My husband Terry and I are “fulltimers”. What is that, you ask? I will try to explain: Fulltiming is when someone with a few screws loose decides to up-and-sell-everything, move into andRV of some sort, and hit the road, Jack…
Well, maybe it’s not quite like that, but close! Because we are confirmed believers of honesty, I will attempt to give the real reasons we decided to fulltime. They may help some of you who are trying to decide whether it is right for you too.
Many moons ago in the land of that four letter word “WORK” we lived in relative bliss on a farm in the desert of southern California. Terry was a resident traffic officer with the CHP and I was a farmer and business owner. Retirement was creeping closer and we realized that we did not want to stay in the area we had lived in for 22 years. We had 25-hour-a-day, 8-days-a-week jobs, had never had a “real” vacation, and the whole world was beckoning to us! We needed to “get out of town” at least part of the year.
We had considered getting a cabin somewhere, but where? The mountains? We loved the trees and all, but we also loved the beach, and the plains, and… well… What a decision! What if we did not like it? What if the plumbing decides to take a… well you get the idea. So, the solution for us was to get an RV. That way we could explore, experience, and find just the right, perfect place. Besides, we had no idea where we wanted to retire to, other than we knew it would not be in the desert.
Four years before the projected retirement date, we got our first RV. We had tent camped for many years, rented trailers, borrowed a motorhome, but never had our own RV. We jumped in with both feet and bought a 34′ fifth wheel trailer. This was a real jump… tent to fiver, but what the heck. We had a one ton dually, so we were set! Wrong… the fiver we chose to fulltime in needed a bigger truck, so that would be next. Meanwhile we could set it up on the farm, play with it and get out for short trips.
We took delivery of that fiver in Dec of ’98 and played with it all the next year. We were able to figure out what we needed to get rid of and what to keep when the time came. Plenty of time to decide, right? Wrong… summer of ’99 and the governor was talking “early retirement” for CHP officers. We really had to think now… could we up and sell everything and hit the road by June, 2000? That was the new date.
The “wise” ones always say never change things drastically when both retire at the same time. Never sell the homestead and just go do something you have never done before, ad infinitum. Well, we did it all wrong, as we ended up both retiring, selling the farm and everything we owned and hitting the road all in 3 months time. “You’ll be sorry,” they said, “you must be nuts”.
Yes, that was us, over eight years ago. We are still fulltiming, workamping, volunteering, still nuts, and still loving it! From acreage, big house, four vehicles, and abundant toys to 400 square feet, one vehicle and some toys. This was the best decision we ever made.