explore. Of course jobs, money, etc, hold me back, but wow, you guys lead a great life.

That sounds like loads of fun!!

My parents were seasonal (about six months out of the year) RVers while I was growing up. When we first started we had three grown-size people (I was about 5'10" by the time I was 12) and two big dogs in a ~40ft fifth wheel. In time the dogs dwindled to a Papillon and a BC instead of a couple huge muttlies, but we still enjoyed travel with them. Me especially. Ridiculous times, and frustrating if privacy is your thing, but still cool.