Full Time RVing Canadian Style

by Will Imanse
(White Rock, British Columbia, Canada)

Full time RVing Canadian style made sense to us. Here is our story.

We already owned a sailboat that we intend to travel around the world with when I retire in 2010. But about 10 years ago we started thinking about the full time RV lifestyle.

What started us thinking was the fact that I would be out of town working for 8 days at a time, and then meet my wife at the sailboat for 6 days out in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia.

We would then spend one night at our condo so I could do laundry and get ready for my next trip out of town. We started to wonder why we had the condo, since I would only see it for 2 nights a month, and my wife would only see it for about 16.

We started to think about an RV as a way that my wife could follow me around as I worked and that way be able to spend more time together.

Webmaster's note: I was curious as to what Will did for a living...he happens to be a tower and antenna specialist for cell phone towers and such. Will spends a good part of his day several hundred feet off the ground...tethered to the tower he is working on. So I guess going up the mast on his sailboat...about 50 feet above deck...is no big deal.

My company gave me a living out allowance that worked out to about $65 a day at the time or close to $2000 a month if I stayed out all month long. This money was tax free.

We quickly realized that if my wife went back to work she would have a hard time bringing home this much, plus she would have employment expenses such as a second car, commuting costs and work clothes.

This was a no brainer. We bought an older A Class RV for $35,000 and my wife started following my company truck from town to town as I worked.
It only took a few hours till she was comfortable driving the 36 ft motor home with the car in tow for a total length of 55 ft.

We gave up the condo, and really started to enjoy the lifestyle. After my last job of the season, we would just unplug the rig, and drive straight down to Mexico for 3 months or so.

Now we would never go back to a brick and mortar house. Next year I retire, and we are just going to be moving into our other RV, our 36 ft sailboat, and continuing on with our dream lifestyle.

I enjoy this lifestyle so much that I have written a book about it called "Full Time in an RV". This is not a story book, but more of a technical book to help others move into the full time RV lifestyle more easily.

If you are wondering about entering the full time RV lifestyle, I would really encourage you to give it a try.

We have found that it is fairly hard to get people to move from a brick and mortar house to an RV. But it is much harder to get them to move back to a brick and mortar house once they really get into the RV lifestyle.