Where We Park Our Rig for Flight/Cruise Travel

When your home is on wheels — and it’s everything you own in the world — you can’t leave it just anywhere to travel via airplane, train, or ship like you can if you live in a sticks-and-bricks house. Instead, you have to put a lot of thought into planning to identify where you’ll be when you want to start your travel, what airport you’ll be flying out of, and things like that.

Living the lifestyle we do, we don’t like to plan very far in advance. We’ve learned that plans change and things break. It’s nice to have flexibility to adjust accordingly. 

But, when it comes to long-distance travel outside our rig, we can’t afford not to make far-out plans. It’s a necessity for peace of mind that our home and truck will be OK while we’re away. So, where do we park for these getaways? It depends. 

RV/Mobile Home Parks

When we’re stationary during the winter months, we stay in a gated, 55-plus mobile home/RV park. We know our neighbors and the maintenance man, so we feel quite comfortable leaving our rig and truck there. The fact that the community is gated adds to our peace of mind.  

We left both Gulliver and Tagalong there while we ventured to Las Vegas and again when we went on a cruise out of Long Beach, California. 

Moochdocking

When we’re not stationary, we reach out to friends or family in the area from which we want to depart. If they have room for our rig and are willing to have it sit on their property while we’re gone, it’s a win.

Bob’s brother Bill let us park on his property in Massachusetts in 2020 while we went on tour with the B-25 as part of the Commemorative Air Force. Our good friend Darryl drove us to the airport, so we left Gulliver at Bill’s too. 

In 2021, we left Gulliver and Tagalong at a fellow CAF member’s home in Iowa. Like Darryl, Gene drove us to the airport. 

Our friends Greg and Sharon, also from the CAF, let us leave our rig in the driveway of their central Florida home while we went on a cruise out of Tampa. Because their place is a couple of hours’ drive from Tampa, we drove Gulliver and left him in long-term parking there, researching the lot first for peace of mind.

Pay Storage

Other options we’ve looked into but haven’t used yet are RV storage lots. This is a practical choice if we ever depart from an area where we don’t know people. Having paid for RV storage when we first purchased our rig before moving into it, we know the storage  fee should include some level of security that our rig will be protected while we’re away. 

Depending on the storage company, we may have to pay for a month of rent. Many don’t offer weekly storage options. But the extra cost of that full-month fee may be worth it to set our minds at ease that our home is in good hands.