Grounding Ourselves: Switching from Frequent Flying to Motorhoming

Yes, I just made up the verb "motorhoming."

Paige and I were/are avid flyers. I subscribe to /r/churning. We got the Southwest Companion Pass with a little help from our side hustle business, ZippyMatch. It brings me no shame to refer you immediately to apply for a Chase Sapphire Preferred and get 50,000 bonus points for yourself after you spend $5,000 in 3 months or less.

I digress.

Here are 5 reasons we are switching from flying to traveling in our motorhome:

1. We want to explore more slowly.
   When you fly somewhere, you're probably staying in a hotel or an Airbnb. In very few cases, we could stay with friends. Most of the time we were going somewhere new, where we didn't know anyone. This meant we generally assumed a mindset of "go, go, go" to maximize the value of our costly hotel room. We decided we want to explore things more slowly. Go to more hole-in-the-wall places, experience the flyover states (hopefully we don't regret that decision!)
2. Full control over our itinerary.
   Ok, so most RV parks have a check-out time. Great, we can drive six blocks to Walmart and park there for a bit until we wake up more! Overall, we can leave when we want, go where we want, and do whatever we want along the way.
3. Boondocking.
   I. Am. SO. Excited. To. Boondock. We aren't quite ready yet, we need to install solar. But boondocking is one of the main reasons I wanted to go RV'ing, to stay in the remote corners of the country that are beautiful. Colorado is a prime example of this... the area around Durango, Telluride, Alamosa, Lake City, etc. is beautiful, but only limited (and expensive) commercial air service is available to this part of the state. Motorhoming will allow us to spend more time in places like this all across the country.
4. That big front window.
   In the same vein as boondocking, our windshield is amazing. I'm excited to see the sights. Once you hit 30,000 feet, pretty much everything looks the same.
5. Our kitties.
   Yes, our fur babies. Before, our trips were limited to 5 days or less. This was how long they could take care of themselves for, and even 5 days is pushing it on the litter box. With the motorhome, we can take trips however long we want! We are still trying to figure out how to go abroad, we're thinking of just parking at a parent's house and having them check-in on the kitties. That's a question for another blog.

On the flip side, RV life isn't full of roses. We're going to miss a few things about flying.

1. Priority Pass, status, lounges, etc. There's something intoxicating about navigating this artificially complex system. Squeezing maximum value for your dollar is essential for any traveler today, and the game is afoot.
2. Flying by people in the CLEAR lane. After a bunch of credit cards released Global Entry and/or TSA Precheck as a perk, the TSA Pre line became intolerable at times. Paige and I signed up for CLEAR, being the pretentious people we are, and enjoyed every nanosecond we spent getting our retinas and/or fingerprints scanned.
3. Getting there quickly. Want to go to Chicago? Great, it's a 2.5 hour flight, we can go after work on a Thursday and come back the following Tuesday, getting super cheap flights in the process! Going in a motorhome requires far more thought and planning (how many miles is it, how many miles per day will we drive, where will we stay along the way, etc)
4. Staying in the city center. This is probably the thing we'll miss the most, and we might even continue to stay in the occasional hotel even after we switch to RV'ing full-time. Being in the middle of the action just makes it easier to see more stuff in dense cities. We're not sure how much city-seeing we'll be doing in our motorhome, but we hope to do some.
5. Environmental impact. I haven't done a full analysis, but I'm pretty sure flying in an airplane is more environmentally friendly than RV'ing. However, I'm also pretty sure living in an RV is more friendly than an apartment (when the RV is not in motion). So who knows, maybe it nets out to be even. In the meantime, I'm still researching non-profits to plant trees in our wake.

Overall, I look forward to our RV adventures. It's a unique experience that we hope will encourage us to slow down a little bit in a hyperconnected, face-paced world. Stay tuned to see if it works out!