If you aren't a full-time RVer or digital nomad, it's probably hard to imagine what a typical day looks like. As former 9-5 workers, we can assure you that full-time Airstream life is much, much different than our lives when we lived in Puget Sound. Here is a look at a typical weekday travel day for us.
7:30 Wake Up and Morning Routine
One of our favorite parts of living full-time Airstream life is the fact that we so rarely have to wake up with an alarm! As we move further and further east across the country, our time zone means that our colleagues in Washington aren't working until late morning our time. This means we get to have a leisurely morning routine with our coffee and our Salto cuddles before we have to start working. On a travel day, we usually try to get to work by 8:30 at the absolute latest so we can get at least a little bit of paid work in before we have to start packing up camp.
10:00 Begin Our Pack Up Routine
The vast majority of campgrounds have an 11:00 check out, though we have found some state and federal campgrounds have a noon checkout. We have gotten our pack up routine down to under an hour, longer if we have to dump our tanks, which depends on whether or not we have camped someplace with a sewer hookup or have to drive to a dump station somewhere in the park. If we stayed overnight at a Harvest Host or Boondockers Welcome stop, we generally don't unhook Tabitha from the truck so this routine is even quicker.
Steve takes care of most of the outside of the trailer and Michelle takes care of most of the inside of the trailer. Once everything is packed up inside and out, we hitch up and drive off.
11:00 Travel
We generally try to keep our travel time to under three hours, especially if we are traveling during the week. We will stretch our drive time up to five hours if we are traveling on a Sunday, but with a dog that gets wiggly and whiny and needs to take a break from the car every 90 minutes or so, long days get tiring fast. We always compare our RV safe GPS with Google Maps (though both have steered us wrong!) before we hit the road. If we need to stop somewhere along the route, we have looked at either highway rest stops or truck stops along our route. Depending on how Steve's meeting schedule shakes out for the day, we may need to find a safe location (with internet coverage) to park and work for a few hours. We have parked at rest stops, picnic areas, truck stops, and even movie theatre parking lots at various times in our journey. When pulling a trailer, you have to think like a trucker!
2:00 Arrive and Set Up Camp
Most campgrounds have a 2:00 check-in time and we always try to arrive as close to check in time as possible. We 100% always arrive before dark! We scout the site and get set up and level as quickly as possible. Sometimes Steve has another meeting to jump on right away, so our set up is the bare minimum. If no meetings, we take our time and get set up, then maybe take a walk to explore the new camp ground and stretch our legs after too many hours in the car.
3:00 Back to Work
On travel days, we end up working a split shift, this means we're back at it and working into the early evening hours.
6:00 Dinner and Dishes
We usually plan the most simple dinners, like bag salad with a grilled sausage, on travel days so we are able to get more time working instead of cooking dinner. Why don't the dishes do themselves? If I ever end up as a Disney Princess, the first thing I will do is look for the forest animals who do chores to help with the nightly dishes washing!
7:00 Either Back to Work or Time to Binge Watch
Depending on how busy of a work week it is for Steve, he may go back to work after dinner, in which case I typically read. If it's a lighter work week, we will relax on the bed and pick a show to binge watch until it's time for bed.
It's not the most glamorous part of full-time Airstream life, and certainly not what we post on Instagram, but we have gotten into a pretty good routine of work, drive time, and relaxation. Are you jealous of us not setting an alarm, or does the thought of spending hours on the road make full-time RV life a non-starter for you?
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