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This week is the RV Family Virtual Summit—a web based convention the place touring dad and mom share their finest ideas and information on what it’s prefer to journey with kiddos. I’ll be dwell Wednesday, May 12 at midday MT speaking concerning the prices of RVing. You can signal as much as tune in free of charge right here and ask questions! ????
Last April, when the nation was all however shut down and we have been quarantining in place in Alabama, Ellie took her first steps. We have been there for some time, so by the point we hit the highway once more, she was strolling like a professional.
And RV life instantly modified.
RVing with a Toddler ❤️
When Heath and I first began RVing, everybody requested if we might journey with our youngsters.
And after we discovered we have been pregnant, we knew the reply was YES. We have been going to journey as a lot as attainable with our youngsters.
We’ve been touring with Ellie since she was 4 weeks previous and so lots of our favourite journey recollections are watching her see the world. Like when Ellie burst into tears of jealousy watching Heath eat gelato and cannoli in Venice.
Or watching her leap within the waves on the Florida coast. Hike within the mountains within the Rocky Mountains. Chase birds, bunnies, deer, and each single canine at each single campground. Giggle with delight when a monkey ran proper at her face on the zoo. Climb the crimson rocks in Moab.
These moments are the highlights of RVing with a toddler.
Heath and I beloved touring collectively. But—as tacky cliché guardian because it sounds—there’s nothing like watching your child journey. There is an unexplainable larger stage of pleasure and success.
Heath & I don’t share a lot about what RV life is like for us on our weblog. When you’ve been RVing virtually on daily basis of your complete marriage, it’s much less like “Look at all this cool stuff we can do” and extra “This is just my everyday life for the past 2,000 days.”
I wished to share a bit of what RV life seemed like for us final yr with a toddler as a result of it was SO totally different than our years of travels earlier than Ellie might stroll.
Ellie was 7 months previous after we moved into the Winnebago full-time and a yr and a half after we purchased our home. She began to crawl, stand, stroll, run, climb, and leap in that RV. And we discovered loads about what journey with youngsters can appear like. (And simply how EASY it was to journey with Ellie when she was a child!)
Most of the folks I discuss to who’re concerned about hitting the highway have youngsters or infants and are excited about touring full-time, so I need to share a few of the largest ups and downs of our yr of full-time journey. (If you really need the down-low on RVing with youngsters, try the RV Family Virtual Summit streaming dwell free of charge this week!)
Let’s begin with the most important factor folks warned us about earlier than we ever had youngsters.
Staying Adventurous
In scripting this weblog, I attempted to think about a time that Heath and I couldn’t do one thing due to Ellie.
I can solely consider one: white water rafting on the Arkansas River. We camped proper on the river and watched so many individuals paddle by on daily basis! But apparently 12 months is simply too younger to white water raft so we couldn’t each go.
Other than that, she’s come together with us in all places.
One of the fears I hear from my adventurous couple mates is that they received’t be capable to go on as many adventures with a child in tow. To some extent, that’s true. Ellie received’t be rafting for an additional yr or two.
But for essentially the most half, she fortunately carts together with us on each journey. Hiking, snowboarding, splashing in waterfalls—she’s down.
The largest distinction is that as Ellie has gotten older, we began planning adventures round nap occasions so Ellie might remember to get in not less than one good nap a day. (It is MUCH tougher to get a toddler to nap on a hike than a child!)
Finding Places to Explore
There are some stuff you by no means count on to do in life that can occur when you might have a child. Like saying “Don’t eat that [insert rock, deer poop, flower, dirt, sand, grass, etc here]” a number of occasions a day.
But the most important never-thought-I’d-do-that that stands out to me is studying Google evaluations of public parks.
When Ellie and I wanted to get out of the RV so Heath might work, a playground was all the time the simplest, most cost-effective choice. Most campgrounds the place we keep don’t have playgrounds—particularly not playgrounds match for a one-year-old—so I’d open up Google Maps and search playgrounds close to me.
This typically pulls up any park on the town, failing to filter by parks with playgrounds. Which is why I’d find yourself spending 10 minutes taking a look at images and studying evaluations determining which park had a playground—or higher but, a toddler playground—and which of them have been simply soccer fields. (Google overview mothers are so detailed. The slide was too scorching! Lots of shade however no trash cans by the picnic tables!)
I’ve been to so many playgrounds all of them mix collectively and Ellie has beloved all of them. Every city has one and it’s the right approach to kill a pair hours and get exterior—particularly when swimming pools, gyms, indoor playgrounds, and every thing else the place youngsters can play collectively was closed for many of final yr.
And within the fall, we discovered it very easy to seek out actions to do with the entire household. We spent many weekends at totally different fall festivals and Ellie was fascinated when she acquired her face painted (pictured above). I believe/hope throughout non-pandemic occasions discovering extra festivals and occasions to discover with youngsters year-round will probably be even simpler!
Making Friends
This previous summer season, we invited all of our shut touring mates to caravan and camp with us. And we acquired to see so many individuals! Including caravanning for a month with our mates Chris and Rachel and their son who’s about 6 months older than Ellie.
We didn’t see many different folks RVing with a toddler and—possibly that is pandemic-specific—however folks weren’t notably concerned about our one-year-olds enjoying collectively.
If we hadn’t been in a position to camp subsequent to so many mates, RVing would have been loads tougher for Ellie. She is tremendous social—final week touring in Florida she would stroll as much as strangers, wave and say hello, after which introduce mommy and daddy. The woman loves everybody. (She additionally made mates by stealing the opposite youngsters’ toys as a means of inviting herself to play with them ????♀️ She has not discovered boundaries however is not less than studying to share!)
I believe that is one thing that will probably be simpler as Ellie will get older, however as a toddler, making new mates or spending time with different households with younger youngsters was troublesome. Especially after seeing how a lot enjoyable Ellie had caravanning with our mates for a month, figuring out she missed out on that interplay for a lot of the yr was arduous for me. Ellie and I spent virtually each minute collectively whereas touring and I KNOW she acquired tired of me and would’ve most well-liked somebody her measurement to play with.
Boondocking
In 2020, we boondocked lower than any earlier yr of RV life! We spent a lot of the yr in Colorado, so we have been by no means missing for mountain views or riverfront campsites. But we would have liked hookups.
This was primarily for temperature causes. In the warmth of the day, it might simply get to 90+ levels within the RV with out the A/C runnning, even when it wasn’t truly that scorching exterior. Most boondocking websites we discovered have been in direct daylight, making it tougher to control the rig’s temperature within the afternoon solar.
But the factor concerning the mountains is that the temperature all the time drops at evening. Sometimes plummets. So whereas it might get actually scorching within the afternoons, we might get up to 40º temps inside our rig. Yes, we will and did run our furnace to remain heat in a single day when boondocking, however the fan in your furnace will zap your battery life quick!
This grew to become actually troublesome for Ellie sleeping. She would nap with the generator operating so we might activate the A/C after which put on fleece jammies smothered in blankets at evening. (And inevitably she would get up round 2 within the morning and climb in our mattress for physique warmth and snuggles.) A drained toddler shouldn’t be a cheerful toddler, so we sought out hookups for higher sleep.
The second motive boondocking was troublesome was the quiet. Boondocking is so peacefully quiet.
And Ellie requires a sound machine to sleep. Not a lot for her sake, however in order that Heath and I weren’t pressured to additionally go to mattress or be silent at 7 PM. Normally we activate the fan or A/C within the bed room and she will be able to’t hear a factor. But with out a sound machine (or a field fan sound app on our telephones after we didn’t have electrical hook ups), Ellie might hear us up and speaking or hanging out and wouldn’t be capable to go to sleep.
These points in all probability might’ve been fastened if we had an RV that was loaded with photo voltaic and a bigger battery financial institution so we might have regular energy always. That’s one thing we undoubtedly need on any future RV in order that we will maintain the infant snug regardless of the place we’re tenting.
This wasn’t a kind of ugh RVing with a toddler is so arduous sort of issues, however simply one of many small methods we tailored our travels for a toddler. Ellie by no means slept nicely when boondocking so it was best simply to keep away from it for some time for everybody’s sanity. ????
Working on the Road
Heath and I run two companies on the highway. It’s the entire entrepreneur a part of RV Entrepreneur. And we love what we do. It’s all the time been Heath’s dream to run his personal enterprise. It’s all the time been my dream to put in writing.
But two working dad and mom + touring full-time to new places – any probability of childcare =
And after a yr of touring full-time and each attempting to run our companies, we got here to a conclusion:
It’s unimaginable.
It’s unimaginable for 2 dad and mom to work on a enterprise full-time 40 hours every week AND have a toddler AND journey full-time.
We took it to our Facebook group to see if anybody else was making an attempt this and the final consensus was:
- We don’t each work or don’t each work 40 hours
- One individual watches the youngsters whereas the opposite works
- We needed to “drastically change our work life”
Which is precisely how we ended up. I grew to become a work-during-naptime mother working 10 hours every week max and Ellie and I went on adventures throughout Heath’s many Zoom calls.
Heath felt responsible about lacking out on adventuring with me and Ellie. I fell means behind on initiatives, missed deadlines, and dropped engaged on my guide. We didn’t publish a podcast for six months. And all our mixed stress made us notice we would have liked to determine an answer—ideally one which didn’t find yourself with me closing up our weblog and podcast and turning into a stay-at-RV mother.
This was an enormous impetus for purchasing a home and switching to part-time journey (the opposite motive we purchased a home was Heath’s firm obtained funding from the state of Colorado with the stipulation that we transfer to rural Colorado ⛰ ).
After a little bit of looking, we discovered part-time youngster care with a mother, booked a campsite for 2 months on the town, and took the RV on lengthy weekend adventures round totally different elements of Colorado.
Then we might all journey as a household. Travel went from being this troublesome factor that we couldn’t absolutely get pleasure from to “ahhh this is why we love RVing!” And it felt like we have been all RVing collectively, as an alternative of passing off Ellie so we might get our initiatives achieved.
Part-time journey has been good for us with Ellie being virtually two now. She has mates she sees virtually on daily basis. We have constant childcare and have caught up on initiatives we needed to postpone final yr. And regardless that we’ve got a sticks-and-bricks, we’ve explored throughout Colorado, gone snowboarding, visited Texas, hiked in Utah, and loved the seashores of Florida up to now six months with out having to sacrifice our skilled initiatives. I launched two programs I’ve been wanting to put in writing for literal years. Heath offered Campground Booking after working towards that objective for 5 years.
We couldn’t have managed these items if we hadn’t been in a single place for a short while.
With Ellie the place she’s at now and with one enterprise rising and a brand new campground on the horizon(!), full-time journey isn’t proper for our household proper now. But part-time journey (which up to now has meant touring every week out of each month since we purchased our home) has given us all of the issues we would have liked. Community. Time. Growth. Space. Adventures. New locations to discover.
We do plan to full-time journey once more—I’ve some BIG journey plans for 2023. I simply should persuade Heath. And Ellie. And see if I can get Heath’s dad and mom to retire earlier than then as a result of they might be useful to have round for childcare.
But with a child boy coming this fall, part-time journey is ideal for us for now. ????