CAMPER CHRONICLES

Camper Chronicles Part 1-We Bought a Camper!

A little over a month ago today, we bought a camper! Not just a camper to go camping in, but to live in full time!!

It took us many months of talking, research, and prayer before we decided that buying a camper and moving into it full-time was our next big step in life. I’ve never been the type that dreamed of having a big house one day…they’re beautiful to look at, but it just means more to clean, more stuff to fill it, more waste, a larger impact on the earth, and more money to be spent on it (that could be spent helping people or travelling!). We would watch Tiny House shows on Netflix, and I would tell Luke in all seriousness that I wouldn’t mind living in a Tiny House. He thought I was crazy depending on the size of the house, but some of the bigger or more elaborate ones would pique his interest as well. We had talked a lot about how for our next place, or if we bought a house in the future, something around the same size or slightly larger than our apartment would be just fine. Then through our blogging research, we found a blog where the couple were living in an RV full-time! They gave a pretty convincing case, and after reading what they had to say, our minds were becoming even more open to the idea. Read that blog here. Then, a small camper came up for sale down the road from our house, and we would pass by it every day. Luke had us stop and look at the price just for fun (way out of our price range!!), and then one day I decided to text my cousin who had lived in a Camper full-time with her husband for a while. Honestly, I texted her so we would finally have someone tell us that we were too crazy, full-time camper life was awful, she hated it, here are all the reasons why, etc. BUT… that didn’t happen. She texted back all excited about us going on this journey and how awesome camper life is. If that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is! After that we started obsessively searching for a camper that would work for us. Luckily we had her to send pictures and links to Craigslist ads to, tell us which ones were a good deal or too much of a risk, etc. (Thanks, cuz!) This was all while I was trying to finish up my senior year and Luke was in the process of quitting the job he hated. We had a couple thousand dollars saved up toward this camper, and planned on putting some more money into renovating it as the summer went on. We knew that we wanted one in the beginning of the summer since there were a ton for sale, and we wanted the extra time to make it what we wanted and move all of our stuff into it slowly.  

Here are some stats on the Camper:

  • 2005 Prowler 31ft Travel Trailer
  • Dry Weight aprox. 7500
  • Full Bathroom, currently sleeps 8 (we’re removing the bunk beds and most of the other sleeping areas, but we will have an air mattress for guests)
  • 1 Slideout
  • New Fridge, New Water Heater, New Faucet
  • Water Damage… we are repairing this, but it helped us get a good deal on the camper! Most campers around the price we paid were 15-20 years older.

Here’s some photos from the day we picked it up:

Our official announcement!

We had Luke’s brother Josh help us with the moving process– we needed his diesel truck as well, since we don’t have one. We will in the future, but for now, our lil’ Honda Accord Station wagon is all we have.

Putting on our license plate… it’s officially ours!!!

The tires on the Camper were kind of flat, so we had Josh bring a portable air pressure tank…. the problem was, it kept losing air.

We couldn’t get the pressure high enough to fill the tires, so we decided to just risk it and drive with tires that weren’t technically full enough.

We took it slow on the highway, avoiding all the roads with horrible potholes (typical NY state), and I don’t think Luke was breathing the entire ride across town.

Josh did a perfect backup job into our little space between two trucks. We live above a trucking company, and they are allowing us to park it here to work on over the summer.

Depending on how this truck parks at the end of the day, we can’t always get our slide out all the way out.

 

Now, time for some before pictures!! Take a good look at these ugly photos, because our camper will not look like this in a few months!!

The ceiling in the back room coming down due to water damage.

 

 

What do you think of our camper? Stay tuned to see how amazing the transformation is over the next few months!

Read More: Part 1 Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 Part 6 Part 7Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 Before & After

10 Comments on “Camper Chronicles Part 1-We Bought a Camper!

    1. Our plan is somewhere near Florida! We don’t have traditional jobs lined up, but we’re looking into Workkamping! Should be in a future post. 😉

  1. There is a monthly publication called Workamper News that lists jobs in all states for people who live & travel in RV’s. Their website is http://www.workamper.com. Check it out, we used it a lot when we were full-time RVers. You can secure jobs before you go into a particular area, so there’s no searching around when you get where you’re going! Handy-dandy item, you will love it!

  2. I am so excited for you and Luke. Tiny houses are awesome. I can’t wait to see how your project turns out.

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