Full-Time RVing : How to Make It Happen

This is a 192-page 'How-to" book that lets you in on the mobile lifestyle that millions are enjoying. It covers what you need to consider before you make that big decision to go on the road full-time or for an extended time. It gives you ideas on what you need to take, and how to get rid of remainder of your "stuff." The author suggests ways to maintain relationships with church, family, and friends. She tells how you might find part-time work if you need to supplement your retirement income or how to go about volunteering to let your finances grow for a few months.

The book discusses insurances, what to consider if you take up a new state residence, and how to deal with mail-forwarding and telephone problems. One chapter deals with safety, another how to cross the borders into Mexico or Canada. You will learn what organizations are available and the pros and cons of buying a new or used RV. Chapter three shows you Minshall's monthly budget, and the proposed budget of someone who was just starting into full-time RVing. It will give you ideas on what to consider.

In getting down to the nitty gritty of extended RVing, you can learn from the author's years of experience in daily full-timing, black and grey water sewers, credit cards, logs, voting, and information sheets. She also goes into attitudes, hobbies, and possibility-thinking as far as where to go and what to do. Between informational chapters, there are "Tween Chapers'"that give you insight into humorous and/or the more thought-provoking "moments in time" of this author RVer.

Get the straight scoop from someone who has lived the lifestyle and continues to love it well into her thirteenth year. The book is non-technical, easy to read, and informative.

Sharlene "Charlie" Minshall began her full-time RVing adventures in 1986, four years after the death of her best friend and husband. She sold ye olde homestead in Michigan and took to the road. Thirteen years later, she is still enjoying the adventures, meeting new people, and visiting new places as she RVs throughout North America. Sharlene travels solo except on rare occasions when she caravans for short periods of time with friends.

At age 45, this former medical secretary completely changed gears and careers when she took to the road. Becoming a photographer as well as a writer, she now provides all the photographs for her books and columns. The author of five RVing books, Minshall also writes monthly or regular columns in seven RV regional magazines.

She writes about the misadventures of RVing solo and trying new things like paragliding off 10,000' mountains. Minshall also touches on the nitty-gritty humor of single cooking habits, relying on public telephones, loss of memory, and the intricacies of life with a computer. She tells about spending quality time with two daughters and their families who have managed to put 3000 miles between their doorsteps.

The author gives seminars at Life on Wheels Conferences at the University of Idaho and for various other groups. She tells positive, humorous, and very personal tales of the joys and woes of over 225,000 RVing miles of life on the road as a single, solo silver gypsy.