OPINION: Remember, It’s About The Adventure!
*I reread this recently and thought what a good article from industry icon Sherm Goldenberg on the FUN people discover from the cockpit of a motorhome.
by Sherman Goldenberg RV Business
“It kind of gives us the opportunity to see places and do things that we wouldn’t typically have a chance to do if we had a home and, you know, a typical 9-to-5 job,” Kim added. “We’ve seen people that we probably wouldn’t have seen had we not been living this lifestyle.”
RV industry people understandably spend
the bulk of their time absorbed in conversations about the merits of
things like hitch weights and interior decors, awnings and tag-axles.
But many of us probably lose track at times on a personal level of the
real-life consumers in whose hands all of these recreational vehicles
eventually wind up.
With that in mind, we visited with a few RV enthusiasts during the Florida RV Trade Association’s (FRVTA) Florida RV SuperShow
in Tampa and, by and large, found them to be intelligent, educated,
clear-thinking, serious-minded people — retired and otherwise — who tend
to view themselves as free spirits. When they go to a new state, they
told us, they want to see more than the state capital, visiting some of
the lesser known, off-the-radar locations as well.
They want to recreate at their leisure while staying in both public and private parks instead of the Marriott Courtyard.
They want to go someplace and stay for
two to three weeks and then move on down the road to another state for
another few weeks — just like that – while staying in their own rolling
homes.
And while they disdain air travel, they
love the flexibility and open-ended freedom that they experience through
an RV lifestyle to which they seem deeply committed.
In other words, snowbird retirees like Nancy and Jerry Smith,
who winter in Sarasota, Fla., and summer in Hot Springs, Ark., don’t
take their recreational vehicle travels lightly. On the contrary, the
former owners of a Florida agency specializing in malpractice insurance
for physicians are invested heavily in it, having owned six motorhomes,
and they’re on the brink of acquiring their next one, a Newmar Class A.
Mason, Mich., residents Don and Shaun Sherwood
were shopping for a new fifth-wheel in Tampa as Don anticipates
retiring from his truck-driving job while Shaun plans on maintaining her
position in a township trustee’s office. The Sherwoods, the parents of
three grown daughters, started out tenting 20 years ago and still like
to camp as a family on long weekends and holidays in public and private
parks.
Tom and Jan Guy
have been RV owners for four years, during which time the retired
engineer and former coin dealer have enjoyed sightseeing, mostly staying
in Encore and Passport America-affiliated resorts while
living in Clearwater, Fla. The current owners of a well-maintained 2005
Newmar Kountry Aire Class A, the Guys were checking out RVs and
accessories to see what’s new and “learn a little bit about what we have
and what we might want to do in the future.”
Perhaps our most memorable chat, however, was with full-timers Ryan McCready and Kim Thomas,
a 30-something couple who sold off their home last summer in Clermont,
Fla., to work from the road — he as a triathlon coach, she for a home
automation company. They travel all over with a nine-year-old black
Goldendoodle named Jet overnighting at Thousand Trails resorts in a 2008 Fleetwood Discovery Class A.
We asked McCready and Thomas, who left
some of their belongings in a storage facility, about their freewheeling
lifestyle and what prompted them to so audaciously cut their links with
a more normal day-to-day existence. And their
answers still stick in my mind because they were so, ah, casual and
spontaneous, especially for working stiffs like me. “We like nice
weather,” said Ryan, strolling through a sprawling Camping World
display at the Tampa Show. “So, we can go wherever the weather’s nice
and just get to see new places. I think we’re both sort of nomadic at
heart. I’m former military, so I get a little anxious when I’m any place
too long.”
“It kind of gives us the opportunity to
see places and do things that we wouldn’t typically have a chance to do
if we had a home and, you know, a typical 9-to-5 job,” Kim added. “We’ve
seen people that we probably wouldn’t have seen had we not been living
this lifestyle.”
So, what they have in their RV is, for
the most part, everything they need on a day-to-day basis. “Oh, I’m sure
people thought we were nuts, absolutely nuts,” said Kim. “But once we
did it, people really envy us and understand what we’re doing, and I
think that also makes us feel like we made the right decision, you know,
being able to just kind of go wherever you want to and that’s home for
awhile. That’s really cool, it’s really cool.”
The two plan plan to continue their
full-timing adventure for the foreseeable future. “Yeah,” said Ryan, “we
have no plans of stopping yet.”
“We don’t really have a plan,” added Kim. “We just are going to do this until we don’t want to do it anymore.”
