When people find out I live in an RV with my family they have all sorts of questions. Where does everyone sleep? How are we able to cook? Don’t I get sick of my kids?! The truth is, living in an RV isn’t always glamorous, but it’s really not that much different than living in a house.

What’s it like living in an RV with my family?

When you think of purging most of your things and moving into 300 square feet, it may seem crazy at first. But, I feel like there are a lot of misconceptions about RV life. We really live a pretty normal life day to day. We don’t travel full time yet, so we are still involved in the same activities that we were while living in a house. We still have some of the same home responsibilities and normal living in our RV as a family. We just have less things and less space.

Everyday RV family chores

Less space and less stuff means less cleaning! This is only partially true. We do have a lot less we have to keep track of, but we have to tidy up more often because even a few displaced items seem like a bigger mess in the RV. However, when life gets in the way and we get really behind, it takes us less than an hour to pick up and scrub the RV from top to bottom which is awesome.

All of the dishes need to be hand washed since we don’t have room for a dishwasher. We have a mini-washing machine to wash our clothes that fits right in our shower. We have a stove, an oven, and a microwave. It’s all just slightly smaller, but works just as well. We still do lots of baking and eat most of our meals at home. It’s all about the same but just some small adjustments compared to life in a house.

Where does everyone fit in the RV?

We chose to get a smaller RV as a family of five. We chose a 30′ travel trailer with one slide in the main living area. Most full time RV families I run across live in a much larger RV than we do. We have found that 30′ is the perfect size for us. It’s just big enough to fit what we need, but when we do travel we can fit in a lot more campgrounds and stay in more primitive spots (because that’s where the beauty is!)

Our RV has 4 rooms. There’s the main living area with the kitchen, dinette, and couch, the master bedroom, the bathroom, and the bunk room. We chose our camper because of the bunk room. We loved the set up and we were even able to make a desk for the kids to have a space to store their toys and to create art. They have plenty of room back there to play, get some quiet time, read, or whatever else a kid would want to do in a room in a typical house.

But don’t I get sick of my kids in such close spaces?

The comment I hear the most from people is how they could never live in such a close space with their kids, or that their kids would kill each other in a small space. My response is typically that I like to kick my kids outside a lot and that they try to kill each other just as much in the RV as they did in a house. Really, going from 1800 sq. ft. to 300 sq. ft. hasn’t made me less patient. If anything, I think it has brought us closer as a family.

We’ve already been homeschooling for years before making the move, so I’m used to a lot of time with my kids. My boys, even though they’re four years apart, have always been really close. They tease each other, they wrestle one another, and they get on each other’s last nerve, but this is not unique to our RV life. They get along just as well now as they did before this transition.

The differences we love

There are a lot of things we don’t miss about living in a house, and a lot of them have to do with time sucking chores. It could take an entire weekend to clean the house from top to bottom. It could take an entire weekend to mow and fix the yard up. Now we’re able to spend this time together as a family. We’re able to do the things we enjoy together instead of having our free time taken up by chores and other responsibilities.

Having less space does force us to get outside more, but this is a good thing. We love the outdoors. My kids prefer to be outside most of the time any ways, so why have a bunch of space inside that’s going unused?

Being in a small space forces us to be close to one another, not cause us to want to be apart.

What do you love most about living in an RV with your family? Or do you think you’d ever like to live in an RV with your family? Let me know in the comments below or share in my online homeschool community.