RV Life Season 4

Season 4 in the West: Concessions and Confessions

Nicole Anderson, Anthony C Vicari

15 Jul 2025 • 14 min read

We recently got into a conversation with a bunch of other RVers on Instagram, all talking about whether or not we publicly share our thoughts and concerns about our decisions to get off the road. We, of course, chimed in to say that we've been talking honestly about it ever since we started having thoughts a year ago. In fact, the overwhelming majority of those who commented were fiercely strong advocates of being honest when having those thoughts. One person wrote that she's seen so many people suddenly be like, "Surprise! We got a house and we're getting off the road!" Not only is that jarring, but it takes out so many important steps in a big decision, almost like it's taboo to talk to the RV community about it. We expect our followers and readers to want to see all sides of the RV life, including the tough decision to stop or change it. Just as we talked thoroughly about our decision to launch into full-time RV life – including being very clear that it's not a forever type of plan for us – we've also discussed our transition out of full-time RV life.

Now that we've passed the halfway point of our year and are preparing to make big strides east, we thought it was a good opportunity to talk a bit more about our mindset as we traveled through the West this year. We were really happy to be back in this part of the country. We loved our trip out here in 2023 and couldn't wait to return. Even with that, though, we still found ourselves constantly fighting to find real, true enjoyment. We kept searching for the thing that would reignite our fire, then push way too hard to enjoy it once we found it, after which we'd end up intensely fatigued.

That's not to say we never found the ignition for our love of travel. We're not completely dead inside!

The problem was, we would find a place that lit our fire, bask in it, only to be fatigued and disillusioned a short time later. The good news in all of this is, we know why it's happening, and we've already taken steps that feel more in line with our current mindset. The RV life isn't going anywhere, but we're very well aware that we need to slow our roll a bit and focus on prepping our land for our cabin build. This is why we decided to spend only half the year out west before returning to New England.

All of this is stuff we've shared before, but it leads up to a long list of things we've yet to mention in the blog, that we feel help tell the full story of our Season 4 mindset and the struggle of feeling torn between a life of nomadism and a life more settled. We're calling it Concessions and Confessions. This is our list of adventures we planned to have this year and then decided against, as well as our confessions that show how we've really been feeling during our journey out west. So buckle your seatbelts and let's take a ride!

Confession: We had a resort site booked in West Yellowstone but cancelled it.

Concession: Another visit to one of our most favorite national parks, Yellowstone.

Once we made our way to California, we began booking campsites on a rolling basis, no more than a few weeks ahead of time and often much less. We knew we would be heading back to Utah for our next axle appointment, but after that, our plans were open-ended. Eventually, we would hit an interstate to bring us back east, but we didn't know which to choose. Thinking about destinations along each interstate, we decided that I-90 would be most enjoyable. If we were heading north anyway, we should stop at Yellowstone again, because surely that park would bring us some real joy. This is the national park we've visited the most – 3 times in 2023 – and we also have some wonderful memories of our time in the town of West Yellowstone. And so, we booked an extremely expensive site at Grizzly RV Park, right outside the park boundaries, for a few nights. It was their last available site and Nicole grabbed hold of it, ignoring the cost and the fact that they didn't offer full refunds on cancellations.

Then, once in Utah, we realized that Yellowstone would be out of the way, and we were just far too tired to truly enjoy ourselves up there. This was a tough pill to swallow, especially because we'd be losing tons of money by cancelling, but we had to be real with ourselves. Even a favorite national park wouldn't be worth it right now. And so, we cancelled our booking, just 2.5 weeks after making it, and ate 50% of the cost – a whopping $282!

Concession: The Black Hills and boondocking at Buffalo Gap

Even though a trip up to Yellowstone would have brought us closer to I-90, it also meant a 375mi drive north to get there. Going north wasn't the most productive way to head east. However, leaving from Provo Canyon in Utah, we could more easily make our way to the Black Hills, first taking I-80 and then cutting north from there. The Black Hills would for sure bring us joy! We could see the adorable wildlife at Custer State Park. We could visit our favorite natural foods store in Rapid City. Plus, Anthony's from there now! Nicole dove into RV Trip Wizard and got the travels all planned out. No bookings this time, though, so at least we didn't need to worry about cancellation fees.

Why did we give up on this plan? Simply because we didn't want to spend the time going up there. It felt rushed. We also had hoped to finally get to boondock at Buffalo Gap, aka the Wall, aka Nomad View, as we headed east on I-90. Some major issues kept us from doing it 2 years ago, and we thought now was the time. But it wasn't. We weren't about to travel all the way to the Black Hills, squeeze in a few days, and then only drive an hour and 15 minutes the next day to dispersed camp when we were supposed to be covering more miles. Let's face it, we probably wouldn't even end up dispersed camping anyway, because it's us.

Confession: We think we'd end up hating Buffalo Gap if we went now.

At least in our current mindset, we just don't think we are cut out for dispersed camping. Add in the crowds, the now-designated sites that we're sure people ignore the boundaries to, and the notoriously heavy winds, and we just didn't want anything to do with it. We know those views are something else, but we've seen them. We've never spent the night at Buffalo Gap, but we did drive through it after leaving the Badlands. We know that it's so many people's favorite place to camp, but we tend to not warm up to the popular favorites the way other people do. So we stuck to our guns and skipped the Black Hills and Badlands altogether.

Confession: We almost didn't stick to our guns.

Even after deciding to skip the Black Hills, we almost got sucked back in. You see, when we were in the Black Hills 2 years ago, we went to Wind Cave, but cave tours weren't running because the elevators were being repaired. Apparently this is a thing there, as we learned recently thanks to this insane National Park Diaries entry. At the beginning of the year, we thought that if we were back in the area, perhaps we'd stop for a cave tour, but that busted elevator in April put the tours on hold indefinitely. Never mind then!

But then, we were sitting outside Timpanogos Cave waiting for our tour to start, and we were talking about caves. Naturally. I looked up Wind Cave, curious as to whether or not the elevators had been repaired, and they had! We thought hmm, then maybe we do want to go up to the Black Hills, because Wind Cave is further south anyway, so it wouldn't be as far. That night, Nicole went to rec.gov to check cave tour availabilities for the days we could potentially do one. None available, but they do release first-come, first-served ones. We could head up for a few days, camp near the cave, head into the park in the morning and grab a tour!

Then we smacked ourselves back into reality and realized that would be a terrible idea, to go that far for a cave tour that we might not get to take anyway. Even if they do typically release first-come, first-served tickets, what are the chances the elevators would actually still be running? They break constantly!

You know another reason to not go all the way to Wind Cave?

Confession: We are so sick of cave tours.

In our RV life alone, we have been to 8 caves. Real ones. We've been to several more "caves" that aren't actually caves, but they're underground attractions or some kind of hole that gives the same vibe. Before we started RVing, we also frequented some caves, including one in Iceland. This year, with each cave we visited, we realized more and more how sick we are of caves. Why would we put ourselves through another cave tour when we knew we wouldn't enjoy it? Someday in the future, we'll be back in the Black Hills, the Wind Cave elevators will be temporarily functioning, and we will take a tour. While we're there, perhaps we'll even go to the neighboring Jewel Cave, which we hear is fantastic. Let's give ourselves some time to reset and regroup before venturing underground again.

Concession: RVing the Pacific Northwest

Let's do a major rewind, back to our first visions of what Season 4 might look like. This was last summer, when we needed to start thinking about the "big dots" on our 2025 itinerary. We had just decided to head back to Utah to our axle guys, and so we figured we should do the West right. We planned our Utah Redemption Tour and considered then traveling out to California. All that ended up actually happening. But our plan was to continue north to Oregon and Washington, spending June-August RVing the Pacific Northwest. Then we would come down through Idaho and Montana and take I-90 back to New England. This is probably why I-90 stayed stuck in our minds for all these months.

But in November, we bought land, and subsequently decided we'd rather cut our western adventures short so we could get back home. Oregon and Washington were put on hold. Granted, we have been to both of those states, but we haven't RVed them yet. Someday we will, but just not this year.

Just a few reasons why we need to plan a return trip to the Pacific Northwest

Confession: We always say we can't wait to return to a place. It's rarely true.

There have been so many times in the blog where we say something along the lines of, "We only skimmed the surface of this place, and we can't wait to return to see more of what it has to offer." Usually, we're lying. It's just a convenient way to button up a post, and to also share that we know we didn't see everything. Sometimes the pressure is so high to see beyond just the tourist destinations, or to visit all the places friends recommend, so saying we'll get to it next time takes the pressure off. But here's the thing. Besides a few places we'd be thrilled to return – the Pacific Northwest being one of them – most of the time, we're totally fine just seeing what we see and moving on. It doesn't mean we wouldn't stop by again the next time we're in the area, but at this point in our travels, we prefer checking off destinations and seeing new sights. It also doesn't mean we didn't like these places the first time around. We just felt satisfied. Besides the obvious exception of places we absolutely fall in love with, we also have more of a need to return to places that we felt deserve a second chance. We suppose this is why the Utah Redemption Tour became such a big deal. But if we visit a place and feel we got an accurate vibe by just doing a few things, and that place isn't in the top 90% of places we've been, we're not going out of our way to return there. Guess now we'll have to find a new way to conclude our blog entries.

Left: A place we lied about looking forward to returning to (Sorry, Asheville, NC). Right: A place we actually couldn't wait to return to, and went out of our way to go (Paso Robles, CA).

Confession: We've really liked our Airbnb time this year, and we did last year, too!

We were frustrated that we needed to displace ourselves a second time to get our axles looked at again, but deep down, we looked forward to another few days at an Airbnb. We like having more space and feeling settled. We don't feel as much pressure to get out and explore. We get more work done. Nicole has space to set up her music studio without constantly repacking and moving her equipment. We have another displacement planned for when we get to Indiana, for more repairs at our manufacturer. Packing up for displacement is such a hassle, but it's made much better knowing that we have a comfy home waiting for us.

Last year's Airbnb stay was a major impetus in us thinking about leaving full-time RV life. We could feel ourselves emotionally shifting. We were all so content at our Lake Michigan bungalow. We probably started manifesting our future home build right then and there.

Of course, we always feel good to get back into our rig after displacement. It's our home. But what about in the future when it's only one of our homes?

Confession: Moving fast was not fun, but camping spontaneously was.

In some ways, we treated our travels out west the way we thought we wanted to 2 years ago. In 2023, we hoped to be more spontaneous in order to take advantage of the greater space out west, but we weren't comfortable enough yet to do that. This year, we felt secure enough in our lifestyle that we didn't worry much about advanced reservations. The downside to this is that we needed to take availabilities where they were, and we couldn't stay in one place for a long time easily. We ended up moving at overwhelming speeds. Even in 2023, with more advanced planning, we ended our year feeling completely oversaturated. We should have taken a page from that book and made more attempts to not feel that way again this year.

Confession: We knew we were oversaturating ourselves and did it anyway.

We set off on our travels this year completely out of sorts. We were grieving the death of Lily and attempting to navigate life on the road without her. We got a delayed start. We had axle woes hanging over our heads for thousands of miles. And yet, we still pressured ourselves to "take advantage" of our time out west and do a bunch of things. We listed quite a few concessions we made this year, but that list is tiny compared to all the destinations we said "yes" to. These social constructs of "saying yes" and "YOLO" are great, until you realize that they can also mean saying yes to slowing down and relaxing, and only living once so don't stress yourself the F out.

Confession: It's all about the mindset, and it's really important to listen to those thoughts.

Leaving the West, we hope to leave behind the pressure to do and see more than we feel capable of. While we don't regret checking off so many new incredible places on our bucket list, we should have done a better job at giving ourselves space and grace – space to process how we're feeling, and grace when we simply don't feel like pushing ourselves. We tried to do this at times, but it's a struggle when so many amazing destinations are right outside our doorstep. Even almost 4 years in, we're still learning how to RV, only instead of the recreational logistics, it's the emotional and mental toll that can creep up out of nowhere if we're not careful.

Concession: Slowing down and having lower expectations

Only, we don't think this is actually a concession. This is a choice – hopefully one that will keep us enjoying the RV life for many years to come.