Here’s the ideal vacation for the social-distancing age
Lesson summary
Hi there, thanks for joining us for Plain English lesson number 264. I’m Jeff, JR is the producer—and we made it. June 1 is here and the new web site is live. Every Plain English lesson now has a lot more to it, and you can explore it all at PlainEnglish.com/264.
Coming up today: Travel by RV, recreational vehicle. It might just be the best way to travel in 2020, given our imperative for social distancing. We’ll talk about what it’s like to RV in America. The expression we’ll review today is “stock up”—a good phrasal verb. And of course the whole rest of the lesson online at PlainEnglish.com/264.
Perfect vacation for social distancing? RV’s
A recreational vehicle—also known in the US as an RV—is shaping up to be the perfect way for a family to travel and vacation in the age of social distancing. They have RV’s in other parts of the world. They’re called campervans or motorhomes in Europe. But they are most popular in the United States, particularly in the West.
An RV is like a huge van; some are the size of a small bus. They typically include an entire living quarters. In the very front of the vehicle are two captain’s chairs—one for the driver and one for his navigator. In the back are small rooms—usually a kitchen, a small bathroom, and a living room that converts into a bedroom. Passengers can sit on a couch, around a table, as the vehicle is moving. There are seatbelts on the couches. You can either tow your car behind the RV, and use your car at your destination; or, you can leave the car at home.
Some RV’s are trailers—so, you have to attach them to a large pickup truck and tow them down the road. If you have one of those, you ride in the cab of the truck and enjoy the living space once you’re parked. That gives you the flexibility of driving around in your destination town in just the pickup truck; it’s a little more flexible than having to drive a large vehicle everywhere.
Americans love their wide-open space and their freedom; and RV travel is the quintessential American vacation, letting you hit the open road, make your itinerary up as you go along, and explore the wide-open emptiness of the American West. RV’s feature in several classic movies—“Lost in America,” “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” “Spaceballs,” and even one called simply, “RV.”
The beauty of an RV is that it’s flexible. If you want, you can pull over at a rest area or at a Walmart parking lot and sleep there for free; in fact Walmart is famous for welcoming RV’s in its parking lots. (They know the families will stock up inside before leaving.) Most people, though, will either camp or go to an RV park. If you camp, you just need to find a camp site that allows RV’s. You can sleep outside or inside. Most RV’s have an awning that opens to cast some shade around an outdoor area. You don’t need anything more than a camping spot.
If you want, though, you can choose to go to an RV park. An RV park is an area just for RV’s and it typically has electrical hookups, showers, trash facilities, and maybe some entertainment.
The idea is that you can drive this vehicle from place to place and it’s both your transportation and your accommodations. Many tourist destinations—again, outside the major cities, usually in the West—welcome RV’s. RV’s are the perfect way to see some of America’s great national parks in the West and they’re typically cost-effective for family travel. They cost between $50 and $150 per night—plus, fuel, of course. The super-luxury ones can cost $10,000 or $15,000 per week.
RV’s also happen to be the best way to travel in 2020. Think about it: you don’t have to get on a plane. You don’t have to book a hotel. After spending months cooped up at home, you can release all the pent-up energy for travel by exploring wide-open spaces. Most of the parks are away from big cities, in sparsely-populated states that have fewer restrictions than big cities have. You can stock up once or twice a week at Walmart and have incidental contact with park rangers—and voilá. You and your family are traveling in a socially-distant manner in 2020.
RVShare, a peer-to-peer rental site is the RV-equivalent of Airbnb. It has 100,000 vehicles on its platform, and they’ve experienced a 650% increase in booking this year. Many people are trying RV rentals for the first time.
Today’s the day!
Can I confess something? I have always wanted to own an RV. Or if not own one, spend a nice long summer in one. I have always wanted to do it. I’ll confess something else: I’ve never traveled in one. Not a single time. It’s not popular on the east coast, where I grew up, and it’s not really a city thing—and I’ve lived in big cities almost since I graduated from college. Some day I’ll get it.
Today’s the day! The new site is up and running. I’m really, really proud of this site. I’ve been working on it since mid-December and now it has finally, finally seen the light of day. I think you are going to love it. If you have not yet been to the new PlainEnglish.com, then put that on your to-do list for the next time you’re by your computer. It works great on mobile, too, by the way.
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