Author Topic: Home base from RV'ing travels  (Read 1314 times)

Roland of Gilead

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Home base from RV'ing travels
« on: February 12, 2017, 10:08:51 AM »
We just completed a 10 month 11,000 mile loop of the USA and are back in Washington state with our homebuilt RV (did great on the 11,000 miles, no problems!).   ACA insurance reasons are why we came back so soon, coverage was non existent outside WA.

I love traveling but have a few projects I want to do that require spreading out plus we want to spend some winters in Washington in the snow (of all of the USA, Washington was still the prettiest).  I also would like to leave the sailboat behind on some trips, like to Yellowstone.

I would love to have 20 to 40 acres in Eastern Washington but am unsure how to approach this in a Mustachian way.  Raw land in the northern counties can be had for $1,000 an acre but then you have permit upon permit to be able to legally do anything with it....or so it might seem?   I really just want a 1 bedroom cabin and workshop plus a place to park the RV and sailboat, or sometimes leave a part of the RV behind (it is modular).   Actually the cabin doesn't need to exist since the RV unit is very comfortable and has a full kitchen but I would like a wood stove for sitting beside with a book during the cold winter when we are not out skiing.

Other option is to buy a property that already has a permitted run down house with well and septic and just not use the house.

Or ignore the permits and do what we want, which seems to be the general concept in eastern Washington...but we have assets they could come after.   It seems they take years to respond to someone with 9 RV's and 67 junk cars on their property but with our luck they would make us tear down our workshop 3 months after we finished it.

It is also quite difficult to find out the actual rules on where you can legally live in an RV on your property in Eastern Washington.

theolympians

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Re: Home base from RV'ing travels
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2017, 10:14:07 AM »
We live in Wa as well, and have talked about property on the east side. I like the idea of buying property with a run-down shack, that way you are grandfathered in with septic, well, and power.

With the RV, I wonder if you could put in a stand/station like exist at RV parks? With water and power hook-up and a small septic?

Roland of Gilead

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Re: Home base from RV'ing travels
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2017, 10:29:06 AM »
theolympians:

That is what I would like to do, put in water and septic (power from wind and solar, with generator in winter).  Essentially have a RV pad in the wilderness.   The issues are they don't seem to legally want to let you do this, but people do it illegally all over eastern Washington with no issues.   We always try to be legal and it always gets us in trouble.

Cadman

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Re: Home base from RV'ing travels
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2017, 10:39:21 AM »
Will you have to worry about water freezing in the RV during the winter? Here in Iowa, even pipes in well insulated exterior walls will freeze up when the temps drop to sub-zero and conditions are right. This goes for any holding tanks you'd have as well.

When we built in the country, we only had to have health permits for the well/septic, no building permits required for anything else, though that can vary by state and county. And of course the tax man will eventually find you and depending how strict your area is, that might lead to some interesting conversations on classification.

One other gotcha that applied to us- in an effort to curb sprawl, you could only build if you had a minimum number of acres set by the county.

I think I'd also look at buying an old shack and starting there. Your two most expensive problems might just go away- road access ($$) and utility power.