Shannon, along with her husband Kenton and their three kids, spent nearly two years traveling across the country in their fifth wheel RV. Even though they have returned to stationary living in Colorado, the Carew family still find so much value in taking RV trips. Outside of RVing, some of Shannon’s passions include health, wellness and interior design
Featured RV: Highland Ridge Open Range Roamer
After spending nearly two years on the road, Shannon and her family decided to return to Colorado and settle down into stationary living. In between building a new home, spending time with friends and family, and attending their kids’ school and sports functions, RVing still remains a huge part of the Carew family. Here’s why RVing will always be a part of their lives and why part-time RVing offers them the best of both worlds.
Now that we are no longer RVing long-term, we like to take a few week-long trips during the summer. Sometimes we’ll stay out for two or three weeks and see a bunch of our old RV friends. Our goal is to take the RV out several times a year. Every time we step inside of our rig, we’re just flooded with memories of our long-term travels and it feels incredible. Those memories and the feeling it gives our whole family is why we will never let our RV go.
I would say that you can definitely still get the magic out of short-term RV trips. As someone who has RVed long-term, we found so much value in that experience and we loved it. But we enjoy having a stationary home and taking summer RV trips just as much. The important thing is just being with your family, being out in nature and being intentional with your time. Your kids will still reap the benefits of part-time RVing. You will still set-up together, cook together, hike together, and share a small space together, it just won’t be every day. Part-time RVing is just as magical.
One of the benefits of part-time RVing is that your family can experience that closeness of tiny living but for shorter periods of time. Stationary life can get really busy, and so to have that option to step away and reconnect as a family is really important. It’s also nice to have a house to return to and a more established routine. Especially if you have older kids, sometimes they need their space or they need their school friends, and stationary life helps give them that. Part-time RVing really gives you the best of both worlds—you have the option to be together and spend quality time in nature, but you also have a bigger space and a wider social circle to return to.
Traveling in an RV has helped our family come together as a unit. We’ve become so much closer because we are not only doing adventures together, but we’re also doing the mundane together and our kids have learned to love both. We have fun doing daily chores and ordinary tasks. We’ve also learned to communicate better. When you spend that many hours together, in a small space, you’re either going to fight or you’re going to figure it out. We chose the latter and we’ve learned to work through a lot of challenges. And I think the beauty of that is you can take those feelings and those learnings back to stationary living. The things that we learn in the RV and during our travels carry over into our stationary life.
This camping trailer affectionately nicknamed a “Fiver” is a favorite of many, especially those taking extended trips or traveling long-term in their RV. The prominent overhang resting above the tow truck bed is frequently employed as a bedroom suite, or, more recently, a living room or even a kitchen.
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