Posted on 09/10/2023 9:11:29 AM PDT by Spacetrucker
Wife, son and I are doing the permanent RV life. TBH, the hardest part has been the downsizing; you never truly understand just hom much you accumulate over 30 years of marriage until you do something like this. As it stands, we are investigating mobile internet services and are seriously considering Starlink
To clarify, if you use Verizon on your phone with an unlimited account, the bandwidth is unlimited on that phone.
You have a certain amount of high bandwidth data each month for sharing your connection with other devices (turning on your hotspot). After that limit, the bandwidth for sharing is limited.
I believe dedicated Verizon hotspots with unlimited bandwidth remain unlimited while sharing. That may be a viable solution for you, if you like the Verizon coverage.
“My issue with Verizon is they ALWAYS throttle after a certain point, even with their unlimited plan.”
AT&T does this too. We live RV mobile. We just live within our means and do not need 24-7 high speed. We even live without streaming internet TV! (imagine that!). Currently Verizon and USB tether or hotspot to our laptops or tablets.
Private message me if you ever come to the Denver area. I’ll show you a really cool place to go, that not many know about! Bring your fishing poles.
I have a friend whose job relies on fast internet (his home office is in Australia). He has tried many services. He says the best is Starlink (Elon Musk).
There is an excellent YouTube channel: “Liz Amazing” who does RV life videos...
She is excellent and has done a couple on ALL of the mobile solutions, most of which she has used during her five years on the road...
Pluses...Minuses...
“My spot is $500 a month but they are splitting the electric bill equally among us, which in my mostly low-electric lifestyle isn’t working in my favor.”
To each his own, but I don’t get the lure of that lifestyle AT ALL .
If you’re semipermanently parked in an RV park paying $500/mo plus some of other’s utilities, plus whatever payments you have on your RV and living in cramped quarters, why not just move to a small town in Arkansas and rent a nice apartment for probably the same or less, and when you get the urge to get out and travel, go by car, stay in motels or campgrounds and skip the pain in the ass of dealing with a big RV trailing a car and the ridiculous gas expense.
What am I missing?
Are you homeless, or is this just a long vacation?
I have no good advice for you.
Just always think of Deep Purple when I see your name.
Wow. Good luck for your future. Starlink is your best bet. They give benefits and discounts to RV’ers. I wanted to get it at my home but my neighbors have too many tall trees.
We have Consolidated Communications. They suck. $88 a month and spotty internet. I’m lucky to have it 8 times a month. Use data on my phone for important stuff.
Internet is only one of the challenges.
Where is your permanent address?
Where will you register vehicles?
Which state will issue your drivers license?
If you are retired, what kind of Medicare supplement will you have? Where can you use your medical plan as you travel?
RV’s must be hooked up to clean water. How will you keep your water line from freezing in winter?
If your RV is older than 10 years, many RV parks will not let you stay monthly (regardless of RV condition).
Storage of your stuff is always a problem. If you store stuff in a storage unit, how can you have convenient access if you are on the road?
Also, many places have no storage available for your RV if you want to pause from traveling.
Since the end of the COVID lockdowns and rising cost of fuel, there is an enormous glut of RV’s on the market.
The gypsy life sounds appealing but there are MANY challenges not listed here.
We have, thanks mostly to my wife but in no small part due to my love of Texas, most of these issues figured out. The legal issues have been resolved by an RV’ers service for a fixed address and, as you have read above, geographically we don’t have any worries about water freeze. Most of my time will be in Texas as my legal and factual domicile with occasional jaunts to other areas. I guess it’s more of a relocation than an actual nomad lifestyle but our love of the freedom of movement will be sated this way. As an aside, I’m not quite retirement age so not an immediate concern.
calyxinstitute.org
Mobile hotspot on Sprint, Unlimited and high speed, $500 per year. I have 2
You can count on that! Son and I have “rediscovered” our love of fishing. He still has trouble casting around trees and such (bobbers are a bulk quantity item 😁).
There are two kinds of RV’s - ones that leak and ones that WILL leak.
If you live on the road full time in an RV, you had better be a handyman with a bunch of tools and experience.
If you are rolling around America in an RV, you will have nearly constant headaches with repairs.
Even in a new RV, you may have to wait weeks for repairs under warranty. Can you afford to have your “house” sitting in a repair shop for weeks? Where will you live?
I once saw a couple with a brand new motor home at a park by Yellowstone National Park. Their slide-out had an electric motor on each end. One motor failed so the slide got cockeyed and would not open and close properly. Many RV’s cannot be lived in without the slides extended. In this case, the nearest warranty center for this new motor home was 400 miles away.
How do you drive the unit 400 miles without being able to use it properly and then leave it for weeks for a repair?
Leave your awning extended for a couple of hours and an unexpected strong wind can tear the entire structure off the unit while you are sightseeing.
I couldn’t live with my wife in a beer can
I just got starlink a few months ago.
Only had hughesnet or viasat as options.
Viasat absolutely sucks canal water.
I averaged between 1.5 and 3 Mbps.
Slightly above old dial up speed.
Starlink, between 38 and 125 Mbps.
No comparison.
Pigs are extremely smart. But the pet ones I’ve known will make an absolute mess of your home without strong training. (And even the ‘minis’ can get pretty big.)
Ha ha ha! I love it! I'll gear him up for river fishing with zero trees to cast around! It's amazing where we live!
We too use a Verizon hot spot, but we aren’t RVers full-time. We just take off when we get ready and return home when we are ready to do that as well.
There is the issue about throttling after reaching a certain amount. If anyone knows of a better carrier than Verizon for a hot spot, let me know. Coverage is an issue as well but since we have yet to travel out of southern or southeastern states, Verizon seems to work for the majority of the time. However, in the mountains of Tennessee we have found we get absolutely no signal at all.
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