Has anyone accomplished this feat successfully?
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We've been officially "homeless"
since 2001, traveling full time in a 30' 5th wheel trailer and purchased a 25' Rosborough 246 three years ago with the intent of spending 6 months alternatively on each.
Our plan got disrupted last year due to Covid and we have been living full time on our boat for almost exactly 1 year. That's living on our boat for a solid year but only 4 months on the water--the other 8 months were on land "moochdocking" on our boat while on it's trailer in relative's back yards waiting for Covid to clear.
We "boaterhome" with the boat on it's trailer between cruising grounds and have been several times between the North Channel/Georgian Bay and Florida (although most recently we traveled by water down the ICW from Norfolk to Clearwater). We have intentionally rigged our boat to be equally comfortable out of the water on it's trailer (composting toilet, air cooled A/C, diesel forced air heater, Honda air cooled generator, solar panel, power adapter for CG electrics, etc.) and don't find it much of a burden to live aboard on land. But our 25' boat IS noticeably smaller than our 30' 5'er-- our V berth truly is not a queen as mentioned above....
Regarding size, living in small spaces can be done, more "normal" folks do it than you may be aware of. We spent 2 years in Europe living in a 15' single axle travel trailer that we pulled behind our Toyota Camary and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. That trailer was AVERAGE size for the European campers-- the roads and campsites over there just won't accommodate anything much larger.
Tens if not hundreds of thousands of European snowbirds, mostly retired Brits and Germans, successfully spend 4-5 winter months living in their 15-17' trailers in campgrounds on the Med coasts of Spain and France. Ditto for the August vacation month, the Med coast of France fills to capacity and beyond with French families spending weeks at a time in those sized trailers at massive beachside campgrounds.
These folks were not starry eyed hipsters looking for a tiny home experience, they were retired white and blue collar workers who chose to spend at least a significant part of their retirement years in a small trailer.
As far as acceptance our boat at campgrounds goes, yes we have found some commercial campgrounds will not allow boats as "RV's"-- we've had the most trouble with campgrounds on the I-95 corridor in southern Florida. State parks, many county parks and Corps of Engineers campgrounds are usually OK with boats and we have stayed at commercial campgrounds in GA, PA, VA, MI but often have to explain the parameters of our boat to stunned, rather than concerned, reception folks. We usually call ahead to verify a campground will accept us but the Favors (see below) mention they often show up late in the day and can often get acceptance at otherwise reluctant campgrounds at the last minute.
We have not traveled out west with our boat yet but from our RV experience we expect commercial campgrounds out there to be more receptive (and interested in our money) than southern Florida. We did have one campground in southern Canada actually want to take a picture of our boat at their entrance station to use on their website to attract the fishermen crowd.
We have spent multiple days "boaterhoming" at public campgrounds so know that is possible but have only done overnight stays at commercial campgrounds so can't comment about longer term stays there but would imagine many if not most wouldn't have a problem.
I second the suggestion above to get a copy of Jim & Lisa Favors book on Trailerable Trawlering. It's a pretty good primer for the motivation of and some things to think about when trying to do this. And to pick up some cool terms like "boaterhoming" :lol:.
We've found our boat on it's trailer attracts folks at a campground or rest area like a Golden Retriever puppy would. Maybe folks view the size as something attainable in line with their dreams and many more people have approached us with questions about the boat than ever have about our 5'er. We've even been given a couple of six packs of beer by a delivery driver who wanted to know more about it
. So if you like free beer, go for it!
