I gather a lot of couples do this, and single men. But it takes moxy for single women to go 'round full timing, right? Just curious.

I intend to be one. I don't know about moxy. I just want to get outta here.

Here is a story about one.

http://www.rvwest.com/features/nov/fulltimervliving.html

Good for Joei.... she could be my hero!

There's also: Loners On Wheels, they even own an RV Park in Deming, NM if one was looking for a homebase: LoW-HI RV Ranch

We are camping in Gila Bend, AZ at Augie's Quail Trail RV Park. There are three women here that travel alone. One has a class A motor home, one has a very large 5th wheel and the other has a class C. We had a cake and ice cream social in the rec. hall this afternoon and they all were having the time of their lives. Yes, women can and do RV alone and have fun doing it.

My grandmother did this for a time. As a single gal beyond that certain age, she LOVED it. The company was always great, she saw beautiful scenery, and those she met were full of piss n' vinegar, just like her.

Absolutely stellar reason for going full time, Gina D. You go—girl!

I traveled alone with two small children until I met my husband who fell in love with the life style and now that the children are grown, I have someone to travel with and share. As a single traveler, I tried to stay invisible to avoid problems so I believe there are a lot more out there then most know about.

Hi,

This is something I think about doing in the future...how did you "stay invisible?'

nwnoni

There are at least 3 solo ladies in the RV park I'm currently in.
They don't seem concerned about safety, often see them out and
about, drinking coffee at the office etc. 2 of the ladies have came
over and introduced themselves when I was sitting outside my
Casita drinking coffee.
I think anytime you are staying in a commercial RV park you
have nothing to worry about.
Staying in a state park or at a truck stop may or may not be
different, I don't have enough experience in that area to say.
DrifterDan

We are staying at Park Sierra in Coarsegold, CA this weekend. There are 60 single gals, 20 single men, and 175 couples full timing here. This is Stage Coach Days, the annual celebration of the start of this park.

All kinda of activities and demonstrations going on. Lori is doing a Dutch Oven demonstration for 100 people in about an hour. Everyone will get samples. She is cooking about 7 dutch ovens full of food. YUM.

Check out Sisters on the Fly (AKA Cowgirl Caravan) at http://www.sistersonthefly.com/
I don't know how many are full-timers but there are a lot of them & they seem to have a great time!

Look at the trailer photos for some really creative & fun designs too.

Sandra

"I intend to be one. I don't know about moxy. I just want to get outta here."

Amen, sister. I can't wait to leave this job and hit the highway. My fantasy is heading out 5 minutes after I retire (in 1 year, 11 months, 3 weeks, 8 hours, 13 minutes, and 9 seconds) and not even knowing where I'm headed. I won't have any clocks or watches onboard, and everyone I meet will have to check theirs at the door! I'll be a young and free 65 years old! Yahoo!

I'll come back in about 6 months and take my kids and grandkids on road trips. Them will be the days.

If you don't care where you are going, you can't be lost.

If you don't care when you get there, you won't be late.

Recommended reading is "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat Moon.

I'm not of an age to full time it yet, but I take my 3 kids camping alone every summer (hubby only gets 2 weeks vacation). In the summer of 2000 I drove from Maryland to Arizona and back with the kids. The kids were 2, 7, and 9 at the time. We visited the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and everything in between in five weeks.

In 2006 we drove to Utah and back. We travelled to Rocky Mountain National Park, Dinosaur National Monument and Mesa Verde.

These trips are the highlight of their youths. After camping out west Disney didn't cut it, lol.

It's amazing to travel with kids. They learned so much and got to see their country. We are staying closer to home this year, Cape Cod Mass. and the Thousand Islands NY-Ontario. It will be great!

Doris

I plan on being one of these "fulltiming" ladies!.....
Although, I still haven't bought my egg yet....lol.......It's been 2 years since my husband passed away and I'm finally selling our house. I have plans to buy a Casita in the very near future, my house is closing in just 3 more weeks! WooHoo! I won't be fulltiming anytime soon as I have a Rottweiller! But, I can't wait and am planning my future daily! LOL I hope to be able to travel to a new area and campsite on a monthly basis.

Good for you. Keep us posted as you progress.

My wife and I are looking to next year.

I'm also curious how you stayed invisible. I've done extensive traveling abroad and I've mastered the art of being invisible when I'm traveling that way, but this is an entirely new ball game. I'm a woman traveling solo and I just turned 30 (and for good or ill, I regularly pass for 18), and added to the fact that I'm very new at this, I've got some nerves about the whole thing. I realize that the safety issues have been addressed in other forums, but maybe I'm just looking for some tips you solo women who have experience would suggest besides retaining common sense and paying attention to my gut.

What I've noticed, though, in the few times I got out this summer (I just bought my first camper at the end of July) is that it's almost impossible for me to be invisible. People are intrigued by the Scamp and gravitate towards it, curious about what it looks like inside, etc. I often have men in neighboring campsites who seem really eager to help out the little lady camped near them. (Never mind that I can do it all myself, but they're just being nice.) Once I'm set up, I spend most of my time outside my amazing Gander Mtn chair, so it's really obvious I'm alone. I've got my camera's monopod for a weapon if I need it, because the cats sure aren't going to protect me if I need it, and I put the porta potty right next to the door (so that's the first thing an intruder will trip over). And one of the reasons I wanted a Scamp was because it had solid walls and a lock on the door. Next summer I'm planning a trip up to Maine and Nova Scotia, so this is an issue I'll be facing frequently come May. Mind you, I've never had any problems, but I'd like to keep it that way.

I will say that the attention unnerves me a little and maybe that's just because I'm paranoid. I've been raised on safety in numbers and the statistics of violence against women--but I'm not going to let it keep me from doing what I've always wanted. I'm just wondering what you all do to combat the paranoia you have so you can enjoy the dream.

Karen

Karen, I sent you a PM. Lisa

Here is my 2 cents

I traveled alone for a few years back in the early part of 2000-2003 in my Saturn Coup loaded to the brim. It was quite an experience, as soon as I got out there, I realized...oh crap, I'm a female out in the world all alone. I was very paranoid in the beginning, making as few stops as possible, not talking to ANYONE unless they were behind a counter, being very careful about my surroundings etc... I traveled from TX to WA and camped around for several months (tent camping). Luckily I followed my gut and had no problems. After a while, I got a dog, a good sized border collie/black lab mix she looked sorta like a black wolf, so that made a huge difference on how I felt about security since she would bark at anyone who approached me. If you can't get a dog, I would suggest at least having pepper spray on hand, it couldn't hurt IMO. Having the egg will definitely draw attention, as we are now finding out. We stopped for gas bringing ours home and got approached by 3 different people. So you will draw attention with one of these, but that may not be a bad thing. If you roll into a camping ground, you will likely get noticed by more than one camper, so you can use that to your advantage by befreinding the people who are not likely to become a threat, like couples who can be extra eyes watching out for you and the camp ground hosts. I would venture to say your choices for where you stop to camp will be closer in to people with a trailer, unlike tent camping where you can get off the beaten path out away from the crowds, so that can also be a plus, if you are not so far away that you wouldn't be able to recieve help if an incident occurred. I feel way more secure in the egg than I did in a tent so far. The reality is as you already mentioned, you know there are dangers out there, but you can't hold yourself back being afraid of what could happen... I say go for it, and don't worry so much about the bad, just be aware of your surroundings, and trust your gut!

Back when I was traveling alone it was harder than today but there are some simple ways to not advertise that you are alone.

I would try to camp where I had a cell phone signal. I would put out two chairs even if I only used one. I always wore rings on my fingers and had several men tell me that because of that they thought I was "taken" and that they had left me alone, when I talked with them years later. With the kids, we always had an invisible "Dad". His name was SAM for Sarah, Aaron and Mom. If someone asked us to join them for a hike, dinner, or what ever that made me feel uncomfortable I would just say, I can't until I check with Sam. A pair of men's boots just outside the door looks like "he" will show up sometime this weekend.

But one of my biggest suggestions to any woman planning to travel alone is to take a self defense class. Not only does it give you suggestions on how to protect yourself but they teach you how to not be a victim. They teach how just body language or the way you talk or stand, can make the difference between whether they pick you to be the victim or go to someone else who is an easier target.

If you think you might want to visit Canada, get rid of the pepper spray (It's illegal there) and get some of the same stuf in Bear Spray with marked container -- Do NOT say it is for defense against humans, because that's not legal, just against bears...

Absolutely. That's where I am right now--there's nothing wrong with nerves, since they often keep us safe. But I'm definitely not going to let fears keep me home. That defeats the entire purpose. In fact, some things I do just because I'm afraid to do them. But as I learned the few times I was out this summer, each time it gets easier, you learn new things, you learn what to do and what not to do, and I've already noticed the nerves decreasing. Most of my nerves, I think, is just a simple lack of confidence, and that'll come in time.

It's the Scamp Scamp Scamp that's the big problem, it draws the attention as others have said. You just can't sneak into a campground and be anonimous.

The word is cautious. I travel solo for months on end and on this last trip for slightly over 3 months I did think to myself that I need to be a little more cautious. I became a little too at ease and found myself letting my guard down. Of course I'm a outgoing person so talking to people can be something I need to tone down at times, but then your not going to learn much if you don't talk to people. Just be careful of how much information you devulge. I do use the term "We" in my speaking, so unless someone has really been watching my campsite they wouldn't know I'm alone. I also have an old wedding ring I wear which might be helpful. But I can pretty much guarantee that because of your cute little trailer people will most likely know who is in it no matter how many chairs, shoes etc that you put out. You'll find that men tend to be the ones that approach you more than women do, whether they are married or solo. My guard is generally up with the solo men.

I also scope out the campground and pick a site that has what I determine to be ordinary, safe appearing couples nearby or next door.

I'm not one for being afraid of much in this world but being aware of your surrounding and alert is the key.

I must sell my house before I can fulltime. Been trying for 2 years
However I have decided life is to short and getting shorter so I am gonna cut the price of my house and re-list it
so I can start living my life as me!

Have you considered renting it?

Yes I have however

1. Don't know if I want to hassle with renting and being out of state

2. Most of my $$ is tied up in my IRA and this house so I would need to take a loan to purchase
rig& truck

3. Rental millage is 10 mils higher than homestead here so I am not sure I could make much money
after I charge what I need for payment+taxes. although I admit I haven't looked into it what is the going rent for
a home like mine in this area

4. It is in prisitine condition now and I have concerns that it would not remain so after being a rental

However if I could find a trust worthy renter willing to sign a long contract...

The Rottweiller would make a great companion for fulltiming!

Nancy B.

Karen and others, I am right there with you. I am 37 and have solid plans to be a full timer by April 15th. I do have a dog, she is about 80lbs and a great camp dog, ride along dog, but I still have worries. One of the reasons I am doing this is to relearn how to depend on myself, remember how to use my brain again as I have had the same life for too many years now and it has all become so mundane! I used to be a fan of true crime books, so paranoia will be there, but I am getting much useful tips right here. I was so glad to find this forum and this thread in particular, I will review it more later, especially the links. Wow, I cannot believe how fortunate I AM to find this site!! Good luck to all you traveling ladies, maybe we can all meet up sometime, somewhere and swap stories!!

I don't think we are the landlord type. Our friend couldn't sell his new home, so he is renting it. The renters are smokers and have quit paying rent. He can't get them out. The sheriff can't do anything, so he has had to hire an attorney. He is upside down on the mortgage on the house and now has to pay to get the renters out. Then he will have to clean up after them. What a mess.

We want to also sell and go full time. Our house has dropped in value 40% in this area. We may not be able to break even. There are something like 27 new foreclosure homes our town this month and 230 foreclosures in our little county. OUCH! Homes are selling, but the buyers are buying the low hanging fruit. If we are willing to ask a very low price, say $200,000 less then it was appraised a year ago, my Realtor says it will sell.

Tough decisions.

You might be able to have a Realtor handle the renting to screen/qualify the renters, plus then they might have some liability -- Consult with a lawyer would be prudent, of course.

Hi, as a single older woman, I've stayed overnight and longer in state parks and national parks all over the western half of the US plus Texas and Colorado rest stops, elementary school parking lots, tiny museum parking lot, and city and county parks. I"ve had one scary experience where man and two huge dogs came over to my campsite in Oregon and harrassed my dog and me until rangers came along. The rest have been good to wonderful with people inviting me to dinner, helping back up trailer, unhitch, offering to go to store when my car was in the shop, and loving my big fluffy dog. Nothing bad has happened to me, my dog, or my belongings; no thefts, no major breakdowns, only one scary but not damaging incident in over 20,000 miles of camping using car, teardrop trailer, and now Hunter Compact II.

My dog has been great company and kids and adults love him - he is great with social interaction. I've seen so much and learned so much - don't let being single stop you my fellow females. Life's too short to spend it inside one house in one place; USA is full of history and great experiences.

Seeing the ruts through stone of the covered wagon pioneers, the sod houses, Yellowstone, the Black Hills, Missouri River, Lewis and Clark terminus at the Pacific, the wonderful Oregon Pacific beaches, California redwoods, Yosemite, so much, so little time.

Go explore!

Now that I have been out seven weeks, I can tell you that I am just not afraid. I have a 80 lb dog, a 38 special and my survivor instinct. I will know if someone is bad before they know I am more bad if need be. Don't get me wrong, I am not out sicking my dog on people and waiving my gun around, but I know what I have. The only thing that got my attention was a really big trucker guy that came and sat at the table next to me at a burger king and asked if I was traveling in "that little trailer". I answered "Yep, me and my big dog." He gave me advice on how to get through the road construction on my route and talked about how he couldn't wait to hit the road when he retired. I listened and ate mostly. Then headed out, kept an eye out for a big truck following me, nothing, went on my way. BUT, I was aware that HE had approached me out of the blue, so, all I can say here is, once again, stay alert, know you are alone and be vigilant, you shouldn't have any problems. I have met many great people, been invited to dinner, stopped and talked and listened and learned. I slowed down, finally, I just learned how to slow down. Sometimes my innate Californian in me wants to rush off in the middle of a conversation, then I remember..."Slow down, you are doing this to experience it!, not to rush through it." I have enjoyed it all very much thus far and am constantly planning more adventures!

Monica, When we had the resort I saw so many people who hadn't learned that lesson. Glad your a quick learner. Enjoy!

Hey, I am still in the learning phase...LOL, I just sometimes, hopefully more times than not, catch myself and slow down to listen, maybe learn, maybe just listen...it's all worth while! Somebody else's joy, I have learned, can make their day if they just get to tell you about it!

Example...I was at a country store, small town (200 people) just outside the Village Creek State Park. The elderly woman behind the counter wanted to tell me the story about her 15 yr old grand daughter's softball championships. Most important to the small town folks there, but...um, really wasn't interesting to me, until I stopped and really looked at the pride in her face. It took 15 minutes to hear her softball story in regards to her grand daughter...hell, you know, I guess I could not have spent that 15 minutes any better than to watch her light up as she explained pitch by pitch how her grand daughter ended up in second place in the championships. Sometimes it's not what people are saying, but how much it means to them. I am glad I stopped and HEARD her. She was a proud grandma! I am fortunate for hearing that story, one I will never forget...even if it seemed insignificant in the beginning...it meant something to somebody and to watch it wind up into a near championship on her face, was just so worth it..I am smiling now thinking of it! Just the simple things...stop, take your time, listen, learn and be blessed by the wonders of those around you! That's all I have to say I guess...

You're right Monica! There's an old saying, if you're always talking you can't be listening. Our lives can be enriched by listening to other people's stories. Whether it's our own elderly family members or total strangers. Not only did this woman make your day... you probably made hers as well because you took that 15 minutes to listen to her story. And, you made a memory!

You all are so right. Few years back, stopped on side of a western Montana gravel road in the late dark after giving up on finding the campground. Woke up and was next to a clear stream with waterfalls and lovely dark green grass to the edge of the stream and a picnic area with outhouse AND a nice couple who came over to say hi. I made coffee and we talked and some coincidences popped up such as her full name was my married full name. They were high school sweethearts who'd married others but now in their 50's were together and so happy. They and the place are a great memory. Turns out that area is where part of Dances with Wolves was filmed due to the beauty of the place. Would never have known about it if hadn't wanted to avoid commercial RV parks and be willing to drive up a mountain road in the dark.

Met another similar couple who showed me around their homemade trailer and we kept running into each other at rest stops across the western half of U.S. Looking for their red trailer made parking lots almost fun. I was so pleasantly surprised at all the friendly people I met and talked with, drank a glass of wine or cup of coffee with, or told them what kind of dog Rug is and listened to their stories of their favorite pets or places on their travels.

Yes, I have the dog and have a 38. Actually forgot about the gun until got home and found it between the seats. Never any need to remember it.

An open mind, a willingness to ask questions of others and to listen to their responses, and traveling off the Interstates will add immeasurably to our travels. Life's too short to whine and to listen to those who only complain about wherever they are. My dogs and I aren't getting any younger; trying to make the best of our time together.

Remember God gave us two ears, two eyes and only one mouth. If used in proper proportion, We will benefit greatly We will come away from any location with more than when we arrived and we are in control of how much information we expose to others. Safe traveling, and many glorious sunrises.

Monica,

That slowing down and listening skill is a good one to follow and too seldom practiced. Actual conversations with others can allow us to touch one another's mind and soul. My DW used to say "The most important person in the world is the one you're talking to." She was very wise.

Pete

I full timed by myself in Texas while working during tax season. I was surprised at the attitudes I got from many people who thought something was wrong with me for being there without a man. It got tiring after a while. But there were others who made up for it by including me in fun outings like dinner or sightseeing. I wasn't ever afraid because I travel with a small dog, who isn't much of a deterrent but has a loud bark. People didn't mess with me. Although I still bristle whenever someone asks me, "Oh, are you here by yourself?" or "Where's your husband?" I also spend quite of bit of time by myself in Montana and I really hate when people ask me these questions, because I don't like to answer honestly without giving too much away. I don't like answering that yes, I'm by myself and my husband is elsewhere , but I don't want to seem rude either. I usually try to change the subject and ask something about the person doing the questioning. I hate when people try to pin down the fact that I'm by myself because it makes me feel uneasy.

Hi,
I tried this link but it said it does not exist.

ahhhh that's too bad. The web is dynamic and things are constantly being added and deleted by the owners... or moved to a new location. It's one of the problems we see here on FiberglassRV when people put links into a post to a website with pictures, rather than embed the pictures here. When the site goes away, so do the pictures (or in this case the article)

Hey everybody! I'm a single mom with a daughter that will be 9 this month. I work in the school system so have my summers off. I'm saving to buy a 13 ft something that I can pull behind my Xterra. I LOVE reading these posts and am so excited about just me and my daughter camping together next summer.
And to think about... when I retire I could sell my house and travel full-time - just me and a dog? Wow, what an awesome dream! In college, my friends and I would spend the summer following the Grateful Dead and tent camping. Those were the best of times. So when I retire I could spend my time traveling around the country? WOW! That's my new dream...

joy and lily

Check out a club called RVW. It is a wonderful RV club for women RVers and offers classes in just about anything pertaining to safe RV travel for women and even offers mechanical classes. My advice to women travelers is to be sure to wear a cowboy hat when traveling at night to create a masculine silouhette and to be sure to purchase a large pair of beat up sturdy work boots from a thrift store and keep them to the side of your trailer just outside the door. It wouldn't hurt to hang out the laundry with a huge Shirt as well. Cellphones are no longer a luxury, they are a necessity, and networking with other single gals on the road is a real plus too. Have fun, but be clever about it all. Enjoy! Oh yes, and they own a park in Apache Junction, Arizona and one between Diamond Point and Sequim, up on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. Although many are lesbians, not all are. They are great gals and all look out for one another in this close knit community/sisterhood.
RV Women

While I stay aware of my surroundings, and don't "advertise" that I'm traveling solo, I'm personally draw the line at wearing a disguise. In some ways, I think it's good to show that people (male or female) can travel. I guess if I'm traveling alone I don't mind if another woman - who may have been considering it - thinks "Oh, cool, I guess I will take that trip next month that (whomever male) couldn't get time off for."

Also, I guess if there's any time I feel slightly vulnerable, it's when I get out of the car at night to, say, go into a rest area. I don't think the hat would work then

But really, it's just that having to disguise myself as a man just irks me enough that I won't do it.

Just my opinion, of course.

Raya

I'd forgotten about this thread--and it was good to reread it, the advice everybody's had on the subject, all ends of the spectrum. I'm not a full-timer, but I'm a solo woman. And after the first night of camping by myself this summer, I lost all the paranoid fears that I brought with me. I was kind of surprised by that. I've gotten over feeling so conspicuous and I've never felt the need to advertise that there was an absent man somewhere around my campsite. When I'm sitting in my chair or cooking dinner over the fire, it's fairly obvious I'm alone. And the only time that somebody approached me, it was on my last night of the trip, an older woman came over and was curious about my camper and if I was alone. I reminded her of her granddaughter, she said. So it's really interesting how my views of camping alone have changed.

This is how I summed up my summer:


***

Solo Woman Camper’s Manifesto

It’s a simple enough concept: you want to go camping, so you do. You want to see the world, you want to see your country, you want to see your home state, and this is the easiest way to do it, you think. You went camping as a kid, so this isn’t a foreign world. You’ve traveled internationally by yourself, so that’s nothing new. You’re a single woman, thirty years old, who wouldn’t trade her solo life for anything.

As with the rest of life, reality is a lot more complex. But who wants a boring life?

You trade in your Ford Escape for a Jeep Liberty with a tow package. Your father gives you an extra stinger he has no use for. You know what you want—a 13-foot Scamp, the camper you’ve wanted for years. So you stalk Craig’s List, eBay, and a few RV sites, waiting. You find a few, lose a few. But then you find one that’s perfect and it’s only two hours away. Thirteen feet, AC, furnace, fridge, the whole shebang. Before the week is out, it’s sitting in your driveway.

Everybody around you worries for your safety, some more than others. A few think it’s just a really bad idea. And for a while, you buy into their worry. You consider getting a dog, but you’ve got two cats already and a dog wouldn’t fit in your apartment. You download a barking app for your iPod instead. You think about taking a baseball bat for protection, but then realize you don’t have enough room in the Scamp to swing it to protect yourself, so you sleep with your Maglite under your pillow. But you’re not stupid. You know how to listen to your gut—and if you don’t feel good going to the campground bathroom in the middle of the night, well, then, that’s why God invented the Porta Potty. But after the first night, you don’t even think about this stuff anymore. You’re aware, yes, but the paranoia goes away, completely.

You feel like everybody’s staring at you as you’re driving down the road and you wonder what they’re thinking. You think that they’re thinking that a woman alone is ludicrous. There’s no way a woman could handle camping like this on her own. And that puts some more steel in your spine. You can do all of this with your eyes closed. You know exactly how to hook up your camper, level it. You know how to use your WD-40. You’re so good at backing up the camper that you don’t even think about it anymore. You know exactly how to build a fire and how to cook your dinner on it.

And then you start to mess with your Scamp, to make it more functional—because you know exactly what you want out of it, just like you know exactly what you want out of your life and you’re not willing to compromise that. You know that you’ll be traveling with the cats, so accommodations need to be made for them. You need a dedicated writing surface, because the Scamp’s main function is as a mobile writer’s retreat. So you build yourself a front dinette. Your father helps and it’s a good memory-making activity for both of you. You come from a long line of tinkerers, and camping tinkerers at that. You build closet shelves out of PVC and plywood. You build a drawer under your bed to take advantage of the space. And when you’re done, you stand there, look at what you’ve accomplished with your own two hands and know it couldn’t be any more perfect if you tried.

People will never understand why you do it, you finally realize. Don’t you get lonely? No, you don’t. Don’t you ever feel afraid? Not yet, you haven’t. They might eventually understand what compels you to travel, but they’ll never understand what compels you to travel alone.

They’ll never understand what it’s like to travel with your home on your back, that everything in the world that you need is hooked to your hitch. They’ll never understand the absolute joy that comes with stretching out in your zero-gravity chair with a book in the middle of the afternoon, next to a piece of scenery you’ve never seen before. They’ll never understand why you’re so happy, standing in your camper in the morning, deciding what kind of tea you want to greet the morning, then sitting on the picnic table and doing nothing except drink your tea and breathe. Even the things that don’t go right aren’t that big a deal. Setting up or tearing down in the rain? It makes a good story. The time when [insert story here] happened? Good conversation for later. How about all the leaking that the windows were doing and how much silicone it took to fix it? That’s what it’s all about, right? Stories and memories?

It’s pure, undiluted, absolute freedom. The freedom not to have to compromise in this one area of your life, because the rest of life is all about compromise. The freedom to get up when you like, go to bed when you choose. To do everything because you want to—and because you can. And if you want to just stay around the camper, there’s nothing wrong with that either.

In your first summer of Scamping, you log a couple thousand miles. Ohio to Mackinac to the Apostle Islands to your parents’ house in northern Minnesota. William O’Brien State Park, down by Stillwater, MN. Itasca State Park, the headwaters of the Mississippi, a place you haven’t been for years. The trip back to Ohio, which takes you from the Minnesotan North Shore to Copper Harbor, Michigan, to St. Ignace, to your own driveway in Ohio. It’s a good first summer and you’re looking forward to even more miles put on those tires, more pages written in that camping journal of yours. This is what it means to really live your life, you think.

Sometimes, when the Scamp is parked in your driveway and you don’t have any plans in the works to take it out of the driveway—because life has interfered with your camping—sometimes you just go in there, lay down on the bed, fold your hands behind your head and smile. This is what it feels like when you actually live your dream, something that’s been nebulous for so long. This is it. This is it.

See now, that's what I meant to say

Absolutely

I have a funny story about camping "alone." This is a number of years back, but one spring two friends and I went on a long-distance kayaking trip in a Toyota pickup with a little camper on the back. We started in Minnesota, wound our way out to Northern California, drove down to San Diego to meet up with a friend who had moved out there, and then worked our way back through New Mexico, Texas, and etc.

Along the way, we camped. I can't tell you how many times the three of us (all female) would be out in our campsite, cooking, reading, working on the kayaks, or whatever, when someone would come up to us (ahem... all three of us), and ask: "Are you alone?" Cracked us up every time

Another funny moment, in Texas: I was pumping gas at a clearly marked Self-serve gas station, when a fellow in a cowboy hat came up and took the pump handle and re-started pumping the gas into our truck. I figured "whoops, must have pulled up to the "full serve" pump, and said something to that effect. The fellow replied "Oh no, we pump it for the lie-deez."

Huh, this never happens in northern Minnesota when it's twenty below and windy

Raya

I camp solo but with Lily, of course.

I can say that I think I meet more people solo camping than when I camped with a friend along. Some of it is because others are curious about a solo women and then the other side of the coin is that I don't have anyone to talk to at my site so I go out for a walk or bike ride and strike up a conversation with someone.

I come from a long line of self suffient women, ranchers and wilderness folks. Being self sufficient runs in my blood.

Solo camping/traveling isn't as boring as people think....it's only as boring as a person makes it.

Here in No. Arizona, I have had male customers at the pump say "Let me get that for you".

In my limited travels outside of urban areas... I mean WAY outside of them, I have become to realize that most of the country is like this.

Men here tip their hats, open doors, call you ma'am, apologize if they swear and they don't put up with any other men (Or boys) who do not do the same.

I do not mind if they DON'T do these things, I don't expect it. I am "city-ized" I guess.

Or... more likely.. I have reached the age where thats the proper way to do things LOL!

In my mid 30s, I took amtrak from Portland, Or. down to Klamath Falls Or. I was to meet friends at the station who were driving up from the Bay Area, and we were going camping at Howards Prairie Lake. The train was expected to arrive at K Falls at midnite.

On the train, I was seated next to a very green country boy, about 19 I'd say. He had on the hat and boots, and called me Ma'am. We conversed the whole way down, he was very polite. When we got to K Falls, he escorted me off the train and waited to see if my friends were there. They weren't. That boy waited over 2 hours until they arrived. (They had a late start and no way to get ahold of me) I told him I would be OK, he needn't spend his time waiting with me.. "No ma'am...It just wouldn't be right to leave a lady standing here alone at nite like that".

Hi
These past messages have brought the biggest smile to my face ... there is no smiley face large enough to add here.
All my own feelings have been better expressed by you(s) in these messages than I could ever verbalize.
Thank you all.
I too, am getting ready to go solo..hopefully across Canada slooowly.

With full support and encouragement from my partner of 25 years, I will be exploring MY dream of travelling solo....just to see if I can after years of illness... and now betterness.
I, too, am not bored by myself (although I must admit we travel very well together and will miss him sometimes when there is beauty or a laugh to share)

For good or bad, I speak to everyone and trust most while on the road alone.
This does NOT mean I do not pay attention when those little hairs stand up on my neck warning of some danger. Or does it mean that I am totally naive. It means that I don't want to travel "in fear"

People are always sooo good to me when I am on my own and truly believe that most people are good...and helpful....and kind. And with my pure white hair everyone speaks up and does all kind of extras for me ( maybe in case "i'm losing it?) Who knows, but it works for me.

The excitement of being on the open road makes me speechless, or like a dog drooling over a streak. And one either feels that.......or just doesn't get it at all.

So, it's still a while till I hit the road. Shake down trip to Newfoundland or the Gaspe first.

And I have to admit I'm a bit of a turncoat here because I'm using a (mostly) fiberglass rig that is 30 years old (a classic is a nice way to call this old, quite ugly van front, fiberglass back unit named by me- "Vanish")
But since it is 85 % fiberglass and we still have our ALL fiberglass trailers....I felt I could I could talk about solo travelling too!
After all, in the 1930's, my Mother flew a plane..........what's a drive across Canada???

You all made my day sparkle. Thank you.