We recently passed the one-year mark of living in our bumper pull travel trailer. We have proven that you can live in a travel trailer all year round. But what about a motorhome? In some ways, our experience in the trailer should help but I also looked around to find some differences. This is what I found.
You can almost certainly live in a motorhome. Enough people are doing it to prove it. Today’s Motorhomes are well-equipped. Whether you should live this way depends on a few things, including whether you have the money or a way of making it and whether you can manage in such a small space.
To learn more about whether you can or should live in a motorhome, keep reading. We’ll also explore some other factors that might affect your decision like how long the motorhome might last and whether you can start with an older unit.
Can You Live in a Motorhome
You can almost certainly live in a motorhome. Enough people are doing it to prove that point. Today’s motorhomes are very well equipped. Whether you should live this way depends on a few things, including whether you have the money or a way of making it and whether you can manage in such a small space.
I’m pretty sure you can live in a motorhome because I don’t think it’s that much different from living in a travel trailer. We know we can live in a travel trailer because we’ve done it for a year now and were comfortable, in Alberta, Canada, with temperatures as low as 31 below Fahrenheit or -35°C.
We also stayed in an RV park with a bunch of other people, some of whom lived in motorhomes. So we’re pretty sure you can do it. But…
How To Decide if You Should Live In a Motorhome
When you’re deciding if you should, there are a few things to consider.
The biggest factor in deciding if you should is the amount of space you need. For us, we are likely to be going from living in a travel trailer with 32 feet in length and a couple of slides for a total of about 300 square feet to a 30-foot motorhome with one slide and a total of about 270 square feet.
We’ll have to downsize a little, but not near as much as we did when we moved from our 1200-square-foot house, with a full basement and a double garage, to our 300-square-foot travel trailer.
To see how you will deal with the limited space one person online suggested moving into one of your bedrooms. If you can’t manage there, you probably won’t be able to manage in a motorhome.
In terms of space though, I don’t think that living in a travel trailer or living in a motorhome are much different.
Who are you? Are you a single person, a couple, or a family of four?
In the RV park we’re in now, I’ve seen all three types of families living in RVs.
Our next-door neighbour in the RV park is a single guy who lives in his motorhome. Across the way, are an elderly couple living in a C-class motorhome and a young couple with two kids living in a travel trailer.
On YouTube, I’ve seen a family of four who live in a fifth wheel.
It doesn’t seem like the size of your family is going to determine whether you can live in a motorhome.
It will be easier to decide whether you want to live in a motorhome full-time if you vacation in one first. I know people who vacation in motorhomes for years. They’re better positioned to see if they want to live this way.
If you are not retired, not rich and can’t work remotely, then you probably shouldn’t live in a motorhome, unless you can park it near your work.
I know some people who rent storage space to store items if they want to keep but that don’t fit into the RV lifestyle. We are not planning to rent a storage unit. We are downsizing so we can fit all our stuff in the motorhome we are going to live in. For us, it’s just too expensive to rent storage space.
The people that live across from us with two kids have been in the same RV park for at least two years. Their kids walk to the entrance of the RV park and get picked up by a bus to go to school. If you’re going to travel with kids, this is not possible. Your kids will have to be homeschooled. I think I read somewhere that people who live in RVs call it “road-schooled”.
Whether you have kids or not, if you don’t have a minimalist perspective, you probably won’t like living in a motorhome. When my sister lived in her RV, her rule was that before she bought anything new she had to decide what she was going to get rid of before she bought it.
How Long Will an RV Last if You Live in It
I have a mechanic friend who tells me that the guts of a gas-powered motorhome should be good for at least 200,000 miles if it is properly taken care of. A diesel-powered motorhome would last longer. We all know that vehicles get more expensive to maintain in the second half of their lives so let’s assume you are going to use it for 100,000 miles.
From friends and family members who have done it, I understand that Canadians travelling to the US for the winter typically put about 6000 miles a year on their units.
Based on those numbers, a motorhome should last about 16 years.
That assumes that it’s well-maintained and components get fixed or replaced when they break – and things will break.
For most people, this means that you can live in a motorhome for about as long as you want. Before your motorhome wears out, you will probably want to quit living in it or upgrade to something else.
Should You Buy an RV With 100,000 Miles
If you buy a motorhome with 100,000 miles, it will cost much less than buying a new one.
In theory, it still has half of its life left. If the people who owned it were vacationers or weekend campers, it won’t have as much wear and tear on it as it would if they were living in it.
Compared to buying a new motorhome, you’re likely to have to pay more for maintenance but it may still last a few years of living in it full-time.
As we head south for our first winter as snowbirds, we have an offer on a motorhome with about this many miles. This way, we can get started with an initial layout of less than $20,000. With our budget, we couldn’t do it any other way…
We will let you know how it works out.