Drewskers said:
I'm gonna step right in it and post a counter-point! I follow a blog called Bumfuzzle which currently is about a family of four that lived the past few years in an old 27' Dodge RV. Before that they lived on a sailboat, and before that an old VW bus. Currently, they have moved into an old Travelall station wagon with a roof top tent! They are planning on living in this new rig and making their way down through Mexico and South America. In one of his blog posts about making this change, Pat, the father, talked about comfort. I think his opinions on the topic are very worthwhile and in fact I have printed out the following section of that post, and I refer to it every time I start getting too hung up some aspect of the changes I am making. Here is the link to the blog post (
http://www.bumfuzzle.com/comfortable/) and here is the quote I wish to share:
We’re going to miss the bus. We built a lot of great memories around it, and we’ll always have those. But we know there are a million more things to do and see, and this bus wasn’t the right vehicle to take us where we want to go now. We’re excited, and ready, to climb into the Travelall and set off for new horizons again.
There was some talk in the comments recently about comfort. That we wouldn’t be comfortable as a family of four traveling the way we are planning. No bathroom, no kitchen, etc.. If we’ve talked in person in the past few years then you can probably skip this part, because you’ve likely heard it before, but I really believe that comfort is the killer of dreams.
“I have to have a catamaran because I don’t want to be up all night rolling back and forth.”
“We need the 35 footer because it has four slide-outs.”
“We have to have a king-size bed/air conditioning/ice/shower.”
Whatever. It all cost money, and it all cost time, and it all ends up costing people the ability to simply take off. I think 99% of the time they are just looking for excuses so that they can explain why they aren’t doing what they’ve always wanted to do.
Ali and I never talk about our comfort. It’s way down the list of concerns. We could all benefit from a little discomfort, I think. My parents grew up in homes with outhouses and no running water. They shared beds with their siblings. They slept four or more to a room. And yet, that same generation has grown up to believe that they need/deserve every convenience known to man, at all times. That everyone needs their own bedroom. That air conditioning is a necessity, not a convenience. Nobody wants a car they need to work on. Nobody wants to change their own oil. Nobody even wants to wash their own car any more. It all just starts to seem completely crazy to me. Everyone wants to stay shut-up at home because it’s comfortable there.
I hate being comfortable. After a couple weeks of it I feel itchy, overweight, and pale. My feet are tapping. I watch the calendar and actually care what day it is. I want to hit the road. I want to get lost, and run out of gas. I want to get stuck in the sand. I want to break down and have to solve a dirty problem. I want to sleep in a tent on the roof of my car. And I want to do all of this with my kids and my wife. I want the kids to see that life is about a lot more than being comfortable. You can be dirty, you can sleep on a hard bed, you can sweat, and you can go to the bathroom behind a tree. Life will go on.
Does that mean we’ll never be comfortable? Of course not. We’ll stay in hotels. We’ll rent apartments. We’ll eat in air-conditioned restaurants. We’ll still get plenty of comfort. We just won’t get it every day. We won’t treat it like it is our right. We don’t deserve comfort, we earn it—and when we get it, it’s that much more enjoyable.
This is all well and good.....but wait til he gets to be 65 with a back that is prone to get achy when you sleep on a hard bed for a night......hell....even an hour. I need a comfortable bed. And that vehicle breaking down or getting stuck in the sand??? I can't imagine myself crawling under a vehicle to repair it, or change the oil or do anything that would involving stooping down for an extended time to work on it. Much less...than trying to push it out of the sand. My back would be out for a month!!!!
And, I just can't imagine sleeping on the roof of any vehicle. I want my bed "no higher than" 3 feet off the ground or floor. Sleep in a tent? I want my bed "at least" 3 feet off the ground or floor!!
Here's the way I look at it. I live in modern times with things like flush toilets, nice hot showers whenever I want one, in a clean bathroom, central heat and cooling (I would like to see how this guy does in Florida during the summer without AC!!!! OMG), refrigerators to keep ice cream, meats, and all other perishables fresh, TV, cell phone, computers, and the list goes on and on... to make my life comfortable. There is no way in hell I am going to go live in a car "fulltime" like this person is and give up all my comforts permanently. And do it with a family of 4 in one vehicle that has under 50 sq foot?? That vehicle is going to start stinking in no time. That is not a healthy situation. This is one reason why I ditched the idea of the cargo trailer.
I have done it myself for a month before and was not a happy person for it. Sure, I can do it for a novelty, but I would not make it my lifestyle unless I was forced to from circumstances beyond my control. Then I would be able to to do it no problem. But I would be searching for something more comfortable.
I can do the exact same thing he and his family are doing and visit the same places they do without having to live that sort of difficult, dirty, and miserable (to me) existence and still come back to normal, comfortable, living conditions.
I don't know why you would have to shun and deprive yourself of all the modern conveniences of a modern advanced society to be able to go see nature, mountains, deserts, oceans, rivers, historical places, and all the other things that are wonderful in this country of ours.
You don't have to do that!!!!! All you have to do is just take some time (a few days, a week, or a month), get in your vehicle and drive to wherever you want to visit. Stay a few days, a week or a month, and return to your comfortable home with it's modern conveniences to make your life pleasant and healthy.
You need exercise? Get in your car and go to a nice park in your city and walk, run, or ride your bike. EVERY town I have ever been (and I have been in lots and lots of them) has always had many parks and nature areas within or just a few miles away.
"YOU DON'T HAVE TO OWN THE COW TO DRINK THE MILK"
I hope we are not getting too far from the subject of the cargo trailer length decision. So let me ad that a cargo trailer would not be suited for me as a full time living vehicle. I have come to the idea that I really just don't like towing anything.
