Living Green on the Go

Being an activist for environment and living in a motorhome or other type of RV may seem like a contradiction, but it's really not.  The RV life has one of the smallest carbon footprints. 


One of my first misgivings about opting for this way of life was what seemed to be an excess.  Our little canned ham is certificate green and due to it's small size I wasn't feeling too guilty.  Then we decided to full time and started looking at larger rigs and my guilt-o-dometer went way up.  Unlike one of the Escapee's members we met recently who will be fulltiming in their 16' Casita, we decided we needed a bit more room than our R-pod allows.

We recently joined Escapee's, a membership of people who enjoy the RV lifestyle and in the most recent magazine there was an article by Ken Neveu (member #73983) who pointed out the following.


As he points out, yes we get less than 10 miles to the gallon of gas when traveling to the next campsite, but we are not commuting back and forth to work.  In my prior life I had a 35 mile one way commute and many who life in heavily populated areas the cars are idling in "rush hour" traffic and burning gas without moving at all.

As Kent points out, we move from spot to spot but then park there for a lengthy time and put about 6,000 to 7,000 miles per year on our motorhome and around 10,000 miles or less on the towed vehicle.  


Off the road, we live in a much smaller living space than even some of the tiniest homes, meaning we heat and cool much less living space than many others, especially the McMansions that the younger people seem to be buying these days.

But wait...there's more!  Many Rvers have solar panels and are often off the electrical grid altogether.  RVers were among the first in this country to use LED lights to replace incandescent and florescent bulbs.  We use much less water than homeowners and have no lawn care anymore...no mowing, fertilizing, weed killers or watering required.  And when you figure "garbage in - garbage out" we leave behind much less sewage and trash.  Most of the parks we stay in have recycling and most RVers are very ecology minded people or we wouldn't want to spend our lives living in parks and forests.

And while it looks like a decadent lifestyle as you see our AC and satellite dishes, we seldom use the AC as we prefer being outdoors and enjoying the natural air and that satellite dish is so we can stay connected to our families and the world as we wander.


So, with that thought in mind...we're going to go for a walk now and see if our weekly mail delivery has arrived. Yup, once a week might even be too much, maybe every other week would be better.


It is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.


Long Live the Green Queen