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April 21 Fulltiming.Did you ever travel? As a business man/woman you hurry from point A to point B - seen nothing.
As an invited guest for a family party you are glad to be home again after having seen loved ones.
A few days off from your work? You might have seen a lot, but nothing could nourish your soul, no time for that!
You know what "full-timers" are? We are talking modern gypsies! There are also "Snowbirds", which are really half-timers. Most of them are worrying about their property when they live somewhere in the south during the winter and are looking forward to go south when they are home in the north. They have to deal with tax deadlines, with weeds overgrowing their yards, with traveling the same roads over and over, from home to the secondary home in the south or retour.
Full-timing is a rapidly growing industry. More Recreational Vehicles are produced every year, campgrounds expand and modernize and so on. As an individual, your first decision is a very hard one - to part from your belongings and keep only things you need to function. I took most of my clothing, later on I realized that campers dress simple and need mainly t-shirts and sport shoes. Coffee tasts as good out of mugs than out of fine china cups. One set of dishes of a lighter weight is fine and the glass you fill with wine in the evening is not french crystal anymore. To take our pet cat with us was a non-negotiable decision. At one point, your RV is filled to the limit. If you buy one thing, another one has to go. After a certain time you start to feel free, free of the thought of "must have", and you start to notice your friendly camper neighbors ( you just ignore the few who never behave as they should) , hear their travel stories, which are overall fascinating and contribute with your own travel reports. If you have a laptop computer next to the nessecary cellphone(s), you can exchange reports about your locations and get new travel tips, photos and meeting those e-mail friends here and there anew. You connect to nature for good, it's our church.
You might ask: What about getting mail or having a steady address? No problemo, there are mail-forwarding memberships and real addresses (billing addresses) out there. You have to do some search work and ask fellow campers. Some campers are not retired yet, taking their jobs on the road and have different views out of their bedroom window every so often. If you are a real adventurer and drive into the wilderness, you have incredible views of raw nature out of every window! If you feel sick, no problem either. A hospital is always nearby. Some very excellent doctors in Florida saved my husbands life in 2005. - - -
Rock-hounding, fishing, walking, hiking, sight-seeing and sozializing -- and almost no housework, compared to your former life! No lawn mowing, no snow plowing, no leaves collecting, no maintaining a big property. What a life! Hobbies can be taken on the road, also. If you want to do something you just have to put your mind to it and make it happen! My loving husband accepted my hobby of jigsaw-puzzling and cut a piece of paneling to accomodate my 1000 pieces puzzles, which I could transfer from table to atop the bed or to the outside. In the meantime I advanced to puzzling on the computer, where I use our own photographs to convert to jigsaws. Get the picture? We love our way of living! Till next time - Karin. |
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