Those with campers/RVs, I don't understand you

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SherrifOfNothingtown@reddit

There's a spectrum for how mobile your house is -- stick built is the least mobile, campers are the most mobile, various sorts of manufactured and prefab are somewhere in between. There's also a spectrum for how much ownership you have over the land your home is on. Lower levels of ownership include renting, leasing, or even owning within city limits and/or in a HOA. The more mobile housing types are more compatible with the lower-ownership location types, but the relationship between them isn't guaranteed. If your choice is between no ownership (renting an apartment) vs owning what you live in (RV or single-wide manufactured on a leased site), the latter may offer more agency, privacy, and customization potential (at the cost of greater liability for fixing things that go wrong of course). Financially, less-mobile housing options tend to be the most expensive. Plenty of people can afford either land ownership or paying for a stick-built home (rent or mortgage), but not both at once. Placing a more-mobile and thus cheaper housing option onto fully owned land can be the best available compromise to maximize agency, privacy, and customization within an individual's financial constraints. Also for traveling, many people might choose between a camper/RV or driving then staying in motels. Cost aside (as the RV costs will amortize over how much you actually use it), it's worth considering that many states' laws treat an RV as a residence and a car as a vehicle. Depending on the state you're traveling through, there may be means of self-defense that it would be legal to have in an RV but not legal to have in your car.

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FlashyImprovement5@reddit

Seriously depends on your RV and your priorities. My RV is 34ft 5th wheel. It has an 8ft wide closet. If I put every single piece of clothing I own AND all of my sewing material, the closet is not full. I also have a HUGE dresser that stays empty. I also have a washing machine area/coat closet that holds tools and spare parts. My bathroom has a linen closet that holds about twice as much linen as I actually own or need My living room and kitchen has cabinets at the ceiling. My kitchen has storage from waist high to the floor and there is storage under my stove. AND I have a pull out pantry that will hold many, many cans. It also has a large pass-thru bay underneath. Underbay area I can fill this with junk I won't ever really need or fill it with stuff that will be useful or I can fill it with my garden tools, my fishing gear, my outdoor kitchen necessities, my tent and tarps. I manage to keep my sewing, my spinning, my cooking equipment all inside. My water heater, stove, winter heater and fridge are all propane. My microwave, AC and TV are electric and I can live without those easily. I can easily hold 4-6 months of food in the RV. I live in an Angus farm with several fully stocked lakes. There is a turtle breeding pond nearby and we have deer, rabbits and squirrels close. And I have a large garden with many perennial survival veggies planted. I am also planting a food forest. I also have a small pull-behind my little ranger can pull. It presently had a short, full sized bed, 2 burner propane stove, sink with 5 gallons of fresh water storage inside and 10 outside. It had storage for a generator (don't have one) and 2 propane tanks. It has AC, a skylight and hookups for ham radios and a TV. It can run off 110V or 30A plugs. Underneath the bed is all can storage. It also has a Thetford capsule toilet that gets set outside in a tent. I'm planning on renovating it to put in a futon instead of the bed, and redo the sink and stove areas to have more storage and to make room for a fridge. It was built for hunters and never included a fridge originally. I plan to install small cabinets and a table area the fridge and toilet can fit under. [My RV](https://youtu.be/S7EEyW7dMBg)

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ilreppans@reddit

Never lived in a camper as a primary residence, but I’m an ultralight multimodal camper and have previously owned campervans. First and foremost all my camping gear/experience is primarily intended for recreation, sightseeing, and travel. Yet it all, secondarily, also works for emergency/preps. Then if you were to look at the history of first world disasters that actually kills people and destroys property, you might notice that the vast majority are localized where evacuation (dare I say ‘bug-out’) generally works out better than shelter-in-place. Frankly, if an event it is safe enough to shelter-in-place (ie, not life-threatening or property destroying), then to me anyways, it’s more of an ‘inconvenience’ than ‘SHTF’, and just like camping out at home, except easier. So what are YOU prepping for - teotwawki maybe? I just prep for Tuesday, not Doomsday.

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Mothersilverape@reddit

I grew up as a small child in what would today be considered a very tiny home. It was 8x16 feet. It was a permanently parked trailer when trailers were a fairly new thing. I discovered all about frozen propane lines and how frozen lines mean no heat in winter, and propane ovens at a very young age. Problems solving was a daily necessity. Not a luxury. We lived in the country. So most spring, summer and autumn living happened outside. The playhouse that extended family lovingly built for us to use as children was bigger than our home. And it stored outdoor things like lawnchairs and hammocks, gardening supplies etc. in the wintertime. There was a porch built onto the end of the trailer that went down to a root cellar. Lots of food was kept cool and with easy access down there. And with a market garden we seems to never run out of fresh veggies. It can be done.

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Mothersilverape@reddit

I think that preppers, if they have an RV, are blessed. If they have the means preppers should ideally have their RVs parked at their home living location. It’s like having a giant all inclusive get away vehicle ready to go, stocked with bedding, clothing, water, batteries, and fuel. Quickly throwing in some canned and prepared shelf stable food and photo albums, and It becomes another option for a SHTF moment. I’m sure lots of rural living Canadians were happy to spend a few weeks somewhat closer to their homes sleeping in their own trailers, 5th wheels, or motorhomes, or even a van when, due to multiple grass and forest fires, they had to evacuate away from their homes, away from the eye of danger. During the multiple fires that were occuring in Canada recently, I’m assuming that having an RV set up for the season, ready and prepared to go would come in very handy.

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ZeeSolar@reddit

\>What do you prep for if that is your primary residence? Two key areas 1. Storage lockers 2. Storage at BOL

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GunnCelt@reddit

I recently did a post on r/TinyPrepping about it. We are, once again, full timing in our rig. We have about 30 days of long term food stored, RO filtration connected to our kitchen sink, 60 gallon propane tank, 65 gallon freshwater tank, 5KW generator onboard and a 3.5 KW secondary generator. 450 watts of solar panels and 200 Ah of batteries that will double in about a month. We have firearms, ammo, traditional bows several dozen arrows ready to use as well as several dozen more waiting to be built. Chest freezer, fridge, Plex server with a ton of media, so on and so forth. We’ve always prepped for weather events and personal apocalypse events, such as job loss, etc. we have a dog and five cats. Have you ever had to find a motel at 2 AM that allows pets at an affordable price? We have, it’s tough. When we lived in Colorado, we’d see evacuations due to wild fires and folks had to leave their animals behind, we won’t. It will take us less than 30 minutes to pack up and drive away, if necessary and that’s helpful since we currently live in a hurricane prone area. With what we have onboard and our skill sets, we could head into the woods and live comfortably for several months. We pay about $400 a month for rent, $0.16 a KW for electricity, $30 insurance and have the title in hand for our rig. We don’t pay for water, sewage, trash or internet because that’s covered in the rent at most RV parks. Once in awhile we’ll be someplace that doesn’t have good WiFi, so I’ll hardwire into a switch or use a hotpot that is a pay as you go. We’re quite happy with this. Our long term goal is to find a slice of heaven to park and build on, but we just haven’t found the right place, yet

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Nokotokin@reddit

I have lived in an RV for about 7 months and will for the next 6 months to year. It's not exactly my first choice of residence but I do prefer to live on my land while working toward a proper structure. I don't see any reason to not prep during this time. Then as some others pointed out there's potential advantages depending on the situation.

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infinitum3d@reddit

Not mine but a close friend lives in his RV. He’s got a work from home online business. It’s not about what it can hold. Sure he has food and water in it but that’s not the goal. The goal is that the RV **can take him to** where the food and water is. It’s a moveable shelter with climate control. His preps are solar, some dry goods foods, a couple 5 gallon water jugs, a couple 20L Jerry cans of gasoline, spare tire and tire repair kit, meds, hunting rifle and ammo, and some basic bushcraft blades. His prep is to bug out. Drive to the nearest safe town, restock food and water, and when it’s no longer safe, drive on to the next safe town. He’s got redundant GPS, plus a physical road atlas.

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reddit_username_yo@reddit

I'm not an RVer, but the prepping aspect seems pretty obvious - you are ready to go at a moment's notice with water tanks, a generator, fuel, often solar panels, possibly satellite internet, all your important papers, pets, etc. It's the ultimate bug out bag. You don't need much space to store a couple months worth of food, which is plenty for any realistic scenario. A couple cubic feet will get you plenty of rice, beans, pasta, and sauce, which is very doable in an RV.

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ryanmercer@reddit

Happy cake-day!

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GSDFrieden@reddit

Hoarding food isn’t sustainable, it’s meant as a stop gap between where we are and where we want to be when the SHTF. It’s our skillset and knowledge that will provider long term food security so I don’t put a need on the amount of storage space as much as you.

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OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit

I don't have either. But people with RVs and dealing with floods, earthquakes or wildfires might well be better off than many bug-in preppers. Waters are coming? You can leave *and* take your supplies with you. But my generator and stock of food isn't going to work so well under water. I haven't seen the need yet, but if wildfires become a problem in my area, I could probably make a case for it.

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Indecks9999@reddit

With a camper, we have more than enough room on our land to build storage. I have no rent, no monthly payments on a mortgage, only about 125 usd in taxes per year. We also gain much more from raising food and animals for food. Just because I live in a camper does nothing to limit our resources. I am on the end of a dead end road out in the middle of nowhere. People are not going to be just walking by on their way somewhere. Its a better setup than you think

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surfaholic15@reddit

Ours is not primary except when we are working. But hubby designed and built our camper on the utility bed of our pickup. It will hold at least a month or food and liquid for us. I summer we live in ithalf the week every week. It is warm and toasty down to at least twenty below zero. It is our work residence and a good way to get from our primary in town residence to more remote bug in locations if needed, and will keep us comfy in the event there is some sort of natural disaster. Given the environment we work in, having a mobile house is a good idea. Forest fires are a thing. So are bears.

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Those with campers/RVs, I don't understand you

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15 Comments

SherrifOfNothingtown@reddit

FlashyImprovement5@reddit

ilreppans@reddit

Mothersilverape@reddit

Mothersilverape@reddit

ZeeSolar@reddit

GunnCelt@reddit

Nokotokin@reddit

infinitum3d@reddit

reddit_username_yo@reddit

ryanmercer@reddit

GSDFrieden@reddit

OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit

Indecks9999@reddit

surfaholic15@reddit