The First 30 Days of Full-Time RVing
We have been on-the-road full-time RVers for 30 days already! How did this happen? As I write this post, my backyard is the Kofa (King of Arizona) National Wildlife Refuge located 20 miles south of Quartzite, AZ. I’m in my reclining lounge chair looking at a large saguaro cactus, a blooming ocotillo cactus and several mesquite shrubs with an amazing backdrop of rugged peaks from the Kofa Mountains. Believe it or not, this is all free because it is on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. This land belongs to all American citizens and we can stay in this spot for up to 14 days. Thanks goes to Harry S. Truman who created the BLM back in 1946. Photos don’t capture the raw beauty of this landscape!
Kofa Mountains 
Palm Canyon 
Blooming Ocotillo
The month of January flew by! So, this is a great opportunity to look back and see what we learned the first month of full timing on the road.
Sometimes, just wing it!
You don’t need to have everything figured out! With our lives scheduled out for so long, it has been refreshing to not even know where we will be going next. We met Jim and Kelly at OOBerfest at Quartzsite in mid-January and they said something that really resonated with us. “Yesterday, we took a right, so today we are going to take a left.” So, why not leave some room for flexibility and spontaneity! On Sunday, we decided to check out Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area a few hours before sunset. The wind blew the sand around us into amazing patterns. As a result, we had so much fun playing in the sand!
Flying High 
Imperial Sand Dunes 
Mark having fun!
You still need a budget
Because we are retired, it doesn’t mean we don’t need a budget. This is a new lifestyle for us. So, we need to have a really good understanding of where our money is going. Yes, we can splurge on a few items, but if we were to keep that up, our money wouldn’t go too far. We reconciled our January expenses and came in a little higher than we thought. It’s just one month, so it will be good for us to keep an eye on our expenses as the year progresses.
Research boondocking spots
We learned the more research you do, the better prepared you are to find the best places that can accommodate a 35-foot RV. We are new to all this, but here are three resources we use to find great boondocking sites: Campendium, AllStays Camp & RV and freecampsites.net. Each resource seems to provide different information, so we check each one to see what works best.
Staying in touch with family and friends
Lastly, and most importantly, we need to stay in touch with our family and friends while we are on the road. To do this, we post and comment regularly on Instagram/FaceBook and we make phone/FaceTime calls every week to family members to keep up with what’s happening. This is what we did when we were in our ‘sticks and bricks’ home too. I also like to send postcards from our travels to my daughters and my mom. It’s amazing the technology that is available today to do this. I can’t imagine what it would have been like even 10 years ago!
We have enjoyed being in the Southwest and plan on staying here for the next couple of months. Boondocking is something we are really enjoying, especially when you can have a new backyard every week! This week we got to share it with Peter and Janna Bodette! We are so glad we have chosen this lifestyle to travel North America and to visit areas and attractions we didn’t even know existed.
In the comments below, leave your recommendations as to what we should check out in Arizona and New Mexico over the next couple of months.
Finding Joy in the Journey – Heidi and Mark
I am so jealous and so happy for you thoug
h you did miss sewing at Chasta
Heard there was a great time in Chaska quilting! I hear it was pretty cold and snowy too! Crazy winter in Minnesota!
Hi Heidi and Mark. This looks like so much fun, especially since today we are getting snow and have bad roads with below zero temps tonight. I am sure you do not miss the Minnesota winter.
So in Arizona, I would recommend visiting Sedona. I was there over Thanksgiving visiting my daughter Beth and her boyfriend. It was SO beautiful. Love the saguaro cactuses. So majestic. Thanks for sharing your travels. I have enjoyed following you. Barb
So fun to see you are following our journeys. We have been to Sedona before as well, but not with an RV. They have had so much cold/snow this year, so we may have to make it another year. Yes, you are correct, I’m not missing the MN winters!
You’ve done tan sand dunes, why not try white! One of my favorite places on earth is White Sands NM. (Carlsbad Caverns is near by) Its out of the way, but on the way, go through Silver City NM! Both are not on the way to anything but a destination worth the drive!
Closer to “home” if you haven’t been to the painted desert, its pretty gorgeous and the nearby Petrified Forest is pretty cool too!
Thanks for the recommendations! Carlsbad Caverns, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest – there is so much to explore out here! So glad to be doing this together!
You guys should definitely check out the Meteor Crater that is just outside Winslow Arizona… if you haven’t yet. Haha!
I love seeing what you have been up to and miss you everyday at work!!!
Stef, thanks for the tip on the crater outside of Winslow. We weren’t too close it this winter, so I put it on our future list to check out! I so miss you too! Wish I could have stayed on the MOA Happenings stream, but I do get to see many on Insta and FB.