My wonderful first experience with RV life

I rented an RV for the first time when we went for our road trip through Arizona and Utah in the beginning of May. I have to be honest: the main reasons why I convinced Matt to do this were my apprehensions of motels: bed bugs, blood stains on the mattress, having to unpack and repack my stuff every day... an RV just seemed like a comfortable choice for a week long road trip. Plus, we'd have a kitchen and wouldn't have to eat out all the time. In the end, we went for it mainly because none of us had ever tried it before, and we were curious to know what it was like.

We rented a compact RV from Cruise America, which is a smaller version of the standard vehicles. It's big enough for 3 people, which was big enough for us. You can get a kitchen kit with plates, mugs, cutlery, pans, etc. We didn't pay for one because we had brought our own things. What we did get was personal kits with pillows, comforters and so on. We got two, but you could also get one for two people, as long as you're fine with sharing one (large) blanket and bring a pillow with you.

When we arrived at the pick-up location, I somehow felt like a five year old again. They had to explain literally everything to us, and we did ask tons of questions just to be sure. They also offered to store our suitcases for us, because there really wasn't room for them, which was great. So we unpacked our things and hit the road.

I don't know if it was just us, but we barely had fuel when we got the RV. Just in case I would always check this first and go get gas if you need to. We also went to a nearby grocery store to get everything we would need for the week - we got tons of food because we were so excited to cook our own meals again!

Driving the RV was okay almost right away - it isn't that different than a normal car, except that you need more space to turn and stuff like that. But we had to learn the hard way to close all the cupboards properly: approximately 3 minutes after we left the grocery store, we had strawberries and pasta flying around the vehicle.

There were two things we were most afraid of: finding camping grounds to spend the night and having to connect our RV to water, electricity and the dumpster. The second one turned out to be so easy: you get everything you need in your parking spot, so you just pull out the cables/houses and pluck them in. As for finding a place to sleep, Cruise America does provide a map of all KOA camping grounds, but they are also one of the most expensive ones. On our first day, we just stopped at the first RV Park we saw in Kingman, and it turned out to be really great. You just check in like you would in a hotel, they give you the number and location of your slot and then you park there and connect your vehicle to everything. There were picnic tables and free Wi-Fi as well, which was great! So after this, we just went on driving during the day, not knowing where we would end up at night.

We usually started looking for an RV parking around 6pm, since you can't check in too late. We did have trouble finding a parking slot once when we were in Page, but that's probably because it's a touristy town. The main camping ground there was full, and since we didn't have any internet, we ended up at a lodge with access to water and electricity, but no dumping station. But you can always talk to other RVlers for things like the nearest dump station. It's almost like a private club: if you have an RV and you see other people with an RV, they're always super nice to you! Or maybe Americans are just all that nice, I'm not sure. All in all, I think that not booking is fine if you're travelling off season (like we were in May), but I can imagine that it's much more difficult in peak periods.

Keep in mind that there are always free parking spaces like Truck Stops (Love's travel stops for example have dump stations and water as well) or even Walmart, where you can spend the night in the parking lot for free (not all Walmarts though, so be sure to check first!).

Staying in an RV was a really fun experience. We felt like "The Millers" in our motor home. Despite the fact that it was really small, we had enough space for everything. The only thing that threw us off a bit was how quickly the water storage filled up, but that's fine if you can just clean it out on the camping ground.

The are of course a couple of downsides to an RV compared to a regular car: you have to drive more carfully or otherwise you might break the dishes, going off road becomes impossible, you have to take care not only of fuel, but also of propane, water and electricity, and camping on a slope can get pretty uncomfortable.

But there are so many advantages as well: you always have all your things with you, you spend less money on food because you can always make a sandwich if you're hungry, and cook your own meals, you sleep in the same bed every night, even if you're in completely different places, and you never have to look for a bathroom!

We both loved our first RV experience: it's different, it isn't cheaper, but it doesn't have to be more expensive. You're extremely flexible, although you have a huge vehicle to manoeuver, and you always feel at home, no matter where you are.