Full-time RV Living with HD

A couple of months back I received a delightful email from a fellow full-time RVer and blogger. HD was reaching out to say hello and let me know that she’d quoted me in an article that she’d written on her website the Dirtbag Dao. Flattered by her email I went on to read said post “RV Living as Communal Living” and was immediately drawn to her writing style, her values, and her love of the nomad lifestyle. Mark and I ended up spending hours reading through her website, immediately feeling a kinship with someone we’d never met. HD’s “Why We are Nomadic” resonated deeply with both Mark and myself. She put words to this unique way of living in a detailed and poignant way that I never could.

I couldn’t help but ask HD right away if she would share her and her husband’s story with us in an interview. HD & David embody what it means to live unconventionally and on your own terms. May you find their thoughtful approach to their nomadic lifestyle as inspiring as I do.

How long have you lived on the road full-time?

HD: As of June 2024, we’ve been full-time RVers for 3 years

What prompted your decision to live on the road?

HD: I have always been a bit nomadic in some regards, often moving about every year since college. Together with my husband David, we’ve spent extended time traveling internationally, including a 7-month backpacking trip where we circumnavigated the world.  So we were already very comfortable being on the move and being around each other 24/7 in unique situations. 

Due to professional obligations, we had been uncharacteristically ‘settled’ in Connecticut for a few years and I was already researching vanlife/tiny homes/RVing for when our time there wrapped up. When Covid struck in 2020, that turned both our jobs remote and gave us all the excuse we needed to hit the road. We bought our first rig and sold our house the next summer, going straight from the closing into our new home on wheels in the driveway.  

How did you decide on your RV of choice?  Looking back, would you do anything differently?

HD: I took David inside a van and he immediately said ‘no way.’ A van felt too small for a couple, though I know those who make it work. But we are both artists and between his 5+ musical instruments and my own bountiful art supplies, we knew we needed a little more space.

After a lot of research, we went with the truck and trailer combo because we liked the idea of being able to leave our home in a spot and be independent with the truck. This has worked great for us for the last three years. We started with a smaller 21’ trailer (with a faulty back wall), but after a year we upgraded to a more solid Grand Design 32’ trailer that we love. It has bigger tanks for boondocking, which is our primary way of living, and a little extra space for all the aforementioned art/music stuff. We’re happy with the way our rig progression went and wouldn’t change it.

What do you do for a living, how do you fund your travels? 

HD: I am a freelance website copywriter and David is a CPA. We both work part-time (except during tax season for David, when he’s almost full-time) and as long as we have internet, we can work. 

Living on the road can be as cheap or expensive as you want, depending on what you value, your travel style, and your comfort level. RVing lets us live on a budget but still have rich experiences without timing them around weekends or vacations. We save the vast majority of what we earn for early retirement, but it doesn’t feel like we are grinding or sacrificing for that goal. Once we retire, our lives won’t change from what we’re doing right now. 

How would you describe your travel style? 

HD: I would absolutely describe us as slow travelers. We try to stay the 14-day max on public lands as much as possible and I’ve always said that my ideal travel schedule would be 3 months in 4 different places a year (though we usually end up traveling faster than that). Slow travel lets you take in a place outside of the usual sites and gives you a chance to spend time on things besides travel, which I think is important for lifestyle sustainability. 

Slow travel is also less expensive, takes advantage of having a cozy home on wheels, and lessens the amount of logistics planning I have to do. We’ll see tourist sites if they are of personal interest, but we’re not aiming to check off National Parks or all the states. 

These days, we often make travel plans around community and when and where our fellow travel friends are. So usually, our year is roughly scheduled out with maybe 3 or 4 destinations planned and all the in-between bits left open to enjoy whatever comes up. I like having a few things to hang the year on because it helps us coordinate with friends and makes sure that things we want to happen do happen by being planned out far enough in advance, but I think also leaving room for spontaneity is important too. 

What have you learned about yourself from this lifestyle?

HD: RVing is sort of an extension of the life I’d already been living, so switching to this lifestyle wasn’t too drastic a change, but the way it slows down time and forces every day to be different has both David and I looking back at each year and feeling like different people from the one before. Every year, we grow more capable and more independent. 

Among many other things, we’ve learned that we love a certain sort of jankiness in place and people. We admire those that are scrappy and get creative in order to live outside of society’s systems and on their own terms. I think a lot of Americans feel despair about this country, but RVing has let us step outside American norms and focus on what’s actually in front of us and not what’s on the news. Beyond the strip malls and suburbs, there are so many fascinating subcultures and wonderful janky weirdness tucked away in our wildernesses. 

I also learned that I’m scared of strong winds! But I’ve been working to temper that anxiety. 

What has surprised you most about this lifestyle?

HD: When we first hit the road, we were traveling through campgrounds and Harvest Hosts and I was shocked how much planning and coordination it took. With RVing only becoming more popular by the year, you really have to reserve spots way ahead of time and have your whole route planned out. I’m someone who easily trip plans all the time and enjoys it, and I still found it an exhausting amount of work. 

Thankfully about six months in, we learned how to boondock and our plans became spontaneous again as we can just show up to public lands whenever we want. 

What has been the most rewarding?

HD: Learning practical skills and how to be self-sufficient has been a huge part of our growth as RVers. The rigs are poorly made and oftentimes, going to a specialized RV mechanic is not possible, so you just have to roll up your sleeves and learn how to fix things yourself. 

Thanks to how full-time traveling resets our hedonic adaptation by always shaking up our comfort levels, we have become more adaptable and hardy.

When I was younger, I would have never imagined I could live entirely off the grid. Now, the way it brings me closer to nature, helps us live more sustainably, and expands my own capabilities is something I wouldn’t trade for the ease of convenient comfort. 

You spent a few months of this past winter at a BLM Long-term Visitor Area (LTVA).  Was it a good experience and would you do it again?

HD: We love the Imperial Dam Long Term Visitor Area near Yuma, AZ. LTVAs are incredible and I wish we had more of them throughout the country (there are only a few in AZ and CA) because they are basically neighborhoods built specifically for boondocking nomads. The government provides nice dump stations, water, and dumpsters for an extremely low season rate ($180 for 7 months). This is a wonderful resource for vehicle residents who need an affordable option and also don’t want to move every two weeks. 

The Imperial Dam LTVA is especially nice because they have a little privately-owned Christian center within the grounds that provides a free mail service, thrift store, propane, drinking water, social events, classes, and even free pancake breakfasts. With these services it really feels like boondocking lux. 

Imperial Dam doesn’t have a lot of attractions in the area, but we actually enjoyed that as a way to decompress and hang out with our nomad community. People come winter after winter and we spent a lot of quality time with our other RV friends without having to move or think about resources. We would definitely stay there again!

Full-time RV living is an unconventional way of life (especially for those of us not of retirement age).  Are there any challenges that come with living against the grain?

HD: David and I like to light-heartedly say to each other, “Sticks and bricks just don’t understand!” Without living this lifestyle themselves, people who live in ‘real’ houses (stick and bricks) can’t truly grasp the work and rewards that go into it. People usually either romanticize the lifestyle or don’t get why we’re seemingly making our lives harder. 

If you don’t have a community of other nomads, it can be very isolating. You’re usually not within a settled community long enough to really get to know people, and even if you are somewhere for a while, once people hear you’re leaving, they tend to not be willing to get invested. 

So you have to have a lot of confidence in your own choices and be willing to stay true to them. On the positive side, based on the other nomads I’ve met, I think these challenges mold people into adaptive, friendly, bold, and creative individuals who are a real joy to be around. 

Can you predict what might motivate you to return to living in a house?

HD: I’ve written about our personal disdain for houses after our experience owning one for a few years. If your stuff owns you, then a house to us feels like a massive weight around our necks. We currently have no plans to return to a conventional house, but if it did feel right in the right space, I potentially see us in something funky- an off-grid tiny home or a house-less seasonal base.

We want to return to longer stints abroad as well, so we might balance out the  logistics-heavy lifestyle of RVing with time in rental apartments in Europe, Southeast Asia, Mexico or wherever the wind blows us.

What is some advice you would give someone dreaming of being a nomad but is nervous to take the leap?

HD: So often, people think something needs to happen in order to make a big change and they set milestones to reach before they can take the leap, like saving enough, waiting on other people, or turning a certain age. Sometimes, these self-set limitations are valid and really can make the next stage of your life easier, but much more often than not, they are actually just manifestations of fear. The reality is, the only thing that will drive that leap forward is your own decision to jump. 

I don’t want to diminish this fear because generally, people do not like change and so it’s not only scary for yourself, but a lot of people around you will try to prevent that change as well because they will not understand the pull towards it. But if you truly feel that pull and need to make it happen, once you hit the road, you will find ways to keep it going. There are so many different kinds of jobs and nomad lifestyles to choose from and figure out what works best for you. 

I would highly encourage any new nomad to seek out nomad events as soon as possible to find like-minded people and get all the encouragement that comes with those events. Feeling less alone and inspired by other people doing what you’re doing will keep you going!

Top three favorite pieces of gear or tech that you wouldn’t want to live without?

HD: Really cruel that you’re making me choose, but here goes:

1. This mesh sand rug has been a game-changer for our outdoor space. It doesn’t shed microplastics like so many outdoor rugs and dust and sand just filters through it, so it’s always clean and makes everything feel a little more like home. 

2. We’ve also loved having a propane firepit like this one. It gives us a centerpiece to be around with friends in the evening and it is so quick and easy to use. I love that we don’t have to worry about fire bans or burning down any forests when we use it. 

3. Our Starlink,  which we’ve named Cassiopeia. For two years we managed working on the road with an AT&T hotspot and a Verizon hotspot, and that worked okay with lots of research ahead of each site to make sure we’d have service there. Being able to ditch both of those and pretty much never think about service again has been wonderful! Cassiopeia made traveling through Baja while working possible and we got the added bonus of watching a Starlink launch from the beach! Having internet data be one less resource to track and manage has been a big life upgrade. 

What are you most excited about for the future?

HD: Everything! More specifically, we’ve recently fallen in love with Southwest Colorado and have plans to spend the majority of future warm weather months there, taking full advantage of the rich music and art scene and developing our creative work more. 

Every year, we learn a little more about what suits us in life and are able to hone in our intentionality even more. Anything is possible and we look forward to what awaits us!

A huge thanks to HD for taking the time to share her story, insights, and photos with us. I highly recommend checking out her website the Dirtbag Dao for several inspirational articles about living with less stuff and more freedom. To see some of her and David’s art you can head over to HD’s portfolio at https://heatherdelaney.com/ or you can find David’s music at https://linktr.ee/whiskeyboys

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