We’re so excited to share the interior of our 2016 Winnebago View 24J with you. What a world of difference from our 2004 Class A! We feel like we’re living in a high-tech spaceship. 😂

The Holcombe Family, also known as Famagogo, purchased this rig new and didn’t make many visible interior modifications. This is a highly sought-after RV model, so we also plan to protect the resale value by avoiding major changes.

But why would we need to make changes? The interior is extremely attractive and the layout works perfectly for our family on wheels.

So stroll along with us on a quick walk-through photo tour of our 2016 Winnebago View 24J, which we’ve named Basecamp.

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When I first tell people I have a washer/dryer combo in our RV, explaining yes, the very same appliance washes and dries, there’s inevitably some disbelief. I guess it makes sense that something sounding so unbelievable would behave a bit wonky, and require some extra TLC compared to your regular residential washing machine or dryer.

It makes sense, and yet I was a fulltime RVer for four years before I knew how to properly clean and maintain my RV’s washer/dryer combo. Oh, and I bought a new one for absolutely no reason, just because I didn’t know how to maintain it properly.

That really happened.

So, yeah. Here’s the guide I wish I had four and a half years ago. I hope it saves you headaches and money. And if you have any suggestions on what I should add to my regimen, then please chime in with a comment!

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Last year was weird, as far as RV repairs go. I say weird, but really it was RV-normal: things didn’t go as expected. We never plan more than one visit to the shop for annual maintenance, typically in November or early December when we’re back in Texas for the holidays. But by the end of 2017, we had a total of five repair/maintenance sessions on the books. [Read more…]

We’re more than a quarter into 2017, but it’s never too late to disclose how much it costs to maintain a used RV! In all seriousness, we don’t regret buying used. We haven’t had an unexpected breakdown since our first year-2014. Since then, the only unplanned repairs have been minor. We try to save our repair and maintenance items for our annual trip to Iron Horse RV in San Antonio around the holidays. We rarely get out cheap, but-in better news-we get to travel full-time in a home on wheels.

Here’s the rundown of the repairs and maintenance we had done in 2016. [Read more…]

It wasn’t long after we hit the Natchez Trace Parkway in 2014, at the beginning of our full-time RV life, that we noticed something was wrong with our odometer. The numbers didn’t add up. We knew exactly how far we were driving every day, and the odometer was counting way more miles than that. [Read more…]

I am not crafty and Eric is not handy. So when it comes to RV projects, we’re nearly useless. But seeing our little one’s due date on the horizon was the push we needed to finally tackle an RV redesign of our living area. Also known as half our home (see? It sounds like a massive project when you put it that way).

With help from friends, we redesigned our bedroom a year ago. We’ve been really happy with the finished product, so we decided to make similar changes in the living area. Including: [Read more…]

In a perfect world, we control when we go into the RV shop, and it only happens once a year for annual maintenance. As we start our third year of RVing (the official date was February 21), it would seem we don’t live in a perfect world.

So we had our massive annual appointment in November at Iron Horse RV. That bill hurt, but it meant we were ready for our Grand Loop Trip. We’ve had a few relatively minor things happen since then.

Bay Door Malfunction

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We have 39 light bulbs on the inside of our RV. They come in all shapes and sizes. We’re especially proud of this one, which looks like it belongs in a Star Trek ship or at an 80s dance party. (Seriously, who comes up with half the “decor” we find inside our RVs?) [Read more…]

Because an RV is a huge investment, regular maintenance takes on added importance. But although we understand that maintenance can save us from incredibly expensive breakdowns and emergency repairs down the road, many of us aren’t familiar with our RV’s systems and what we need to maintain.

When we started fulltiming at the beginning of 2014, I kept telling Eric that we needed a comprehensive RV maintenance checklist. He agreed, but we were worried we’d leave something out. [Read more…]