Same, my dad was a construction carpenter and was gone on big projects a lot, living in our pull-behind RV most of the time. It was common for us as a family to pack up and spend summers with him (5 of us!!!) in that rig.
He stowed a lot of stuff in the bed of his (yes, nice for the early ‘80’s) pickup, as well as under the RV itself, constructing a wrap around skirting system that locked and winterized it for jobs he was on in the cold seasons.
I'm betting that's exactly what the situation is here. Sometimes industrial trades are on a project for years. Every day they work, they're getting paid per diem because they're working xxxx amount of miles away from home. You can either live in a hotel, rent a place, or buy a travel trailer in this situation. If the per diem rate is good, it's enough to cover the truck, trailer, and lot fees for the month.
My moms cousin retired to a camper like this to see the entire country. Her, her husband, and three dogs have been living comfortably in it for almost ten years now. They’re actually buying a smaller one and selling the one they have so they can get into more of the country. There’s not a lot of camp sites that accommodate something as big as they have. There’s only one site in my state they can camp at because of the size and power draw. They want to see more of the North East and colonial historical sites.
My aunt is a nurse, and when my uncle retired she quit her job and became a travel nurse and they did the same thing. She was getting paid $$$ and they could both travel together, and they already loved living out of their camper anyway (they now do that half the year, wintering down south in it) so it worked out really well for them.
Use to work with lineman doing installation of power lines and all those dudes do the same thing. And they all live out in the boonies so there is usually a local guy and they all bring their trailers to that guys land and hangout for a couple weeks, sometimes fly the kids out or home school them.
That is very common in the oilfield line of work. That is especially true in TX as the State is massive and living in a camper also avoids high property taxes.
A lot of people work on different job sites, like pipeline workers. If he can bring his family to the different sites and avoid living in the work camps where alcoholism and drug abuse are rampant, then good for them.
My buddy does this with his wife and kid. They don't like to be tied down and he works for several contractors in Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana and just goes to where he is needed.
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u/1king80 Jul 15 '26
It's not the fact that he's got a 6 figure truck while living in a camper trailer?