Welp, second summer is over (already). It’s time to get back on the road and work on our travel back east. This year is going to start out surprisingly similar to 2022, in-spite of what Kate and I suspected we were going to do this year. – we’re starting at the same place and working our way across Texas, hitting Houston and eventually getting to the east coast.

Kate is vehemently opposed to taking the same route, so we will not be taking the gulf coast this year. Instead we’re going to go up into the states a bit further north and cut across. This gets us off I10 and forces us to see something slightly different as we go through the less discussed states in the deep south of the US. Once it warms up, we’re bee-lining back to Vermont, where we have a seasonal lot waiting for us.

This year is all about starting the process of transitioning us into a homestead, where one of my personal goals is to pick a parcel of land in Vermont to purchase, and maybe even set ourselves up to live on that land this year. That seems a little unrealistic based on the options we’re considering, but at the very least the hope is to own some land that, in time, we will live on permanently. I’m guessing that it will take a couple of years before we have everything we need on the land to actually move out of our camper.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to live in our fifth wheel, spend our summers working on the land, and ducking out in the winter to avoid getting blasted by the cold while living in a camper that’s just not built for such harsh weather.

What’s nice is we don’t feel any pressure to stop living in the camper like we did in our previous rig. The 26′ always felt like it was teetering on unsustainable for our family, and in our first 2 years of travel, we found ourselves in a vicious cycle where we would talk ourselves into staying in the camper, and come around to loving our little space to suddenly finding ourselves desperately wanting to get out of the camper.

That manifested in everything from making offers on houses site unseen, to nearly purchasing a class C to improve our living situation. It just wasn’t sustainable, mostly because of a few key issues with what the space couldn’t offer (DOORS ARE AWESOME!). Combine that with a lack of understanding of what our pace should be, and we found ourselves burning out way sooner than we needed. Because the truth is, if we are going to ever have the homestead we want, it’s probably going to take a few years to build, and that means we’re going to be living in this camper for a few years. It better be comfortable, or we will never make it.

The 26′ camper was a fantastic entry into this life for us. It cost just over 6 grand to purchase, and we got that money back out of it when we sold it. We learned a lot, and got a deep understanding of what we needed to do this long-term, and I think this new rig is a good representation of that. By purchasing and living in this rig, we have removed all of that pressure to jump out of our living situation, and we really needed that, because without it we were destined to make a bad choice we would regret.

But, the 26′ camper was a safe place to experiment. We were able to push the boundaries on what we can, or can’t do in a small space, and learn what works and what doesn’t work. After getting adjusted to living in a small space like that, this camper straight up feels like a mansion to us.

Our 2023 Rig

In light of that, I decided to record a real video, showing you what we’ve our camping rig looks like coming into the 2023 season. The rig is always evolving, always changing, and sometimes completely getting replaced, but I honestly don’t think this rig is going to change significantly at this point. We seem to have it dialed in, and it’s working really well for us.

Our setup is 100% not what we would use if we were just camping like most people do. In fact, most of the changes we’ve made seem so silly when you look at a camper through the lens of “camping”. However, when you consider that this is not a vacation, and we are not constantly out exploring, it makes a lot more sense.

quick side note – Kate wrote a detailed post on our original camper a while back. If you’re looking to see where we started go check that out.

Outside

The outside of our rig is mostly stock, save a few very important stickers, and a series of pistons that help stabilize the rig when we’re parked. We’ve got kids, and those kids jump and romp all day, and they shake the entire camper in-doing so. It drives me nuts, so to mitigate that we have six pistons that go under various slides, and our back bumper, as well as a tripod that attaches to the hitch pin up front. This makes a HUGE difference and I can’t imagine going without it ever again.

Cats

The cats need litter boxes, and that’s no different in our life. Our original camper had a few different solutions to this, eventually culminating into a clever little trick to put the box under the bottom bunk in storage. This was not an option for the new rig, and as a result, we decided to build a custom cabinet that houses the litter boxes and is set up to minimize the amount of litter that gets tracked throughout the camper. Overall it’s worked very well and I’m quite pleased with the results.

The gray box in the image below was the original solution we had in the small camper. It worked okay, but we ended up removing it and putting the boxes inline under the kid’s bunks. This took up a bit of storage but really opened up the space.

Honestly though, I think we really had this better in the old camper. It definitely could have been done better, but I did it on the road and didn’t have access to proper tooling, but the general idea was really good. We cut out a small hole in the panel under the bunk and isolated a small corner of our rear storage. This turned it into a place to put the litter boxes, and freed up much-needed space in the little 26′. much easier (and CHEAPER) than building a whole damn cabinet. But hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Kids

The kids got a significant upgrade between the old and new rig. In the original setup, their “room” was literally their beds, and nothing more. At the time, Devin was an infant, so we were able to fit all of his clothes in a very small bin. Ben had a very small cabinet that held all of his clothes, as well. The thing about kids…they grow. Which means they need more space for their clothes, and just in-general their own space to play.

The consequence of a space this small was that we basically had to sacrifice a sizeable portion of the living area in the name of toys. This worked fine, for the most part. You just have to have the right attitude about it. That being said, moving them into their own room made it so that most of the toys stay in their room. That’s very nice no matter how you spin it.

The new rig gives them a dedicated bedroom that features a set of bunk beds and a ton of storage underneath for their toys. This also has a closet and much more room for their clothes, as well as a small entertainment center with some retro gaming consoles and a Nintendo Switch. They both have their own small flip-up shelf (you’ll see those are very popular in our build) and a small rack at the foot of their beds for extra personal belongings.

I think this was the single biggest change when switching. When we are in the camper, there was just nowhere for the kids to go, and as a result they were always in the same space as us. Ben in-particular didn’t have anywhere to go really. It worked fine when the weather was good, and going outside was an option. When that wasn’t an option, however, it got difficult, and fast. With this new setup, we’re perfectly comfortable and I find myself stepping on a lot fewer toys every day.

Office

I actually wrote a post about my original office set-up, which has for the most part been relegated to a mobile setup. It’s truly an insanely good mobile setup, but I found that I really wanted a good, comfortable office, where I wasn’t constantly fighting with the kitchen for desk space.

In the previous camper, I would find myself working right beside the kitchen, and the things in the kitchen would find their way onto my desk out of necessity because there would be dirty dishes that needed drying, or maybe we’re cooking something that just needs a flat surface. Well, my desk was the only extra flat surface, and as a result I’d find myself frequently writing code while hugging a bowl full of bread dough for a few minutes. Not ideal for focus, as you’d imagine.

Plus, we originally saved a ton of space by using a folding chair for my office desk. It solved the space problem, but oh my god was it uncomfortable. I couldn’t do it anymore, and we ended up creating a dedicated desk space in the old camper, with a proper office chair. That helped a ton. With that, we realized that I just needed a space if we were going to do this long term

So, we built out a much better desk setup in the old rig, and then from what we learned in that setup, built a custom desk for myself. I’m not going to sugarcoat it – this desk is amazing, and I’m very proud of how comfortable the setup has become. Wires are mostly hidden, I can swap between computers quickly, I’m facing away from the chaos behind me, and I have access to several pairs of headphones that allow me to isolate as much as I need to when working. The kitchen is much bigger in this space, and as a result, my desk never gets used as a staging area. I love it so much.

Throw in a redundant 5G unlimited AT&T internet plan plus Starlink as an alternative network and I basically always have internet that’s fast enough to play video games online without lag, all while my family is watching YouTube videos all day and night. I couldn’t fit two monitors on the desk, so I opted to go with a single ultrawide monitor that fit perfectly on the desk. This allowed me to maximize the space as much as I can, and since most games support ultrawide, it has become a very nice work/play space for me.

Living Room/Bedroom

In our previous rig, we had this really cool daybed that converted into Kate and I’s bed at night. It was an awesome setup – the kids, Kate, me, and the dog would all snuggle up on there at night, and would often watch movies using our projector. This was probably my favorite corner of our original camper.

But it wasn’t without it’s issues. The bed itself was a Japanese style mattress, which is much like a futon mattress. We added a foam pad to make it more comfortable, but the reality was it just was not comfortable to sleep on. It did the job, but I definitely missed having a better mattress.

Another issue was that the front of the previous rig was curved. This curve meant that you couldn’t really lounge in this space without basically laying down because, well, the curve was just in the way. We got round this a bit by using yoga bolsters to push us further from this pocket and give us some room, but no matter what, I couldn’t ever quite get it to a level of comfort that you can find in, say, a recliner.

In our new rig, the living room area has become a dedicated living room instead of needing to do two jobs – be our bedroom and also be our living room. It’s literally just two recliners, surrounded by big ass windows, with a small flip-up shelf that allows us to enjoy the scenery out the rear window.

This means our bedroom is just that – a room with a bed in it. But now it’s a real mattress. In fact, it’s the mattress we had in our house before we moved out. The bedroom has a door and a TV in it. This means that if someone is watching TV, they’re out of the living area and not creating a bunch of noise in the space. Conversely, they can enjoy the show by creating a quiet environment to isolate. There’s nothing novel about any of this, but it has had a significant impact on how quiet the living area is as a result.

Kitchen

Kate will disagree with me, but our new kitchen is better than the old kitchen. The fridge is considerably bigger, and while we don’t have as much storage as we did in the previous rig, we have a lot more space to actually cook. It’s still not enough for some of the things we want to-do, and we really wish we had a dishwasher, but it’s still much better than we had before. There’s more countertop space (with occasional help from the dining room table, NOT MY DESK) and the oven is a little bigger on the inside. This means our bread doesn’t get a flat spot on top when it rises while cooking and hits the top of the oven.

We ripped the microwave out in this setup, just like we did with the last one. There’s just too much extra storage that you need when you’re full-timing to justify keeping the microwave. Instead, we use that space to literally hold all of our plates, bowls, and cutting boards – a much better use of the space.

Dining Room

Our last camper’s dining room was a part of a flip out table design that…kind of worked, but it was too much hassle to set up most of the time. As a result, it rarely got used. Even when it was set up and functional, it made using the rest of the space very difficult because it took up most of the available floor space. As a result, we simply didn’t use a dining table most of the time.

The new setup has a small flip up table that gets used like a breakfast bar, as well as a proper table that gets a lot of use by Kate and Ben for homeschool. Ben also plays video games on his laptop at this desk generally.

Our Needs Shifted

Overall, our space has evolved with how we approach travel. In our first year, we were so busy traveling that we didn’t really have time to care about some of the disadvantages of being in a tiny space. Instead, we just wanted to be able to tuck into tight spots, in an inexpensive rig, and have a comfortable space to live an active lifestyle within.

We moved a lot that year, and did a lot of boondocking. I believe that a lot of the travel we did in our first year would not have been great with the camper we’re using now. Instead, we would have had issues with towing the camper, as well as troubles with parking it in some of the really cool, but very tight places we would like to visit.

Take this place in Elephant Butte, near Truth or Consequences New Mexico. There is NO WAY we were getting into this space with our current camper. Could we have found a different place? Definitely. Would that place have a different experience that may not have been as up-close and personal with the very nature we wanted to see? Most likely.

We’re just not in that phase anymore. We go slower now, and aren’t really exploring and seeing new things at the moment. For the most part, we’re just traveling to stay out of cold weather, and that’s about it. There isn’t a lot of novelty in our experience as a result, and because of that we find ourselves spending more time in our camper than we ever did. Once that shift happened, our little 26 footer with no slides became an issue.

I think that, at least for now, this is the rig we will use for our full-timing adventures. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that we haven’t thought about owning a second camper that’s more like our first layout. Something that we could hook up and take boondocking out west. Something that my truck can easily haul. Something that still has access to the kitchen, so we can cook inside the camper at pit stops. Maybe in a few years we’ll consider it, but for now – we have the camper we need, and I don’t see us doing anything major with it until we don’t need a space like this anymore.