The Secret to Life on the Road is Slowing Down

Duane and Belinda Banks don’t believe in bucket lists. They also don’t believe in long travel days, frequent moves, or going anywhere without an in-unit washer and dryer. In many respects, the couple believes in doing things differently—and that approach is what has made RV life fun, approachable, and, ultimately, sustainable.

When the two decided to move into an RV a few years after retirement, they’d heard a lot of stories about people trying the RV life and getting burned out after a year. They knew that they wanted to be on the road for years, and if they were going to make it that long, it needed to feel as comfortable as possible.

“I said, ‘If we’re leaving a home, I need it to feel like we’re going to a new home,’” Belinda says.

Moving into an RV full-time is intimidating enough as it is. But over the years, the Bankses have come up with a few tricks for streamlining life on road and minimizing stress around every turn. Here are their top tips for slowing down, enjoying the ride, and ensuring the RV life remains sustainable over the long haul.

1. Work up to it

As with any new activity, starting slow can help you build up your resilience and skills in a measured, comfortable way. “We started doing trips for two weeks at a time, then worked up to a month, then six weeks,” Duane says. Travel to different places, and try to connect multiple locations in a single trip. Take time to make sure you like the lifestyle and that you have your systems dialed.

2. Keep things cozy

When Duane and Belinda were shopping for an upgrade from the 33-foot trailer they’d started camping in, they knew comfort came first and foremost. Ultimately, they chose a Momentum Grand Design 376THS fifth wheel because it was big enough for their needs, had a big enough kitchen and living area to entertain (something that was important to them), and could fit the upgrades they wanted—including an in-unit washer and dryer. Having the latter might feel excessive to some campers, but for Belinda, it’s what made the rig truly feel like home—and therefore cozy enough for indefinite use.

3. Have the right tools

The Bankses rely on a number of tools—both online and off—to streamline their logistics and weave as much ease into their day-to-day lives. For travel, they use the I-Exit for Trucks app, which helps them ensure that their 43-foot fifth wheel will easily fit on and off any interstate exit. They use TSD Open Roads to save money on diesel, to the tune of about $1,000 per year. They also use a number of mapping tools, including a mounted RV-specific Garmin GPS to chart the best path from A to B. “We want to do a little BLM or free camping in different places, so we plan to use The Dyrt for that,” Duane says. (The Dyrt’s comprehensive map marks campgrounds across U.S. public lands, in addition to private campgrounds, and its public lands layer makes it easy to find free camping on BLM land and beyond.)

4. Start with a familiar visit

“We spent our first six or seven months just visiting people,” Duane says. The couple has family in Virginia and North Carolina, for example, and friends across the East Coast. Starting with a string of visits helped them feel connected and in community, even without a home base. It also gave them a chance to test out their rig on a series of shorter legs. “It was a good way to wind up for being full-time,” Duane says.

5. Ditch the list

“We’ve heard of so many people who go full-time, and that first six months to a year they have this list, and they’re trying to complete the list,” Duane says. “To me you can get burned out by just having a list.” Instead, the Bankses believe in taking things day by day without any particular pressure to keep moving or tick off certain sights. “We’re doing exactly what we want to do,” Belinda says. “If we wake up and don’t want to leave the camper all day we don’t have to.

6. Limit your travel days

When Duane and Belinda retired, they knew they wanted to enjoy their retirement—which meant no more eight-hour workdays. And no matter how much you like driving, it’s definitely work. To that end, they’re careful to set firm boundaries with how much they’ll drive at a given time. “We limit our travel days to three to four hours and then we camp at a park somewhere,” Belinda says. “Our tagline is, ‘Enjoy the journey on the way to your destination.” And if you’re traveling eight or nine hours a day, you don’t enjoy that journey at all.”

7. Feel empowered to stay put

Constantly moving from place to place can be exhausting. So, Duane and Belinda are careful to stay a week or two in most of the places they go. “Right now we’re in Arizona, but we’re just living. The pressure of, ‘I gotta go to the Grand Canyon,” is not there,” Belinda says. A lot of campers see RV retirement as a time-limited vacation, albeit a long one. Belinda and Duane prefer to think of it as indefinite, which helps them take the pressure off. “We believe, hopefully, this is not the last time we come this way,” Duane says. “That [mindset] gives us the experience of travel without the pressure of ‘We gotta see these ten things before we leave.’”

8. Savor the experience

The best part about embracing a slower style of travel is that you have plenty of time to soak it all in, Belinda says. “Listen, every day is not sunshine and roses. We’ve had weather. We worry about repairs, and you still have to be prepared for the unexpected,” she says. “But it’s so worth it. When you can sit and look out your window and look at snow-capped mountains by a lake or by the water somewhere. Those are experiences you don’t get from inside your home. If it’s something you really want to do, you should try it.”

The Dyrt is the only camping app with all of the public and private campgrounds, RV parks, and free camping locations in the United States. Download now for iOS and Android.

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