Xscapers: X is for Connections
The “X” in Xscapers is for connecting people. For the working-age, full-time RVer, it can be a challenge to meet like-minded people and develop meaningful and long-lasting relationships. Xscapers may be best known for their convergences and while these are fun, most of life happens outside these large-scale organized gatherings. The real strength of Xscapers is the time in between. People can find others to travel with, find or offer services, and find community they really connect with.
Caravanning With My Xscapers Friends
My then-partner Margot and I planned to attend the New Year’s Eve Meet-up in Quartzite, Arizona to ring in 2019. We hadn’t yet driven the RV down the west coast before and coming from Vancouver Island in November was the perfect opportunity. Keeping in touch with our Xscapers friends, we knew Brian would be in the Seattle area and Joni would be around Corvalis about the timeframe we would be heading down. Boom! Instant caravan! Joni even agreed to accept a shipment for us, which as you know for us nomads is a huge deal!
The 4 of us in 3 rigs proved to be amazing travel companions. We naturally assumed the same slow travel pace. The short driving distances allowed us to maximize sight-seeing, hiking and other adventures on foot where we had a lot of fun and took fun photos. It also lessened the brain energy spent on route planning. As a side note, this small number of RVs allowed us to find relatively easy boondocking together, made easier with a scout on a motorcycle (yours truly!). It was also the perfect number to play cards and other games together, a great evening pastime enjoyed by many Xscapers. We even found out our friend Rick was in Port Orford, Oregon and spent a few days hanging out with him and Mazzy camped on top of a cliff with a view!
Connecting with Xscapers in Mexico
We had already signed up for the February 2019 Mexico convergence and knew we wanted to spend more time south of the border caravanning with others. We weren’t worried about our lack of arrangements because we knew other Xscapers nomads would share the same Modus operandi to not have pre-planned and wing it (it seems we’re all afraid of commitment). Sure enough, there was a pop-up Baja planning meeting with several people and Margot and I made plans with Karyn and Paulo whose timing and interests were similar to ours. We were not particularly close beforehand, but when we parted ways after 1.5 weeks, it felt like we were saying goodbye to lifelong friends! Traveling together has a way of doing this, especially during challenging times (pro tip: don’t take Highway 5 south of Puertecitos and Highway 1 unless you like driving on roads that look like a war zone! The area was hit by Tropical Storm Rosa in September 2018). We had shared many meals, spent hours planning on the road, helped each other out, experienced so many new things together, and we still liked each other!
By the time we reached our destination in La Paz, we had caravanned and/or camped with 6 other couples and families, all plans made on the fly through our Xscapers friends network! In fact, many of our activities were influenced by Xscapers such as our oceanside stay at Lala’s Restaurant in Guerrero Negro (our friends Bridgette and Duck had told us it was a quiet, if not remote place with good cell service), a whale watching tour (Shane had reached out to his Xscapers friends for a recommendation and negotiated a great discount for our group), and the campground Hacienda de la Habana in Mulege (Scott and Jaime were staying there)
RVing is Better With Your Xscapers Friends
These stories are not unique among the Xscapers community. At any given time, you’ll find many Xscapers camping and/or caravanning with other Xscapers, especially during the social season (aka winter).
And the “X” connections are not just about traveling. The Udells were selling their Class A which was a perfect fit for Tami. Marc needed some custom work done on his trailer and hired Jason, a mobile welder, at the New Year’s unofficial convergence. Marni and Julie needed to outfit their newly acquired rig to be boondock ready and a team of nearby Xscapers turned screwdrivers and wrenches to make it happen. It’s not even worth counting how many times people have had problems with their rig, reached out to the Xscapers community and solved the problem quickly and cost-effectively (not two adjectives I would choose for mobile RV repair services). And if a major health crisis happens, you can count on Xscapers to spring into action (remember Sondi’s “Thankful for Xscapers” story? Shane has a story too, that appeared in the Escapees print magazine).
And so on and so on. It’s also worth pointing out that many Xscapers work remotely with overlapping skill sets, so it is easy to collaborate, incubate and network with each other. I am constantly impressed with the breadth of depth of skills in this community! As well, Xscapers even has a job board to help facilitate the exchange of services for the mobile worker.
Living, traveling and working full-time in an RV is not easy but having a supportive and fun community makes all the difference. And life is more fun when you share it with other people! As Xscaper Marni puts it, “This RVing thing is 103856792 times better with friends. ❤️”
Author
James "wobbly cat" Bai
Wobbly Cat has been a full-time nomad since July 2016. From Toronto, Canada, he has RVed all across North America coast-to-coast and north-to-south including Alaska, Key West, Mexico, and most places in between, as well as overseas!
He has been an Xscaper since 2017.
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Great to hang out with everyone in Mulege, Mexico. Come on down next year. We will be here – http://app.ioverlander.com/places/5020-hacienda-la-habana
We made so many lifelong friends during this time, we will never forget our time in Mexico!
It sounds like the friends were just as important as the locations for you. How wonderful!