Teddy and I love to travel as you’ve seen if you’ve read any of my other blogs. We’ve been dating for just under 2 years and got engaged in August of 2022. Our relationship started with conversations about travels and in the last two years we’ve had the opportunity to visit 32/50 states and 21/63 National Parks together. We’ve taken four longer road trips as well as a heck of a lot of weekend trips which has allowed us to visit so many places. Through our travels, we’ve talked on and off about traveling in a different way, specifically by RV.
Each time we talked about it the timing wasn’t right but on our last 13 day road trip through Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, we talked about it a lot. We started doing some research and upon returning home from our trip started to do hours and hours of research on RVS – size, brand, pricing, issues, considerations, etc. We have probably spent about 70-90 hours researching RVs. Let me tell you, I feel like I just took a course in RVing101 in the last month. I’ve learned about payload, axles, dry weight, hitches, a shakeout, leveling blocks, tongue jacks, amperage, plumbing, black tanks, grey tanks, various hoses, campground setup, RV apps, and so much more. My family never owned an RV before so this is all very new to me other than times I’ve stayed with friends or at a hotel that had Airstreams you could stay in overnight.
Through our research on Youtube, Blogs, Instagram, Pinterest, and conversations; we made a decision on an RV and purchased it in late September. Since the season is slowly ending since Pennsylvania freezing temperatures are approaching, we booked camping weekends for 4/5 weekends in October. To say I’m nervous is an understatement. I think we’re at the point in our research where we have a lot of information but don’t yet have experience applying that information. Like the quote credited to Albert Einstein – “Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience. You need experience to gain wisdom.”
I’m writing this the night before we pick up our RV (though it will post after we go on our first trip). When I’m managing the balance between nervous and excited. While Teddy and I are still planning to get to all 50 states and all of the National Parks, quite a few of our upcoming adventures will be closer to home. Stay tuned for how our first camping trips go. I’ll share both the highs and the lows, and I’m sure many of the mistakes we make along the way.
