Living In A House With Wheels
BOSTON (CBS) - Do you have snowbird envy as you watch those RVs head south? Wondering how you would do on the open road?
If you think you might like the RV life style do some homework before you make a down payment on an RV. Average age of an RV owner is close to 50 with 40% of owners over 60.
I would strongly recommend renting an RV for an extended vacation to see if this is the life style you thought it might be.
Type in RVing at Amazon and you will find almost 300 books on the subject. The Complete Idiot's Guide to RVing is in its third print run. A very funny book is How Not to RV.
Proceed with caution on the websites you find. They all make RVing sound so romantic! Start with the website Go RVing.
Don't forget the maintenance cost of an RV. They also need to be stored when you are not on the road. And excise tax on a fancy new one could be around $4,000 a year and you need to insure it. RVs get lousy gas mileage so running to the store for bread could cost you $5 on gas before you get in the store.
And don't forget the campground fees. Figure $50 a night or more. There will be just so many nights you will want to spend in a Walmart parking lot.
And something so many folks don't think about because they romanticized so about the traveling, you are going to eventually have to empty the toilet storage tank.
Do you think the nomadic lifestyle is one you could embrace? Visiting the warmer states in the winter and summers north? Do you want to park your RV in a mobile home park in Florida for the winter or the Cape in the summer?
Best advice here, do not sell your home and all of your worldly possessions and buy an RV to drive off into the sunset until you have done your homework.