One of the most renowned ways to see the various stretches of the USA is through a road trip. Naturally, if you’re hoping to cover much of the country, this is going to take you a while. Therefore, it makes sense to double down on the iconography and go about this adventure with the help of an RV.
While this is an exciting opportunity and a potentially great way to go on an adventure, it can also be quite daunting. It might be more taxing than you expect, so ensuring that you’re doing everything you can to prepare will help you to make the most of this plan.
As exciting as this can sound, if you’re someone who feels uncomfortable when they’re removed from home luxuries like showers, warm spaces, and your own bed, this might not necessarily be for you. Of course, RVs often come equipped with several of those facilities, they’re lived in, after all.
However, to fully embrace the RV experience, you might need to expect that you’re not going to be as comfortable as you would be in a home environment, and this is okay. The difficulty might come in trying to decide with what to do with your home and belongings in the meantime. Making use of camper movers can help you to sell or move your larger items before you head off, giving you enough money and peace of mind to embrace the rhythms of the road trip.
There are several different types of road trip that you can take. The implied nature of an RV road trip is that you’re going to be living inside your vehicle, meaning that you can take much more time and generally live as a part of your travels.
If you’ve never been on a road trip of any capacity, this could be quite an intense place to begin, making your whole life about the road for a certain period. In this case, if this is something that you know you want to do at some point, you might go on a trial run of sorts—taking a trip with your friends, maybe in a vehicle you already own and staying at hotels so you can get used to the basic rhythm of life on the road before the real deal.
There’s inevitably going to be a question about preparation versus spontaneity when it comes to trips like this. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference—are you someone who prefers your whole trip to be an open book, or do you need a bit more structure?
Even if you find yourself landing in the camp of the former, having an idea of the routes that you’re going to take might prevent you from getting lost and can help you to keep yourself orientated. Due to the popularity of road trips, some quick online research can lead you to many resources designed to help you to get familiar with these options.
Road trips are always great opportunities to spend time with your friends. While some might see them as ideal times for soul searching, these kinds of adventures are often more fun with company, helping to take the edge off the more uncertain moments, such as getting lost.
This all sounds great, and it’s difficult to see any downside to traveling around in an RV with your friends. However, it’s a tight space, and you’ll be spending a lot of time together in potentially stressful situations.
While fun might seem guaranteed, arguments could easily arise. This is difficult to avoid, so it can naturally lead to uncertainty about how to resolve the situation. Expecting times of high tension might help you to better prepare for it and understanding that people need their own space and a bit of quiet from time to time. This might be hard when you’re all sharing an RV, but it can help you to approach disagreements with a more constructive attitude.
This isn’t to suggest that you won’t enjoy this kind of trip if you’re not too knowledgeable about vehicles, or that you shouldn’t try it, but some basic knowledge about maintenance could help you to avoid a sticky situation. Knowing how to change a tire, or even recognize what the problem is with your vehicle in the first place can stop a momentary issue from putting the brakes on your whole trip.
If you are traveling in a group, this might be remedied with some people having the right knowledge and the group containing enough people to make any maintenance possible. However, it’s easy to think that you don’t need to know this beforehand due to the prevalence of the internet, making any research you need to do on the fly a mere browser search away.
However, with such a large part of the road trip appeal being tied to the exploration of the vast spaces that can be found in the American landscape, you’re inevitably going to encounter a lot of situations where you don’t have signal or any internet connection. Being prepared for this is something that you might need to do before you’re ready for this type of road trip.
Unlike other types of holidays that people might go on purely to relax, road trips can be thought of as a bit more adventurous by nature. Going in an RV means that you’re prepared for life to be more unsettled and varied, but this naturally opens itself up to experiences that you can’t expect or plan for, something that defines the whole appeal for many.
If you want to see the world, you have to accept that this is going to include elements that you don’t expect, and this might be something that can put you outside your comfort zone. As scary as this can feel, it’s something that can actually be very beneficial for your life experience.