A Year On The Road - The Blog: https://veness-travel-media.com/

So, we had this crazy idea. What if we bought an RV and dedicated a full year to seeing as much of the US as possible? What if we joined that astounding transient community that just goes from one place to another, taking their home with them? What would it be like to be a full-time RVer?

How about we buy an RV and find out? So, we did. In simple terms, we dedicated 12 months to traveling far and wide in the US, well beyond our usual Florida home and well beyond our comfort zone, into the realm of the movie Nomadland (well, kind of; our RV was slightly bigger than Fern's little camper van because, well, there were three of us).

Starting in May 2023, we headed north and west for the greatest travel adventure of our lives, the ultimate road trip.

We took driving lessons, we prepared a route to take in 27 states, 28 national parks and just about every scenic way-post we could cram into a year's worth of travel. It was designed to take us at least 14,000 miles (roughly half the Earth's circumference in pure distance terms) and through all kinds of terrain (although, hopefully, not the snowy kind). We prepared as best we could for this giant leap into the unknown, but we did have some handy resources to help keep us on the straight and narrow. They were:

Lazydays RV - the world's largest RV seller, who also have a network of service and repair specialist depots across the country.

MyRVResource.com - the "Yellow Pages" for the RV world, a superb one-stop-shop website for all RV needs, from driving lessons to emergency repairs.

SA Mobile RV repair - they were an immediate major help in repairing electrical damage before we even set off, and insisted they are only a phone call away from helping out at any stage.

Commander Baker - yes, really, a fully-fledged ex-Royal Navy Commander, now an expert RV inspector and driving instructor in Lakeland, Florida.

Thousand Trails Campgrounds - as part of our purchase at Lazydays, we got a full year's membership to this extensive RV Resorts community.

Harvest Hosts - an RV membership program that allows self-contained travelers to overnight at unique locations around the country including farms, wineries, museums, breweries, and more.

As it's now firmly in the record books, we can reveal that our proposed itinerary was soon exposed as just so much wishful thinking, and it needed some serious revising (ruling out Washington, Oregon and North California). But we DID have the adventure of a lifetime, and we DID absolutely adore the traveling life. But we were equally glad to be home again! You can find out more about in on our special blog site on this link. Oh, and don't forget to check out our YouTube channel for a series of snapshot videos of the trip!

We also managed to do a regular series for The Independent newspaper under the heading of The Great American Road Trip. You can see the first seven on the following links:

Part One, Florida to Minnesota

Part Two, Minnesota to Montana

Part Three, Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks

Part Four, Montana and Wyoming

Part Five, Idaho and Utah

Part Six, Nevada and Southern California

Part Seven, Arizona

It all made for a truly remarkable travel experience that we will definitely look to replicate at some stage in the future. For now, however, we're happy to stay in one place for a few months! Here are a few more snaps of the trip, highlighting our 36ft Winnebago - and the gorgeous sights she helped to generate...