It was springtime 2021, and 20,000 cranes were making a pit stop in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, building strength to continue their flight to the northern U.S. and Canada. That’s where they mate with their lifelong spouses and raise their young, before reversing their commute back to New Mexico in autumn. To catch all of their sexy (to a crane) antics—stretching their nearly 7-foot wingspans, bobbing their red-flared heads and prancing seductively—my own lifelong spouse, Claire, and I made the same choice as flocks of American travelers: We rented a recreational vehicle—RV for short, though that abbreviation is the only “short” thing about them. Just like those peripatetic cranes, RVers are migrating in staggering numbers. Why an RV? Why now? Thanks to the pandemic, people began renting and buying RVs for lots of reasons: Reluctant to fly, some folks were looking for new escape routes. In an air-droplet-driven pandemic, the great outdoors was even greater, and RVs were COVID-free bubbles on wheels. When schools went to remote learning, an internet-connected RV could be a classroom, wherever it roamed. Add to that the burgeoning number of boomers who were born to run and like to have a beer fridge and bathroom handy and it’s easy to understand why RVs are accelerating into the passing lane. In a year when the Best Picture Oscar went to a movie about living in a van (Nomadland), the industry is forecasting a 23 percent growth in RV shipments, which would make it their biggest sales year in history. Claire and I are inveterate travelers, from mountain huts to Airbnbs around the globe. Now we wanted to try, and drive, the next big thing. Being a cautious type, I first reached out to experienced RVers to help ease me on down the road. Here are their stories and a bit about our own adventure.
The Weekend Warriors
StephanieAdair, 40, and her mom, EstherLazar, 68, from McDonough, Georgia (30 miles south of Atlanta), are like the Gilmore Girls of RVing. They put me on speaker phone as they spruced up Lazar’s Hi-Lo TowLite RV for the season ahead. I felt like I was eavesdropping on a sitcom as they kidded and corrected each other; I can only imagine what it must be like to hang out at a campsite with these two. Lazar recalls her unhappy early attempts at camping: “I bought a used Army tent in Encino, California,” she says, laughing. “All canvas, no poles.” Adair has similar memories. She recalls visiting her mom, a nurse, when she retired to Georgia, and heading for the great state parks nearby. It didn’t work out: “Sleeping on the ground in the rain—that wasn’t for me.” Thus began a typical rite of passage for RVers: finding the right vehicle. Adair initially bought a pop-up camper to tow behind her car, but realized that she was too short (4 feet 9 inches) to produce a full pop. So she moved on to a towable Palomino PaloMini with push-button setup, and now she’s in her mobile happy place. Her mom got her own rig, and they hit the road together. When they reach a state park campground—their favorites are Georgia’s High Falls State Park and Alabama’s Wind Creek State Park—they park their respective homes-away-from-home and tackle their specialties: “My mom will set up the campsite, mix up some drinks, prep dinner and chill out,” says Adair, “while I’m more likely to head out on the lake in my kayak. She’s a morning person, I’m a night owl. But it all works out.” “Every day is crazy,” Lazar says. “You never know what’s going to happen.” But it’s also one of the great things about RVs: What’s to worry about when you’re towing a queen bed and a kitchen? You can wait out the weather, mechanical troubles and traffic jams. “Nothing flutters us,” she says. “We’re calm.”
The Family Affair
Meet ShawnHill and his wife, Bree, of Indianapolis—formerly, that is. Today they’re in their RV full-time, and rolling somewhere near Zion National Park, in southwestern Utah. Asked his kids’ ages, Shawn rattles off, “14, 9, 9, 8, 6, 5, 3, and then there’s the baby, 9 months.” Four of their children are adopted. A recipe for chaos, right? Shawn, 31, and Bree, 30, are very organized. “We’ve established a routine, but we’re not super strict. Our kids are responsible for their own morning routines, getting dressed, cleaning up their own messes. It doesn’t really take that long for one kid to manage for him- or herself.” Bree is in charge of the home-schooling and most meals, while Shawn does the dishes, tutors his kids when math rears its ugly head, and serves as grill master. But he’s not just messing with some charcoal briquettes. Shawn supports all this rolling fun with his small marketing firm plus proceeds from his website, the Grilling Dad. He’s also launched a travel site, Learning RV. The Hills got their start tent camping with their eldest boy, which led to a pop-up camper, which led to a 15-passenger van towing a Keystone Hideout with a master bedroom, stacked bunk beds for all the kids plus a three-burner propane stove and an overworked toilet and shower. “It’s not like we spend all our time in the trailer,” Shawn points out. “When we arrive at our destination, we live outside. We just chase the good weather.” They launched this lifestyle at the beginning of 2020, when the rest of us were crawling under a sanitized rock. They had already sold their house near Indianapolis (for reasons unrelated to COVID-19), but then their kids’ schools shifted to remote learning. Mom and Dad discussed the possibilities, then called a family meeting to present their crazy idea: What if we just hit the road until all this is over? A cheer went up. Now they drive to their dream locations—national parks, Lake Michigan beaches—when they’re not “moochdocking,” i.e. parking their big vehicle in the driveways of big-hearted friends and family members. The term comes from the RV practice of “boondocking”: parking your rig in wilderness areas and living off the land and off the grid. But the Hills’ brand of docking means access to the loving kindness of their hosts, plus indoor showers and toilets. If you happen to know the Hills, be forewarned: They might be pulling into your driveway even as you read this.
The Roving Private Eye
You might also want to keep an eye out for ArtRivera, 76, should he pull up in his RV. His 37-foot Heartland Sundance is the home and office for Ram Private Investigators, specializing in surveillance, background checks, child custody and locating missing persons. When the end of his third marriage wiped him out financially, Rivera became a migratory human being. Now it’s his choice, not just a cheap way of life. He winters in an RV park in Ventura, California, and summers in Anacortes, Washington, southwest of Bellingham. It allows him to connect with his three kids and his grandkids, and also keep his P.I. business rolling. “As of last February, I’ve been living like this for eight years,” he says. “Thank God for the tech that helps me do my job. I’ve been cultivating informants for 48 years and I’ve worked on 48,000 cases.” Among them, tracking down death records in Bulgaria that released $680,000 from an account in a descendant’s name. All this from his mobile office. “It felt weird in the beginning, doing this,” he admits. “I always had big homes. And I was lonely, at the start. But I’ve gotten over that. Buddy, my rat-terrier mix, takes the edge off of traveling alone.” Rivera is a passionate percussionist, so he equipped his fifth-wheel trailer—the kind towed with a trailer hitch—with an electronic drum kit that he whales on a couple of hours a day. His rig also has two flat-screen TVs, a king-size bed, hookups for a washer and dryer, a full bath and shower and an electric fireplace, all crammed into 340 square feet. One thing his rig won’t carry: a fourth wife. After three walks down the aisle, he’s driving solo from here on out. I asked him if he ever met with clients in his mobile office. “No way,” he says. “Then they’d know where I live.”
Our Boomer Adventure
Claire and I picked up our rented Mercedes Sprinter van in Erie, Colorado, after going through a very Airbnb-like search on Outdoorsy. Our mobile weekend home was tall enough to stand up in, had cooking gear and utensils, a sink, a queen bed, ample storage space and pulsating disco lights, in case we decided to party. We booked a slot in the Cool Sunshine RV Park in Alamosa, Colorado, and pointed the Sprinter southwest from our Fort Collins, Colorado, home. It was a little intimidating to drive a 19.5-foot-long, 8-foot-tall behemoth (we dubbed it “Moby Trek”) away from the owner’s house, but after a little while we began to feel like interstate gods. High in the driver’s seat, we were eye to eye with the soaring Colorado landscape and looking down on lesser vehicles. Moby Trek was on the road! As we drove over the Continental Divide in the Sprinter, the sun was dazzling on 14,000-foot-high snowy peaks. It was awe-inspiring, which meant that it was sleep-inspiring as well. There’s only so much excitement I can stand. So I pulled the Sprinter into the Collegiate Peaks overlook near Buena Vista, then crawled in the back for my midday nap on a queen-size bed. It’s convenient to travel like a turtle, with your home on your back. Refreshed after 20 minutes of uncommonly comfortable shut-eye, I gave a stretch, then put the Sprinter in drive and roared down into the San Luis Valley. I popped a Spotify station onto the van’s Bluetooth-assisted sound system, and when LyleLovett’s song “If I Had a Boat” came on, I thought, Land yacht, ahoy! I piloted Moby Trek to Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, 50 miles west of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, and pulled over as soon as we saw the sandhills wheeling in the air above us, making a curious ratcheting noise and stretching their wings as they touched down in a nearby wetland. Like RVers Stephanie Adair and her mom, Esther Lazar, the cranes divide the work of preparing dinner and tidying their nests. And like the Shaws, cranes raise their broods along the open road. But unlike Art Rivera, they travel with their spouses, and during the migration, they renew bonds, do a little dance, make a little love and ensure the survival of their roving species. And now my wife and I are birds of a feather, migrating together. Only, we cook dinner and sleep inside our vroom with a view. Who needs a hotel, when you can drive your whole house anywhere you like? Try it; we really think you’ll like it.
Must-Knows Before You Go
Book your rental in advance: With RVing more popular than ever, planning ahead is key. You can book from Outdoorsy, Cruise America, RVezy or RVshare. And check those vehicle reviews carefully, to make sure you’re not renting a really big lemon. Stay somewhere different: No reservations in popular national park campgrounds? Look into state parks or Bureau of Land Management campsites. Harvest Hosts, Campspot and Hipcamp provide overnight options too. Go slow: An RV is an elephantine vehicle—in height, length and width—so maneuver it like an elephant: slowly, with special care while turning (watch those side scrapes) and backing up (eyes glued to the rearview cam). Take the extra insurance on the rental, advises MelanieMusson, an RV expert with AutoInsurance.org. And call your insurance agent to check coverage on a rental RV. Better safe than insolvent.
Stay in Style
There are plenty of options for where to stay when it’s time to pull over for a spell, according to Go RVing, a site that shares stories and tips about inspiring RV adventures. Here are a few of their RV resort suggestions. Foothills of the Rockies: Jellystone Park Camp-Resort, in Larkspur, Colorado, is located near the San Isabel National Forest, between Denver and Colorado Springs, with access to Rocky Mountain National Park (two hours north) and Pikes Peak (90 minutes south). Sugar-Sand Beaches: “Glamping” is an ugly word but a wonderful reality at Belle Terra RV Resort in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Snuggle your RV into a pull-through space, then hop into the infinity-edge pool, Jacuzzi or sauna. A Vintage Experience: Grape expectations? Cava Robles RV Resort, in Paso Robles, California, is surrounded by more than 200 wineries. Get to know RVing oenophiles at wine tastings, outdoor movie nights and a wine bar and bistro.
Amazing Rides
Where to go? Cheapism, a live-well-on-a-budget site that offers buying guides and price comparisons, has travel tips for RVers, including some great road-trip options. Here are two of them: The Classic: Route 66 paved the way west for generations of travelers. Read John Steinbeck’s RVing memoir Travels With Charley after you settle in at your campsite. The Reach: Denali Highway, 135 adventurous miles from Paxson to Cantwell, Alaska, is a mostly gravel road through the USA’s most spectacular and remote national park. For RV experts only.
