Adventurous seniors and living on the cheap
April 3, 2017 5:06 PM   Subscribe

My dad (81) and my stepmom (71) want to sell their house in Florida and live on the cheap -- possibly in an RV traveling around the US (and Mexico?), staying for a couple months maybe in a place. Love to have your advice on how they could live cheaply and travel too.

Are there books or blogs, etc. about RVing cheaply you would recommend? Do you have other ideas about cheap places they could stay? Is Mexico safe anymore? My dad and stepmom are not at all in need of assisted living, but they are older -- they do need access to quality medical care, and my dad's back goes out from time to time. Thanks for any resources or advice!
posted by pH Indicating Socks to Travel & Transportation (17 answers total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Response by poster: Forgot to mention two important points-- they are both hearing impaired, and my stepmom has a service dog.
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 5:20 PM on April 3, 2017


I don't have any specific resources but want to strongly recommend that they do their homework on true costs of RV parks and what RVs are allowed. A family member of mine thought RVing around the country would be a cheap way to live but after buying a used RV she had a really hard time finding RV parks that were safe, affordable, and would allow an older RV. She ended up having to park in Walmart lots most of the time due to this. Maybe this was a regional thing (Pacific NW) and it's not an issue elsewhere but definitely look into that.
posted by joan_holloway at 5:29 PM on April 3, 2017 [3 favorites]




There is also Passport America.
posted by SyraCarol at 5:43 PM on April 3, 2017


I visited a place that is in a canyon area near Pineview Reservioir in the Ogden Valley, Utah. It is a place for campers, trailers, along South Fork Creek, for The Eagles. This group, The Eagles, I guess I have heard they drink a bit, but the only membership requirement I could see, was a belief in God. However they have places all over, and the people I met, are "sunbirds," they go back and forth between Ogden Valley in the xummer, and Arizona in the winter. Membership has it's benefits. AARP membership gives a lot of travel discounts. There are many places to park a rig. People are usually younger in their retirements when they hit the road, the ones I have talked with, enjoyed their travel time, before settling into retirement communities.
posted by Oyéah at 6:04 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Gack, I accidentially closed the window :P

They should try renting for a week or so (check out Cruise America, they might not be too late for one-way deals).

Make sure they're comfortable sharing the driving responsibility since they're older. They might want to look at smaller RVs. This place in Gainesville specializes in them.

Lots of ebooks and blogs for senior/retirement RV travelers, go on Google + Amazon + Youtube and surf (I like Technomadia and Gone With The Wynns but they're way younger than your folks). The key word is "fulltiming".

I wouldn't recommend Mexico, esp. for an older couple new to RVing. Florida is a perfect place to start, Texas and Arizona are popular with seniors. The AllStays Camp+RV app is invaluable for finding campsites and other POI.

RVing is not neccessarily cheaper than living in a stick house, since you are burning fuel, paying for campsites and living in a depreciating asset (some people are better at optimizing this than others). But if they want to travel, they should do it!
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:04 PM on April 3, 2017


My friends have been living in their motor home for 10 years now. From ~Thanksgiving to Easter, they serve as hosts at a State park in AZ where in exchange for working virtual full time hours they stay rent free. They are both 65 and in excellent health—an advantage, but not necessarily a requirement, though she uses a hearing aid.

However, I doubt this is significantly cheaper than living in the house they owned before they hit the road.
posted by she's not there at 6:23 PM on April 3, 2017


They may want to look into boondocking. There are a lot of websites that help you find free camping out there as well as https://freecampsites.net/

You can get passes to national parks or in some cases pay only a few dollars a night if they are willing to go without plug in power & water They may want to look into getting a good solar set up to make this possible.

This website looks a little old fashioned but has a lot of good info on it despite that. https://freecampsites.net/ The forums are very good, even though he lives in a van conversion, the forums cover a range of vehicle options. The gentleman that runs it also has a very informative YouTube channel, though in some cases the way some of the people live might be a little too primitive for some tastes he also shows people living in a range of price points & vehicles, so don't be put off.

I too would recommend a smaller RV, not only for ease of driving, but for ease of getting off the beaten track to the camping locations.

A google search of boondocking in an RV will bring up a tonne of blogs & helpful info as will a search on YouTube.
posted by wwax at 6:26 PM on April 3, 2017


Also, they changed their permanent address to South Dakota, which as I understand things, is common among RVers, though I don't remember the reasons. (No income tax? Cheaper RV registration?)
posted by she's not there at 6:26 PM on April 3, 2017


They also need to have a plan for what to do after one or both of them are not able to drive any more, and/or climb the steps to get into the RV. Most of the full time RV people I served while working at a state park were in their 50s, 60s, and early 70s. 81 is pretty late to get into this kind of thing.
posted by rockindata at 6:35 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


An oldie but a goodie is Over the Next Hill: An Ethnography of RVing Seniors in North America by Dorothy Ayers Counts. I just finished reading Full-Time RVing: A Complete Guide to Life on the Open Road by Bill and Jan Moeller who have written a number of good books about the RVing lifestyle. Many are somewhat outdated but all are pretty good.
posted by jessamyn at 6:35 PM on April 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


There is an entire community surrounding what your parents want to do! They need to (this is pretty much not optional) start with Escapees. There is so much information out there I don't even know where to start, but the Escapees will get you started. After that -- RV Clubs have been mentioned - Passport America, Good Sams, etc. Maybe Thousand Trails is their thing (where you basically buy unlimited access to a region of north america and stay in their lines of RV parks. Kinda time-share-ish, so yeah... but some people love it). Or Harvest Hosts, where they can stay on farms and winerys for free (although its recommended they support their hosts by buying produce/wine/etc). Maybe they want to go to Quartzsite, AZ in January and boondock (camping fully self contained, without hookups) for free with thousands of their closest RV-loving friends.

This lifestyle this is something I really want to do (although I'm not yet retired) and have researched the heck out of it. I could write a dozen blog posts but so many have already done that. Do they want open space, or fancy amenities? State parks for cheaper camping, RV parks when you need full hookups and laundry and sometimes pools and hottubs. At a lot of RV parks, especially those who cater to the fulltimers, you can get significantly cheaper rates month-to-month.

Do they know what type of RV they want? That is a whole different set of questions. But to summarize - search youtube, and just google "RV fulltime living" and related keywords and you'll be inundated with info. My sources/links are all of the working RV age, so maybe not exactly what your parents are looking for, but feel free to PM if you want more info!
posted by cgg at 7:20 PM on April 3, 2017


If they go for it and go for boondocking(sp?) have them read the best solar web site on RV solar, Bob's approach will make it possible with some savvy work on systems.
posted by sammyo at 7:27 PM on April 3, 2017


I don't know how common this is, but when my parents' friends retired they got work in a kind of groundskeeper capacity at different national parks. I'm sorry I don't remember their title though. They were in their 70s and as far as I know they're still doing it. It wasn't their job to maintain the grounds, it was more keeping an eye out in the off seasons and helping answer other campers' questions. They had a dog and moved every few weeks or few months. They really seemed to love it. I think they got paid part time and they got to keep their RV there for free. They had to arrange it with individual parks though, as far as I know there's no official set up for this.
posted by Bistyfrass at 8:14 PM on April 3, 2017


This is absolutely possible. We recently travelled the US in an RV really very cheaply, despite the fact we were doing ridiculous mileage during that time (19,000 miles/28 states/9 months).

http://www.coastresorts.com
Good Sam and Passport America are also essential. Good Sam less so (because 10% is a bit of a crap discount and is only usually valid for a short stay) but it is worth having overall, just not as much as Passport America or Coast to Coast.

Coast to Coast allows you a yearly membership ($1K I think?) but then gives you access to $10 per night places. Like, fancy resort kind of swimming pool+social club+small store+ gated kinds of places. There are maximum stay limits in a lot of these (sometimes 30 days, often due to residency laws, for instance) but with a little planning it should be really easy to build a list of these kinds of places and just rotate between them as time and weather permits. We would have saved a TON of money on our trips if we could have a: Planned ahead more and B: been open to where we went next to some degree.

People's definition of 'cheaply' always varies, and while there is a problem with some RV parks with older (ie 10+year) RV's, there were many, many places we stayed in and many we didn't that were perfectly nice and safe, and let in our 15 year old RV no problem. We moved A LOT, and so couldn't take advantage of some of the longer stay pricing (monthly is much, much less than 4 x week stay usually) plus we hit peak pricing more than we would have preferred and even so we figure with a few minor changes (moving every two weeks on average, rather than no more than usually every day or second day) and not having to cover such vast distances to hit my work schedule, we could have sustainably lived that lifestyle for $30k-$35k a year all-in (fuel, travel, food, RV resorts, bills, maintenance etc) for two of us. Reducing flexibility reduces cost, and planning does even more to help that. I see no reason why it couldn't be done cheaper. Especially when you factor in being able to live in the off-peak areas (ie Avoiding vacation hot spots in the prime times). Plus you can just stay in one place for $400 a month (including utilities) if you're tight on cash.

It is possible to get a lifestyle even cheaper than that $30k, but then you'd have to be doing it a bit more seriously - Walmart parking, now and then, boondocking, serious camping. And if they can volunteer at State Parks and similar (there are RV working gigs) then you can get free sites so you'd just need to find money for food.
posted by Brockles at 8:27 PM on April 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


want to sell their house in Florida and live on the cheap -- possibly in an RV traveling around the US

If the main thing they want to do is live on the cheap, moving to an area with low housing costs is going to be cheaper than driving around in an RV.

If travel is their main goal, RVs can be great.

Having enough money in the bank to repair your house/vehicle can make life much easier when breakdowns happen. If your RV is stuck somewhere that's not a viable place to live and you aren't able to pay to have it fixed or have the money to leave the RV lifestyle, life becomes very difficult.
posted by yohko at 11:24 AM on April 4, 2017


I bought an RV (a Class C) at age 65 and went on the road full-time for several years. It's not as cheap as you might think but it's certainly doable. I only had Social Security plus wages for occasional seasonal jobs and made out okay. Escapees Club, as cgg mentioned, is easily the best of the organizations, and they have parks all over the country. At their headquarters in Livingston Texas they even have arrangements for older full-timers who have "hung up their keys." A roadside assistance package is a necessity; it could be Good Sam but there are others that are just as good. I boondocked when moved from place to place. There are jobs all over the place. Check the Army Corps of Engineers for seasonal work—highly sought after and many people return every year. The National Parks are a good resource. There are more and more people doing this, so nice jobs go quickly. There's a magazine for Working RVers that has classifieds and info for jobs (forgotten the name, darn it). At their ages, they should decide how much work they can do. If they can afford not to work, they can just travel with a discount program for parks and enjoy themselves.
posted by MovableBookLady at 12:12 PM on April 4, 2017


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