READING ON THE ROAD

When we bought our 24' motorhome, we realized that storage would be a problem. At first, though, we focused on the kitchen and clothes closet. Even RVers need a minimum of dishes and clothes. Only gradually did the issue of books become crucial. We are both avid readers, and at home we have many shelves filled with our personal libraries. (When I sold my previous bricks-and-mortar home, I sold or gave away about a thousand books. It was painful to a point, but I actually needed or wanted only a fraction of them, which I have kept.) Being on the road without much reading material would be a disaster.

Of course we cannot haul around reference books and heavy novels, but there are some useful workarounds. The e-book readers now available (Nook, Kindle, and their kin) are a great help. I just downloaded Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Natural Selection onto my Nook (from Gutenberg.org, an excellent free source for classic books that are in the public domain). Most people would find it very easy to travel without Darwin’s book, but as a biology writer and editor I like to have it around for reference. I read it thoroughly in college, and once was enough. Using the Nook has been frustrating; I got it for only $80 on a Black Friday sale, and probably should have bitten the bullet and spent more for a Kindle, which is easier to use. I’m gradually learning how to read and save library books on the Nook, and bought a couple of e-books from Barnes & Noble. It will be very useful for travel, and even at home I like the lighted screen. This will never replace printed books, though.

We can also borrow some magazines and newspapers for online reading through the library, but I have yet to master that process. It looks as if some of the magazines we enjoy, such as Discover, are available for borrowing, and many others can be subscribed to commercially if we want to actually pay for them.

Being necessarily frugal, we tend to avoid paying for reading material if possible. Stopping at libraries along the way, as I described in an earlier post, is a pleasant way of catching up on reading and using Wi-Fi. (We do put a little money in each library’s donation jar.)

There are also a few printed books and magazines in the View, of course. We need specific information about the places we want to visit, a Walmart atlas helps when we need to blacktop-boondock, and there are always a few items we can’t pass up. These can help keep us satisfied until we go home, or to the next library.