Categorize yourself

What are the options? 1-5? We have only been Rv-ing about a year and a half. Own a house, but are 'gone' about 5 months here and there. Our longest stay was only 12 days(plus 7 travel days). We are both retired so we plan trips well in advance with back up plans if something goes wrong. If a '1' is the full-timer no stick, a '2' could be an avid Rv-er(on the road for long periods of time, snowbirds)with a house, a '3' An avid Rv-er that is not a snowbird-type. Takes lots of 2-4 weeks trips. A '4' could be the casual tripper who rents an Rv or camper for once or twice a year. The last cat-'5'-the casual weekend warrior in the tent or pop-up. This would make us a '3'. We tend to go against that southerly migration that occurs between Labor and Memorial Days, and sit warm and cozy in the house in FL while the rest of the family is being snowed in up North and in the Mid-West. My wife is currently planning our next trip most likely to launch in March. We have no desire to drive in the snow. I'm sure the dogs would love it, but we moved where we are for a reason.

I guess I would be somewhere between a 3 and a 4. Made the jump from tents to class A two years ago to learn how it's done. I will not pull the RV out of the yard to go camping without reservations for the entire trip. We make about 4 to 6 trips a year depending on what's going on in our lives. We tend to mix it up staying at state parks, KOA's, Jellystone Parks, Military, and Private campgrounds. I look at this time as the getting ready to full time years.

Like I said before I look at the camper as my "Training Wheels" I have learned a lot too. I have a good grasp on driving a larger rig, I know that I need to have reservations before I go anywhere, I can fill up, dump out, clean out, and winterise. I can level, hook up, disconnect, boon dock, hook the car up, and I know I need a hammer and a punch to unhook the car. I can do a safety check, wash the windows, and convert the dinette into a bed. I can set up and tear down a campsite alone or with my wife's help. Mostly I know that I don't mind doing any of that stuff except the tearing down and going home part, but I have to work. Along with all that I now know what I want in a rig, most of the questions I need to ask when I get a new rig, and what the Mrs. wants in the next rig. I also know that I really want to go full time because I really have the travel itch.

I will not pull the RV out of the yard to go camping without reservations for the entire trip.

It's funny how everyone has their own "style" of traveling. We're fulltimers and only make reservations about 5% of the time. We prefer the freedom of changing our minds and stopping whenever and wherever we want. I don't like being forced to stick to a schedule or go to a specific destination. In over 3 years of RV'ing fulltime, we've NEVER had problems finding a place to stay. We've only stayed in a Walmart parking lot once.

We are relative "Newbies" having been fulltime only 11 months, no longer owning a home. We actually have spent 5 months of this time volunteering at NWR's which happen to be in our "path" of travel. We try not to make lots of reservations along the way and up until now have always had no difficulty.
Guess we didn't do our homework about using FamCamps in the southwest for overnight stops.
Oh well live and learn.

We are 24/7/365 fulltimers. Sold the stick built to finance the 5th wheel and tow truck. We are both retired Navy (she outranks me but that's ok the money all goes into one pot . We are currently winding up our longest stop in one place. We have been at the FamCamp at Vandenberg AFB for about 7 weeks and will be leaving in a couple of days depending on the weather (high winds the last couple of days). We don't make reservations and don't look for military CGs unless they are on-the-way to wherever we happen to be headed. We do belong to Camp Club USA and often call ahead a couple hours out to check on the space available situation. That membership has saved us a LOT of money in the last 2 years.

[code:1]Guess we didn't do our homework about using FamCamps in the southwest for overnight stops.
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Nana,

As I mentioned earlier, we rarely make reservations. We also usually travel the SW in the winter. Regardless of what they say on the phone, almost ALL military campgrounds in Arizona will fit you into the campground for an overnight stop. However, you need to be willing to dry-camp for a little while. In Arizona, the only places we've had problems getting into was at Ft. Tuthill (but there's a nice county campground next door) and Apache Flats (there's also another campground on base).

Agave Gulch in Tucson will have plenty of dry-camp space and you'll rotate into a FHU site (3 week limit) within a few days (usually). Gila Bend usually has plenty of space. Lake Martinez may be full, but there's a public campground and lots of open desert nearby. Desert Breeze (Yuma) may always be full in the winter, but they'll make room for you somewhere. We always stop here for a couple days and they try to even get us a shared electric hookup. But if there's no room, there's a TON of free BLM land nearby. We'll be stopping by Desert Breeze for a couple days again in a couple weeks to dump, get propane, get fresh water, and do laundry.

Our attitude about reservations is - if we can't get into where we wanted, there's always something else nearby. This is especially true in the SW. Even in Florida in the winter, we were accepted at every military campground we stopped at (6 of them) without reservations.