If you are researching information to see if retirement RVing is right for you and/or if you have already made the decision to full-time RV and you wonder what’s next, some retirement rving resources might be good to have:

Finding a Retirement Motorhome to buy
To find that perfect retirement RV, look no further than RV sales.  This website features a RV Finder that will show you what travel trailers, toy haulers, fifth wheels, motorhomes, and campers fit your criteria.

Knowing if you can tow your RV
A common question that many RV owners have is “Can I safely tow my RV with the vehicle that I currently have?”  A great resource to answer this question is the RV Buyer’s Guide, Tow Rating Search.  Just put in the year, manufacturer, and make of your vehicle and the tow rating guide will tell you which towable RV’s that you can pull safely.

Learning about RVing
Reading the major RV forums like the forums on RV.net and others is an excellent place to start learning about full-time or part-time RVing.  You can even learn a lot, even if you are just taking a few RV vacations each year.

Another great resource is RV Lifestyle Experts.  Jaimie Hall Bruzenak and Alice Zyetz both have years of full-time RV experience and have authored numerous books about RVing.  Through their website, blog, RV Lifestyle Ezine, and seminars…the RV Lifestyle experts will teach you a lot about full-time rving.

Lastly, another valuable RVing resource just might be NuRvers.com.  This website features non-retired full-time RVers and issues that retirement RVer’s face who still need a job to support their RV lifestyle.

There are many retirement RV resources out there at your disposal.  The above are just a few to get you started on the road to RV retirement.

In continuing our discussion from last post, in this post we cover more jobs that you can do while you fulltime RV.  Some  careers can be done remotely and over the computer, perfect for retirement RVers or non-retired fulltime RV owners.  Computer support jobs, online index database jobs, computer programming jobs, freelance writing, and website design jobs are all examples of professions that can go very well with retirement or early retirement to a motorhome.  Especially now that laptop computers and wireless Internet are becoming readily available to the RVing public, these jobs have become more and more practical.

Schooling

Almost all of the above mentioned careers require some sort of specialized degree or training.  Try to plan ahead if possible, if you are not already trained in these fields.  A few years before you want to retirement RV, find a college or technical school in your current area that offers the training you need and enroll in classes.

Experience

See if you can get some experience on your resume in these fields.  This can even be done by offering your services for free to a local non-profit group or club.  Offering your services will allow you to build your resume (making you more appealing to businesses who would consider hiring you and let you work remotely) and provide a nice service to a worthy group of your choice.

Networking

Begin looking for different online work opportunities in the field of your choice.  Try searching job search engines like Monster, Careerbuilder, and/or Indeed.com for jobs that will let you work remotely or telecommute.  You can also tap into the resources and contacts that you have made from years of working, by spreading the word that you are looking for a flexible work situation.  See if any of your existing network needs your help or knows of someone who does.  Posting a profile on a website like LinkedIn can be a good start.  Starting this search early will allow you to have a better idea of where to look for employment when you finally take the plunge in a full time retirement RV lifestyle.

So remember, no matter whether you are planning to retire to a Class A Motorhome, travel trailer, or fifth wheel…if you need a job to help support your full-time retirement RV living, make sure to observe some of the tips above for a successful venture.

1.  Staying Warm- Become a snowbird or fulltime RVer and travel south for the winter.  No more shoveling snow, slipping on ice, or bundling up tight.  You choose when it is time to head to a warmer climate and then you bring all of the comforts of home with you in your retirement RV.  Choose a retirement RV community to spend the winter in or reserve a spot in a RV resort from year to year.

2.  Seeing the Country – Retirement RVs offer unprecedented ability to travel and see the country.  From Yellowstone National Park to the fall colors in Maine to the redwoods of California to the beaches of Florida, having an RV makes it so easy to see all of the beautiful areas that the United States and even Canada have to offer.  No more just going on a short RV Vacation, these beautiful areas can be your living room every day.

3.  Downsizing -  Buying a RV for retirement forces you to pare down all of the “things” that you have accumulated through years of living in a “sticks and bricks” house.  Because your motorhome has much less square footage, cabinets, and closet space, retirees must choose which items are most important to them and keep only those items.

4.  Living on a budget – Especially if you already own your RV, retirement RVing can offer a very economical way to live.  If you are on a fixed budget, this can be music to your ears.  Choose to boondock most of the time, workcamp in exchange for your site fees, or stay in campsites for an extended period of time to save on gas.  RVing in retirement can be very economical compared to living in a fixed location.  You save on having multiple vehicles, having to maintain outside areas, decorations, and heating & cooling a large space.

5.  Change of scenery – We already mentioned all of the State Parks, National Parks, and scenic byways that are extremely easy to capture out the window of your RV, but don’t forget another obvious benefit of retirement RVing, the change of scenery.  If you get bored of being in a certain place, just move the RV.  If you have noisy (or nosey) neighbors, just move the RV.  You get the idea.  Find RV Sales and change your scenery.

Tiffin Allegro Bay interior

No Reservations, No Plans, No Worries….that’s the motto of Dale and Mary Lynn on the blog Dale and Mary Lynn’s Travels. Dale and Mary Lynn received a surprise offer of early retirement effective in June 2007 and since then have been traveling the country…and boy have they traveled in their retirement! On their 2009 retirement RV vacation, from which they just returned home to Maryland in August 2009, Dale and Mary Lynn were gone 226 days and 8 hours! They traveled to 21 States (including Alaska), two Canadian Provinces, and one Canadian territory. Follow Dale and Mary Lynn as they travel the country in their 2008 37 foot Tiffin Allegro Bay by going to Dale and Mary Lynn’s Travels.

If you would like to check out a Tiffin Allegro Bay for yourself, go to this RV Sales website.