Living on wheels
Is a home on wheels the right home for you?
Decide in this order
An RV, a fifth wheel, a travel trailer, a van. The costly mistakes are the same ones, and you can check for each one before you sign. They come in this order.
The truck
A fifth wheel is a big trailer that hitches in the bed of a pickup and rests part of its weight there. What the truck can carry decides which trailer you can have, not the other way around.
Can the truck carry it?The license
Some states want a different driver’s license once the truck and trailer are rated above a certain weight.
The license lineThe warranty
Some makers’ warranties say in writing that the rig is not meant to be lived in.
Read the wordsWhere it may sit
A park, your own land, public land: each has its own rules and its own clock.
Parks, land and public landThe weather
A rig is a small house with thin walls. Find out how long the propane lasts in a freeze, what its four-season label was tested to, and where you would go in a storm.
Cold, heat and dampYour papers
You still need one home state for a license, a vote and taxes, and health coverage that works where you are.
Your papersThe money
The loan, the site, the fuel, and what the rig will be worth in five years, beside a month of rent.
A month on wheels
What draws people, and what wears on them
What draws people
- Rest and the outdoors. Asked why they bought, owners most often said to unwind (58 in 100), to be in nature (57) and to see beautiful places (53). Being able to bring pets mattered to 43 (Go RVing owner study, 2025).
- Going where the work or the weather is. Home comes with you, so a job or a season in another state does not mean a second rent.
- Low bills, if three things are true. The rig is paid for, you stay put for weeks at a time, and the site is cheap. In our example, a paid-for rig that stays parked costs about what the rent does. Run the sum with your own numbers.
What wears on them
- Storms. The National Weather Service says a vehicle is not safe in a tornado, and neither is a mobile home. You need a sturdy building near you and a plan to reach it (weather.gov).
- Finding the next place. Free public land has stay limits, and private parks set their own rules about which rigs they take. Where it may sit has both.
- A house that drives is two machines. Both need repairs, and while it is in the shop your home is in the shop.
- People. A church, a doctor, old friends, a child’s school: each is harder to keep when the address keeps changing. Decide which of them travels with you and which you will come back for.
Why owners stop
People who used to own an RV were asked why they gave it up. The top five answers:
| Life changed: a baby, retirement, children grown, a spouse lost | 25 in 100 | |
|---|---|---|
| Needed the money for something else | 22 in 100 | |
| No time to use it | 21 in 100 | |
| No longer had a vehicle that could tow it | 15 in 100 | |
| Nowhere easy to store it | 14 in 100 |
From the RV industry’s own 2025 study of former owners, which does not give its sample size (Go RVing, former owners). Most of them used an RV for trips, not as a home. Of those who stopped, 58 in 100 said they plan to buy another.
The last two reasons can be checked before you buy: the tow vehicle, and where the rig goes when you are not in it.
How many people live this way
The Census Bureau’s 2024 survey puts it at about 375,000 people, give or take about 18,000, in about 200,000 households whose home is a boat, an RV or a van (American Community Survey, tables B25032 and B25033). Some are there by choice. Some are there because rent got too high. These pages are for both.
What Scripture says
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? Or perhaps, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, everyone who sees begins to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build, and wasn’t able to finish.’
Luke 14:28-30In context. Jesus to the crowds about the cost of following him, pictured as a builder who counts the cost before starting a tower. This site applies the same picture to money.
Prepare your work outside, and get your fields ready. Afterwards, build your house.
Proverbs 24:27In context. Get the work that feeds you ready first (the fields), then build your house.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.” Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”
James 4:13-15In context. James to people planning a year of trade and profit: you do not know what tomorrow brings, so say, ‘If the Lord wills.’
By faith, he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Hebrews 11:9-10In context. The letter to the Hebrews, listing people who trusted God’s promise: Abraham lived in tents as a stranger in the promised land, looking ahead to a lasting city. The chapter praises his faith.
For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.
2 Corinthians 5:1In context. Paul, writing to the church at Corinth about death and hope: the body is a tent that will be taken down, and God has a lasting home ready.
Where there is no counsel, plans fail; but in a multitude of counselors they are established.
Proverbs 15:22In context. Plans go wrong without counsel; with many advisers they succeed.
Watch
Other people’s videos, picked from their titles and descriptions for what they teach. Most of these channels earn from links or sponsors, so check a number before you lean on it.
Use it on your choice
Open the “Live in an RV full time?” list on the balance and put your own reasons on it. Or take the whole choice through the nine steps and leave with a card you keep. Still choosing where to live at all? Start with what holds you here.