The only thing better than hitting the open road is bringing your home along for the ride.
Despite higher gasoline prices, RV sales were up 20 percent for the first six months of 2004 compared with the same period in 2003, according to the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association.
“We’re blown away–we can’t believe how high it is despite fuel prices,” association spokesman Ken Sommer says. “It’s amazing growth and goes to show RVs are booming in popularity.”
Ed Wright, assistant sales manager at Stoltzfus RV’s and Marine in West Chester, Pa., says, “More and more younger people are getting into [RVs] … they’re not waiting until they retire anymore.”
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A new book, “Portable Houses” by Irene Rawlings and Mary Abel, talks more broadly about folks living the good mobile life in everything from refurbished trailers and buses to personal train cars, tepees and yurts.
Some people are into “the Zen of the whole thing,” Rawlings says from her Colorado home. “You take more time getting to the destination. The world goes by, and you let it.”
If mobility appeals to you, toting along a nifty abode could be a definite plus–whether you’re traveling for business or using it for pleasure.
Joe Shipley and Nicole Ogden of South Philadelphia combine the two when they hitch an adorable little trailer onto the back of their 1984 Chevy Monte Carlo. It saves on hotels when they go to vintage-car shows (which he presents) and doubles as a dressing room when selling her vintage clothes.
They first spotted it while driving around a camping area last year and were floored. A canopy shaded folding chairs and a cooler. AstroTurf was laid under pots of plastic flowers.
“It was so cute,” Ogden says.
When a woman emerged, they put the car in reverse and spent the next hour talking to her and her husband and “drooling over” the trailer, Shipley recalls.
It has no toilet. But it does have a sink that can be attached to a hose and drained to the ground or into a hookup.
The galley table, when covered with cushions, becomes a bed for two. A built-in bench can accommodate another person.
An affection for mobile living and its many possibilities is apparent throughout
“Portable Houses,” where you’ll find plenty of information, advice and price guidelines on various projects.
Portable quarters, are finding new uses these days as guest rooms, playhouses, home offices and writers’ retreats, the book says.
Small is “the new big,” the book also tells us.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean giving anything up” in the way of creature comforts or technology, Rawlings says, “but traveling small.” Not, for instance, “trying to fit 30 pairs of black shoes.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale ([email protected]) and Kris Karnopp ([email protected])