Saskia and Richard's RVing Adventures

It seems incredible another year is coming to a close and we will be beginning our 4 th year in the USA – still on wheels, but almost on terra firma... We began 2017 in Coolidge, at Indian Skies RV Resort, in Arizona, in a 55+ RV community (that means the residents have to be over 55 to stay here). It was here we experienced our first taste of work-camping. We started helping the managers in the office, working 10 hours each a week, for the compensation of a free rental site. It was our first experience of a snowbird winter resort and we loved the place so much we decided we would come back this winter. In January, Richard and I flew to Scotland and I became a celebrity for 10 days. I appeared on Scottish TV and even on a BBC Scotland Radio talk show; visited a prison, several high schools, a school for the mentally and physically challenged, several highbrow venues in the Glasgow and Edinburgh area; and met with the Scottish Minister of Education, all due to my role as...

Tucson is a rather lovely city. It nestles at the bottom of Mount Lemmon, and between two sections of the Sonoran Desert that hosts the multi armed cacti known as Saguaro. You know, those cacti you first saw in old westerns, a great many of which were filmed in Tuscson. You might find it fun to check out the numbers of films that were shot in Arizona over the years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_shot_in_Arizona Saguaro cacti only grow in this part of the Sonoran Desert between Phoenix and in the vicinity of Tucson, where a National Park was set up to protect the species. It is an extremely slow growing cactus, with the arms appearing when it is between 50 and 70 years old. They can live as long as 200 years, and grow up to 60 ft (18 m). We simply had to visit the NP on the east side of Tucson (there is one on the west side also, but this one was nearest) and take a better look. There is a loop drive through, but we decided to get up close and personal and did ...

October 15 th was the day we finished our six month stint as camp-hosts in Elk Pines RV Resort. It was sad to say goodbye, but we know we will keep in touch with those residents we can count as friends. However, at the same time, Richard and I were ready to move on and get back on the road. We weren't sure if we needed to go back to Texas to re-register our trusty truck, Benny, or our fifth-wheel trailer, the Jet, but it seems Texas law has changed and there is no physical need to take them a thousand miles to a Texas garage for certification. Online registration is enough, which just shows that the internet has more uses than simply keeping in touch with family and old and new friends.  So that meant we had two weeks to see a little more of southern Arizona.  We were due to begin our next work-camping position on 1st November in Indian Skies RV Resort, Coolidge, where we spent last winter. It looks like life as part-time camp-hosts suits us.   We d...

We've been living in Arizona for the last 9 months. Who would have thought that we would have spent so long in one state? Of course, there are reasons... well really only one...workamping! A chance to save money on RV site costs, and possibly boost our flagging budget a little. To be honest, we never anticipated how much the cost of living would have risen since we sold up and left Scotland at the end of 2014, and moved to the States to begin traveling full time with our Heartland Sundance fifth wheel, The Jet, and our trusty RAM truck, aka Benny. By the time we had passed through 13 states, we realized that gas (petrol) and food prices varied a great deal.  In some states gas was cheaper, in others food was extortionate, but one thing was certain - prices seemed to be continually increasing.  Then the Brexit vote affected the exchange rate, and the value of our savings decreased. Who would have foreseen that particular calamity, when we made our early retirement...

So you want to spend some time in an RV camp and get your site rental for free? Sounds like a dream come true to a retired couple that are are travelling across the USA in their fifth-wheel RV, right? But it's very possible because US State Parks, National Parks, the Forest Service, public and private RV campsites all employ seasonal workers. For free rental of your site, you work the minimum required hours of around 20 - 28 a week, which works out at 2 days between you and your partner, (working the same days) and the rest of the time is yours to relax and continue your exploration of the local area from your RV. You can work for a month or 6 months or even a year depending on the seasons the park is open. If you totally love the place, you might even try to get rehired the following year. You decide. Of course you can work more than the agreed hours and get paid, if that is on offer – that's up to you too. Sometimes you get extras like electricity paid, or f...

Nearly 20 years ago I visited a medium, who, among other things, told me my youngest son Drew would have his wallet stolen in Hawaii. Always a bit of a skeptic, I was rather surprised when a lot of what she said actually came true over the years. So you can imagine, her dire warning played like a broken record in my mind the whole time Drew and I recently spent on one of the Hawaiian islands. So why decide to go there, I hear you ask? My husband, Richard, and I had been planning a family ski trip since 2014 when we sold our home in Scotland and embarked on our retirement dream of full time RVing across the USA. Ours is a second marriage, and at that time we had four children (two each from previous marriages), plus one daughter in law and one prospective one, some of whom had not yet met each other. With them spread across the globe – Scotland, Amsterdam, USA and Australia, getting them all together at the same time in the same place was not going to be an easy task. I...