(by Dan Livingston, guest blogger, Ottawa RV enthusiast)
My family and I have been blessed in this lifetime.
First off, we live in Ottawa, the lovely capital of this great Canadian nation of ours.
To top that, we’ve been blessed with the ability to travel – across Canada, throughout North America and around the world.
Before my wife and I became empty nesters, we bought an RV, seeing that as a great way to incorporate a special kind of journey into our travels.
We saw our RVing journeys continuing into the empty nest phase of our lives, providing a great way to get around Canada and the States, be it short weekend hops around Eastern Ontario and/or Western Quebec, or longer journeys across Ontario, the Northeastern US and further afield.
Little did we know just how handy our RV would end up becoming.
Enter, the new age of travel in the New Normal era of COVID-19. RV travel has never looked so good like it does now!
Gone Are the Travel Luxuries We Once Took for Granted
In our lifetimes we’ve seen a number of eras of travel come and go.
Growing up, travel meant camping in Algonquin Park, taking the train to Toronto or the bus to Montreal.
The dawn of affordable air travel brought all kinds of destinations within reach, from Caribbean cruises to exploring Western Canada and the many, varied and beautiful United States. We were even able to see a fair bit of Europe, Latin America and Asia, thanks to relatively cheap air fares that made long-haul travel something that was no longer just for the rich and famous.
9/11 brought change to the idea of travel, to be sure, though in retrospect that change was pretty tame and subtle compared to what COVID-19 has done to the travel business and our ability to travel as we once did.
Not long after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, we were once again travelling more or less as ‘normal’ – albeit with more time and effort for security at the airport.
To be frank, that was the initial push for our foray into the wonderful world of RVing.
The effort of flying (or “pain” as some travellers called it, though really it wasn’t so bad) made us look at other travel alternatives. RV’s started to appear on our radar. We continued to travel around North America and Europe, and took a liking to cruising (not the RV kind, the ones involving a ship) in the Caribbean.
But we knew we weren’t exactly spring chickens anymore, and we wanted a more relaxed way of travel, one that let us go about at our own pace instead of being locked in to fixed dates and times so rigidly.
Traveling in Style in an RV or Trailer
Thanks to good friends in Ottawa we got turned on to the RV lifestyle.
Our first venture into RVing came by renting a travel trailer in Ottawa, which I was able to hook up pretty easily thanks to the tow package on our truck.
We rented that trailer for three weeks one summer, driving around Ontario at first, then out to the Maritimes and back.
That was a boatload of fun. We were camping, experiencing the great outdoors, but we found that you could still have many of the comforts of our own home – just in an RV or trailer. And yet, with an RV, you’re not tied down to set dates, fixed times, security checks, delays and all the stress of air travel
Thanks to the great times our family enjoyed camping in the trailer and experiencing a whole new way of travel, we were hooked on the idea of RV travel.
We bought our Jayco Eagle fifth wheeler and figured we’d incorporate it more into our travel plans as the years went by.
And then COVID-19 flipped a switch on all our lives.
The Many Benefits of RV Travel in the COVID-19 Era
With the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic that seemingly came out of nowhere, our first thought was, well we’re going to be stuck at home for the foreseeable future.
Knock on wood, we’ve been able to stay employed – though we certainly know people who haven’t, and we continue to count our blessings each day.
We had one cruise booked for later this year, and the airfare along with it. So, at some point we realized that was going to be problematic. Too many unknowns surrounded both air travel and cruising.
So we took our refund from the cruise line, and we’re waiting to see what will become of the air tickets, but anyway we know we’re not going.
It was at that point that we were going through photos from our RV vacation to Bruce Peninsula last summer, thought about our trailer rig sitting in storage (at Acceptable Storage in Ottawa, who are great by the way!), and knew right then that this was going to be our full-time way of travelling from now on.
RVing in the COVID-19 Era Gives Us Our Travel Back
Gone is the uncertainty of locking in airfare, hotel reservations, cruise bookings, etc. Should a second wave or new wave of the pandemic occur, instead of worrying about what would happen to our money and our travel plans, we know we have RVing as a great way to travel (or not travel, should it come to that).
In the meantime, an RV or trailer provides you with much more control over the big factors in travel. Instead of worrying about these:
- Where will we eat?
- Will the restaurant be clean, or even be open?
- Where can we use a washroom?
- Will our hotel room or Airbnb be properly cleaned and sanitized?
- Whom will we come in contact with on the plane or in the airport, could they be contagious and get one (or more) of us infected with COVID-19?
- Will some or all of the trip get canceled, leaving us thousands of dollars out of pocket?
You can do it all in your RV or trailer.
You decide where and when you want to go in your RV.
Your trailer or RV is your sleeping quarters, your kitchen and your dining room. You can clean it and sanitize it thoroughly and regularly.
You’ve already paid for the RV or trailer. No more tickets to buy. The only reservations you’ll need are at RV sites or campgrounds.
For families like ours who are concerned about healthy, safe, clean travel in this “new normal” age of COVID-19, RVs and trailers really are a great way to go.
Travel-Mor Trailers & RVs in Ottawa
We got our rig at Travel-Mor, a great place for RV & trailer sales, rentals and service. We get regular maintenance done there, and we know we can always count on the friendly folks at Travel-Mor for great RV & trailer advice, RV road trip info and much more.
Contact Travel-Mor today to find out more about how a buying an RV or trailer in Ottawa could be the best travel decision you make in this new era of travel thanks to COVID-19.
Dan Livingston is an Ottawa resident and avid RV enthusiast. He and his wife, Joy, love to travel in their RV across Ontario and wherever else the open road takes them.
