Category: RV Lifestyle

Lynne is a conscientious observer of the world around her. For every ounce of scenery she explores — and Lynne explores a lot — she seems to produce a pound of gratitude. Together, that, with a sense of kinship that she shares with the land, lays the groundwork for her life on the road.

When asked what her favorite destination was, she quickly responded, “Oh, I love everywhere!”  Asking Lynne to pick a favorite place is akin to asking her to pick a favorite child. “Landscapes are absolutely stunning anywhere you go,” Lynne waxes reflexively. “The prairies are just gorgeous. Endless flowing fields of different crops. Even the wheat when it’s harvest time and it’s gold.”

Lynne’s slow and methodical description of the scenery peels back the outer layers and burrows into the feeling and life of a place. Wherever Lynne goes, she sees beauty. Her perspective is that every part of this world deserves to be cherished, cared for, and appreciated. All gratitude and a sense of community.

As part of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing perspectives like this — from female solo RV campers who witness the wonder of the natural world. These girl campers see beauty and bring beauty — even as they walk in and through the rugged surface of the earth.

This is Lynne’s story.

 

“It just doesn’t make sense to have a house to store all this stuff.” 

Unlike the other girl campers we’ve profiled — Alexandra with her audacity, Cassie with her raw humor, Carolyn with her refreshing authenticity — Lynne never had have grandiose dreams of living in an RV. She wasn’t itching to sell it all and take off across the landscapes of North America. It happened by chance. She was running a little farm on her own, with an old house on it. The buildings needed constant work.

“Every time I would get one thing done, and something else would come up on it.”

So, she got a little R-POD 180 to get away.

”But what I ended up doing was camping on my property.”

Keep in mind, she had four dogs at the time. And she was simultaneously running a dog-training business. But even with the transition to an RV, Lynne and her dogs settled right in. Lynne states flatly, “I liked being there. It was like a personal challenge.” It was never meant to be forever, but soon, she says, “It just caught on to me.”

She began to ask herself some existential questions. Why would I be living on this farm in a bigger house than I actually need? What do I use my house for? The last question had a heavy answer, “I use it for storing stuff.”

After spending time in her tiny R-POD, she realized that she had everything she needed right there. The alternative just didn’t add up. Lynne says, “It just doesn’t make sense to have a house to store all this stuff.”

 

 

“A certain number of hours on this planet.”

According to Lynne, “The whole home-ownership-thing is overrated. Your stuff needs to have the house. Your stuff needs things. And then it’s so tempting to go and get more stuff. And there’s always somewhere to put stuff in a house. In the meantime,” Lynne points out, “you’ve only got a certain number of hours on this planet. You’re not going to live forever. And if you’re spending that time working to pay a mortgage to a bank, then you’re kind of giving your life to the bank for the sake of having a house.”

For Lynne, what really matters became apparent, “Your memories and your family and your connections to people, those are the things when it comes down to it, those are what really matters.”

Driving across the Canadian Prairie, that perspective unfolded like a vision.

“You see these houses that somebody worked really, really hard hand-cutting the timbers and the lumber. And building these houses by hand long before there was electricity or chainsaws and power tools. People worked so hard to build these houses.” But Lynne notes, “and now you drive past them, and they’re just empty. And the windows are broken and falling down. All houses are going to wind up like that one day.”

To Lynne, after watching the fires in LA and the floods in the Southeast, it feels like houses are becoming even more vulnerable to the elements. “All those beautiful houses, and beautiful properties, and the fires just cleaned it right out. And insurance companies backed out of their insurance policies.” Lynne sighs, “And we are only going to be seeing more of these natural disasters. If you’re in an RV, you’ve got the mobility to get away.”

 

 

“So now, I don’t trust google maps!”

As you can likely already tell, Lynne has a quiet and grounded demeanor. It’s hard to imagine her in an unsettled state. But ask her to share a little deeper into her RV experience, and she can tell about a few harrowing moments.

One was just last summer when Lynne was driving into northern Ontario. Google Maps led her astray. Lynne remembers thinking, “I don’t know why I’m turning left off the highway as she followed the directions down an old side road.

She recalls, “So, I’m driving down, and I’m towing my jeep with my 32-foot motorhome, totaling about 46 feet. There’s nowhere to turn around. No shoulders or anything like that. So, I’m driving and driving and driving. And I finally wound up turning down a driveway that says, ‘Private Property.’ ”

Driving down this long road, she saw a scattering of RVs and a sign for an RV park with a little lake. She thought it looked like a good place to turn around, but when she got down to the office, a woman came running out. And she was livid.

Lynne says she tried to explain, “I’m very sorry to bother you. I got lost on Google Maps.” But the woman screamed back, “That’s what they all say!”

The moment quickly became even more scary. There was a big gravel loop to turn around, but the woman wouldn’t let her. That forced Lynne to manuever in this tiny patch that was far too small for her rig. Lynne had to pull forward. Disconnect the Jeep. Pull forward again. Reconnect the Jeep again. In her haste to get away from the angry lady, she didn’t get the brake system connected or set the tow bars properly.

Lynne felt she had to because the lady was so mad.

So, Lynne took off back up the driveway as soon as the Jeep was reconnected. She stopped when she was about half a mile up the driveway to set up the brakes and get the tow bars locked.

But she wasn’t out of the woods yet. “There was another woman standing there with the biggest German Shepherd I’ve ever seen — lunging and barking at the end of the leash.”

Then the woman unhooked the leash and pointed to Lynne.

In a foot race against time and teeth, Lynne scrambled as fast as she could back to the side-door of her RV. “I managed to get in and just as the power stairs are coming up, I hear — BOOM — on the side of the door.” The dog had leapt onto the stairs as they were rolling up. Lynne, a dog person, was under no illusions about what was chasing her. That dog was a King Shepherd — a massive breed weighing around 120 pounds.

“So now, I don’t trust google maps! I always have a paper map. I have an atlas now, and I do the route on the road atlas.”

 

 

“I’d never driven a motorhome before.”

Currently, Lynne lives and travels in a Class A motorhome. When I asked if she ever found the idea of driving it daunting, she replied, “I had never driven a motorhome before, and I won’t say that I wasn’t intimidated by the idea of driving this. But when I thought about it, I thought, ‘Well, I’ve driven a fire truck.’ “

Lynne, was a firefighter for seven years in Oyster River. She started out as a volunteer, but ended up being paid per call. She always wanted to be a firefighter, but in her past attempts, she felt that being a woman was the unspoken barrier to entry.

With seven years of driving a fire truck under her belt, she had the confidence to drive a Class A Fleetwood Southwind 32VS. She talked the seller down to $75,000 with a set of brand-new tires. For her, it was ideal. It has lots of space, a separate bedroom at the back, and two air conditioners and heat pumps. Personally, Lynne feels like she has more than enough space to live in — especially with two dogs.

Even so, there are a few things that aren’t perfect. It has a recliner in it, but she would really prefer to have a desk or office space in place of the recliner. The Southwind also has some carpet in it, which isn’t ideal for living in an RV with two dogs. Even so, Lynne makes it work.

 

“A bridge of self-discovery”

When Lynne talks about scenery, it is almost if it has touched her. Her descriptions unfurl naturally, without any special effects. When she talks about the flora and fauna of a place, it sounds more like a homecoming — very unlike a commercial writer trying to present the perfect vacation spot.

Describing a time drove behind an open-air Amish Buggy in the Midwest, she mentions that she noticed that inside was a young couple. And a chaperone.

“I had to stay behind them, so I didn’t scare the horses. I was just out enjoying a beautiful sunset evening at the end of a hot day, enjoying the countryside. And it was neat to see young people just appreciating a day for being a day.”

Moments like these are the quiet highlights of Lynne’s life on the road.

Living in the RV is what Lynne describes as “a bridge of self-discovery. It’s a chance to enjoy nature on its own terms.”

Many of us forget to simply observe the landscape and scenery for what it is. And nature deserves be seen this way. Not for what we want it to be. Not what others have talked it up to be. Living in an RV as a woman, alone, immerses you in countless moments of isolation outside. Lynne says, “Without the influence of another person, you aren’t busy being distracted by someone else, or thinking what their perceptions of the place might be.”

Instead, you are forced to exist in the moment for what it is. That may sound refreshing to you. Or it may sound somewhat intimidating. But for Lynne, it is a combination of both — all part of a pure and unfiltered way to experience life.

 

s If you had to use one word to describe Carolyn, it would be authentic. Most social media stars advertise an inflated, superficial version of themselves. But Carolyn brings authenticity to her platform like a cloud brings rain. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you get a little spoonful of it.

More please.

Carolyn’s journey in her RV is enmeshed with the social media platform. On YouTube, she offers a window into her world. There, she inspires women to break through any barriers inhibiting them from following their dreams.  She encourages women to be themselves — just as they are. Stripped of makeup, hair dye, fancy clothes and sculpted bodies. Carolyn invites us to tap into a raw and authentic version of ourselves — and to celebrate it. Talking in her videos and sharing her story her, her words spin like a spider’s web. And it is oh-so-easy to find yourself sticking — happily — to the spare but powerful fiber of woven through her life.

As part of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing stories just like this — straight from the world of female solo RV campers. These women are more than digital adventurers and influencers. They are as real as earth and fire. They are as authentic and refreshing as the air you breathe or the rain on your face. And of that, we just can’t get enough.

This is Carolyn’s story.

 

 

“This is not the life that I wanna live.”

Once upon a time, Carolyn lived in a padded, conventional world in California. She made over six figures a year.

“I had a fancy life. I spent a lot of money on shoes, purses, and stuff like that … But in retrospect that wasn’t me.”

It turns out, money doesn’t make you happy. And even with all that money, she was still — somehow — tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Even making what she did, she found herself paycheck to paycheck.

The spark that lit the fire of Carolyn’s RV life backpacking. She covered 256 on the John Muir Trail in California. This was her first long distance solo backpacking trip. Living out of a backpack for 30 days changed her life. I changed her perspective. She stepped back into her apartment and asked herself, “What the hell am I doing? This is not the life that I wanna live.” She got off the trail in September and was in an RV in April. She never looked back.

As a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, the John Muir Trail (JMT) played a part in her journey towards self-authentication. Carloyn shares, “The JMT was cathartic for me in my recovery. It was very healing. I mean — I can’t explain — it was the most life-changing, rewarding experience. It was amazing. It completely changed my life.”

Carloyn recalls, “When you’re on the trail that long, living out of a 40-liter backpack, and you come back … I looked at all my stuff in my 500- or 600-square-foot studio apartment, like, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ I pay 1,600 bucks a month to store a bunch of stuff I don’t need.

She pauses as she recollects. “All that stuff, it weighs us down. And so I sold everything and bought an RV in five or month months.”

 

 

“I got famous-people problems without the money.”

Carolyn’s story is unique in many ways. In stepping away, she actually stepped onto a bigger platform. Today, with over 172,000 followers on YouTube, in some ways, her journey isn’t so solitary. Her background in marketing allowed her to take full advantage of an open niche: a woman traveling alone in an RV. When she first started over nine years ago, no other women were doing it. (At least, not by choice.) After a little strategic marketing and planning, her fourth video went viral. In less than 30 days, she had over 20,000 followers.

“I wonder if it weren’t for my social media platform if I would have been able to do this for so long, alone,” Carloyn muses. “I get a lot of my interaction online from my community.”

From the beginning, Carolyn’s journey in the RV was enmeshed with the platform.  That’s both good and bad.

Being a YouTube star isn’t as glamorous as it appears. There’s a dark side. Eight years of stepping on the platform stripped of all pretenses led to more than an increase in followers. There have been death threats, shaming, trolling, and a lot of other muck she has to regularly wade through.

When I first got on the phone with Carolyn for our interview, I asked her where in the world she was. She responded, “Is this on or off the record?”

I didn’t really know what she meant by that, but she explained why she has to be very secretive about her location, being a YouTube star.

“I’m going through a very burnout phase right now. I’m tired of having strangers weigh in on my life.” Carolyn confesses, “I’m tired of having strangers weigh in on my personal choices. I’ve been sharing myself so openly and so authentically for so long, that I have thousands of people — maybe millions of people — who I’ve never met, who feel like they know me. And I’m kind of tired of that to be honest.”

Carolyn can’t even truly enjoy her hometown.

“In my hometown, in Arizona, every time I go out, I get recognized. There’s a big part of me that’s just kind of over it.” It’s especially hard, Carolyn says, because, “I got famous-people problems without the money or the fame. Famous people have the resources to shield themselves.”

But for Carolyn, it’s all on her.

 

“This is what nature intended.”

One of Carolyn’s striking attributes is her radiant authentic energy. It’s a breath of fresh air to speak with someone who has shed all pretenses of superficial impressions. She is completely herself. And I think that is the most valuable thing she is offering other women: the encouragement to be 100 percent yourself.

“Just let us get gray, and let us have our wrinkles, this is what nature intended,” she says. As beautifully refreshing and validating as that is for me to hear, for her, it comes with a lot of pushback.

“I’ve gotten a lot of shit for that. People devote a lot of time to shaming me for how I look, and it’s OK.” Carolyn shares, “I have been overweight my whole life. I was bullied all through school for my weight — so, bring it.”

 

 

“I remodeled it so it feels like a little apartment.”

Carolyn’s RV journey started with a 29 foot Jamboree. Like everything else, Carolyn doesn’t mince words about it, “It was the biggest piece of crap lemon.”

She paid $8,000 for it and in 18 months she put almost $20,000 into it. And it still had problems. The last straw was when her black tank fell off in Indiana. After that she started shopping through RV Trader and found her dream rig in Albuquerque. It was a 2005 Itasca Spirit Class C with a roomy floorplan on a reliable chassis.

“Even though it’s five feet smaller than the other one, it feels bigger. I love everything about this RV. I remodeled it so it feels like a little apartment.”

The Class C sits on a E 450 Chassis. She paid $14,000 cash for it seven years ago.

“The gas mileage is crap, but what are you going to do about it?” She laughs, “It’s a good RV.”

 

 

“That guy was going to take me!”

When she was first on the road, she had a dog, Capone. But he wasn’t much of a watchdog. He was great company, but after he passed away, she got another dog that plays the part of a watchdog much better.

“If there’s a critter outside, she wakes me up in the middle of the night.” Carolyn notes, “If anything even comes near my RV, she lets me know.”

After spending 20 odd years on the road, she has learned to trust her gut and her instincts. For the most part Carolyn feels safe, but there was one especially terrifying instance that left her completely shaken.

On her way to Alaska, in British Columbia, she shares, “A guy approached me, and I really think that he wanted to do me harm.” At the time, she was having lunch on the side of a busy highway, not too far out of town with a beautiful view of a canyon.

“I heard a car stop, and a door open. And I was like, ‘Okay, this is probably an older couple stopping to enjoy the view as well.’ But I heard the car door, and I didn’t hear voices.” Carolyn recalls, “I turned around and there was this guy on his tippy toes, peaking into the RV. At the time, I thought he was interested in my RV. I get that a lot. It wasn’t until afterwards I realized he was looking through the windows to see if there was anyone else with me. He kind of walked over very slowly, and didn’t really say anything. He just kind of stood there. And my Spidey Sense went up immediately.”

Eventually he started asking her questions.

“Are you from Nevada?”

And then, “Are you alone?”

Immediately, Carolyn responded, “No, I’m not alone.” She quickly gathered her things and walked towards the door. But the man kept on, “You know, I do tours around the area.”

Again and again she rebuffed his advances at conversation and suggestions. But what was particularly alarming was that after she shut and locked the door, he continued to linger. He sat next to her RV.

Looking back, the part of the story that still surprises Carolyn the most weren’t his actions but her delayed reaction. It wasn’t until about a month later that she did a detailed video about the event. That’s when it sunk in what could have happened.

“Holy shit! That guy was going to take me!” In post, she realized that he was trying to get her in the car. Realizing that, she started crying at how much danger she could have been in. It didn’t even hit her that it happened to her, until she watched the video she made about it. At that point, she reported the incident to the British Columbia Police Department.

These are lessons that she tries to inspire in women: Always believe your gut.

“Unfortunately, the world we live in tells us not to trust that,” Carolyn shares. “So many unhealthy relationships train us not to believe our intuition, and a lot of women have to unlearn that. They have to start to believe in themselves again, and believe in their intuition again.”

 

“RV life is a healthy risk for me.”

Hearing a story like that, you want to put the question to Carolyn: In a world where you pay for your dreams in blood, sweat, and tears, what’s the real payback of this lifestyle?

Carolyn has her answer ready, “I was never meant to live a normal life.”

Even in college she knew she didn’t want to work a standard day or do anything conventional. For Carolyn, living in an RV gives her that freedom. That life out of the box. “I can be who I want to be. I don’t have to be locked into a nine-to-five.”

Carolyn also needs to be in a place where she can take healthy risks.

“I am the type of person who constantly needs to be challenged.” She says that’s always been part of her nature, “A lot of my addiction was about taking risks. I took a lot of unhealthy risks in my life. And through therapy I realized that in order for me to stay healthy and content, I need healthy risks. And RV life is a healthy risk for me. It allows me to change my scenery as often as I want.” She continues, “It allows me to satiate that need for adventure and risk and excitement — I think even the element of danger —even though that’s kind of gone because I’ve been doing this for so long. It feeds me … I could never go back at this point.”

Just the thought of normal, sedentary life makes Carolyn cringe. Dinners with friends, movies, plays, networking events. She says that all the crap she used to do in San Francisco would just kill her now.

She says the RV life gives her a better alternative. “It just allows me to really feel like I’m really living my best authentic self.”

Carolyn doesn’t make as much money as she did in her past life in San Francisco, but she doesn’t have any debt. And she has her freedom. She knows what she has, “The reward is, and the reason I started this, is that I’m inspiring other women to let go of their fear, to face the things that scare them, and to get out there and do it.

“Not only am I inspiring women to get out there and chase their dreams, but to kind of shed a lot of the expectations that society puts on us as women. And that’s extremely rewarding.” Carolyn takes a moment and says, “When I meet women that literally cry and tell me how I’ve changed their lives, and how watching me has helped them do things they never thought they could do: That is the reward.”

That, indeed, is a worthy reward. Something meaningful. Something earned. It is something so real, so authentic that it can change a life.

The best stories about facing a personal challenge don’t hold back. Which is why it’s easy to love Cassie’s untethered honesty. Her raw account of the “shit show” that unfurled while camping alone in winter for months captivated us.

Somehow, in today’s world of social media, the idea of going off and living in a van or camper has been dipped in romanticism and sugar-coated with Instagram-worthy picture perfectionism. The problem is that those photographs represent a single moment, a mere fraction of the whole picture. That image is one out of 86,400 seconds in a day. The remaining 86,399 moments in a day weren’t captured on film. They were probably spent cursing over a parking spot. Spilling coffee on clean laundry. Trying to set up a rig on a hot asphalt parking lot, or countless other snippets of challenging daily life.

Isolated moments of brief perfection are out there. But they aren’t free. They have to be earned, and in some cases the cost is too high. 

As part of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing these stories — straight from the world of female solo RV campers. These women break the mold, brave dangers, and experience extraordinary beauty in the world around them — even if it’s one moment out of 86,400 seconds.

This is Cassie’s story.

 

“I thought it would be the bee’s knees”

As a nurse, Cassie’s vision of living in a camper first took root at the height of the pandemic in 2021. At this time, nurses were getting paid almost double for travel nursing assignments. To sweeten the increased pay scale, living in an RV would not only lower the cost of living — it would also enable her to cash in on a hefty lodging stipend. 

“I thought it would be the bee’s knees to live out of a camper as a travel nurse and see the country.” 

But the reality was quite different. 

Working as an ICU nurse is an especially exhausting task. It can sap you of all your physical and emotional strength. During the pandemic, the work order doubled in what was an already demanding environment for nurses. Cassie’s 12-hour shifts turned into 15-hour days. After each grueling day, she faced the epic task of setting up her slide-in truck camper. Alone. In the cold and in the dark. All without any water or power hookup. 

“It was a shit show. I lasted about three weeks.” 

She simply could not go on like that. Soon after, Cassie found a rental on Furnished Finder where she could live in for the remainder of her travel nursing assignment. 

 

 

“It gives me access to a lot of places”

Working full-time as a travel nurse while simultaneously boondocking in a slide-in camper was not sustainable for Cassie. But powder chasing for a season in a camper? That was a dream come true. For three months, Cassie traveled around the country to snowboard on some of the best slopes in the US. Being in a versatile rig and dry camping meant that she could go just about anywhere to chase fresh powder.

All this involves following precise weather forecasts to arrive shortly after a storms that leave a treasure in their wake: snow. Snowboarding and living in a camper is a full-time job, especially when dry camping. But the reward was well worth the cost.

“It was a whole mess in and of itself,” but, “really fun.” 

Cassie spent almost a year researching what type of camper she wanted to live in. She scrolled through countless websites, blogs, and RV Trader looking for the perfect rig. Then driving down from Snowbowl Ski Resort in Flagstaff, she passed a lean, little slide-in camper.  Her first thought was, “Oh my gosh, that’s so sleek. I don’t have to be this top-heavy behemoth out in the middle of the wilderness.”

So she pulled the trigger on a 2023 Four Wheel Camper Grandby Pop-Up Camper. It checked all her boxes: It was manageable, small, and conducive to a modest lifestyle /

“It gives me access to a lot of places where the barrier to entry is a lot of money. It’s really great in that way.” 

 

 

“Akin to emptying — like — month-old bed pans”

Cassie’s interest was clearly maxing out on adventure. To do that, she was happy to deal with the nittty gritty. Her new camper didn’t really have a plumbed-in toilet feature. Instead, she used a Porta Potti, which is a completely portable toilet. You can put the RV sewer enzymes in the tank, and you can kind of use it as a toilet. But it has to be emptied,

“Which was probably akin to emptying — like — month-old bed pans, to give you some imagery. Not glamorous at all.”

For water, Cassie tried to utilize her factory plumbing and water pump to run a sink from her water container. She recalls, that “froze twice on me, before I learned my lesson.” 

Cassie ended up using an aquatainer as her sink. The camper’s factory plumbing for the sink drain was basically just a rubber hose that went outside.

“Not environmentally friendly.”

So, she used an additional aquatainer to collect the grey water, which she emptied when necessary. She occasionally boiled hot water, but only for food. Her time living in the camper was primarily during winter.

When asked what she did about hot water, she explained, “There’s a whole world of hot springs, hot tubs, and rec centers in the world, that all have hot showers.”

So, she just kind of went from place to place in search of hot water?

“Totally.”

Cassie says that hot springs were especially healing for her tired muscles, a necessary relief during her season chasing powder.

 

“I was a stinky girl”

Lots of things take a backseat on an adventure like Cassie’s. Staying fresh and clean, Cassie says, was definitely not her highest priority. Dry camping in the winter time and snowboarding all day every day makes unbelievable memories — but it doesn’t make for simple laundry cycles. 

“I had a pretty good system once I got into the camper for an evening, I would hang my snow pants and ski jacket onto this little hook above the door, and it would drip dry onto the rug. I was never really dry, everything was always a bit moist and a bit chilly.” 

Cassie recalls she would then crank the heater and crack the ceiling vent to the outside to help with condensation. Her camper was a soft-sided pop-up, which lent itself to excessive amounts of condensation. 

Her outer layers were always hanging up to drip dry. But she didn’t have the luxury of changing her base layers as often. 

“I was a stinky girl.”

Luckily, everything was a wool or cotton base layer, no overly smelly synthetics. But, “I would sometimes only change my socks and underwear and wear the same top and pants for like three days at a time.”

She laughs, “If there was a smell, it was all held in by the outer shell.” 

When Cassie passed through a town with a laundromat, she made it a point to stop and do a load.   

 

 

“White-knuckle driving through this horrific snow storm”

While Cassie was driving from Idaho to Wyoming on the interstate in the dead of winter, snow started falling. She was on her way to Grand Tarehee, approaching a treacherous mountain pass. 

“Something got kicked up by a semi in front of meand completely shattered the window that’s between the truck and the camper.”

“There’s not a lot of clearance in this space, so I don’t know how ice or rock magically hit that window in particular. I heard like a little ding! but nothing on the truck was damaged, and it didn’t even occur to me that something on the camper might be wrong.”

“It was a long day of driving, I had to get over this pass in nearly blizzard conditions, going 20 miles an hour. So, I get to this camping lot in Grand Tarehee, and it’s like 10 p.m. I had just driven 20 miles per hour for like 30 miles over this mountain pass, white-knuckle driving  through this horrific snow storm. I am dog tired, and I open up the camper. There’s like half an inch layer of snow on everything.” 

The glass was shatter resistant, but somehow a hole formed in the window. Meanwhile, all the storm snow was funneling into the camper as she was driving. The only saving grace was that her bed was compressed to the ceiling during the drive. So .when she set up her rig filled with snow, she at least had a dry place to sleep before dealing with the mess the next day. 

 

“There’s definitely something that draws males to a single girl on a chair lift.”

Cassie boondocked during her season powder chasing. She made it a point to arrive late and leave early to avoid any unnecessary interactions with other people. It also helped to arrive late in case she got her intel wrong and was not supposed to be there. It’s not always easy to find an accurate boondocking location. 

During her powder chasing months, she spent all of her time alone, and vulnerable. 

“There’s definitely something that draws males to a single girl on a chair lift.”

 She would tell people that she was meeting a friend, even though she hadn’t seen a friend for weeks. Her feminine intuition was always on high alert and helped to keep her safe. 

“Being a single woman with a dog that is not at all even remotely ferocious, I came up with some good stories.” 

Her friends all suggested that she get a gun, but she felt differently, “No, if something is going to happen to me, there is no way that I am going to find my locked-up gun and use it to protect myself in time.” Candidly, she says, “I would not do well under high pressure with a gun in the equation. I would have a better chance throwing punches and screaming my face off.” 

 

“You feel simultaneously on top of the world”

After sharing about stink, laundry, snowstorms, and strange encounters, Cassie confronted the ultimate question: Was it worth it?

“Yes,” she affirms. Admittedly, like Alexandra, she says the view was one of the biggest pay offs here. Especially in the winter, where the cold and the snow have a way of making everything so much bigger. Being able to interact with the scenery in such an active capacity is a spectacular opportunity. 

“You feel simultaneously on top of the world, because you’re like, I’m out here doing it and experiencing it.” 

But then, shew says, you’re also, “so small, and this place is so big.” 

Later, after she moved out of the RV, she really sunk into the creature comforts of sedentary life. But it wasn’t long before she felt the pull and was back in the RV. “It felt very nostalgic, almost like coming home. Like, oh yes, this is my thing.”

In 2024, she committed what she describes as the cardinal sin of buying a house. But never takes long for her to get antsy. Getting back in the RV is a great way for her to placate her nomadic fever. 

After buying the house, “It was really hard to live with that feeling.” She had to pay for the house and fix the house, and before she knew it, she was needing to work more to pay for it all. Even so, she is already filling her schedule with trips and activities that she is ready to start training for. After speaking with Cassie for over an hour, it was clear that her nomadic fever was an innate part of her being. It’s something that she will always have face head on — no matter what those 86,400 seconds look like each day. 

Alexandra is a woman on fire. With a soft demeanor, you wouldn’t guess that she is propelled by rocket fuel. In her quest to live her life her way, she faced constant road blocks. But they were continually outmatched by her perpetual determination. Not once did she consider throwing in the towel.

As part of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing stories from the world of female solo RV campers — who break the mold, brave dangers, and experience extraordinary beauty in the world around them.

This is Alexandra’s story.

 

“Black women just don’t do that.”

Before the start of her journey — long before she became known by the Instagram handle @alexandra_abroad — Alexandra’s mother discouraged her. Her mother’s misgivings about her daughter going all-in to the solo camper lifestyle were partly because of her sex, but also her race. Being a black woman alone, camping in an RV, doesn’t exactly fit the mold. “Black women just don’t do that,” she said to Alexandra. Little did her mother know, she was only putting more gas in the tank. No one was going to tell Alexandra what she couldn’t do. 

In July of 2017, Alexandra bought an 1987 Itasca Phasar RV. She loved the layout of it, with its pop-up bathrooms and spacious interior. Alexandra spent three months renovating it. Everything was given a tune up. (Except for the dials on the dash.)

She made it to Illinois from Michigan on her fresh new start in life. Unbeknownst to her, the meters on the dash weren’t functioning. There was no way for her to know that the engine was overheating. That is, until it was too late. The Phasar suffered a massive breakdown and died for good in Illinois. The engine was old, and repairs were estimated to cost more than the value of the RV. 

This would have been the end of most people’s camping journey. But for Alexandra, it was just the beginning. She found a teardrop trailer in Grand Junction and made it her own. It was a custom-built “tin can,” around nine by five feet. (About as small as a camper can possibly be.) She towed it with her car and embarked upon her adventures across the Southwest. The small size was a huge asset to her. It was light enough for her to detach and push by hand on her own, which she had to do more than once! 

 

 

“I may not be by myself.”

Alexandra spent years of her life carving out a career as a photographer. She went to a meeting with HipCamp in San Francisco, to enter into a paid partnership. After the meeting, she walked back to her car, only to find her window busted open. Everything was stolen. Her laptops, modem, hard drive, and camera equipment. All forever gone. As a photographer, there is nothing more devastating than losing a collection of photographs. It is a lifetime of work, visions, and individual artistic license. Gone. 

That night, she drove to a Walmart parking lot to try and get some teary-eyed sleep. In the state of California, you aren’t allowed to boondock a camper near any city center, so she was forced to leave not once, but twice. The catch was that she couldn’t actually drive outside of the city with a broken car window without getting pulled over. 

Not long after the robbery, Alexandra decided to camp in the Redwoods of California. She was camping alone on a little sandbar, when someone approached her. It was a man, and he started asking her questions: 

What are you doing out here?

Are you alone?

A woman camping alone in a quirky little camper invites questions from bystanders pretty frequently. But this seemed to come from a place of bad intentions, not just innocent curiosity. 

Her feminine intuition shot off warning after warning: They weren’t on BLM land where it would make sense for other people to be camping — this man had approached her from the bushes, which looked like a hiding place— and he was drunk at 9 a.m. in the morning. 

The stranger’s body language and manner gave her all the signals she needed to move along. After she made her move to get out of there, she began to question the validity of camping so far off the beaten path. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t be out in the complete middle of nowhere by myself, because I may not be by myself.” 

After everything Alexandra had undergone up to that point, I ask her if she ever thought about calling it quits.

“Oh, definitely not,” she says, “It’s hard to have a bad day when the view is so good.”

She considers herself lucky. Not everyone walks away from a situation like that unharmed. Alexandra travels with her dog and with a handgun that she keeps for protection.  

 

 

“Being outside is where we’re supposed to be.”

So, why suffer through all that misery? What reward can be worth losing a career, a lifetime of photographs, and all your artistic equipment? 

Truth be told it can be hard to explain, but the reward is something you experience. When in reality, one accidental moment could be worth a thousand planned ones. You could be looking at the stars in Zion, and the sky might suddenly open — showering fireballs of debris from a Japanese space craft. Alexandra did. She witnessed this with her own eyes in a brief moment of perfect coincidence.

Sometime after her experience with the stranger in the Redwoods, Alexandra had a different kind of experience. One night, she pulled into an off-road hot spring in Nevada. She hadn’t known about it because it wasn’t even on the map. But it was there that she met Ted and his wife. She didn’t know them from before, but that night the three of them got to know each other, share dinner, and celebrate Ted’s fiftieth birthday. Alexandra recalls it was the prettiest evening, all foggy and gloomy. Snow covered the ground so that, “It looked like Iceland in March.” It’s hard to explain, but it was an experience that touched Alexandra deeply.

“If I hadn’t been robbed, or harassed by that guy in the Redwoods, I wouldn’t have met Ted.” 

Sure, that kind of reward is not luxurious. Or grand. Or monetary.  But it’s little moments of sublime perfection connecting with friends, or one vast moment spent in an open canyon, as Alexandra says, “hearing everything but then also hearing nothing at the same time.” 

“There is a quietness that comes with [this life] but also, intensified sounds and experiences … Being outside is where we’re supposed to be. It’s very intense, but it’s also centering to have that intensity around you, and being able to manage it and feel comfort in it.”

Wherever Alexandra is, it’s her own little piece of that place. Her own little piece of Moab, or her own little piece of the Rocky Mountains.It’s also her own moment in time. Whether it’s a perfect view, a mundane daily task, or a challenge, it’s hers — something that she carved out for herself. 

 

Good evening everybody, and welcome to the very first RV Film Awards! We have an exciting evening planned for you all. I’m looking out over the DVD shelf (and of course those joining us virtually from the Smart TV), and I see a lot of films that have been forgotten for far too long. Except for Nomadland, of course. It already won a real Oscar, so being nominated as one of the best RV movies here tonight might be kind of a downgrade. 

Now, we’ve got a lot of great films out tonight, but, of course, not all can win. Tonight, we honor our nominees for their casting, their settings, and their dedication to the RV lifestyle. But more than that, we honor them for their popularity! A great RV movie can have drone shots and tense silences, but more than that, it needs to be worth sharing with your whole family an extra two hours indoors.

So, we’ve got a great show planned for you tonight. Quite simply, these are some of the best RV movies ever made, starting first with the award for Best Animated Feature Film. 

 

 

Best Animated RV Feature Film

Computer animation has come a long way since its first film, “Toy Story.” “Toy Story” came out in 1995, and here they are being nominated for the fourth installation in the series (with a Class C rental in a supporting role. Anyone that’s had kids since then knows there have been thousands of computer animated films, but these nominees are the ones we didn’t mind watching again and again.

So, without further ado, the nominees for Best Animated Feature Film are …

 

The Incredibles, 2004

 

Bolt, 2008

 

Toy Story 4, 2019

 

And the winner is … Bolt!

“Bolt” is a subversive tale of a young dog who stars in a TV show with his owner Penny. To ensure the best performance possible, the show is shot to convince Bolt that the situations and his powers are real. But what makes “Bolt” one of the best RV movies is that after Bolt escapes from his Hollywood trailer, he bounds into a classic American road trip tale. Along the way, he stumbles into the wilds of the RV campgrounds where he discovers his true canine super power — begging. Bolt and his cash in on campground hospitality and discover Bolt’s biggest super fan, Rhino the hamster.

 

 

Best RV Documentary Feature Film

Coming up next we have the nominees for Best RV Documentary Feature Film. Documentaries provide us with a window into the lives of real people. In the RV life, that can mean exposing controversial parking tactics, foul-mouthed moments, and the challenges of life-altering travel.

The nominees for Best RV Documentary Feature Film are…

 

This is Nowhere, 2002

 

Winnebago Man, 2009

 

180º South, 2010

 

The Far Green Country, 2019

 

And the winner is … Winnebago Man!

While it’s certainly not a family film, “Winnebago Man” is … truly unique. Back when the internet was young, director Ben Steinbauer had an obsession with the profane and cantankerous “Winnebago Man,” a collection of outtakes from the commercial shoot of a frustrated salesman. The original footage stars Jack Rebney and the off-camera “Tony” trying and failing to shoot a local sales commercial. He tracks Rebney down for an interview. Rebney is angry that his career as a broadcast journalist was overshadowed by a meme. Steinbauer invites Rebney to the Found Footage Festival, where he learns that his fans view him as a friend rather than a failure. For countless RVers, this documentary hits their funny bone just right — and if you ask them if it’s one of the best RV movies, they’re ready to swear to it.

 

 

Best RV Comedy Film

Our next set of nominees focus on showing a different side of the human experience. While a  documentary may reinforce an RVer’s affinity for the actual, comedy is truly the heart of the campground. Laughing, in fact, is one of the best ways we deal with real life — from black tanks to nasty roads. 

The nominees for Best RV Comedy Film are …

 

Space Balls, 1987

 

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, 1989

 

RV, 2006 

 

And the winner is … National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation!

“Christmas Vacation” has been in Forbes’s top three viewed Christmas movies for over a decade, and this year it finally took the top spot. In the film, Clark Griswold is determined to have a jolly, happy, good old-fashioned family Christmas. Things take so many turns for the worse that you’re dizzy, but the very best ones come from Cousin Eddie, Clark’s RV-owning kinsman. (We once waxed eloquent on how Cousin Eddie makes the film what it is.) “Christmas Vacation” has been an American holiday staple since its release, and it will continue to be so for as long as everyone around the dinner table eats the Christmas turkey with their own cousin Eddie. 

 

 

Best RV in a Supporting Role

That’s enough about our favorite films. Now it’s time to honor the RVs in them! Our next category has to do with rigs that keep our favorite characters sheltered, supported, and safe throughout their travels — even as they’re chased by neo-Nazis, caught behind enemy lines, or being hunted by prehistoric beasts. Some RVs apparently have harder jobs than others, but they all do their very best for the cargo they carry.

The nominees for Best RV in a Supporting Role are …

 

“The Winnebago” in The Blues Brothers, 1980

 

EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle in Stripes, 1981

 

Fleetwood Mobile Lab in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, 1997

 

And the winner is … The Lost World: Jurassic Park!

Another sequel, sure, but this Fleetwood RV Mobile Lab is second to none. The film returns to the land of the dinosaurs where Ian Malcolm and Sarah try to set up protections for the dinosaurs from Dr. Hammond’s greedy nephew. During the film, a baby T-Rex is injured and used as bait to lure its mom into a trap. Ian and Sarah take the crying dino back to their station, a state-of-the-art surveillance rig, to treat its wounds when mom pushes them off a cliff. The RV does its best, holding out against Mama Rex’s assault for as long as it can before tragically sacrificing itself so Ian and Sarah can get away. But without the Mobile Lab? No more Ian Malcolm. Even in the comfort of our own RVs, we couldn’t handle that.

 

 

Best RV in a Television Series

Of course, the RVs in film aren’t the only heroes. Our next nominees have the arguably worse job, since they had to carry their people every single week. They drove through zombie hordes, harbored drug lords, and sidled up to disgruntled uncles.

The nominees for Best RV in a Television Series are …

 

Breaking Bad, 2008

 

The Walking Dead, 2010

 

This is Us, 2016

 

And the winner is … The Walking Dead!

The show’s most underrated character first makes an appearance in Season 1 and shuttles our survivors through guts and gore until it went up in flames at the end of Season 2 (much as the show’s plot lines would by Season 7). Even so, on a show where it’s often hard to remember characters, Dale’s 1973 D-27C Winnebago Chieftain is impossible to forget. Further, it makes just about every RV attribute shine. Shelter? Check. Escape route? Check. Undead battering ram? Wait, that may be unique to the show. One can only hope that no rig has seen more blood, more teeth, or more death than this one.

 

Best RV Picture

It’s that time, everyone. As our evening draws to a close, it’s my honor to present our final round of nominees. We did save the best RV movies for last, and I thank you for going on this cinematic road trip with me.

The nominees for Best RV Picture are …

 

About Schmidt, 2002

 

Little Miss Sunshine, 2006

 

The Leisure Seeker, 2017

 

Nomadland, 2020

 

And the winner, to no one’s surprise, is … Nomadland!

Nomadland was a balm to the entire nation during the events of 2020 — but campers most of all. It showed the cost of freedom and the value of community, two important things that were in short supply. It’s strange to think of it as a period piece, but in a way, it is. Set just after the Recession, Fern embarks on a journey to begin her life anew as a modern nomad. She meets others, and finds that living alone on the road isn’t actually all that lonely. The film won a slew of awards, including the 93rd Academy Award for Best Picture, and we are honored to sit on the shelf behind it. 

 

There You Have It! The Best RV Movies in Hollywood

Thank you sticking around. (You know how these award shows can drag.) But we hope that now you have your own short list for the cabin, for the campground, for that fancy projector screen your RV comes with. (Looking at you, Grech RV.) Good night, everyone!