RVing Full-time with Kids
Doesn’t it just seem funny how some people feel excited and fill you with encouragement when they find out your family is traveling fulltime, and then other people look at you like your half-crazy and are at a loss for nice words?
Traveling Fulltime in an RV, or any mode of travel for that matter, is an unconventional lifestyle that usually either opens people’s minds on alternative ways of life or gives them an outlet to show their closed-mindedness.
Relatives, Relationships, Recreation & Education
Relatives:
Okay, your family is probably not thrilled about the idea of you taking your kids away from their extended family for extended periods of time. They want you guys to be close, to enjoy fellowship, and holiday meals. They want to cheer from the stands as the kids play sports. And watch quietly from the crowd as your kids perform their recitals.
The reality is this: You will either enjoy the limited exposure to your family or you will miss it.
- If your family was a huge part of your kid’s life, and your own, prior to traveling fulltime- then you may have an adjustment period in your near future.
- If your family was spread out and you really only saw them on special occasions or through social media- your relation won’t change much.
Living on the road fulltime doesn’t have to mean seclusion from your family. You can plan your travels around holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and other times your family enjoyed togetherness before your great family adventure started. Spending less time together may actually prove to allow for more quality time. After all, choosing quality or quantity usually works well, and if it doesn’t you can always rely on Skype, Instagram, Facetime, and Facebook.
Relationships:
Living in the same town for year after year after year after year, pretty much means you’re going to eventually make some friends, right? But what about when you travel fulltime? You might only be in one place for a day, a week, a month…
How will your kids have friends? How will you socialize them?
Give me a break. We have 4 kids and they may have their shy moments, but they aren’t socially awkward. They make friends wherever ever we go. They naturally gravitate towards children around their ages and have a great time learning and playing with them while for whatever amount of time we’re in that location.
Ex. We were currently at the Green River Lake State Park in Kentucky and our children met a family of unschoolers who were extremely cool! They had 5 children, 2 older girls and 3 young boys ages 13-7. While exploring their surroundings they stumbled, literally, over rocks down by the lake. The boys showed the girls that these were actually geodes. They ran back to their RV and grabbed a hammer- to crack them open and show the kids that they contained an assortment of crystals. The kids were amazed and appreciated the science lesson that happened naturally with kids their own age!
Like I said, kids will find kids to play with. Socialize with. And learn with. Kids are kids and you’re doing them a great service by taking them on a fulltime road trip. The kids they meet on the road will be full of their own travel stories and your kids will have amazing campfire moments as they share them with each other.
So what if they won’t have a core group of friends from school that lasts a year or two. They’ll have a core group of kids that can relate to fulltime travel. They will also learn and experience things first hand as opposed to their brick and mortar counterparts that will only read about these things.
Recreation:
Recreation should be the farthest thing from anyone’s mind when listing major concerns about traveling families. You’re traveling fulltime with your family, including the kids, in an RV- what else would you be doing besides recreation? You practically live outside right? I mean if you didn’t, you would probably drive each other pretty crazy relatively quickly in such a small space!
When the rest of America is encouraging their kids to unplug and get outdoors- we’re living this life day in and day out. Our kids are outdoors. They do unplug. And guess what? They love it!
They get to play, learn, and live in nature each and every day.
Special activities that most children are only rewarded or sometimes even forced to participate is regular life for us.
We camp. We hike. We build tents and outdoor forts. We bird watch. We stargaze. We build fires. We ride bikes. We run. We scream. We swing. We swim. We kayak. And most of all we explore our world together.
Recreation doesn’t get any better than that!
Education:
As if homeschooling wasn’t already a hot enough topic. Now you’ve gone and told people you’re roadschooling? Get ready for the eye rolls, because they’re coming in 5…4…3…2…1… told ya!
Roadschooling, Homeschooling, Unschooling- they’re all different methods for educating your kids while traveling fulltime. You can choose your own methods but one thing will stay the same- make sure you can explain what you’re doing. If you don’t know what’s going on, don’t expect someone else to. And trust me, it can make life much easier for you if you can explain your beliefs when asked even the simplest of questions.
Most people equate a good education with straight A’s on a report card issued by your local school district. We’re not most people and if you’re reading this- you probably aren’t either. Good education is all around us. Hands-on science, history, geography, math, and reading are all aspects of good education. We try to expose our children to these subjects on a daily basis. Allowing them to thrive in their favorite subjects and learn the materials they are most interested in when they are most interested in them- is a much more effective educational model, in our opinion. Allowing the world to be their classroom, and teaching them the lessons that you’ve found are actually necessary and important will prove far more beneficial than book smarts measure by memorization of standardized testing materials in a broken education system.
The majority of people’s concern seems to revolve around the topics of Relatives, Relationships, Recreation & Education. These four categories appear to be the most concerning topics when people have issues about your decision to travel fulltime with your family. They want to make sure you’re on your toes and have all your t’s crossed and you’re i’s dotted.
Personally, we take no offense (okay… we try not to) to the qualms of others when it comes to our chosen way of life. We love traveling with our children, and we love to meet others who also travel and those who would like to someday travel. We encourage those who are searching for inspiration and information about fulltime RV travel or just fulltime travel with kids in general. We share our stories with all who are genuinely interested. And we give the advice and tips that we’ve managed to gain from our short 2 years on the road, with all who want to listen.
