While I completely agree with your broad point (i.e., your last paragraph), I think that part of the reason for the reactions you’re describing is that, to most people, living in an RV and being on the road as a potentially long-term lifestyle (as opposed to just a way of traveling to some location) naturally seems like it would be so terrible, so unlike anything that they’d ever want to do, much less choose to do of their own free will, that they do not easily generate “these people are just doing this as their baseline lifestyle, not as a trip or anything” as a hypothesis, much less the first hypothesis. (I can tell you that I am very much on your side on the subject of “each incremental planning decision is a consideration of a set of potential options”, etc., and have had arguments with people in my life about it, and yet I would very likely find myself in the role of your example interlocutor, in such a conversation as you describe!)
Oh for sure (although this isn’t just a ‘first time we discuss it’ response, it happens multiple times with people we’re fairly close with, people who we’ve talked to about it throughout over a year and a half of planning). Most of the people who don’t have that reaction know at least one person who has already done it, so they have a reference point. Many who do have no reference point other than Christmas Vacation or that Robin Williams RVing movie.
And for a lot of people it would be terrible! No arguments there, there are definitely tradeoffs. I find having to maintain a yard and clean rooms I don’t use terrible. For me, I’m a homebody who loves to travel, so now my home is always with me, as are my pets. And in the past six months, I’ve checked 5 more national parks off my list, visited friends I haven’t seen in years, and spent more time with my parents than I have in the past decade, while only taking off a couple of days of work. On any given week I might wake up overlooking a river, or surrounded by palm trees, or high up in the mountains, or surrounded by farm animals, or fifteen minutes outside a city.
While I completely agree with your broad point (i.e., your last paragraph), I think that part of the reason for the reactions you’re describing is that, to most people, living in an RV and being on the road as a potentially long-term lifestyle (as opposed to just a way of traveling to some location) naturally seems like it would be so terrible, so unlike anything that they’d ever want to do, much less choose to do of their own free will, that they do not easily generate “these people are just doing this as their baseline lifestyle, not as a trip or anything” as a hypothesis, much less the first hypothesis. (I can tell you that I am very much on your side on the subject of “each incremental planning decision is a consideration of a set of potential options”, etc., and have had arguments with people in my life about it, and yet I would very likely find myself in the role of your example interlocutor, in such a conversation as you describe!)
Oh for sure (although this isn’t just a ‘first time we discuss it’ response, it happens multiple times with people we’re fairly close with, people who we’ve talked to about it throughout over a year and a half of planning). Most of the people who don’t have that reaction know at least one person who has already done it, so they have a reference point. Many who do have no reference point other than Christmas Vacation or that Robin Williams RVing movie.
And for a lot of people it would be terrible! No arguments there, there are definitely tradeoffs. I find having to maintain a yard and clean rooms I don’t use terrible. For me, I’m a homebody who loves to travel, so now my home is always with me, as are my pets. And in the past six months, I’ve checked 5 more national parks off my list, visited friends I haven’t seen in years, and spent more time with my parents than I have in the past decade, while only taking off a couple of days of work. On any given week I might wake up overlooking a river, or surrounded by palm trees, or high up in the mountains, or surrounded by farm animals, or fifteen minutes outside a city.