Tiny houses are often defined as residential dwellings that are under 400 square feet in size. Our 2019 Keystone Alpine 3711KP comes in at a whopping 398 square feet of livable space if you include our five slide-outs. We never dreamed that we would end up living, working, and traveling in a tiny home on wheels, but it ended up being one of the greatest adventures of our lives.
About our RV
Traveling with this big rig is both daunting and empowering. It has been a challenge to learn how to hitch/unhitch, navigate both highways and backroads, as well as maneuver into pull-offs, parking lots, and RV sites. We often note how much information and knowledge we have now that we never imagined we would ever need (such as how to discuss the different types of fifth-wheel hitches: do you prefer a slider, pivot, or gooseneck hitch)? The benefits of our simple and nomadic life far outweigh any difficulties we face. We love being able to take our entire home with us when we want to travel. We enjoy the freedom of being able to stay stationary or hitch up and haul out to a Cracker Barrel parking area, resort-style campground, or a national forest boondocking spot.
Although we have enjoyed many years of full-time travel in our Alpine, we are mostly parked in the foothills of Mount Hood, Oregon these days. We still take our RV trips around the PNW, but sometimes we are stationary for months at a time in our annual site. That doesn’t mean we aren’t out adventuring. We enjoy micro-adventures (discussed in our February blog post) and even hotel getaways to the coast or high desert. When we aren’t out exploring, we are at our campsite in our tiny house on wheels so having our small space feel like home is important to us. It’s one of the reasons we chose a fifth wheel and why we picked the floor plan we did.
RV Interior
Our model has a front living room with three loveseat-sized sofas. Two of those sofas are pull-out beds (although we wouldn’t recommend them for long-term sleeping) and one is a double recliner. All of our living room seating faces inward toward our large television and fireplace. This area is the coziest spot in our RV, and it is where we spend most of our time. We’ve leaned into the PNW aesthetic by decorating with blues, greens, and browns to reflect the colors we see outside of our windows. We recently purchased two Barebones lanterns, which are great for low-light options (https://barebonesliving.com/). The lanterns also keep the camping vibe going, even though we definitely consider ourselves more glampers than campers.
Our kitchen is huge compared to our first RV kitchen and we have everything we could want (except maybe a dishwasher). We have a residential fridge, a three-burner stove with an oven, and a convection microwave. In addition to the appliances that came with our Alpine, we have a toaster oven/air fryer that we use almost daily, and our trusty coffeemaker. The kitchen offers plenty of storage because the most unique feature of our floor plan is the kitchen pantry. We keep all of our food in there, but we also have a dog cabinet, a Tupperware area, and place for baking dishes.
RV Living Spaces
Living in a tiny home means that every area has to be multipurpose. Our dinette slide-out is used for Zoom calls, packaging orders, and taking product photos. We took our smaller dinette table out and replaced it with a larger one that fills the entire slide out. This is the most remodeling we have done in our RV. One of the things we always note when doing consultations with people looking into RV living is to choose your floor plan wisely. We knew we couldn’t undertake a large renovation or make massive changes to our home on wheels, so we scoured floor plans until we found one that was versatile and suited our specific living needs. The dinette is where we do most of our work, but also where our two dogs sleep in their swanky soft crate every night. We love the light the large windows bring into the space and are so fortunate that our site looks out over the evergreen forest.
The bedroom and bathroom make up the back end of our fifth wheel. We have a king-size bed and two closets in our bedroom, but not much else. We did upgrade our mattress right away because sleep is so important to us, but we would recommend this to anyone considering full-time RV living. We use soft bedding and have extra blankets to keep our place comfortable and cozy, especially during the PNW winter months. Although the bedroom isn’t much to note, our bathroom is pretty amazing. We have a stacked washer/dryer, double sinks, and a large shower. The square footage in the bathroom is big enough that I can plop my big plush pillow down on the floor and meditate every morning in there. Again, living in a tiny home with another person means getting creative with how we take our space, get our needs met, and move through our daily routines.
RV Decor
Our love for adventure is apparent throughout the RV in our simple decorative choices. We have travel books stacked in the living room, including She Explores and The Modern Caravan. We have maps and local artists highlighted throughout our home, such as Sarah Sampson’s beautiful watercolor prints and Liz Cox’s topographic maps of PNW mountains. Our RV mirrors the things in our lives that we are passionate about. Although we put out decor and have a few more trinkets than we used to, we can still pack everything up and be ready to hit the road in about two hours. We have designated empty bins in our outside storage bays to secure items. We use command hooks and velcro to keep other items in place. We still work to keep things simple in our space.
RV Office
It’s not perfect. Our life and business keep changing and growing, so our home also has to keep doing that. We change up our routines, where things are kept, and how we move about the RV when we need to. This lifestyle makes us adaptable. When we come up with challenges we don’t get stuck in them, we come up with solutions. We wished we had a small entry space to drop things like keys and coats, but we don’t have the room for that, so we put up command hooks right when you walk in the door. We wanted more shoe storage, so we searched online until we found an option from Ikea that fit under our bed area and was simple to install. Our tiny home isn’t perfect, but it is ours…and we love how it allows us to live more fully through being mobile, reminding us about what is important to us, and reflecting on who we are and what we love.
Other resources from Wander Free and Queer
Falling In Love with Adventure with Wander Free and Queer
Running a Small Business from the Road with Wander Free and Queer
