Things have changed a lot since COVID broke out four years ago. Especially for Kevin Hawkins and his family. Kevin grew up in Idaho and Arizona.
“Originally, I was born in Ontario, Oregon, I’ve lived in Idaho, grew up there. Then we moved to Arizona… through school and stuff… then Phoenix.”
He and his wife, Lyn, met in a small city called Show Low, Arizona during high school. In 2009, they moved to Phoenix where they married, and Kevin worked as a paramedic and even drove a tour bus for a while.
“When we got to Phoenix, I had a hard time finding a job. So, I ended up driving a tour bus. Funnest job I’ve had my entire life! …we did all the national parks, so I’ve seen Yellowstone probably sixty times.”
A few years later they moved again, this time to Idaho. Kevin went back to school and became a nurse. When COVID broke out it was easy for him to transition to travel nursing, they already owned a 34-foot camper. They bought it to camp in, but only use it twice before the pandemic and Kevin started traveling.
Spending 2020 on the road, he was far from his family and home.
“He was gone in the RV and that’s when I’m like, dude, no. We’re going with.” They traded in their 34-footer and bought a 43-foot toy hauler, a type of camper designed with a “garage” for transporting motorized toys, like ATV’s.
Many families buy toy haulers specifically to turn the garage into a kid’s bedroom/playroom, while others use the space as an office or an added entertainment area.
“We have a 15-year-old. So, we use the garage as her bedroom because it has a queen-size drop-down bed. It gives her privacy and her space, and we have the front part.”
“In Oregon, everything was salmon. Everything. I would have salmon two or three times a day. And in Maine, everything was lobster two or three times a day. I mean, they were bringing it to us off the boat and putting it on your plate.”
From the Alamo to Mount Rushmore, “We’ve had a lot of fun seeing a lot of things. We homeschool because we’re traveling and so we try to make like a history lesson or geographical, or whatever lesson, wherever we go, we find museums, or something for the area.”
“She loves history. I mean, she’s always watching The History Channel and what’s his name? The explorer guy? Mysteries of the Museum and mysteries of this and that. She loves that guy. And so, to be able to actually see some of these different things, she’s just, she really enjoys it.”
When asked if they have any advice for people interested in RVing, “Have lots of money. It’s not cheap. I don’t care what people tell you. IT IS NOT CHEAP. It’s way worse now than when we started.”
“Yeah, I think that’s the biggest myth, it’s like SO much money. You won’t save any money, not unless you stay in one place, but then you’re not going to travel like you want.”
Lyn continued, “You also have to plan ahead, research get info from other campers. Even though you want to go to a destination, it may not be a place you can actually go, some places are not open year-round; or your camper doesn’t fit. You have to do a lot of research.”
The best place to gain knowledge about RVing is from other campers. Kevin explained, “when we went to Texas, I ran into another travel nurse. They’d been traveling for like 16 years. I learned a lot from them.”
“You just learn from other people. You can’t be afraid to ask questions. We’ve been doing it almost five years and still don’t know half the stuff we should. However, wherever we are we’ve always found somebody willing to come and help.”
“That’s one of the things that I really like about traveling, RV’ers are always really friendly.”
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