TRAILER PARKED
Retirees hoping for RV adventures can expect to spend more time in their own driveways
Roosterfish were just starting to show themselves in the Sea of Cortez when avid sport fishermen Samuel and Christine Spencer got wind of the coronavirus pandemic.
The retired couple, Vermont-tonew Jersey transplants in their late 50s, had driven their RV south, planning to spend their second consecutive winter in the small town of Los Barriles in Mexico’s Baja California Sur.
“Our schedule is based on fishing,” Christine said. “We follow trout, then in the winter we want to escape cold weather and snow.”
They had been fishing dorado and ballyhoo for several weeks when the United States and Mexico agreed to close the border to non-essential travel, and the Spencers realized they would have to head north to avoid getting stuck.
But back stateside, with campgrounds shuttered nationwide, it was nearly impossible to find a place with an RV hookup to park for the night.
After many phone calls, the operator of a 55-plus mobile home community in Yuma, Ariz., offered them a two-night stay. They used that respite to connect with friends in Mesa, Ariz., who agreed to host them in their driveway. “I assume the welcome mat is getting a little worn,” Christine said. “Thank gosh I’m a good cook for earning our keep.”
The past two months have generated significant upheaval for retirees who had hoped to spend their golden years travelling North America by RV.
As the spring travel season got underway, popular destinations such as national parks were gated. Now some parks are reopening with restrictions. The borders with Canada and Mexico are still closed to non-essential travel, and private RV parks are keeping shared amenities such as swimming pools shuttered.
And as social distancing and other restrictions loom, couples such as the Spencers are considering whether to turn off the ignition for part of the year.
As a retirement lifestyle, RV ownership offers budget options with entry-level travel trailers towed behind a vehicle available for as low as US$10,000. At the higher end, Class A Motorhomes, which are self-contained living units that can come with finishes and fixtures nicer than the average house, can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Spencers eased into full-time RV life slowly, starting with a pop-up camper in the 1990s and upgrading to a travel trailer in 2007. They embarked on several cross-country road trips lasting up to six weeks, going as far as Vancouver, and hitting marquee national parks such as Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion and Yellowstone.
In 2012, Hurricane Sandy destroyed the trailer and sent three feet of water into their 200-yearold post-and-beam house on the Jersey Shore. Repairs, including raising the house against future storm surge, dragged on for five years.
The couple briefly moved back to Vermont, then set out for Alaska in a new RV in July 2018. Through phone calls and faxes from the road, they completed the sale of their home in October 2018 for just under $1 million in cash.
They set out for the open road in search of prime fly-fishing across the American West. But those spots remain in jeopardy amid the rolling closures and reopenings amid the pandemic. Their next expected destination, the Green River in Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in northeastern Utah, has been overrun with anglers looking to fish in one of the few river destinations still open in the Intermountain West.
They are keeping their reservation at one of the two private campgrounds in the area, but the U.S. Forest Service has warned that even a single case of the novel coronavirus will lead the agency to shut down the recreation area.
“With COVID and not having anything to do because we can’t go do the activities we normally like to do, you start thinking of having a home again,” Christine said.
As the stock market went topsy-turvy, the couple withdrew some money from equities but still took a 25 per cent hit to their retirement portfolio. Browsing for a new Newmar RV in the $350,000 to $450,000 range is on hold.
“We put the kibosh on purchasing a new coach because we think we might be buying a house,” she said. “We want the liquidity to have both the RV lifestyle when we want to get up and go but also a place where we can settle during better weather.”
Retirees Debbie and Craig Green had been debating the attractions of full-time Rving for more than a year before the pandemic hit. In January 2019, they purchased a 2016 Winnebago Navion in Georgia for $80,000 in cash after saving for 18 years. They named it Shorty and spent three weeks driving it home to California. Debbie had been clamouring to try full-time Rving for a year, while her husband was more resistant. But she admits she is reconsidering after witnessing fellow RV owners send out SOS messages on social media, desperately looking for places to park as RV parks closed and told travellers to leave.
“We would have a lot of pause going full-time right now,” she said. “When you get tired of being that wanderer, we have a home base to hang out in the backyard, have a bonfire, tend to the garden and watch veggies grow.”
In late April, the Greens packed up Shorty for a “date day” jaunt to
Santa Barbara, Calif., where they found a beach parking lot offering a place to watch the waves. Those kinds of trips may become the norm for the time being, with bucket list plans of hitting all 50 states — they have checked off 17 — on pause.
“I feel like I have the best of both worlds right now,” she said.
The Greens’ new habits are likely bellwethers. “Some of the research that we’ve seen in the travel space is indicating that people are probably going to choose to stay closer to home,” RV Industry Association executive vice president James Ashurst said.
With outdoor recreation among the first activities governors have approved as they ease stay-home measures heading into the summer months, Ashurst sees an opportunity for retirees and for the industry.
“Across this country, there are local campgrounds and state parks, which are going to be open and provide opportunities for someone to get out and recreate in the confines of an RV,” he said.
And with Americans leery of air travel and cruises, he expects a potential boost from retirees choosing the self-contained sanitary environment of an RV. “There are advantages to being in your own vehicle as opposed to other travel options out there,” Ashurst said. “You control the cleanliness.”
Others share his rosy view. When not on the road, Don Humes runs Americas Mailbox, a combination mail forwarding service, vehicle registration centre, insurance office and RV campground in Box Elder, S.D., that offers a one-stop shop for RV owners.
South Dakota is a popular state for full-time Rvers to establish residency because there is no state income tax and it has lax residency requirements.
“Long term, I don’t anticipate major changes,” Humes said. Residency application kit downloads from his website remain steady.
“There’s no doubt that this virus thing is affecting people making plans to start this lifestyle, but I believe when this is over we’re going to see a sudden onrush,” he said.
For now, though, there is no escaping some element of uncertainty surrounding RV life.
For the past 13 years, Ken and Lida Carpenter, both 78, have split time between Texas and Minnesota, where they serve as campground hosts at St. Croix Bluffs Regional Park, logging tens of thousands of miles and relishing scenery along the way.
“I refer to it as windshield therapy on the days we get to travel,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter acknowledged that their normally freewheeling kind of RV lifestyle might become less common. As chairman of the member engagement committee for the Family Motor Coach Association, a national RV travel club, he has fielded many anxious queries about what life is going to be like after the pandemic.
“People will still use their RVS, but they will be less inclined for long-distance travel,” he speculated.