June 6, 2021

RV Reflections

After three and a half weeks on the road in a RV, we are back home! We were on the road through 3500 miles (plus many more on our SUV), 7 National Parks & Monuments (and many National Forests), and 9 states! Looking back on the trip, here are some reflections on our first ever RV trip:

Would we do it again? Yes! We’ve already started talking about potential future trips.
It was great to get to areas of the country that we typically wouldn’t fit into our busy travel schedule. We found some areas (like Moab) that we definitely want to get back to. The Western states that we went through were absolutely stunning!
The remote working experience went better than expected. We actually spent most of our time both working from our main RV living area which was a bit tight, but with our portable desk we both fit our equipment in just fine. There was only one RV site (Santa Fe KOA) that we had to leave because of connections problems, otherwise between available WiFi and our Verizon Hotspot we were always connected. It was nice to have a few spots to also work outside with nice weather during the day.
Looking back at our packing, it would have been nice if we did a small trip in the RV first to get a better feel for things we didn’t use and things we would have wanted along, but overall we did fairly well. We over estimated how often we’d cook dinners at the campsite – we did breakfast and lunches there, but almost always were out exploring or at a brewery in the evening and did dinners out.
We were jealous of some of the big fancy RVs that would pull in next to us – it’d be fun to go tour them. From a size perspective, the length of ours and storage space worked just fine, but it would be nice to have a slide out for some additional width!
Having a vehicle along on a trip like this is an absolute must whether you are towing one or your setup is a vehicle towing a trailer. It’d be fun to have a more off-road capable vehicle along, but our SUV did fine for the most part. If you plan to explore some of the remote areas out West, though, we wouldn’t recommend taking a compact car along.
All of our campsites were booked through KOA which provided a convenient option with online booking, a discount program, and many reviews to go off of. We enjoyed our KOAs overall, but the one non-KOA campsite that we stayed at ended up being our favorite. So with that being said, if we do another trip we’ll plan to further research other campsite options in the areas we visit.
Overall, RVing requires a lot of patience. From driving times, to packing up when leaving, to your morning latte, everything takes longer. Your patience pays off, though, with a fun and rewarding experience!