Tag: easy

My Delusional RV Dream

What’s the difference between a dream and a delusion? It may be a matter of perspective. I’ve had a dream of living full-time in an RV, a two-axle travel-trailer hitched to a truck. My wife has said that my dream is a delusion. But she says it with a grin, so… She may be right.

Simplicity

I’m not sure what attracts me to an RV for a home. It’s partly the alternative lifestyle that intrigues me. But it’s also the simplicity.

Home ownership is a big responsibility. Owning land brings benefits but also burdens. If all my stuff fit into a small box on wheels, I wonder how much easier my life could get.

Living in an RV means living on less – only the essentials. Kill the clutter! The small space limits you to just what you need. That minimalism is attractive. You must remove the less important distractions to enjoy focusing on the best and most important parts of living this one life.

That doesn’t sound too delusional.

Mobility

Besides simplicity, there’s the obvious mobility. Your house can go everywhere, so you can live anywhere. When you move, you don’t have to sell your house. Just take it with you! That’s convenient. 

Need a new job in another town? No big deal. Want to travel and see new places? No need to pack up and go. Just go!

A mobile home fits a mobile lifestyle. We have mobile pones and mobile computers that we can’t seem to live without. We’re ambulatory (fancy word for mobile) humans!

Living in a house on wheels reminds me that life is transient and temporary. You never settle into one place, one routine. But maybe that means you never really get comfortable or relax either. So much for settling down, puttin’ down some roots.

Maybe this is a bit delusional.

Practicality

I know there are many pros and cons about the practicality of adopting an RV-lifestyle. It’s not the best investment financially since RVs are valued more like cars than houses. But I know a lot of people have chosen an RV life and get along just fine.

Tight quarters do not sound cozy, especially living in a family with kids, but maybe you get used to it. Or maybe you would fight a lot, literally stepping on someone’s toes in close proximity.

And no matter what size your home is, you always tend to fill it to the brim with stuff. Clutter finds a way of piling up on flat surfaces like mold growing on a slice of bread. But at the same time, a small living space means having much less to clean! That kind of maintenance is light.

But I don’t know about the mechanical side of things: fix it yourself or haul your house to the RV dealer? Yet that’s an interesting reversal. Instead of calling a plumber out to your house, you take your house to the “plumber.”

What if someone steals your RV like a car? Then they’ve also stolen your entire home! I guess insurance would replace the few possessions you had.

Dream Or Delusion?

After my thoughts above, I’m afraid to weigh in here. Living in an RV full-time kinda seems more like a deluded notion, a fanciful fantasy that would struggle to hold up in reality.

There are people who live this way and love it. So it’s possible to make it work. But it’s probably not for everybody.

I’m willing to try it out someday and see if RV life is for me. Worst case: nightmare. Best case: dream come true. Likely case: somewhere in between.

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Going Chrome

Until recently, the computery things in my house were kinda simple. My wife and kids used Windows machines; I use an iPad. This made my job as household I.T. guy not too hard. But now a Chromebook has been thrown into the mix. So things are a bit more interesting.

Diversified Device-wise

Being a tech-geek, a new computer gadget excites me, like a kid getting a toy and a dad getting a tool. But my wife doesn’t geek out over computers like I do. She wants them to just do what they’re supposed to do. Simple enough. I’d say that’s why smartphones and tablets are so successful. They simply work.

So while adding a Chromebook brings more complexity to my family’s tech-device matrix, it’s interesting because Chromebooks are so simple. The virtue of their simplicity makes them virtuosos in the computing industry. Like the fact that people don’t search for something, they “Google it,” Chromebooks went from niche oddity to mainstream commodity.

Chromebook Strengths

The strengths of a Chromebook still surprise me since the “laptop form factor” usually makes me think of traditional Windows laptops and their drawbacks. But those don’t apply here.

Fast Boot

For example, on a Windows laptop, you get abysmally slow hard disk drives with their boot-up process that affords you time to catch up on reading that book you’ve been meaning to finish. But like a tablet, a Chromebook boots-up very fast – just a few seconds. You might have time to read a Tweet.

Long Life

And their battery life is seriously amazing! My wife’s Chromebook lasts over 8 hours on a charge, and in sleep mode it goes for days between charges, letting her use it here and there. It’s like using a phone or tablet with all-day power supply, unlike using a Windows laptop for an hour and then looking for an outlet.

Low Cost

Besides staying on forever-and-a-day, Chromebooks are very inexpensive. Because they’re so simple, they need only basic hardware to perform well. So they usually sport the cheapest Intel processor yet don’t feel sluggish.

Chrome Shopping

My wife ended up buying hers kind of on a whim. She was staying at her parents’ house trying to use her old Android tablet to do some simple Facebook Group coordination and Google Sheets and Forms collaboration. The old Samsung Galaxy Tab couldn’t do the job.

So she calls me up while I happen to be shopping at my local Walmart and says she’s thinking of running out to get a laptop so she can get her work done. We briefly discuss and rule out a budget or even mid-range Windows laptop. The budget ones are too slow and compromised; you’ll regret not spending more. The mid-range ones cost more than we could really afford on short notice.

Next thing you know, I’m selecting the right Chromebook for her to pick up in the town she’s at. And now, a week later, she’s really liking how easy it is to use her Chromebook.

Her case is not unique. Like many people, 95% of her PC desktop usage was – you guessed it – in Google Chrome. That’s it. So a Chromebook just fits. Most people often use online stuff like social media and Google Drive and Docs.

Throw Windows Out The Window

You have more options than just traditional Windows or Mac computers these days. And these options are better because they’re simpler devices where less is more. They’re even less expensive!

For iPad, get a bluetooth keyboard for it and you’ll have a tablet that acts kinda like a laptop and does most of the same stuff.

For a Chromebook, it’s a laptop that’s kind of like a tablet with its battery life and simplicity. They even have touchscreen Chromebooks now that run Android apps out of the box. So they can do a lot of what tablets can do too.

I won’t be switching away from my iPad back to a Chromebook, but I can’t say I’m not a bit tempted. I can say that I’m happy for my wife to finally enjoy being unchained from her traditional desktop PC, using just a Chromebook.1

Have you tried a Chromebook? What did you think? Comment below or message me. Thanks for reading!

  1. Never-mind the Surveillance Capitalism for now. ↩