A Travel Path Podcast

What a great conversation we had with Chad and Eileen Miles from "The Miles Van Life." The couple have been traveling in their self-converted van for 18 months, along with their Australian Shepard, Sadie. They run several businesses and share the both the struggles and joys that van life brings them.

Cost

Did you know living in a van could actually be more expensive than a typically home? We take a deep dive into some of the expenses Chad and Eileen face while on the road.

Routine

Often, what's not thought about before someone makes this type of a commitment is how their routine will be affected. If you are currently working from home, you have probably set up a morning routine that allows you to get an early start and stay productive.

We discussed that although you don't necessarily have to say "goodbye" to your routine, you have to be prepared for some changes. Setting up and taking down your office everyday takes time, and you may find yourself having to pump out your tanks midway through the day.

Places to Stay

We discussed how at first, finding places to stay was difficult and how they were frequently paying for campsites. Tune in to see how they have learned to not stress out so much over where they are staying, and how nowadays they mostly stay for free.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:00 What do you do for work?

06:00 What is a typical day or week look like?

08:00 How is your work routine affected by working out of a van?

11:30 How has Starlink worked for you?

14:15 How long did it take you to travel once you got the idea?

17:00 Was van life always the plan?

18:30 What was the van build process like?

23:30 What are your biggest travel frustrations?

27:15 What do you love most about your travel lifestyle?

29:15 What does a weekly or monthly budget look like?

32:00 How much does Starlink cost?

33:15 What is it like traveling with a dog?

34:45 Is van life sustainable and how long do you plan on continuing?

36:00 What has been your coolest travel experience?

37:30 What have you learned you need and don't need while traveling?

41:00 How do you find places to sleep?

43:30 What is an actionable step someone could start doing now?

Chad and Eileen on Social:

· Miles Van Life: https://www.instagram.com/themilesvanlife/

· Eileen's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eileenrosemiles/

· Eileen's Website: https://www.eileenrose.me/

· Eileen's Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-inward-journey/id1666397129

· Chad's IG: https://www.instagram.com/chadmmiles/

· Chad's Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2228949/share

Links

· Insight Timer Meditation: https://insighttimer.com/

· Kindle: https://amzn.to/49RxkAV

· National Park Pet Policies: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/pets/visit.htm

We may earn commission from products purchases on this page

Sleeping

· iOverlander: https://www.ioverlander.com/

· Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps

Past Episode

· Linneas Episode #9: https://atravelpath.com/solo-female-van-life/

YouTube Channels Referenced:

· Living Big in a Tiny House: https://www.youtube.com/@livingbig

· Chris and Sarah: https://www.youtube.com/@chrisandsara

· Sarah and Alex James: https://www.youtube.com/@SaraandAlexJames

· Mathers on the Map: https://www.youtube.com/@MathersOnTheMap

· Linnea and Akela: https://www.youtube.com/@Linneaandakela

Most Popular Blogs:

· Most Popular Travel Hacks: https://atravelpath.com/money-saving-travel-tips/

· Travel Gear: https://atravelpath.com/travel-gear/

· How to Budget For Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/how-to-budget-for-gas-for-a-road-trip/

· Our Favorite RV Upgrades: https://atravelpath.com/rv-upgrades/

· How Much We Made Renting Our RV: https://atravelpath.com/renting-camper-van/

· Never Run Out of Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/road-trip-tip/

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/sky-toes/gently-comes-tomorrow License code: JNNG98EA42W634JP Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/abbynoise/rocky-mountains

Transcript

Host: Chad and Eileen, welcome to the Travel Path Podcast.

Guest: Hey, thanks for having us. Hi, so happy to be here.

Host: Yeah, so we know you on Instagram as the MilesVanLife. You travel with your dog Sadie. You've been to 47 states, which is a heck of a lot more than Hope and I have been to. Got a few businesses between teaching meditation, marketing consulting, and hosting a podcast, which I know is no small feat. So, a lot to uncover here. Why don't we first just start by having you share a little about yourselves?

Guest: Yeah, so we're Eileen and Chad. We have been living in our van on the road for about 18 months full-time. We completed our van about two years ago, and so we've spent about 18 months traveling, and now we've spent five months back here in Michigan. As you said, we have a 50-pound Australian Shepherd, her name is Sadie, and she lives in the van with us as we travel. And yeah, we're just very passionate about this lifestyle, so we're excited to dig into it more with both of you.

Host: Currently, you're working as you have your own businesses, right? Marketing consulting and then teaching meditation. How did you get started in that?

Guest: I started leading meditations when the pandemic hit, and before we hit the road, I got into teaching meditation on Insight Timer. And then from there, I did actually, before we hit the road, I did take on a part-time job because we needed some consistent income. And then it wasn't until about, actually, I was just looking at this, it wasn't until about September last year, I decided to, well, the year before that, I forget that it's a new year. It wasn't until about September 2022 when I decided to dive in fully and lead meditation from the road and lead meditation teacher trainings from the road too. And yeah, it's been super fulfilling and really hard at some points, but it's been really, really exciting and something that Chad and I work on together too. And for me, I do marketing consulting work. I had a full-time job leading a small marketing team at a financial firm in the Metro Detroit area before we were living in the van. And so part of the process of transitioning into van life was me leaving that job, going and starting my own business, and that's what I run today.

Host: Very cool. So between the travel and the remote work, which came first? Did you have this dream and this desire to hit the road and then work towards finding remote jobs? Or were you stuck with remote jobs and realized you could travel?

Guest: It was more so we had full-time jobs that required us to be in a certain location, and it was during the pandemic that it really opened up our eyes to the idea of remote work. When the pandemic hit, we went and we did some traveling, and we spent some time up in Northern Michigan, and we were working remotely for three or four months. And I think that's really when it got our gears turning, and we started thinking, could we make this more of a permanent lifestyle? So then that started our gears in the whole process of starting to make decisions and think about all right, well, both of our jobs required us to be in the office and were likely going to require us to go back into the office. And so we had to start thinking about how we were going to create work that was going to allow us to live this remote lifestyle. So we had to adapt and make some changes in order to make this a reality.

Host: Nice. And Eileen, you had mentioned when you first started out, you had picked up a side job remotely to help fund your travels. How were you able to get that job?

Guest: That was just something I looked for. I spent quite a few months kind of looking online and figuring out what felt in alignment. And they were open to me working remotely. And then it just didn't work out, unfortunately. And I also see it as a sign of, okay, you need to dive in fully and lead meditations and do what you really, really love. So it's all worked out.

Host: Was that like a meditation-related job, or did you find it through Upwork doing like blogging, that type of stuff?

Guest: No, it was a totally different job, just working for a mental health company, which I did love because I was able to work remote, of course. And then I was a part of a community and a team, which felt really good because I loved going to work. It was almost social for me too. And so then when the pandemic hit, it was hard. And even now, entrepreneurship is lonely, but I find ways to feel a part of a team. But yeah, it ended up working out.

Host: That's great. So between the three businesses you have going on right now, right? So between those three hats you're wearing, what does your typical day-to-day or week look like?

Guest: Yeah, I mean, I think a week like ours, although it can vary, a lot of times we have evening meetings that we have, or we will be leading a meditation in the evening. We also do a meditation teacher training. A lot of times, those are in the evening. So aside from those things, I would say we still work a relatively normal 9-to-5 type schedule with the clients that we work with and some of the different projects that we're on or meetings that we have are typically scheduled during the workday. So a lot of times, Monday to Friday, we are a little bit less mobile. We're camped out somewhere, whether that's by a city or if we're positioned somewhere and we've got our Starlink. We're not really moving as much during the week. We are, for the most part, working in a fairly typical schedule. And then the weekends are a time where we really go unplug and explore and take advantage of the fact that we don't have people maybe calling or emailing us. So it looks different in the van, of course. There's always unique elements to the work. There's always things that you don't necessarily plan for. And as we like to say, things tend to just kind of go slower or take longer than you think. But for the most part, our weeks resemble a typical workweek.

Host: I feel like that's the big distinction between people who are van-lifing like vacationing for extended road trips versus people who are working full-time. Like when we did our trip a couple of years ago, it was a two-month vacation. We went, we saw, we were driving like 500 miles a day, going to different destinations. But now this next trip we're going to be taking is going to be much similar to what you guys were explaining, where we're going to be working probably in the same location for like six, seven days and just working all day and then making those smaller movements. You know, perfectly down south, it's freezing right now in Connecticut. But one question I wanted to ask was, and this is probably getting a little bit selfish because this is what we're going to be doing, but how much time would you say, if you're working remotely at home, a physical Sticks and Bricks house, versus working remotely in your van, but the van's stationary? How much time does it add to your day between setup and take down and all that?

Guest: Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say, but the one thing I would say for sure is that if you picture being in your home office and if you work remotely and for the most part, let's say between the hours of 8 to 5, you could be sitting at your office getting work done for a majority of that time pretty consistently, you might have small breaks, you might stop for lunch. I have found, we have found that it's when you're traveling full-time in the van, it's hard to get that same, I guess, productivity of work done on a consistent basis because there's constantly things that are going on throughout the day that might need your attention, or you've got to drive somewhere, you've got to move, or you've got to go dump your toilet or fill up on water. There's all these different things that you have to think about and plan for. So I would just say, in general, it is a little bit more challenging to have those long, sort of productive days when you're working in the van because there's just a lot more variables.

Host: Yeah, so it sounds like that routine is something you're giving up.

Guest: Yeah, for sure. Every day is different. And I mean, it is distracting when you're working and it's a beautiful view, and okay, I'm going to go do a workout and then cold plunge and then, oops, it's been a couple of hours, you know? But what's great too is that we can choose when we want to work as well unless we have meetings or calls or trainings to lead. But we can choose that, and then the evening can look like a hike or something. Or we can start our day earlier, and there's just that flexibility that's so, so great.

Host: Yeah, I think it's important to just talk about that too because a lot of people might not realize that. But like right now, we've been working remotely in this house for a couple of months now, and we've developed this routine. And it's, you know, get up, get some work done, go to the gym. And then I'm in here, and I know you have the same routine. So that is something that people might not expect or anticipate if they're working from home now and they want to plan, you know, full-time travel and working in their van, something to definitely consider.

Guest: Yeah, I mean, if you want to live a lifestyle like this where you are traveling full-time, if you live in a van, I don't think it's fair to say you have to completely say goodbye to routine. But you definitely have to become a lot more comfortable living without it because there are so many things that happen, there are so many changes that you're constantly having to navigate that you can bring a little bit of structure into your day, but it's difficult to maintain consistent routine.

Host: Are you taking down and setting up your office every evening?

Guest: Yeah, well, our layout, which we're sitting at right now, has our table and seating area, which we love, and then we convert it into our bed. And so we do that every day in order to enjoy our food here, unless we want to eat outside and everything. And then work at this table. Chad's really excited because he got a table up front with our swivel seat up there. But yeah, and then if we're in the middle of nowhere, we have to set up our Starlink. And so it's definitely a process.

Host: Have you had luck with the Starlink?

Guest: So far, the Starlink has been amazing. We went over a year without it, and, um, I mean, we did just fine. We had one of the little Verizon hotspots, so that was dependent on our cell phone service. When we knew we were going to go to Alaska, it was actually funny. I mean, we were up in the Seattle area and we were about to start the trip to Alaska, and we were panicking because we didn't have one. So, I ended up finding someone in Seattle and buying a used one online. Anyway, we could not have done the trip to Alaska and back without it, so we've really enjoyed having the Starlink. It just gives you the opportunity to go to much more remote areas, and so that's made us, uh, it's allowed us to go off-grid a lot more and stay away from some of the bigger cities like we used to have to hang around. So, it's been really nice.

Host: Have you had luck with it, with Starlink in, like, National Forest areas?

Guest: Well, you might answer this better, but I will. That brings me back to a really frustrating moment when we tried to use it for one of my virtual events and it just wasn't working because, yeah, we were in, yeah, it was a heavily wooded area and I think there was a couple I don't even remember exactly where we were. All I remember is it was very frustrating. Yeah, it wasn't working, but that was probably the one to two times where it didn't work. Otherwise, what would you say? It's definitely not perfect. Yeah, you've got to be set up in a good position. If you're in a heavily wooded area, you're going to have a lot of problems. Typically, you can get really fast internet, but you're probably going to have a lot of outages. And even as we've traveled with it, we have noticed, like, for video calls like this, um, it's pretty common that it's going to drop for a couple of seconds every, like, 5 to 10 minutes. So, it's not perfect for video calls, so you've got to kind of feel out how it works and in what situations it doesn't work as well. So, it's not perfect, but it does unlock a lot of unique opportunities that you couldn't have without it.

Host: Yeah, yeah, we're kind of rolling the dice on this next trip. We're not going to get it quite yet. We're going to see because we've heard the consensus on the podcast so far has been the T-Mobile HotSpot, but we are planning on going a little bit more remotely and, I've been asking, I haven't gotten an answer. I think yours is the best answer so far about how it works in the National Forest because the national forests are where they're remote, they're usually free camping, but there's forest and that's when the Starling tends to not work when it's shaded although there are areas where it's a little bit more thin you can get away with it, but yeah, we're thinking of just starting with T-Mobile and then seeing if we need to invest in Starlink. I think it's more East Coast from what we've heard is better service where we're going to be and then out west is where you can really start losing your data in your service.

Guest: For sure.

Host: So, from, I guess backtracking a little bit from when you guys thought about taking this trip when it first became, when it first came to your minds and you wanted to take whether an 18-month or just start full-time travel until the day you were actually able to do it, how long was that time frame?

Guest: I was kind of the first one who was interested in this whole van life thing, and that probably, that interest started like 5 years before we ever decided to actually hit the road. And it was one of those things where I followed some people on Instagram, I just thought it was really cool, I liked traveling, I had been on some road trips with my family and with some of my friends, and you know just kind of got the gears turning and made me think like I feel like this would be really fun. And then life happens, you know, we're young, we're graduating college, we're starting our careers, and so it just never really felt like there was a good time to pursue a lifestyle like this. And so then as we said when the pandemic happened we started working remotely, I think that really got us interested again in this lifestyle, and throughout the whole entire process it was probably, I would say 18 months to two years before we actually hit the road that we started to get really serious about it and eventually had to just essentially plant the flag in the calendar and say our goal was by January of 2022 we were going to hit the road and we missed that by a few months, we hit the road in April but it's one of those things where there's never a convenient time to uproot your entire life and go live in a van and travel full-time so I think eventually just came down to the point where we had to just pick a date and figure it out.

Host: I think it's smart and it's there's power in setting a date to April 2022 we had the same thing we wanted to take this trip before my 30th birthday and there's definitely power in whether you're writing it down or just you make a deal and make this goal together it just makes you want to work towards it that much more. How about you Eileen, did you have that same vision for that long or did you take a little bit of convincing?

Guest: I'm easily convinced, I mean, you know, as cheesy as it sounds I'm in love with Chad so wherever he goes I go. But I mean we started doing some traveling to tiny houses and we're like oh yeah we could do this we can live in a small space and it was super fun and my family growing up we didn't travel a ton and his did and so yeah I think he sparked within me something that was within me, the travel bug and I was easily convinced honestly.

Host: Very cool. So over those 18 months, did you have any other means like were you thinking of doing a travel trailer, buying a different vehicle or was it always van life?

Guest: Well, it actually started as, like, originally we were just kind of interested in the idea of living small and so at first we thought we were going to do a tiny house of some sort and maybe it was going to be more stationary and then we're like well but I think we actually want to have the mobility and we want to be able to travel and so then we started thinking about a tiny house maybe that was on a trailer. And as we went through the whole process there was a period in time where we were looking at buying an RV something that was a little bit bigger we just kind of kept going through the process and going to the process and factoring in all the costs that were involved with all those routes and all those options and eventually I think the both the cost and some of the flexibility in ability of the van is what ended up appealing to us most but yeah it went through a lot of iterations of what we thought this lifestyle might look like.

Host: Yeah, yeah, sounds like a way a similar path we considered a few different things we looked at like those little small tab trailers, which I was not going to be able to fit in, and then yeah the van, the mobility that's kind of what sold us. We had a 20-year-old 30-foot Wildwood which we thought about briefly taking cross country which I'm glad we did not. I think I'm convinced van life for couples is just the best way to travel, it's mobile, it's really all the space you need and yeah we had a blast doing it.

Guest: That's awesome. I agree, I think I'm glad we chose this van and chose to build it too we were looking at already built out ones and looking at RVs and it just didn't feel right I think we also were up for the challenge of building it out too.

Host: Very cool. So, speaking of that, so over those 18 months, you obviously had a few challenges getting into and transitioning to Van life. What was the build process like?

Guest: That was fun. I actually really liked it. I think he did a lot of it. I chose, you know, a lot of the paint colors and things like that and I learned how to use a drill and all of that. But I mean if there's one thing that any anyone listening needs to hear I feel like it's this, you don't have to be in construction or know what you're doing because I sure didn't when I started building the van. But I think it was a really difficult process but really rewarding. And now, kind of like I said a moment ago, you know, we're up for the challenge of building it and now looking around and feeling proud that we built it and we made it our own it's really rewarding, but I'm sure you have more to say on that.

So, we bought our van as an empty cargo van in December of 2021 and it just kind of sat until January and it wasn't until January where we really got serious about our build. So, all in all, the build took us about four, four and a half months which I feel like compared to some other builds was pretty quick and it was because we were working on it almost full-time. I mean I would spend almost the entire day while it was bright out working on the van doing as much as I could and then I would go do some of my work for my clients in the evening or in the morning. And then, I mean Eileen was with me often so we put a lot of time into our build which I think allowed us to get it done a little bit maybe sooner than most but it was a very intensive roller coaster of an experience. Yeah, it was hard.

Host: Yeah, I think that is the record, that's a record on the podcast. I know we've had between like 9 and 13 months I think it's been. We've had three van builds so far. Was so four and a half months was that what you expected how long it would take?

Guest: That's a good question. I guess I think it was about what we had planned for or expected, you know, it's one of those things where you when you start a project like this you just have no idea what it's going to entail if you've never done something similar it's just so hard to imagine all of the pieces and components that go into building a van and all of the unique challenges. So, I think in our minds we were thinking we could probably complete it in less than six months and that was the timeline that we had set and so it also towards the end especially became one of those things where we just started putting more time toward it to try to hit the timeline that we had established it was a lot of work.

Host: So, about four and a half months working basically full-time on it, were there any mistakes you made along the way that could potentially save a listener from some future troubles?

Guest: That's a good question. You know what I would actually say, which is probably not even what you're looking for, is it's okay if your van's not done, you can still go. Like, I think that's actually, in a roundabout way, like a mistake a lot of people do make is they really want it to be perfect and done before they leave, but I'm looking, we still have a little bit of reflection on our door and it's fine and it hasn't ruined our experience, you know? And your van is still... you're able to sleep in it and go see the world. So, um, but I don't know, can you actually think of one? I wish I had something more specific or tactical of, you know, make sure you don't do this.

I think Eileen would often give me a hard time because there'd be many days where she would come and I'd be out in the van and I would just be sitting staring at something, and then she'd come back out about two hours later and I would still just be sitting and staring at the same thing. It's true. So, I do think there's taking the time to plan and to think about your layout in general and to think about the systems and the subcomponents, and I spent a lot of time designing things on paper before I actually started building. I think all of that planning and a lot of the strategy work of how the whole thing was going to work, I think that probably lent a hand in allowing us to build more efficiently. All that time spent just kind of sitting and staring at things made it so that there really weren't any major mistakes that we made that really slowed us down. And so I think that was probably a big factor into the timeline that we achieved.

Host: Yeah, no, it sounds like just taking the time to prepare, you've avoided some of those mistakes you might have fallen into. And to your point, Eileen, you guys... it wasn't quite finished, but you guys have been able to, you know, here you are 47 States later versus somebody who was waiting until it was complete and ready to go, they're probably still working on it, right?

Guest: Yeah, there you go.

Host: Um, I guess fast forwarding a little bit to your current travel lifestyle, what are some of the big frustrations you currently face?

Guest: It's hard, especially being two entrepreneurs, it's hard to coordinate our schedules, that's the number one thing for us because sometimes we're in trainings or on calls that need to be really quiet. Um, and coordinating that can be difficult. So, um, I would say that's the number one frustration. I think the other sort of consistent frustration, and it's the thing that took us time to adjust to, and I don't know if you ever fully adjust to it, but when you live in a van like this, you have to get used to the fact that everything that used to be infinite becomes finite. So you have finite amounts of power, you have finite amounts of water, you have finite amounts of internet, all these different things that you never used to have to think about, now you have to think about every single day, multiple times a day. So wait, can I share my favorite stat?

My favorite stat is that the average American uses, I think it's 133 gallons of water a day, I think 33 a day, and we only... how many gallons? I already forgot, we have a 30-gallon water intake to use for four days at least, you know? So, yeah, to your point, that's one... my favorite stats to tell my friends, and they're like, "What?"

Host: So precious water. One tip we learned, we actually put... I'm not sure, do you have a shower in yours?

Guest: We do.

Host: We had the shower kitchen, but one thing we did is we put in a 5-gallon water jug with a pump on it so that we just, that's what we consumed. So, we never consumed any water from like our sink, so we basically had an extra 5 gallons, which again, you're using 133 gallons a day, but yeah, how long were you guys going between when you had to refill and pump out?

Guest: Typically, we would need to refill our water every four to five days. There's a lot of factors involved in that, but I would say with our sort of normal usage, a lot of eating in the van, a lot of doing dishes, we do drink water out of it, we have a water filter for drinking water, and then showering, we're typically not showering every day, we're certainly not taking long showers when we do, but usually we can get through probably about four to five days at a time.

Host: Yeah, they are lightning-fast showers. Yeah, you guys... we would typically... we have a 27-gallon freshwater, I think 14-gallon black and gray, and we would go between like 2 and 4 days before we had to refill, so depending on how conservative we're being with our resources. So just to note, you're not in a camper that has, you know, 50 or 100-gallon tanks, you're... it's really limited.

Guest: And sometimes you have to plan for the situation, you know? If you know you're going to be going sort of off-grid for a week, then you've got to plan accordingly. And then you've got to plan and think about all of your meals or maybe you're not showering as much, and so these are just all the things that are part of the lifestyle that you have to be aware of on a consistent basis. Maybe have to shower in the lakes, which we do a lot. Yeah, which is actually nice.

Host: It is freeing.

Guest: And I want people to know that we do shower, just maybe not as often, or we do use, you know, wipes or something to help freshen us up, and we do wash our face.

Host: You are clean people. Yeah, and this time of year, those, uh, baths in the lake, those are now cold plunges like you talked about earlier.

Guest: They are, but yeah, it's refreshing, it's good for you.

Host: Yeah. Now we talked about some of the frustrations. Now we'll transition a little bit. What is the one thing you love most about this travel lifestyle?

Guest: The thing that comes to mind first for me is... is the freedom of it. So, uh, one of my favorite stories is we were traveling on the west coast, and we were in Malibu, California, and, um, we were planning on continuing to go up the west coast, and we looked at the weather. It was... it was a Friday, it was about 10 a.m., and it was pouring rain. We looked at the weather, it was going to be in, like, the 40s and 50s for the next 10 days, it was rainy, and then we texted some of our friends who also live in a van, and they were in Phoenix, and they were by the pool, and it was 75 degrees. And so they were like, "Hey, why don't you come to Phoenix?" And so 10 a.m., we were in Malibu, and by like 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. that night, we were in Phoenix with our friends, sitting by the pool. So, that freedom, where you could really go anywhere that you want to go... there's always certain restrictions or limitations that might apply to what you can do and where you can go, but for the most part, you have the freedom to choose where you want to go and when you want to go there, and that's a really freeing feeling.

I just love seeing the world, or the country, rather. Um, it's just the coolest thing, you know? What I miss the most when, you know, we're in Michigan right now, but what I miss the most about being out on the road is we wake up and you open the door and you go right outside, for the most part. So, I just love that, being immersed in nature and getting outside every day and having those beautiful views to look at while you do work or relax. Now, it's not always a beautiful view, I want that to be made clear as well, as sometimes it's a parking lot view, but, um, I just... that's my favorite part, is seeing the country with my favorite person and meeting people along the way. That has been really special too.

Host: Yeah, the freedom, the beautiful places, and meeting all sorts of people, yeah. Um, we'll transition a little bit to some of the finances with life on the road. Can you break down what a monthly or weekly budget would look like?

Guest: So, I think one of the misconceptions about living in the van is that sometimes we'll tell people like, "Oh yeah, we live in a van and we travel," and they'll say, "Oh my gosh, you must save so much money, that must be such a cheap lifestyle," and it's really not. I mean, we've been home for the last five months in Michigan, and our expenses as we've been home, we're still mostly living in the van, but we spend a lot less money than we do when we are traveling full-time. So, to give an idea of some of the big things, you know, we do have loans and insurance for our van and so on. On a monthly basis, that costs us like $750 a month. Our two biggest expenses when we're on the road are our gas and our food, and between the two of those, we can easily be spending $2,000 a month, especially on gas. We drive a lot, so um, $800 to $1,000 a month is pretty typical for us as we're on the road. And then we're both self-employed, so we have to pay for our own health insurance as well, um, which is expensive. That costs us between five and $600 a month. So, when you start to add some of those, you know, foundational things together, and that's before we get into some of the more discretionary spending, that's a typical month for us. And so, yeah, it just, people tend to think it's a very, very cheap lifestyle, and some people do, that could be the case, I guess, for us, that hasn't been our experience.

Host: Yeah, no, yeah, you're right. And thank you for breaking it down so accurately, and it's a good point. I mean, when you're driving a lot like you guys are, you're spending a ton of money on fuel. But the alternative is if you're not driving a whole lot, you're probably staying in places longer. It doesn't necessarily balance out. I found it's more affordable to be a little more stationary. Um, but it all depends on how much you're driving, what state you're in, and yeah, there's a lot that goes into it. And groceries too, you're buying groceries more often because you have a smaller fridge, you're not buying in bulk. Um, and yeah, there's a lot to consider for sure. Are you guys typically looking for free spots to sleep for the night, or do you like the campgrounds? How are you finding spots?

Guest: We started with using campgrounds in the beginning, just because we weren't as comfortable with stealth camping, and we also had, like, an electrical power situation that wasn't working out, so we wanted to plug in more often. But now, I don't know, I think that was like the first six months of our travel. Now, we 100% try to stay in BLM spots out west for sure, or, you know, we'll find different areas near apartment complexes or parking rides even, you know, we, yeah. So, I don't even remember the last time we stayed at a campground.

Host: Nice, that's good. And as far as, so you're using the Starlink all day, and that's something you pay for per usage. So, how much is that costing you, being your sole internet source?

Guest: The way that the Starlink works is that, first, you have to buy the actual piece of equipment itself. That is $600, it's a one-time fee. And then, if you want to have their Roam service, which allows you to get internet from anywhere, you're not tied to one location, it's $150 a month. So, it does come with unlimited speeds and unlimited data, that part of it is very nice. But that's what it costs, $150 a month for the ongoing service. The other nice thing about it is that you can stop and start your service as you'd like. So, since we've been home back in Michigan and our Starlink has been stowed away the whole time, we've been using our hotspot. We just paused our Starlink service, so we haven't had that fee on a monthly basis. And then, when we hit the road again in a couple of weeks, we'll start it back up.

Host: Nice, cool. You travel with your dog Sadie. What would you say to somebody who says they cannot live this type of lifestyle because they have a dog?

Guest: I would say that bringing your dog in a van with you is the most joyful thing in the world because I can tell she loves to see all the views as well. And I mean, yes, the beginning is a little bit difficult to get your dog, or I've seen people have cats too, um, to get them kind of adapted to the lifestyle. But it's doable and it's just, it... I don't know what our van life experience would be without Sadie. So, I think I would say, yeah, don't let that hold you back. Um, I believe that we're giving our pets the best life ever, um, and ourselves. And it's just so much sweeter with them.

Host: Yeah, on your Instagram videos, it looks like she's having a blast everywhere you guys go.

Guest: So, yeah, the only thing I will say is, number one, is that, um, National Parks do not allow pets for the most part.

Host: That is mostly true. There are a few national parks that are more dog-friendly than others. I'll put a link in the show notes so you can check that out.

Guest: So, that can be the part that's tricky. But if you want to stay outside of the national parks or go into the national parks and we've, you know, left Sadie at a Rover, which is someone who personally watches the dog, and she has a field day. She loves it there too. So then we can go into longer hikes in the national parks. You know, you can make it all work out.

Host: Yeah, sure. Is this sort of thing sustainable? I know you said it costs you, if not the same, a little more living on the road. Is it sustainable, and how long do you plan on continuing van life for?

Guest: Yeah, I mean, I definitely think you can make it sustainable. And I think you can look online and see many examples of people who also make it sustainable. We've made it work for 18 months. And our intention as of right now is to, when we hit the road, travel for another year full-time. We're planning on going back to Alaska again this summer. So, does that mean it's easy all the time? Absolutely not, especially when you run your own business. Does that mean that our income doesn't fluctuate sometimes, and sometimes we can relax about money, and sometimes it's a little bit tighter? We experience all of those things. So, you know, if you apply all of that into your definition of sustainable, you can definitely do it for a long period of time. And there's plenty of people who have lived in their van or something similar and traveled for a lot longer than we have. So, I definitely think it can be... You've got to get creative, takes a lot of problem-solving, but you can definitely do it.

Host: Cool. A couple more questions before we wrap this thing up. What has been the coolest experience you have had while traveling?

Guest: There was this moment where, um, or weekend rather, we met up with a couple van life friends that were from Michigan too, shout out to Dave and Ally, we love you. Um, that's what's so cool is you meet these van life people and you're like, "I already love you, you're awesome." Um, but we went out to dinner with them, and then the next day, we went rock climbing with them. They let us borrow their gear and guided us through one of my scariest things I've ever done. But that was just such a cool experience and memory, um, because, yeah, just shows you how quickly we can make these friendships and trust these people and have a really, really good time. Well, the other one that I think is just a cool moment that we treasure is a similar group of people. We were... We had met people at a couple of different events on the road, and we all got together out in some State Trust land out in Arizona, outside of the Phoenix area, and we spent a week together, camped out there, and just being with people. There were like five vans that were all circled around for the week, and during the day, everyone would get their work done, but you get to hang out with your friends at certain points, and then at night, we'd all cook meals together and sharing different things, then we'd have bonfires, and one time we had a someone had a projector, and we watched some sports and some TV on the side of the van and sat outside. So, you just... You have these really unique moments that I don't know, normal life just doesn't quite afford you in the same way.

Host: Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's a community. And here we are talking to you guys. Has there been anything outside of internet that you've learned you can't live without, Starlink?

Guest: Yeah, I say that just because, as I mentioned earlier, if you want to be able to travel to some of the more remote locations, if you want to stay off-grid longer, if you want to stay in BLM or National Forest Service, if you want to go up to places like Alaska, if you want to be in the more remote places away from the city, I do think it has made that a lot easier and it just made it possible for us to do that. That wasn't really a part of our lifestyle before we got it. So, that is something that I've definitely enjoyed. I would say my Kindle, if you like to read, definitely have a Kindle because there's only so many places you can stuff your books in a van. So, that's been a lifesaver for me.

Host: Yeah, the Kindle, that is a new answer. Starlink, we've heard a few times, but the Kindle, that's a good point. Yeah, because if you're an avid reader and you're in a van, there's not a lot of room. If you're in the middle of nowhere and you finish a book and you want a new one, you have to wait till you get to a city or you have to figure out how to get it to you. So, that's what's great is that you can pick up and read another one right away. Has there been anything you've learned that you don't need while traveling?

Guest: I would say a full wardrobe. I'll shout out to another one of our great van life friends, Dedra and Garen. We went to Alaska with them, and Dee and I wore the same crew neck, Denali yellow hoodie or crew neck together, like, probably five or six days straight. You know, it's just... You don't need all these different options. And less is really more. And when you're out traveling, seeing the country and seeing beautiful things, it doesn't really matter what you look like. And re-wearing stuff as long as it's not filthy is totally fine. So, I would say you don't need a full wardrobe and tons of different shoes and all those things. Definitely get rid of stuff that you don't need and only take what you love. For me, I would say... I know it's not a super specific answer, but there's a lot of things that you don't need. I was... I was one of the people who, before we left, I wanted to have a plan for everything, for every random little thing that could happen or occur while we were on the road. I wanted to make sure that I had the right thing and I had a plan for it. And we traveled for like two or three months, and then we stopped back at home in Michigan, and we... We ended up just dumping so many things that we brought with us. And so, it's just a reminder that you can figure things out on the road, and if you need to go pick something up at the store, you can do that. If you need to make a plan for something or you need to solve some kind of problem, if you need to borrow tools from someone, you can find ways to solve any problem that you run into while you're on the road. And so, you don't have to plan for everything beforehand because you can never predict what's going to happen once you hit the road.

Host: Yeah, no, good points. If you could have listened to this podcast when you were first starting out, what is one question I didn't ask tonight that you wished I would have, and how would you answer that now?

Guest: I think for me, the biggest question that I had when we were thinking about living in the van was so unsure about what sleeping would look like, where we would sleep, and how we would find sleeping spots. So, I guess maybe the question would be, how do you go about finding places to sleep? So, to give a couple of thoughts on that, you know, the first thing that I would say is whenever you're going to a new area, I would suggest doing a little bit of research and having a general idea of what options might look like for you to stay. For example, if you're heading into an area like... I'm gonna use Sedona, Arizona, because we're going to be heading there once we hit the road, learning a little bit about, okay, it's difficult to stay in Sedona, Arizona, so when you get there, you're probably going to have to plan for the fact that you're going to have to stay 30 to 40 minutes outside of there. That's an example of just being familiar with some of the restrictions that might exist. And so, then you need to plan for that. Whatever you're doing that day, you need to allow time to go drive away and find somewhere else to sleep. So, that's kind of step one. And then using apps like iOverlander have been huge for us. They give you some good ideas of places that you could stay, very specific locations that might work. And so, I would recommend going and checking out apps like iOverlander. And then the last thing is, some of this is you kind of learn it through experience, but we've started doing a lot of stealth camping. Essentially, camping within cities and just trying to blend in with other cars at night. And, you know, you can develop a little bit of comfort with when you get to an area, feeling out what the situation might be like, do you feel comfortable there? I tend to go on Google Maps a lot, and I'll look at the satellite view overhead and I'll look for apartment complexes or streets that seem to have a lot of overnight parking. And then, we'll just go try to blend in. And if you're going to go that route, arrive late, leave early, and stay very low profile. But I think that was one of the biggest mysteries for me before getting in the van, was where the heck are we going to sleep? And maybe that's helpful.

Yeah, I was definitely anxious about that too, and I felt like I would start the day already worrying about where are we going to sleep at night, right? But you really figure out where we're going to go every night, which is helpful.

Host: Yeah, those are both great answers, and I think we share your frustration or the troubles we had in Sedona with trying to find a place. We looked a long time for a place to sleep there. It's a good tip you bring up about pulling up Google Maps in the satellite and just looking where there is overnight parking, big parking lots, just finding out where that is and hunkering down there. In most cases, the worst thing that will happen is you'll get a knock and you have to leave. But when you don't have any other options, it's something.

Yeah, for someone listening to this podcast right now who wants to set up a lifestyle similar to yours but isn't quite there yet, what would be one thing they could start doing today?

Guest: I think get clear on what is important to you and what would excite you the most. Do you want to live in a van or an RV, or do you want to travel in Airbnbs? Or, if you had a van, what would be important to you as well? So, I think just getting clear on that. And I mean, we did a lot of journaling before, too, and just kind of writing down, "Okay, what would be the top three most important things in the van for you?" And really discussing that. So, that's what I would say. And then, go try to experience things in some way. You don't have to buy a van or build a van in order to go try. Maybe traveling in a van, like Eileen said, we started going and traveling and staying in tiny houses just to get a feel for what that experience would be like. Are we okay existing in this smaller space? So, I think you can do some of that planning. If this is something that you're thinking about, and then ultimately, I think you just have to make a commitment and say, "We are going to commit to this lifestyle and pick a date, plan for it, and say, 'You know what? This is when we commit to living this lifestyle by.'" And you'll be amazed that if you do that, you'll be amazed at how you can solve problems and how you can figure out how to get to that point because you can figure out a lot of things. I was just going to say, too, we also set a date to have a little van life going-away party. So, when you have over a hundred people that are showing up to this event to give you hugs and see you later, that's also a really great motivator too because one of my favorite things Chad has said and really helped us start this whole journey is that going for your dreams or going after your dreams and creating the reality of your dreams is inconvenient. There really is never going to be a perfect time. So, just committing to a date, going for it, yeah, it's the best route.

Host: Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, there is no better time than right now. And when you have that party and a hundred people showing up, that's a lot of pressure to make sure you get going. Otherwise, it's anticlimactic if they all celebrate and you aren't leaving.

Guest: Yeah, totally.

Host: Have there been any other... I know you mentioned one previously, any other YouTube channels or books or other influences that helped motivate you and inspire you to travel?

Guest: Yeah, you know, I also, during this conversation, I totally forgot about our guy. We have a couple that we're going to share, but who's that Australian guy that we used to watch all the time?

Oh, Bryce on Living Big in a Tiny House. He's great. We watched those a ton. He just would interview people, and there'd be tours of their tiny houses. So, that was really inspiring and exciting. And then Chris and Sarah, they are on Instagram and YouTube, and they really showcased what living in a van would be like. We loved watching their YouTube channel. And then Sarah and Alex James, they are the ones that we purchased the van life build guide off of, and so they were really, really helpful as well.

Yeah, and then once we started our build, Mathers on the Map was a channel that we watched a lot of, and so they helped us a lot of the build process. And then, I know you had her on the podcast, but Linea and Akela, that was a channel that I spent a lot of time... I remember specifically on some of the wiring and some of the electrical components, I watched a few of her videos and found her to be really helpful during the build process.

Host: Nice, yeah. She has a great channel, and she talked a lot about, like you said, not only all the benefits and all, like, kind of the sunshine and rainbow, she went deep into kind of the downsides and everything that's involved with building in van life. So, yeah, she has a great channel. Check out. We'll link all those channels you mentioned in the show notes below. And one more time, guys, while my audience is checking those out, where can they find out more about you?

Host: We are @TheMilesVanLife on Instagram. And then my personal Instagram is @EileenRoseMiles. That's where you can find my meditation podcast called The Inward Journey. And then I'm on Instagram as well. I am @ChadMMiles. And my podcast is called A Level Deeper.

Host: All right, perfect. We'll link everything below. Chad and Eileen, thanks again.

Guest: Thanks for having us.

Host: Thanks, friends.

www.atravelpath.com

00:00 Introduction

02:30 How Long Should Someone Stay in Newfoundland?

03:15 When is the Best Time of Year to Visit Newfoundland?

04:30 What is Transportation Like in Newfoundland?

08:00 Lodging

09:15 How Are the Roads?

010:30 Activities

11:30 Nightlife

12:15 Sunrise, Sunset, and Stargazing

14:00 Nova Scotia

16:00 Cost

17:15 Cell Phone Service

19:30 Food Scene

20:15 What Are Three Things to Pack to Newfoundland?

21:15 Two Complaints About Newfoundland?

22:30 Crowds

23:00 One Thing You Can't Leave Without Doing

It was great to have Phil and Stacy back on the podcast. Today they shared their extensive 3 week trip to Newfoundland and shared everything they learned. They also discussed a few things they would do differently to enhance their trip. Learn all about:

· How to handle internet when you travel to another country

· Saving time by taking different ferries

· Sunrise and sunset locations

And More!

3, 2, 1 Countdown Segment:

3 Things You Need to Bring to Newfoundland?

· Dietary restriction supplies (green powder, etc.)

· Medication

· Dress for all seasons no matter when you visit

2 Complaints or Things to Be Prepared For:

· Cost of fuel

· How big the island is, planning can be tricky

1 Thing You CAN'T Leave Newfoundland Without Doing:

· Whale-Watching, and the history at Cape Spear and Gander

Find Phil and Stacy At:

· https://todayissomeday.net/

· https://www.youtube.com/c/YouMetheRV

· https://www.instagram.com/todayissomeday_travel/

· https://www.facebook.com/todayissomeday

Charity:

· https://todayissomeday.net/military-charities

· https://give.ourhfotusa.org/fundraiser/3882334

Phil and Stacy's Newfoundland Video Playlist:

· https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaXzEjyw7uU&list=PLmOdcNUX3OG3GITb433ZEM96MTMIclQ8z

To Do

· Gros Morne National Park: https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/destinations/gros-morne

· Twillingate Icebergs: https://twillingate.com/to-see-do/iceberg-whales/

· Whale Watching: https://www.gatheralls.com/

· Cape Spear Lighthouse: https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/destinations/cape-spear

· Article on Gander: https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/newfoundland-labrador-9-11-anniversary

· Saint John's: https://www.stjohns.ca/en/recreation-culture/visit-st-johns.aspx

· Checklist for Crossing Into Canada: https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/travel-voyage/checklist-aidememoire-eng.html

· Internet: https://www.starlink.com/

Nova Scotia:

· River Rafting: https://shubieriverwranglers.ca/

· Bay of Fundy: https://www.bayoffundy.com/

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/sky-toes/gently-comes-tomorrow License code: JNNG98EA42W634JP

#newfoundland #newfoundlandcanada

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

Transcript:

Tyler: Phil and Stacy, welcome back to the travel tips segment of the Travel Path Podcast. Thanks for having us.

Phil: Yep, pleasure to be here.

Stacy: Thank you.

Tyler: So, for those of you who missed it, we had Phil and Stacy on. They're from "Today is Someday" on YouTube. They talked about everything from checklist preparation, maintenance procedures, and more checklists, and just everything RV life. They're full-time RVers. Today, in our travel tips, we're talking about one particular destination. So, Phil and Stacy, where are we talking about today?

Stacy: We're talking about Newfoundland.

Hope: Awesome. Now, how much time have you guys spent in Newfoundland?

Phil: Not long enough. We were there for about three weeks in Newfoundland.

Hope: Okay. And why is this place so special? Why are we talking about Newfoundland today?

Stacy: We absolutely fell in love with it when we were there. It's beautiful, it's historic, it is so unique, and just the feeling you get when you're there because it's kind of untouched in many areas of the island. So, we actually loved it there.

Stacy: Yeah, we soon found that "The Rock," as the locals call it, had so much to offer. We soon realized that there was no way we were going to be able to see it in the amount of time we had allotted. And as big as Newfoundland is, there wasn't a lot of people in and around the national park and just in general. It wasn't until you got to some of the bigger cities that you started to come into contact with a lot more folks, so it was wide open, at least it felt that way at first.

Hope: Very good. Now, to get that full Newfoundland experience, how long do you think someone should plan their trip for?

Phil: I think at a minimum four to six weeks. What we quickly discovered and what most people don't realize is Newfoundland is about the size of Texas, so there is a lot of land and a lot of driving to get from one side to the other of the island. So, if you want to take your time and experience everything it has to offer, I definitely would recommend at least four to six weeks. I think if we'd had another couple of weeks, we would have been able to check a lot more things off our list.

Hope: And what time of the year did you go to Newfoundland, or what time would you suggest is one of the best to go?

Stacy: We were there in the summer. But the optimal, if you're RVing, the best time to go is June through August. It's the mild climates, it's when it's nice and warm. But I gotta tell you, a lot of people go to Newfoundland in the wintertime because they have snowmobiling and a big ski season there too. So, if you want to fly in and not take the RV, that's another option for you. They get about 16 feet of snow a year.

Phil: 16 feet.

Stacy: I'm sorry, 16 feet, a lot of winter activities there as well.

Hope: Well, that's good. It's always nice when you find a destination that you can kind of go all year round because it gives you a lot of different possibilities, especially with your schedule. And also, you can go back at a different time of the year and experience something totally different.

Phil: Absolutely.

Hope: Now, you mentioned, you know, you could, of course, fly in. So, how does transportation work? You obviously took your RV in, but if someone was going to plan a trip to Newfoundland, maybe they're not RVing, how would you suggest they get there?

Stacy: So, if they're flying in, St. John's has an airport, so they can definitely fly into St. John's. And it's a great place to rent a car to see the rest of the island. And they have a ton of Airbnbs, hotels, and cabins throughout the island, so it's a great way to travel around and see all the different regions. Now, if you're taking the RV, you will need to, of course, cross the border into Canada, so you'll need a passport for that, and then take the ferry. So, definitely make sure you plan ahead for that because the ferry does fill up. And one thing to know, this is what we did wrong, so definitely learn from my mistake. There are two ferries, and they're on opposite sides of the island. So, I recommend taking one ferry into Newfoundland and taking the other ferry out of Newfoundland. One of the ferries is a little bit longer, but what that will do is that will enable you to see more and drive way less because it's going to take you two to three days to get back to your original ferry port where you can spend that time exploring and just hop on the ferry on the basically other side of the island instead.

Phil: Yeah, the highway that runs through Newfoundland, the main highway, it's not a loop. So, it's kind of out and back if you're coming in and out of the same terminal that we did. So, we went from Nova Scotia to Port aux Basques on an eight-hour ferry and then we took three weeks to drive through Newfoundland. But if we had done the research a little bit better, we would have seen that the road doesn't come all the way back around. We would have planned to take the ferry out of St. John's, and that's a 16-hour ferry, is it?

Stacy: It's at least 12. I know it's much longer. It's much longer. So, but you can get cabins on the ferry. There's cabins for pets, there's kennels, and there's cabins that are pet-friendly. So, there are a lot of options on the ferries.

Tyler: Sounds like a cruise ship.

Phil: It's pretty good size.

Stacy: It's a pretty good size. So, definitely a lot of space for and they pack them in. But you have to remember, too, those ferries are where they get a lot of their goods and services. So, all the big rigs get on there for all their shipping to come onto the island. So, the ferries are pretty large.

Phil: Yeah, so big rigs and you have a Class A motorhome, so there really was no size requirement.

Stacy: No, not at all. You pay per the size. So, however long you are is the amount that you pay for the ferry.

Hope: And once you're on that ferry, are you able to access your rig, or do you have to, like, park it and then go up?

Stacy: Yeah, once you're on and away from the parking area, you cannot go back.

Phil: Yeah, that's the only downfall.

Stacy: Yeah, you have to stay above, either in your cabin. There's a restaurant, store, there's plenty of places to hang out up there. But for safety, they don't let you back down with the vehicles.

Hope: That's good to know, though. And I think that's a really good tip about planning to take one ferry out and the other one back,

just so you don't waste that time and that gas too, just driving around the island on especially roads you've already seen.

Stacy: And the big thing is most people only make this trip once in their life. Most people don't go back and repeat this trip. So, I think making the most of your time is really important.

Hope: Yeah, absolutely. So, once you get to Newfoundland, you've taken the ferry, we've talked about the transportation. How about lodging? So, you obviously had your camper. Where'd you stay?

Phil: We stayed all over. It is very RV friendly, and as a matter of fact, if you have a smaller RV like a van or small Class B, you can pretty much pull over and park anywhere there's a spot. We read a lot about that. There's free parking lots or pull-offs or wherever you find, you can stay. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything quite big enough for our size. We're 35 feet, and all the spaces we found were for smaller sizes. But there were plenty of campgrounds for us, and we winged it most of the time because we didn't really have too many reservations. You know, we weren't really sure how long we would spend in each area. So, we were able to get last-minute spots all over the island. And we were not the biggest motorhome over there. We did see a bunch of 45-footers over there as well. So, I mean, we saw a ton of vans, a ton of truck campers because they could get a little further out into the mountains, pull off on the side of the road in those spots. So, yeah, any size rig will do perfectly.

Hope: Now, I imagine you probably parked your camper, and then throughout your day, you took your car and you went and explored. For someone that's driving, maybe like a Class C or a Class B van that doesn't have that pull-behind car, are the roads good for everyone being able to get where they need to be?

Stacy: Well, everyone can get where they need to be, but as far as the roads being good, the roads over there are a little, well, they could, let's just say, they need a little work. The island does not have a lot of money to work on the roads, frankly. And it gets really cold, and with the snow, it tears them up every year. So, we were joking that the roads were worse than the trip up to Alaska. But that being said, there's plenty of parking just about everywhere we went. We saw Class Bs, we saw people driving their RVs that didn't have a tow car. So, there definitely is space for you to make that your tow car and to explore the island.

Phil: Yeah, in fact, we saw more Class Cs and Bs up there than we did anything else, actually.

Hope: Very cool. And then as far as activities, obviously, you can drive around. There's tons of scenery, I'm sure there's beautiful hiking. You know, we know you can do some skiing in the winter. But for the time that you went, what type of activities did you do, or did you see other people doing during the day?

Stacy: There's so much, and it's so varied. So, everything from their national park, they have a unique national park, their Gros Morne National Park. You can go to Twillingate, which they're known for iceberg seeing, seeing the icebergs float by. They have, of course, a ton of historic lighthouses. And then one of Phil's favorite things was the whale watching.

Phil: Yeah, taking a boat tour out and saying, I mean, we're literally 10, 15 yards away from whales on our trip. So, for me, that was a highlight of the trip.

Stacy: Yeah, and then we also explored Gander, which is a really unique town. Gander is the town that accepted all the planes for 9/11 when they were all grounded. It was like 32, was it 32 aircraft or 36 aircraft?

Phil: Yeah, it was really cool to go through Gander and learn more about that and how they really everything they did on 9/11 to help all the passengers on those planes.

Hope: And then what about at night? What did you guys like to do once the sun went down?

Stacy: Well, honestly, most places we were at when the sun went down, the town rolled up its welcome mat, and they were all in bed. So, the only place I would say that that's not the case was Gander. That's a larger town. And then St. John's, so St. John's has a huge active bar scene and music scene. So, there's a ton of restaurants and a ton of nightlife. I say a ton, it's not a huge town, but for the island, it's one of their largest towns. So, yeah, and in fact, we didn't mind going to bed early while we were there because we got up early the next morning and we went to the coast and we caught the sunrise.

Phil: Yeah, and then, you know, early bird catches the worm. If you were there at the right time, you would also see whales passing through off the coast. So, that was pretty neat to do.

Hope: Any specific spots you saw sunrise, or just anywhere on the coast you went?

Stacy: It was at the Cape Spear Lighthouse. It's actually one of the most easterly points. So, we pretty much saw the sunrise before everyone else in not only Canada but in the US.

Tyler: Yeah, I think I've read that Cape Spear and Cadillac Mountain, like different times of the year, those two alternate from being the easternmost or where the sunlight hits first in the morning.

Stacy: Yeah, and that's pretty cool.

Hope: Yeah, so I know you said you went to Signal Hill because you woke up so early, but did you see any awesome sunsets or any really cool stargazing?

Stacy: Yes, as a matter of fact, especially over by the national park because it is a dark sky, so there's plenty of stargazing. And of course, it's a very unpopulated island. There are many segments of the island where you'll drive for a while before you see people or towns. So the fact that there's no smog and all that regular city stuff, it really made for a beautiful night sky.

Hope: Wow, that's awesome. Definitely somewhere we'll have to get one day, sooner rather than later. You're definitely selling it.

Phil: Definitely, we're on it. Definitely recommend it, yeah, highly recommend it. I mean, Signal Hill is where we went in St. John to catch a sunset, and we caught a sunrise from there. So, it's so crazy, the amount of history on that island, from World War I to the Vikings. They have the original Viking settlement there. So, if you're going to Newfoundland, you have to stop in Nova Scotia. We did a river rafting on the Bay of Fundy.

Phil: Yeah, it was on the Shubie River. We went out and we rode the tide in. So, literally, we're out there following the water in these rib boats, and the water was only in part of the river deep enough for the boats to get to, and everywhere was sandbars all along there. And at high noon that day, yeah, the Bay of Fundy, the tide came back in, and it was so much water coming back through that river that we caught the waves, and we were up and down. I mean, it was an amazing day. It's one of the highest tides in the world. So, it was so much fun. We actually went into Canada via Maine, into Cape Breton, then into Nova Scotia, and then over to Newfoundland. And then when we came back from Newfoundland, we went all the way through Nova Scotia, jumped on the ferry from there, and came back into Maine.

Hope: So, you can take a quick little ferry. It's much faster. It's like a three-hour ferry ride from Maine to Nova Scotia, and it wasn't that expensive. So, check it out. It might be something you're interested in doing because that also saved us like three days of driving all the way back. Just cut across.

Hope: Perfect. Very good. So, a lot of fun, lots of helpful tips. So just switching over to cost a little bit, how expensive or affordable is it to go to Newfoundland, do you think?

Stacy: I think the most expensive part really is the ferry. And that's based on the length of your RV and your tow car. And we rented a cabin and paid for the ferry. It was around $800 round trip. So, it's not too bad considering.

Hope: Oh, that was on the eight-hour trip.

Stacy: Yeah. So, it obviously, that's a big expense for some people. And the other big expense RV-wise would be the fuel costs. Fuel is a lot more expensive there because, again, they have to ship it in. You're paying in the Canadian dollar. So, I think cost-wise, those are your two biggest ones. But camping fees are pretty inexpensive. You can find some... they don't call them state parks, they call them, I forget what they call them, but their state parks and their national parks are really inexpensive, as well as some of the private campgrounds we stayed at. So, those will be your biggest two expenses. But I think overall, it was amazing. It was really worth every penny.

Hope: Perfect. Definitely sounds like it. And then how was your cell service or your internet service there?

Phil: Well, great question. So once we got across the Canadian border and we entered through Maine, our T-Mobile stopped. It's like somebody flipped a switch. So, what we relied on while we were there was our Starlink. And we used our Starlink heavily. Now, we did have to change our plan from a residential plan to... I don't even know what they call it now, it's a mobile global plan, like internal. They forced us to change our plan while we were there, but it was an easy switch online. And that's what saved us while we were there, as far as internet goes.

Stacy: Yeah. And with our cell phones, we also had to switch over to international for our cell phones. And almost everybody has it now, it's Canada and Mexico.

Hope: Absolutely. And then, how about food? Anything you enjoyed there that you want to mention?

Phil: I don't think we have anything specific. I did try a mooseburger and wasn't a fan, not a fan.

Tyler: Not a fan?

Phil: I had two because we were there, and we tried moose soup.

Phil: Yeah, Phil doesn't venture out much when it comes to foods.

Stacy: There's a ton of seafood, like fresh-caught that morning. You're going to find it all over the island, and it is amazing. They do have some of their own specialties, and I forget the names of some of them. They had like a cod al'grian or something.

Phil: Oh, yeah.

Stacy: They do cook sometimes pretty heavy, as far as cheese and fat. So, I was... After three weeks, it was good to get more vegetables. Unfortunately, they don't have a lot of veggies over there because they have to ship everything in. So, we were definitely deficient in our veggies while we were there. But we love eating local and trying out their signature dishes. So, it was interesting while we were there.

Hope: Awesome. Well, it sounds great. Just bring your green powder with you.

Stacy: Yes, because you can't cross the border with all your fresh veggies. They don't allow you to. So, just kind of keep that in the back of your mind.

Phil: Yeah. They have an extensive checklist online when you're crossing into Canada. So, make sure you don't get caught with those because you won't have them very long, that's for sure.

Phil: Yeah. You won't.

Hope: That's good. And we'll have to link that checklist down below in the show notes. So, just anyone crossing the border in general has that information.

Stacy: That's perfect.

Tyler: Great. Well, we'll transition to the 3-2-1 countdown, the final three questions of the podcast. So, when you're going to Newfoundland or Newfoundland, however the locals pronounce it, what are three things you're packing?

Stacy: All right. So, definitely, if you have any special dietary needs, you need to bring those. And hopefully, your dietary needs can cross the border because items they have to choose from at most of the grocery stores are going to be mom and pop. So, it's going to be hard to get what you normally eat. And then, of course, your medications, depending on how long you're going to be there, because if you run out, you won't be able to just have them called in and pick up. So, those are the two biggest things. And then, I think the last thing would be definitely dress for all climates, all seasons while you're there. Even though we were there for the summer, there were days where the weather would change and it was wet and it was freezing. So, make sure you're not just prepared for summer. You have all the layers and everything you need while you're there.

Tyler: Good points. As far as two complaints or things people wish they prepared more for, what would those be?

Phil: I think fuel.

Stacy: Fuel, yeah. I would say...

Phil: And it's surprisingly how much that is because, again, they have to ship it over there, and you have to do fuzzy math while you're at the pump. We deal in gallons; they deal in liters. So, if you're trying to stay within a budget and do the math and the comparison, it could be there for days trying to figure that out. And another thing with the fuel is make sure if you're passing a station, you fill up because gas stations, especially for diesel, were few and far between. So, you definitely don't want to get stuck in a situation where you need gas and there's nothing close by.

Stacy: Yeah. And then, the last thing, I think, is just people. We kind of mentioned it earlier that people don't realize how big it is. So, when you're planning to make sure you realize how big the island is. I mean, it would be like trying to visit all of Texas, going from Dallas to Galveston to Big Bend, Austin, and trying to plan all that in just a couple of weeks. It's near impossible to do all that. So, just kind of keep that in mind.

Tyler: Great. How are the crowds? I know you went in the summertime; that's probably peak season. But you were able to get campgrounds last minute?

Stacy: We never really felt like it was crowded anywhere. Obviously, St. John is their biggest city. But even that, we got right into one of their really nice, big campgrounds without a problem. So, I never felt like it was crowded. And there were... I mean, there were crowds doing the sightseeing stuff, the tours, the whale watching. There were quite a few boats out. But that was again centered around the big city. And we got into all of those. There was never a time where we wanted to do something and we couldn't because it was all booked up.

Tyler: Great. Yeah, perfect. Okay, our last question, guys. You talked about a lot of things to do today. But what is one thing you cannot leave Newfoundland without doing?

Phil: For me, it was whale watching by far. Getting on that whale watching tour, seeing the different birds and the puffins. They're low-flying to the water, and they were everywhere out there. But not only seeing one type of whale, but we saw two or three different species of whales while we were out there. And the one came up really close to the boat with her calf. For me, that was the highlight.

Stacy: Yeah, it was really great. I think more for me, it would be more the historic stuff. The lighthouses... I know Phil hates history, so Signal Hill, learning about Gander. So, all the history stuff that we were able to hit up, I really loved all of that.

Tyler: Perfect. Well, sounds like there's a little bit for everything in Newfoundland. So, thank you for sharing. I think this definitely provided a lot of people their itinerary, some tips and tricks for visiting. A lot of helpful tips with cost and traveling. So, yeah, thank you guys again for coming on. And if you haven't listened to part one, again, we talked about how they got started in their full-time adventures. They talked about everything from their checklist, everything they do to travel safely and securely. And one more time, Phil and Stacy, where can our audience find out more about you guys?

Stacy: On our YouTube channel today issome todayisSunday and also our website and blog todayissunday.net.

Tyler: Perfect all right Phil and Stacy thanks again.

Phil: Thank you so much this was fun.

www.atravelpath.com

00:00 Introduction

03:45 How Were You Originally Funding Your Full Time Travels?

05:45 How Long Have You Been Traveling Full Time?

06:45 How Long Was Full Time Travel a Goal for You?

08:15 What Was the Biggest Obstacle Before Going Full Time?

09:45 What Are Your Purging and Downsizing Tactics?

13:15 What Are the Biggest Travel Frustrations You Currently Face?

15:45 RV Maintenance and Repairs

19:45 What Tools Should Every RV Owner Have?

21:45 What Do You Love Most About Your Travel Lifestyle?

23:15 Checklists

29:15 How Do You Get Internet While Traveling?

29:45 Past Mistakes

35:45 Charity

38:45 Coolest Travel Experience

40:15 What is One Thing You've Learned You Can't Live Without?

49:45 Knowing Each Other's Roles

It was so great having Phil and Stacy from Today is Someday on our show! Phil and Stacy have been going full time in their Class A motorhome for about 6 years. We asked them how they were able to do it and what life is like for them on the road.

They shared all about the importance of checklists and maintenance, and weren't afraid to share the fact that they are spending more time maintaining their RV than they did on their home.

When I asked them if they were using the funds of their home sale to pay for their travels, they mentioned they hadn't touched that. They have the foresight to know that one day they will want to hunker down in a stationary home again, so they are keeping money saved up for that.

Tune in to learn about even more!

Find Phil and Stacy At:

· https://todayissomeday.net/

· https://www.youtube.com/c/YouMetheRV

· https://www.instagram.com/todayissomeday_travel/

· https://www.facebook.com/todayissomeday

Charity:

· https://todayissomeday.net/military-charities

· https://give.ourhfotusa.org/fundraiser/3882334

Phil and Stacy's Videos Referenced:

· Slap Wrist Checklists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bArIvXHtDCc

· Setup and Break Down Checklist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUaxI5X4qHg

· 15 Purging Tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCVixKTokr8&t=356s

Other YouTube Channels Referenced:

· https://www.youtube.com/@KeepYourDaydream

· https://www.youtube.com/@LessJunkMoreJourney

· https://www.youtube.com/@gonewiththewynns

· https://www.youtube.com/@Rvlove/videos

Show #6 With Jim and Michelle from Airstreamer:

· https://atravelpath.com/retired-full-time-rv-living/

Applicable Episodes:

· All About the Banks: https://atravelpath.com/retire-in-an-rv/

Most Popular Blogs:

· Most Popular Travel Hacks: https://atravelpath.com/money-saving-travel-tips/

· Travel Gear: https://atravelpath.com/travel-gear/

· How to Budget For Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/how-to-budget-for-gas-for-a-road-trip/

· Our Favorite RV Upgrades: https://atravelpath.com/rv-upgrades/

· How Much We Made Renting Our RV: https://atravelpath.com/renting-camper-van/

· Never Run Out of Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/road-trip-tip/

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/abbynoise/rocky-mountains

#fulltimerv #rvlife

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

Transcript:

Tyler: Phil and Stacy, welcome to the Travel Path Podcast.

Phil and Stacy: Thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having us.

Tyler: So, we know you from YouTube as Today is Someday, where you post videos on everything from RV adventures, tutorials gears, gadget reviews. You post a lot of destination reviews, which you're not afraid to share your opinion on certain destinations. On your website, you have raised over $170,000 towards your charity, which is amazing. We're excited to dive into that later on. I do want to give a quick shout out to Jim and Michelle from Airstreamer on episode 6; they mentioned they binged your content while they were learning and leading up to their full-time travel life. But why don't we start by having you share a little about yourselves?

Phil and Stacy: Sure, you want to start? Go ahead. Okay. Honestly, our story is very similar to a lot of full-time RVers. We love to travel, and at some point, we decided to sell everything we own: our house, all of our stuff, and buy an RV to travel the country. Phil's retired Navy, and we quickly discovered when he retired that I actually saw him more when he was deployed via FaceTime than when he got home. I was working full-time as a nurse practitioner, and I was working a lot of hours. So, RVing was our way to make a change and try to get some of that time back. Yeah, and for me, that was the biggest thing. I had toured other countries, I had been on many deployments, I missed a lot of the kids growing up. So for me, jumping into this lifestyle, and we had never camped, never done any of that. So for us, it was getting that time back and taking a leap of faith at the same time.

Tyler: Okay, very cool. That answers one of my questions later on about how much experience did you have before you went full-time. So when you had sold your home to take on this full-time travel lifestyle, I imagine you had the proceeds from the sale of your home, I imagine a military pension, any other forms of income that helped support that when you started out?

Phil and Stacy: It was really just my retirement. Well, you were also a Navy contractor when we first hit the road, so he was working remotely. Now, we did not use the sale of our house to fund any of this because, one, if we hated it, we wanted an out. So, all of that we invested to buy another house in the future, and two, we knew someday that we wouldn't be living this lifestyle. So eventually, you know if it going to break enough to where we're going to have to hit a sticks and bricks. So we wanted that money there just in case. So, we used the income we had saved. We are big on not having any debt, so we didn't have any debt except for our house when we came up with this idea. So we didn't have to work really hard like some people do to get out of debt; we were already a step ahead of that. So, really, we just lived off his pension once his job or his Navy retirement once his job ended.

Yeah, and we started saving and planning and prepping, you know, probably a good few years before. We didn't know what we were planning or prepping for, but we knew we wanted to do something. So, we had already been on that track to have enough money saved to do whatever we wanted to do. And then it just kind of came to a front, and we sold it and jumped. But I definitely recommend if somebody's thinking about doing something like this, people don't realize how expensive it can be, and being out of debt and not having that pulling you down really enables you to do all the things that you want to do when you travel to new locations.

Tyler: Yeah, well, I think it's really smart of you guys to sell that and not use the proceeds, having the foresight to know that eventually, you know, this is sustainable but at some point if you want to transition back into sticks and bricks, you have that lump sum there you can put a down payment down. And you started about five years ago, right, full-time?

Phil and Stacy: Almost six. This May will be six years since we've been on the road.

Tyler: Yeah, so you're doing the remote work before co, before it was cool.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, before it was, yeah, yeah.

Tyler: Great. So, what did your kind of day-to-day look like while you were working, and are you still working remotely full-time or part-time?

Phil and Stacy: Well, I do consider "Today is Sunday" to be full-time now. I actually spend more time on that than I did as a nurse practitioner. But the difference is I get to do it on my own time, you know, when and how much I want. So, we definitely, that's definitely a full-time job for us now. But when we first started, really, it was his Navy retirement, and we, I mean, we really had to live on a budget to make sure that we could survive out on the road. And thankfully, there are so many ways to RV; you really can RV on a tight budget, which is what we did. Yeah, and we were used to having a budget, which is key, I think. And if you can live within your existing budget when you first start, that also helps kind of jump you.

Tyler: Yeah, that's great. You had mentioned you were kind of saving up and planning preparing for something but you weren't sure exactly what it was for a number of years. How long was the time frame between when you learned that you wanted to hit the road and travel full-time and till the point that you actually started doing it?

Phil and Stacy: Initially, it was going to be four years. So, our son was graduating from high school, he was starting college, so we gave ourselves four years to really figure out what we wanted to do, what RV we wanted. Phil had just started researching RVs, and then our son decided that college was not for him. So, he quit school and he joined the Navy. And when he joined the Navy, that just boosted up our timeline. We went from four years to just over a year and a half, not quite two years, for us to really research, find an RV, and which really became Phil's full-time job for a while, and sell everything, and move in, including our house, and move into the RV.

Tyler: Great. Well, I think it helped that you were able to propel that because you were planning, preparing in advance, you already saving up and doing like I said, you were saving for something just weren't sure what it was. So during that process, the year and a half it took you to make the decision we want to go full-time, what was the biggest obstacle you had to face to get there?

Phil and Stacy: I'll let you take this, Phil. For me, I was my own obstacle because we had built, there was actually, we had built our retirement home, and you know, we were able to put in the features and design it the way we wanted to. So I was happy, I had my three-car garage, I had my man cave. But Stacy kept telling me, "It's just stuff, we can get more stuff later." So, for me, purging and getting rid of all of the things that wouldn't fit in a 300-foot box was really hard for me. The flip side of that though is we did travel and move quite a bit in the military. So, we were used to having to purge and you know, get rid of things, pack up, move to the next place. So that was, I guess, my biggest obstacle. Stacy didn't have one other than me. I was just ready to go, let's just go. She started this whole room by room purge, and it made it a lot easier for her. And I'm sure I'm speaking out of line, but it made it easier for her to purge and get to where she needed to be because she started doing it one room, you know, a closet at a time, and just built on it.

Tyler: Yeah, I think it definitely helps when you're, when you have moved around quite a bit. We're not in the military, but we move around with our rental properties pretty frequently. So when people tell us they're moving, like, it's, we've moved so many times in the past like five years, it's just, it's just easy to us for some reason. We accumulate less things. So, that's good. So, having that experience of doing that. I know you've posted videos in the past on some of your purging and downsizing tactics. Do you want to share any of those?

Phil and Stacy: I should probably take this one. Yes. So, I think some of the hardest things for people to get rid of, and Phil was this way too, are the things that you connect to people, and we connect those items to people and think that's the memory or that's a part of them. So, whether it's Grandma's antique furniture or photos that have been in a box for the last 20 years, I think some of the easiest ways to go through those and get rid of them is to actually take a picture of the item. You can create your own memory book with these items and actually talk about the memory that you have attached to that item and keep the photo and get rid of the stuff. So, you know, Grandma is not a part of that dresser, but she might be a part of the memory that you attach to the dresser, sure.

Tyler: That was a great tip. And we were watching some videos to prepare for this; you had another tip, I think, didn't you, like take your clothes and put them reverse on a coat hanger, and then like after a couple of weeks?

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, so I did that with Phil because he had like 400 t-shirts, and he kept saying, "I wear every t-shirt." And I'm like, "No, you don't." So, we take all the hangers, hang them backwards on the rod, and then as you wear them, you hang them up correctly. And then in three months or six months, you'll see exactly what shirt you're wearing, and it makes it really easy to purge. And you can do this really anytime; you'll be surprised how few items in your closet you actually wear on a daily, weekly basis.

Yeah, and come to find out, I only wore like 14 to 20 of them at any one given time. I was like, "Wow, that I mean it was kind of eye-opening for me." And then what she did, she didn't just say, "Okay, the rest have to go," she said, "Pick the ones that mean the most to you." And I had a lot of work T-shirts from being in the military; we had T-shirts that were designed by students at my last command, so I had quite a few of those. So, I took the ones that I really liked, and that meant something to me, and Stacy turned them into a quilt that we now carry with us on the RV.

Yeah, so we still have it.

Hope: Oh, that's really cool. And it's a great tip. Not even if you're not traveling, it's something you can do seasonally, every, you know, spring, fall.

Tyler: Yeah, even start a season with them facing the same way, and then at the end of the season, you'll know which ones you didn't wear.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, we try and do that, but we're not very good at it. I mean, I just, I don't know, I get attached to things. I mean, I like my stuff. I spent good money on my stuff. And then she's over here, like, just get rid of it, we can get something else later. Like, so, but it has gotten a lot easier. We're, we're the opposite, we'll throw, I'll try and throw everything I can out as possible, and then she'll like, save some of it, and then I'll, I'll find it, and then I'll be wondering where something I threw out is, and she's like, you threw it out. I do over purge.

Yeah, that's what we call, I'm an over purger. I'm like, oh, that one thing, man, I think I got rid of it. She also was a little sneaky, and she would get rid of my stuff that she didn't like, and she would do it, you know, a little bit here, a little bit there, and I, you know, I had so many shirts and so many different things that I never even missed it. And it wasn't until she told me, you know, we were arguing about keeping something, and she, you know, would bring up, I've thrown away three things that you haven't even missed, like, I would never do that.

Hope: That's funny, good teammates then, exactly, good balance over there.

Tyler: Yeah, yeah, as we can fast forward a little bit to your current life on the road now, what are some of the biggest frustrations you currently face while traveling?

Phil and Stacy: Well, what's your biggest frustration? I think maybe everybody's frustration as RVers, I think the only thing really is just the repetitiveness of RV repair and maintenance. So when we sold our house, we really thought, okay, well, no more lawn, no more maintenance, no more repairs. And little did we know, we actually do. I say we, but I really mean Phil, does more RV repair and maintenance than he ever did on the house. So, I think really that's everybody's frustration and everyone's surprised when they move into their RV.

Yeah, it's, I mean, you have to have some kind of knowledge in being a handyman to kind of stay on top of it. I mean, these things are rolling, you know, hurricanes going down the interstate, so they're constantly shimmying, shaking, and, you know, you're hitting things on the road that jar things loose. And I'm not talking just nuts and bolts, I'm talking wiring, you know, electrical connections, things like that. So, I mean, it's a little different for every type of RV, but for us, you know, we will stay on top of it, and as long as we do that, she'll continue to take care of us. Along with that, I think our other biggest issue would be just agreeing on where to stay sometimes.

Well, the easiest way is just not to let him look, because, yeah, Phil is the spender, I'm the saver. So, I like to balance the budget, so sometimes we'll stay at expensive places, but then we have to cut back and balance it all out. So, we'll stay at somewhere inexpensive. Phil would be okay staying at the expensive places all the time.

Well, not the, like, super expensive, but just nicer.

Tyler: Yeah, yeah, that's funny. I've learned to kind of just take the back seat with planning and just drive the car, drive the van, that's it.

Phil and Stacy: Well, I do, I agree with you, I'm just the driver. And it's not until we get there that I'm like, really? She's like, yeah. And I'm like, okay.

Tyler: So, you bring up a good point about the maintenance with RVs, and it doesn't really, it doesn't matter if it's brand new or used. We bought a brand new RV, and like you said, it's bumping down the road. We have a wire that came loose that's tripping an outlet, and we've tried, we've hired RV techs trying to find where that short is, and you can't find it. So, there's all sorts of, just be prepared for the maintenance and, you know, all that that comes along with the one RV. Have you found, like, a certain number of days or even, like, a price point that you're spending per month or so on repairs and maintenance?

Phil and Stacy: Oh, um, I don't know if we've looked at it that way because it definitely goes, it ebs and flows. I think our other, other than regular diesel maintenance, which is according to the miles, we had one huge cost recently. Um, as we left, um, Newland, you want to tell them about that?

Most of our, our maintenance is or repair work is, is usually done annually. So, little things I stay on top of, and they're not, you know, it's not a huge out-of-pocket card because I already have some of the equipment or I have parts on hand if I need to replace something. So, that, to put a dollar amount to it, I really can't say. Um, it's just like, you know, at your house, you have things in the garage, and, you know, you have extra filters and extra whatever, so you just swap them out. But our annual maintenance, I would say, for our diesel pusher that we have, um, anywhere from 2,000 to 2,500 for the year. And that's the engine, the chassis, the generator, all the big-ticket items that are required, um, to be done annually. And then, our big, um, oh, and then the issue that we had coming out of Maine. So, um, I don't know if it was the roads we were on or what, but we had a, a super expensive manifold exhaust leak on our engine, and we were, we were losing boost pressure, you know, we were almost rolling backwards going up the mountainside in Newland. Pretty scary when you don't really know what it is, and I'm not an engine guy. So, we, we limped into the Freightliner of Maine once we got back to the US, and they discovered what it was, they got us in and out in like five days, which was pretty good, they did amazing. Um, and that one was dang near a $7,000 repair. Um, however, we were prepared for any kind of major event, so we had a specific, uh, repair fund set aside, and that we just, you know, ever since we, even before we started, we just, we started putting money into this, this fund. So, we called it either the repair, the emergency fund, yeah, it's the repair fund, um, so that we have it in case something like this came up, and it did. And a retire fund, yeah, because tires cost so much for these things, so we just, that's what we use, we, we, we started with different, you know, funds that we started doing, putting a little bit of money into all these different places because we knew eventually we would need to, you know, something is going to jump up and bite us, and that was our big one, and that's, and that's pretty much it in six years. I mean, other, other than that, it's been just normal and normal things that that Stacy can tackle up on the roof herself, sometimes.

Tyler: That's interesting. So, you guys not only have like a repair fund set aside, which is smart in the first place, but you also, you go one step further and have like a tire fund or an emergency fund on top of that. So, you even, you kind of further layer that. That's brilliant.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, well, and it's because, you know, we could have just one emergency repair fund or one emergency fund, right? But then you take for granted, oh, I've got enough in that one, right? So, then now we started another one, so we make sure that we have enough in that one.

Tyler: Yeah, no, it's great. Everything with you guys is calculated, and there's a reason for everything. I like that.

Phil and Stacy: It was by accident.

Tyler: So, we talked about some of the, you know, the frustrations, the downsides of full-time RV travel. Let's transition a little bit to some of the positive. So, what do you love most about this lifestyle?

Phil and Stacy: The freedom. There's so much, yeah, it's the freedom to, to go and do what you want to do when you want to do it, on our time. Um, for me, that's, that's the most rewarding because for almost 30 years, I was told what to where, I was told where to go, I was told when I could go home. So, you know, flipping that, that switch to now being free to move about the country whenever we want, or I should say the world, it's amazing. And I think for me, what we've discovered, and we used to hear people say this, and we didn't get it until we went full-time, and that's the community. I think once you start meeting the people, and you really make connections with RVers, other RVers on the road, you'll realize that the RV community is pretty darn amazing.

Yeah, so I think for, for us, finding that and, you know, meeting our people out on the road, it's so different than any community we've ever been a part of. So, I, I think for, for me, that's pretty high on the list. And you get to meet them and run into them all over the country, you know, so you may meet them at one specific place, and then everybody goes their own way, but you're all crossing paths, even those that are not full-timers like us, they still get out, they still, you know, we're in their neck of the woods, and they're like, hey, you got to come over, we've got this great ice cream spot we want to take you to.

Tyler: Yeah, no, it has been great. And like, even like, every person we talked to on the podcast, like now we have people, every episode, there's some other place when we're traveling, they're like, oh, next time you're out, you know, give us a shout, we'll grab lunch or something.

Yeah, it's been great. Um, yeah, you, you talk about on your channel quite a bit about preparation and checklists. Not just your channel, you talked about it a lot in this podcast as well. What are some things every RVer should do before they hit the road?

Phil and Stacy: Definitely have a checklist, yeah, um, and your checklist is going to be everything you do when you go to break down and pack up to hit the road. Um, most accidents and injury can happen at set up and breakdown if people aren't paying attention if they miss something. So, having that list and not getting distracted when you're going down the list, um, talking to your neighbor is really important, and I think it keeps you on track, and you know, it keeps you from busting your satellite or, um, the awning being out, which we just saw, we just saw nobody leaving the campground with their awning open. Or even a big mistake that we made early on is, well, we've made a few, but Phil forgot to put the pen in our dolly, so we're driving down the road, and the dolly's like dragging.

Yeah, so I mean, you can make so many mistakes, and you just, one little blip where you lose track of what you're doing, you can, you can make a major mistake.

And you know what, I tell people all the time is, with having a checklist, the minute you get interrupted, whether it's on, you know, your spouse or your significant other calls you in for something, or somebody outside comes over and wants to say, hey, and, and talk to you, soon as you're done with whatever that interaction is, go back to step one, because inevitably, you know, we're all human, we figured, oh, I've already done that, or I think I'm here, and then you'll miss a step or two, and then that's when catastrophe strikes. So, for us, is have that, go back to it, um, and if you're in doubt, just start all over, you know. But having that checklist before you hit the road is, for us, is it's been huge, and we've been doing almost six years, and we still pull out that checklist, and we use it every time before we drive away.

Tyler: Yeah, and we, and it sounds like you guys are, you're physically getting out, you're walking around your RV. We know people that do that as well, um, but what are some of the big ones, people, like, are you checking your tires, you're making sure everything's retracted?

Phil and Stacy: The big thing is, is our tires are, um, TPMS, TPMS, and make sure we're aired up properly, um, and that's not only for safety, but it's for, for fuel consumption. Um, we always do a final, one of us will always do a final walk around, and we always check our lights. I don't know how many people, if they check their lights to make sure, because we have a toad, we want to make sure the lights are hooked up properly, we have brakes, we have blinkers, so the people behind us, um, can, you know, see where we're going and what we're doing. So, we've, we've gone and stepped completely behind the Jeep as it's attached to the RV, and we've gone further back from it to physically, physically see that, or make sure that we can see our brake lights right from cars behind us coming up on us, um, and I use the checklist for unhooking and hooking up the Jeep, we both do. We pull it out of the console, and we go by it step by step. We've been doing this for five years, and there's only, you know, a handful of steps to do on that Jeep. But if you miss one of them on your Jeep, you're going to drag your tires, you're going to have, you're going to have the parking brake on, whatever it is. So, we go through that checklist, and the last thing we do is we make sure that all four of the Jeep tires are rolling freely. So, we don't just check one side of the Jeep to see that the tires are rolling, we check both sides, um, to make sure. And that's just kind of our final check before we get in, put the seat belts on, and, and hit the road.

Tyler: Can you explain the slap wrist bracelets?

Phil and Stacy: So, we didn't actually invent this, we, there's another couple we saw using them, and it's really great for all dribbles. Um, instead of having a physical paper or a physical list, we just take those '80s old-school slap wrist bracelets, we got a Sharpie, and we put all of our checklist on the bracelets, and then we just smack them onto our steering wheels so we know all the things that we need to do before we hit the road. And you can just pull them off your steering wheel one by one as you complete it, and that way you know if you go to drive away and something's still in that steering wheel that you forgot to do something on your checklist.

Tyler: Yeah, that's brilliant. It's something so simple.

Phil and Stacy: And so many people have said, "That's brilliant." We can't take, you know, credit for it, but we love it because it's, you know, you could take them while you're walking around outside, doing your, if you're by yourself. So you have a handful of them and as you're doing whatever outside, just smack it on your arm and you're good to go. You know you've done it.

Tyler: Yeah, yeah. No, it's simple, it's effective, and unlike an iPad, if you have a list on an iPad, the battery's not going to die. You're always going to have that there.

Phil and Stacy And we've marked through them, we've added new stuff as our situations changed, as we've gotten, you know, upgrades and done different things to the RV. So, you know, your checklist is not going to be set in stone once you start. You will evolve and change and add stuff on like, you know, you forget something a couple of times in a row, and you're like, "Oh, I better add this to the checklist," or you, you know, like we changed our satellite or whatever. So just remember you can change it as you go along and definitely keep it up to date as your RV Life Changes.

Tyler: Yeah, no, it's important. And like you said, you guys are still doing it now, but I think it's even more important starting out because when everything is new to you, you can get nervous. Once you get nervous, it's hard to think, and that's when you can easily forget something.

Phil and Stacy: And another great benefit of having that is Stacy's had to do everything by herself. So, like, normally I will do everything outside, she'll do everything inside. So the one time that I couldn't do anything, she had to do it, the entire checklist was right there. All those slappers' bracelets were there for her to use and to go through, and she knocked it out of the park with that.

Tyler: Yeah, that's great. How are you getting internet when you're traveling?

Phil and Stacy: We have a Peplink modem router, and we use a T-Mobile SIM card for that. And that's our main internet means of getting internet into the RV. And of course, like many RVers, we have Starlink as our backup.

Tyler: Great. Do you want to share any mistakes that you or anybody you know have made in the past that could potentially help a listener?

Phil and Stacy: Plenty of mistakes in the very beginning. Our biggest one that still, to this day, I don't know how we didn't damage something. We actually moved the RV while we were still plugged into the pedestal. Oh, wow. So, yes, we got really lucky. We were, and of course, it seemed like every time we got underway in the beginning or loaded the car on the dolly, it was raining. So I was in a hurry to get the dolly connected to the RV, and it was pouring down rain. So I'm out there soaking wet, and I finally got the dolly to where I could hook it up, and I told Stacy to move the rig forward, not realizing that now I'd already tripped the breaker, and why, I don't know. Normally, when I trip the breaker, I pull the power cord. It's two steps, trip, pull it. That day, I tripped it, and I didn't pull it. So, in my mind, we're good, and I told Stacy to go ahead and move forward. I came around from the passenger side to the driver's side, and there's my entire power cord laying out with our surge protector still connected to it, laying... I mean, just straight as it could be on the ground. And I quickly looked over at the pedestal to make sure it was still upright, and it was fine, the cord was fine, the pedestal was fine, both of our hearts were in our throats. I mean, it really scared us.

Yeah, I mean, we could have ripped out the pedestal. That would have been major money to repair. We've seen instances where people have actually ripped the plug off their power cord, so then they have to get that repaired. So we really dodged a bullet on that one. But then again, that's how mistakes happen when you're in a hurry, you're not following your normal routine. And that's why those checklists are so important. If he had the checklist out there that day, he would have known that he didn't follow through on what he normally does. And the slap wrist is waterproof, so there's no excuse. I should have had it with me.

Tyler: That is true, very true. I was going to say, was that the day that your checklist was born when that happened, or was that just not on there?

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, we already had it, but I think we added to it that. Yeah, really. And this was like really early. We weren't even full-time yet. We still had a house we were just visiting. We were doing some shakedown trips. So it really honed in and made us realize how important those checklists were.

Tyler: Yeah, it is, yeah. Oh, it is, yeah. Um, well, thank you for sharing that. Appreciate that.

Phil and Stacy: And yeah, you can find all kinds of mistakes on our Channel. We're not scared. Well, we did the dolly. Um, let's see, what else did we do? What other big mistakes did we make? We're happy to have other people learn from us because, honestly, that's the whole point in sharing some of our content is because when we discover new things that either we've been doing wrong or new ways to do things, that's what we like to share, because, you know, that's the stuff that's of most benefit to our community here.

Here's something that we do because we got burned by it one time, not literally burned, but it was a bad deal, and nobody had ever mentioned this when we were doing our research, and that's getting into a site and before you do anything in your site, check the pedestal, make sure you have good power. So normally, we had been doing it that way, and we had been boondocking for a while, so we hadn't been plugging into anything. So we get into this nice State Park, we get level, we open everything up, I go to plug in to the pedestal, and the pedestal is bad, no power. And we had already, we're all open, we had everything open, and normally, I would plug in my surge protector and let it do a diagnostic check on the pedestal. And that day, we didn't do it, you know, so that was another one of our mistakes. It was like, okay, from now on, doesn't matter. This is what we're doing first. And it didn't cost us anything, it didn't hurt anything other than time. So we just had to close back up, we had to readjust the rig, we actually stole power from a pedestal next door empty pedestal until the state park could come out and repair. But you know, it's just one of those steps that it just reinforces, is following through.

Tyler: And of course, of course, it was the one time where you didn't do it first. That's how it always works.

Phil and Stacy: Always. That's when it's not gonna work. It's, it's like it's like pulling when you hook up your sewer hose. You don't just open up your black tank and let it flow, you open up the gray tank to make sure you have a good connection. Ask us how we know. You know, I mean, it's those kind of mistakes that people don't think about, um, that jump out and they, they bite you right in the tail. I forgot, I fell out of the RV. A lot of people fall out of the RV. I fell out of the RV because when the rig is running, you open when the rig is running, the steps are retracted. So when you open the door, the steps come out. Well, you have to wait a few seconds for the steps to come out. Well, I got impatient. I, well, I didn't get impatient, I just opened the door and did not stick The Landing, I can tell you that learning experience, right?

Hope: Yeah, Tyler did something similar.

Tyler: I did?

Hope: yeah, when you fell, when we were winterizing.

Tyler: Oh, yeah.

Hope: Ours were old school, so they didn't Auto, oh my gosh, because we were winterizing, and he forgot the step was half retracted and it slid out and I went down.

Tyler: And it was one of those and knocked the wind out of me. I was trying to say I was okay, but I was like, I couldn't even talk,

Phil and Stacy: Oh my gosh, yeah, you just never know for sure. No. And we've, in fact, somebody in our community, our crew, he just broke his leg. He's a solo guy, and he fell out of his rig, and we've heard that from a lot of people and broke his leg. So now he's sitting for six months. Well, the one, our one crew, she had to have surgery after she fell. It's crazy. You just never know.

Tyler: That's true. That's true. That's why you need to just take your time and not be in a hurry. Yep, easier said than done. It is, yes, it is very true. Do you want to share a little bit about your charity?

Phil and Stacy: Oh, sure. So we actually don't have our own personal charity, but there are several veterans charities that we've rallied around. The biggest one is homes for our troops, and they actually build custom homes for service members with severe injuries. These homes are amazing. So it is totally free for the veteran, and it's one of the biggest charities that we've rallied around and where we've raised the most money. But we're up to over $170,000 now. We're working on 200,000. But we've done all kinds of crazy things to raise money, from dunk Booth to we did a pie in the face, we did auctions and raffles and all kinds of stuff. So it's been really amazing to see the RV community rally around us and really dig deep to donate to these veteran charities. So it means the world to us, and it's not us that's doing it. It's the RV community that's doing it. That's the important thing. We're just two people with a voice using our platform to help, you know, help veterans. And being that we were in the military for so long and connected to it, it hits home with us. So we, you know, if the channel dissolved tomorrow, we would still do whatever we could to help, that's how, that's how much it means to us.

Tyler: Yeah, no, it's great you guys are doing that. And I know people can help by purchasing t-shirts, right? And I guess this is, if you're watching on YouTube, we'll do our big reveal. We're wearing our, uh, today is someday t-shirts right here. How does that work?

Phil and Stacy: So if somebody orders a shirt, there's proceeds that go towards your charity, right, or the charities, right? Anything from our veteran line, we have veteran cups and t-shirts and hats. Anything from the veteran line, all the proceeds will go toward homes for our troops. So about every quarter, we get a statement from our, um, the company who runs our store, and we just go straight off the list, and we donate it over to homes for our troops. So it's been, it's been really great, a nice easy way for us to raise money. The other really simple way is our crew. We have a membership and a big portion of our membership funds that we raise also go over to homes for our troops. So it's, it's really rewarding.

Tyler: That's great. And it's amazing you're were able to raise that much money in just this, you know, five to six-year period. That's incredible.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, it is. It's very incredible. We are loving it, and

Tyler: We'll put a link in the show notes for the links to the charities, your website, everything people need to know to, um, to donate there.

Hope: Um, what has been your coolest travel experience so far?

Phil and Stacy: Oh, the coolest. It's always hard when people ask those questions because, you know, you go to so many different locations, and you like different locations for different reasons. So I do have to say, Yosemite is one of our favorite places. We were at a National Forest campground just outside Yosemite, and that's where our jeep was broken into by a bear. So it was the most very first night momentous, and the one of the most beautiful places we've stayed, yeah, that one was really cool. It's the bear break game, but my one, my other one would be Creed, Colorado. We Boondock on top of a mountain U there in Creed for a week, uh, with a couple of our friends, and it was absolutely breathtaking up there and so peaceful, yeah, unhooked all of us on our own power, everything. I mean, it was just to wake up and see the sun peeking over the mountains every morning. I mean, if you haven't experienced that, you got to get out, go find the mountains and check it out. It's amazing.

It's, yeah, the, and the towns around there are just, you know, very nice, quaint, quiet little, just, yeah. And I grew up in Colorado, my, in my teen years, and I didn't, um, I didn't appreciate what Colorado had to offer as a teenager. And now that I've gone back home, it's like, man, this is, I mean, it truly is a gorgeous place to visit.

Tyler: Yeah, wow. So after spending just about 5 years traveling, what's one thing you learned you can't live without?

Phil and Stacy: Oh, wow, that'd be for you, because I could probably live without everything. No internet, I would say internet. I think this day and age, it's got to be internet. Um, because, um, you know, you hear the stories where you pull into a campground and they have camp Wi-Fi or park Wi-Fi, we would, we would, we would be kicked out because of the amount of bandwidth that we use. Um, but we have having our own internet, um, system with us. So we could pull in anywhere, for the most part, and our internet works perfectly fine for us. And it's not just for our channel, it's also for our family staying connected to our kids and our grandkids. That's how, I mean, that's how we communicate with them. And even though we're far apart, we always feel connected because, I mean, I talk to my daughter several times a day, even when, even when I don't want to, she's always FaceTiming me, um, and then my son too. So I think staying connected, um, that's the number one way. Yeah, everything else, I mean, the, you know, we have a lot of safety features that um, that we've added to the rig that, you know, we absolutely stand behind and it would not drive down the road without them. Our TPMS being one of them, um, but yeah, other than that, I think, you know, most rvers have the same type of stuff, um, you know, they got into this lifestyle because they wanted less stuff and more freedom, yeah. So for us, we don't have a lot of stuff, but we have everything we need. Like if we were in our house, just on a smaller scale, sure.

Tyler: So the internet, and then maybe the TPM, TPMS that reads the tire pressure when you're driving, right?

Phil and Stacy: Yep, okay, pressure and temperature, yeah.

Tyler: We might end up changing that question to besides internet, what can't you live without. I think like the past four episodes, it's been internet, which we agree with.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, especially if you're doing this full-time vlogging, doing a blog and a website, you, you inter, we started out with all the things we thought we needed, you know, an outdoor carpet, you know, big comfortable chairs to sit outside, but we found those things just took up space and we weren't utilizing them, yeah, everywhere we went to. Um, so we, you know, we purged again. And so we went to smaller chairs, a little more compact, um, we have a barbecue, or we have a Blackstone, wait, we don't, we, it's not seen the sunlight in almost two years, I think. It's, it's funny how you think you need stuff and then you shortly find out that not there's very few things that you truly need, yeah, we we did a video a couple years ago. We were camping with my mom in Upstate New York. And we were in the site right next to hers. And they have a, you know, bumper pool, uh, travel trailer, and it took them two days to set up their camp. They're not full-time, they're part-time, they're just weekenders. Took them two days to set up camp, and we were right next to them and we showed, you know, a shot of our campsite had two chairs outside and that we drug them over to her campsite. We go over to her campsite, and she's got everything out, you name it, she had it out, um, so I mean, you could walk through a campground and you can really spot full-timers and weekenders, you know, because they're coming out play, you know, they're coming out to play for the weekend and pack it all in with the kids or whatnot, and full-timers are just kind of there, you know, they're, they're out in town, they're hiking, they're seeing thing, um, so it's just, it's for us, that's, you know, we thought we needed that stuff, and come to find out we didn't need it after all, yeah.

Tyler: It is interesting we had one neighbor, they took like a week to set up, it was the most insane, and then they were gone, they took like seven days to set up, and they left, it was like the craziest thing, they get it just right and then it's Sunday, yep, and then time to go. They didn't even enjoy it.

Phil and Stacy: I never saw them sit down outside on the chairs they put out. They were setting up all day and next thing you know, we've seen that where people have come in and, you know, they've got the kids are running around riding bikes and doing kid things, which is cool, and mom and dad never got to relax because it was setting up the whole time, yep, yeah, you can make it very simple as long as you try to don't over complicate it, I think is the biggest thing.

Tyler: I know I mentioned before like the most popular answer has been internet and I think the connection I just made was it's been internet for people who are traveling in larger class A's or fifth wheels where they have more things but when we talk to like van lifers or people who aren't traveling in a larger motor home they tend to have more because they're they're getting rid of more things to make room for their smaller living space so maybe that's the connection um and like I said too yeah we definitely could not get away with doing this on campground Wi-Fi there's no chance.

Phil and Stacy: No, and you know for us, most things that come in the RV have to have a dual purpose whenever possible. Yeah, you have to have so we can see van lifers have to have, you know, if they have a slotted spoon, that thing is for 18 different things, not just, you know, you know what I mean. So, for us, when we were thinking of things to bring into the rig, a lot of them had to have multiple uses because you didn't need for the same thing to do the same thing, yeah.

Tyler: If you could have listened to this podcast when you first started out, what is one question we didn't ask tonight that you wished we had, and how would you answer that now?

Phil and Stacy: It's really hard because we're looking back over six years and this is honestly, we've been doing it so long, it's just a way of life now. It's all we know and it's hard to remember the beginning. Um, I think a couple of those things that I mentioned earlier, checking the pedestal, checking the sewer hose connection because, you know, those could be maybe just the safety, more safy... Well, I knew even before we had our RV, I knew I needed a TPMS system, I knew I needed a surge protector, so I had those two things before I even had my RV, before I even knew what RV I was going to get, I knew I had to have those because, you know, being in the military for so long, safety on a ship was in the front of your face every single day, so we were prepared, safety-wise, yeah.

I don't know. I don't, that's a really hard question because there's so much to learn when you first hit the road, like you're being fed to a fire hose, yeah. And the biggest thing though is, is, you know, we were just talking about it how people, you know, they get to a campground and they're setting everything up and they, you know, they're packing everything in in three hours. For us, we were trying to do a little bit of that in the beginning, we were move, move, move, trying to go, go, go and we didn't need to, you know, because we're full-time, we were doing this on our own terms. In fact, every single time we were to leave one spot and go to another spot, whether it was three hours down the road or six hours, which we don't do anymore, I told Stacy we got to go to the grocery store, you know, we, we got to pack up, we're going camping, we have to go to the store and she was like, we don't have to, we can go get it when we're there. So, it was a mindset change that we had to go through, um, and the first six months, we, we called it the RV and then shortly around the six month mark, we, we stopped calling it the RV and started calling it home.

Hope: But I think those are some really good points that you brought up, especially the if you're going to go full-time, it's no longer your RV, it's your home.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think just the mindset shift is something you have to work towards as you start and you don't have to, you don't have to go, go, go, you know, you can go to a spot, our sweet spots around seven to ten days, um, in one spot and that's enough time to get out, see it, see, you know, make sure we've, you know, punched the right boxes, um, but it's enough that we say, you know what, we liked it so much we can come back, we don't need to cram everything in because we're free to move about the country, sure.

Tyler: And for somebody listening to this podcast right now who wants to set up a lifestyle similar to yours but isn't there yet, what is one thing they can start doing today?

Phil and Stacy: Um, I think there are a couple things they can start doing today, um, it to work toward the goal of full-time RV life and first is, you know, do your homework, do your research, you know, what's your goals, what kind of RV are you going to need based on your needs, are you going to work from home, do you have kids, you know, kind of start your research for that and then the next thing I would suggest is, um, get out of debt. If you're in debt, that is the best way to enable you to have the experiences you want to have on the road, so, um, obviously the less money you're spending on bills, the more money you have to go play for tickets or whatever activities, so experiences, yeah. Um, I know not everybody has the same opinion of me as far as being debt-free but that is definitely my number one and then probably the last thing and we actually have a video on this and that is before you sell everything you own and your house, make sure you have an Exit Plan so if something happened to you tomorrow and your health failed, what are you going to do if you can no longer RV, do you have an Escape Route, you need to be able to know what you're going to do, are you going to move into an apartment, are you going to get a house, are you moving in with family because emergencies happen on the road all the time, we've seen it, we've seen the death of a partner, we've seen where people physically have an injury or a stroke or so many things and they cannot RV so make sure you are prepared for that next step and you don't trap yourself to where you don't know what you're going to do, yeah, yeah, very good point.

Hope: Now speaking of what you just said, like the death of your partner, right, so does that mean both of you should equally know how to hook up that camper and drive away?

Phil and Stacy: Yes, 100% because, you know, I something could happen to me, I'm, I drive this thing 24/7, um, Stacy knows how to, I have driven it, yeah, in the event that she had to for whatever reason, um, but it is good to know each other's roles, she can do, Stacy can do everything on this RV by herself and she's done it, had to do it, um, she's done it on video so there's proof, it was actually in the hospital, um, a couple years ago, um, he had surgery and we had to move SES, um, so he, it was during covid, I couldn't even be at the hospital so I literally packed up the RV, got in it, moved to the next site, um, it's got us all set up, um, I mean I didn't have to drive it that far but I was able to close everything up, shut it down, move it, and then open everything back up again to include hooking up the Jeep, I mean she knows how to do all of that, it's our setup for the Jeep is super easy, it's five minutes each way, yeah, um, but that, you know, and we've been in places and we've known people or met people on the road that, you know, the husband did all the work, did everything and when he wasn't there, they were stranded, yeah, she did not know what to do, no means to get anywhere, um, but the good thing about the community is they rallied around her and they got her the help she needed but um, it is imperative that you know each other's roles and we've practiced like we switch jobs where I'll do all the outside, we do it as a refresher, um, I, I actually put on video where I was hooking up the Jeep and those stupid toe arms were kicking my tail because they were so tight but um, but we do know how to do it, we do switch off, um, every quarter every six months or so.

Tyler: Yeah, really good advice, yeah, you guys could teach a course like it's been, there's been so much new material and new ideas, New Concepts in this podcast our audience is going to find it really valuable thank you for sharing everything and um, were there any when you were starting out and even to the state were there any YouTube channels that helped inspire you or either even books or other influences that helped inspire you to travel?

Phil and Stacy: Well there were quite a few out when we started there were like four main ones cuz um um we we've been around for a minute but our main ones that we watched was um kyd less jum more Journey the wind gone with the winds and they were when they were still rving not in their boat and then the biggest influence on us is RV love and the reason is because I was trying to convince Phil that we could do it and he was working remotely for the Navy and he was like no I have this job how am I going to work on the road and at the time Mark was working in his office was this closet he turned into his office in his RV took the bunks out and turned it into like look Mark is doing it they're traveling and they're going all over the country and he works a nin to5 he has to clock in and literally clock out and if he can do it you can do it remotely where you know he Phil's job enabled him as long as he put in his eight hours he could do it how and whenever he wanted to do it so um they really proved to him thanks to Mark um they proved that we could could actually do it and that was really what launched us.

Tyler: Yeah that's great yeah YouTube University can be quite convincing.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah it I made it my my part-time part-time job um because I was working from home I had the time to you know scour the interwebs looking for different RVs because we didn't know what we didn't know about rving um so we would start you know we started doing our homework then and and then it got to a point where we weren't allowed to watch those YouTube channels unless we are both there to watch them together because we got that you know ingrained into what you know their videos what they were saying how they were doing things um so they they are the ones that really you know indoctrinated.

Tyler: We'll put a link in the show notes for all the channels and links we talked about in today's show uh one last question for travel tips part two you guys are coming back on just so we don't leave our audience in too much suspense where are we talking about next time?

Phil and Stacy: We are talking about Newfoundland.

Tyler: All right perfect and one last question Phil and Stacy where can our audience find out more about you guys?

Phil and Stacy: You can find us at uh todayissomeday.net with our website and our blogs and then of course our YouTube channel Todayissomeday.

Tyler: Awesome thanks again guys

Phil and Stacy: Thank you, thanks.

www.atravelpath.com

00:00 Intro

02:15 How Much Time Have You Spent in Colorado?

04:15 How Long Should Someone Spend in Colorado?

05:00 When is the Best Time of Year to Visit Colorado?

05:45 What are the Four Colorado National Parks?

07:30 What Does Transportation Look Like Around the National Parks?

10:15 Any Good Camping Recommendations Near the National Parks?

15:30 Rocky Mountain National Park Itinerary

18:15 Black Canyon of Gunison Itinerary

19:30 Mesa Verde Itinerary

21:00 Great Sand Dunes Itinerary

22:15 Leadville Colorado

24:30 Sunrise, Sunset, and Nighttime Activities

27:15 Food Planning

28:45 Other Attractions

29:15 3 Things to Bring to Colorado National Parks

30:00 2 Complaints about Colorado National Parks

32:30 Cell Phone Coverage

33:30 What is One Thing You Can't Leave the Colorado Parks without Doing?

Kati was the perfect guest on this show because she has a business creating travel guides and planning trips for others. As you'll hear, Kati has knack for this and provided a VERY thorough itinerary for things to do and what to expect on a Colorado National Parks road trip.

Learn All About:

🥾Can't-miss long and short hiking trails

🏔️Things to do OUTSIDE of the parks while you are enroute to the next

☔What you should be prepared for when visiting each park!

And more!

Links

Find Kati At:

https://expeditioneducationblog.com/

https://www.instagram.com/wanderwithkt/

Kati's Colorado Blogs:

7 Day National Park Road Trip:

https://expeditioneducationblog.com/2023/05/08/epic-colorado-national-parks-road-trip-itinerary/

Colorado Itinerary Post (each park has a specific post):

https://expeditioneducationblog.com/2023/05/08/epic-colorado-national-parks-road-trip-itinerary/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=epic-colorado-national-parks-road-trip-itinerary&=1

Renting a Camper Van in Denver:

https://expeditioneducationblog.com/2023/05/01/kuku-camper-van-reviews/

Added Colorado Visits:

https://expeditioneducationblog.com/2023/01/30/glenwood-caverns-adventure-park/

https://expeditioneducationblog.com/2022/09/08/sustainable-leadville-experiences/

Podcast Episodes Mentioned:

Renting and Scaling and RV Rental Business: https://atravelpath.com/renting-your-rv-out/

🏕️Camping:

Timber Creek Campground at Rocky Mountain NP: https://www.nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/tccg.htm

https://freecampsites.net/

Mesa Verde free and dispersed

Black Canyon of Gunnison free and dispersed

Great Sand Dunes free and dispersed

Zapata Falls Campground at Great Sand Dunes: https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/riogrande/recarea/?recid=74116

Kuku Campers: https://www.kukucampers.com/

Rocky Mountain:

Sky Pond Hike and Lake Haihaya: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/trail/us/colorado/sky-pond-via-glacier-gorge-trail?mobileMap=false&ref=sidebar-static-map

Ute Trail: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/trail/us/colorado/ute-trail-from-poudre-lake-to-alpine-ridge?mobileMap=false&ref=sidebar-static-map

Black Canyon of Gunnison:

Gunnison Route: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/colorado/gunnison-route--2

Mesa Verde:

Cliff Dwelling Tours: https://www.nps.gov/meve/planyourvisit/cliff_dwelling_tours.htm

Long House Tour: https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/cd_long_house_tour.htm

Petroglyph Hike: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/colorado/petroglyph-point-trail

Spruce House: https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/cd_spruce_tree_house.htm

Great Sand Dunes:

Zapata Falls: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/colorado/zapata-falls-trail

Dune Buggies: https://www.nps.gov/grsa/faqs.htm

Pet Policy: https://www.nps.gov/grsa/planyourvisit/pets.htm

Leadville:

Mount Albert Hike: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/trail/us/colorado/north-mount-elbert-trail--3

Tacos La Mina: https://www.facebook.com/p/Tacos-la-mina-100089715580810/

Garden of the Gods: https://gardenofgods.com/

Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park: https://www.glenwoodcaverns.com/

Colorado National Monument: https://www.nps.gov/colm/index.htm

#coloradoroadtrip #coloradonationalparks

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

www.atravelpath.com

00:00 Introduction

03:30 How to you Balance Teaching with Travel?

04:30 What Sort of Commitments Outside of School do You Have with Teaching?

06:00 What Has Been the Longest Trip You Have Taken While Teaching?

07:00 Where Are You Staying When You Travel?

08:30 What Have Been Your Biggest Struggles to Get on the Road?

10:00 What Are Your Biggest Frustrations While You Travel?

14:00 What do You Love Most About Your Travel Lifestyle?

16:00 What Tips Have You Found Help 9-5ers Travel More?

18:15 Why do You Think People Are So Reluctant to Plan?

21:30 What Are Itinerary Creation Guides?

25:15 Are There Other Careers Where People Have a Long Gap From Work?

26:45 How Can People Save or Make Money for Travel?

29:45 What Has Been Your Coolest Travel Experience?

31:15 What Is One Thing You Can't Live Without While Traveling?

34:00 What Have You Learned You Don't Need While Traveling?

36:00 How Do I Start Planning my Trip?

37:30 How Would Someone Transition to a Career in Teaching?

40:00 Where There Any Influencers that Inspired You to Travel?

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/abbynoise/rocky-mountains

We had the pleasure of hosting Kati on our show who provided some valuable insight on how to balance a busy teaching and coaching career with travel. In this episode you'll learn all about:

✅A few simple steps to get you started planning your next trip

🍎Taking advantage of time off teaching and coaching to take a 20+ day road trip

🏔️How to get more travel out of your 9-5 work life

And more!

Links

Find Kati At:

https://expeditioneducationblog.com/

https://www.instagram.com/wanderwithkt/

Episodes Mentioned in the Show:

From CPA to Trucker: https://atravelpath.com/trucking/

Kati's Blog on 10 Ways to Save Money for Travel:

https://expeditioneducationblog.com/2020/04/01/making-extra-money-for-travel/

Save Money:

https://home.ibotta.com/

https://poshmark.com/

Gregory Backpack & Gear:

https://www.gregory.com/

YouTube Channels & Books:

Steve Yalo: https://www.youtube.com/@SteveYalo

"Through Hiking Will Break Your Heart" https://amzn.to/48BGArt

"Wild" https://amzn.to/3TfM8Ue

"Thirst" https://amzn.to/49TVYAv

"Nowhere for Very Long" https://amzn.to/3Vi2Nbl

(Commissions may be earned through purchases on this page)

Restaurants

Martins BBQ in Nashville: https://www.martinsbbqjoint.com/

Noble Smokehouse in Mystic: https://noblesmokehouse.com/

Relatable Blogs:

Goal Setting for Couples: https://atravelpath.com/2024-goal-setting/

Most Popular Blogs:

Most Popular Travel Hacks: https://atravelpath.com/money-saving-travel-tips/

Travel Gear: https://atravelpath.com/travel-gear/

How to Budget For Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/how-to-budget-for-gas-for-a-road-trip/

Our Favorite RV Upgrades: https://atravelpath.com/rv-upgrades/

How Much We Made Renting Our RV: https://atravelpath.com/renting-camper-van/

Never Run Out of Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/road-trip-tip/

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

Transcript:

Tyler: Welcome to the show.

Kati: Hello, hello. Thanks for having me.

Tyler: Yeah, so we know you on Instagram as "Wander with KT." You post content on your Outdoor Adventures, and you also have your website, ExpeditionEducationBlog.com, where your goal is to make Adventure travel as accessible as possible on any budget. You've got all sorts of posts on travel tips, Gear reviews, and itinerary creation guides, which we'll talk about later on. Why don't we first start by having you share a little about yourself and then letting our audience know what your current travel lifestyle looks like?

Kati: Yeah, so I'm Kati. I am 31 years old, and I live in central New York. I'm a teacher by day and a coach by night, and then I try to travel as often as I can on my school breaks, on my weekends. I might take a personal day here or there to extend a weekend for some travels, but pretty much traveling on the school breaks and on the teacher budgets, so that is what the travel plans are.

Tyler: Sure. And your husband, Spencer, he's a teacher as well, right?

Kati: He is also a teacher, so we are both busy teachers. I teach secondary, so I teach grades 7 through 12, and he teaches elementary school, so he teaches pre-K through six. And we teach in the same district but different buildings since it's different age levels.

Tyler: Now, during the school year, particularly the school year outside of, like, summer vacations and winter vacations, how are you balancing your work and your travel life?

Kati: It can definitely be really hard, especially when you're coaching because when you coach, you don't normally get the full weekend anyway. You wind up having to leave after an early practice on a Saturday or not doing Saturday practice and coming back Sunday night for practice. And even school breaks, I mean, over like the holiday vacation Thanksgiving break, we have practice. So we definitely take shorter trips during the school year, which is not our style. We're definitely more like long road trip kind of people. But it can be hard to balance, but we just do what we can to get out there when we can get out there, especially during coaching.

Tyler: The high school level gets pretty competitive, and I remember doing high school basketball, you're going, basically, I think the only days we had off was Christmas Day and New Year's Day, that was it.

Kati: Yeah. Luckily, we both coach the junior varsity team, so we travel with varsity, and we're their assistant coach, so we have to be there to help them. But it's not as big of a deal if you give JV an extra day off over break. But at the varsity level, definitely, you know, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, then you're back.

Tyler: Do you have a lot of commitments outside of coaching, like more school-related on the weekends that take up a lot of your time, or is it just mostly coaching?

Kati: Generally, not mostly coaching. During the school year, I might have the occasional chaperone dance or I'm the Outdoor Adventure Club advisor, so we have weekend events and fundraisers that we do as well. So here and there, I have a weekend commitment that isn't related to coaching, but it's usually coaching-related in the school year.

Tyler: So for the most part, it sounds like if you want to get into teaching and you want to be able to travel, as long as you're not doing any of those extracurricular activities, just the teaching lifestyle allows for that flexibility on the weekends, the extended weekends, and then, obviously, the holidays.

Kati: Yeah, absolutely. You get extended weekends here and there, you get obviously your holiday breaks. The summer vacation is big there. There are definitely commitments from teaching over summer though, so you have to kind of plan around those things until you get to the point where you can just say, like, you're not paying me, so I'm not coming.

Tyler: What are some of those commitments over the summer?

Kati: Summer curriculum hours, different trainings, meetings, sometimes you'll have, like, seventh-grade orientation. And some of those commitments are also coaching-related too, such as, like, open gyms or going to a training or a coach's meeting.

Tyler: So it sounds like it's kind of a random amount of commitment. It's not like it's not enough where it's like a full-time job type thing, but it's not really enough where you can take a super extended travel vacation. What's been the longest trip you guys have been able to take?

Kati: We've been pretty lucky. We've gone on a couple really long trips. I think most recently we spent 23 days road-tripping from New York out to Colorado and Moab and then back. But we've also spent 17 in Utah and 20 days doing, like, the DTAs in Wyoming. A lot of our summer requirements too wind up popping up in August because you're getting closer to the school year. So it's like, oh, we have to get this in, oh, we got to do that training. So we pretty much have the month of July to do whatever we want.

Hope: Now, when you take those little bit longer trips during your summer break, how are you guys traveling? Are you traveling in your car, right? And then where are you staying?

Kati: So when we went to Utah, we flew there. It was one of our first times really doing that. And we flew, rented a car, and just did the loop from there and flew back. So we threw all of our camping gear in a big duffel, like, massive rolling duffel because we like to camp, because that's the only way we can afford to go on those trips. But since then, all of our trips have been road trips. So we drive, my husband has a Jeep, and we drive the Jeep out with all the camping gear, our bikes, everything we could need. We pretty much live out of the car for however long we're there. We'll snag hotel rooms here and there, whether it's like, oh, bad weather or just we need a shower and a bed or something of that nature. Yeah, we mostly camp, and we'll pay some, like, we'll pay for camping if we're going to National Parks. We like to camp inside the park, so it's worth it to us to pay whatever it costs to stay in there. But a lot of places will also camp for free because it saves you a lot of money and usually the views are better at those places as well.

Tyler: And those places are just like the public land, the National Forest lands, Bureau of Land Management lands.

Kati: Yeah, public lands like National Forest lands, Bureau of Land Management lands. So depending on what state you're in or like what section of the country you're in, they kind of have different names like National Grasslands. All over the DTAs have gorgeous places to camp and they're just free. You just pull up and go, free and dispersed camping.

Tyler: In terms of when you're teaching and you're looking to plan your trips both short-term and long-term, what have been some of the biggest struggles to get on the road?

Kati: My husband and I live in central New York, but his family is from Western New York and my family is from Long Island, and they still live there. So we're kind of like in our own little bubble living where we live, and we've lived here for the last nine or ten years. So I think the hardest thing for us is we see a break and we see an opportunity to travel, but then we also know that that's an opportunity that we could use to go see our family. So I feel like that sometimes is the hardest thing to get us out on the road, is like, what is right? What should we go do? My little brother's 14; he was born when I was a senior in high school. So, like, it's hard to not see him as often. And, you know, obviously our parents are getting older, so we have nieces and nephews at my husband's hometown area. So that's definitely the hardest thing that will get us on the road, is should we do that or should we go see our people.

Tyler: The guilty conscience, yeah. I was going to say, too, I would imagine just having your schedules line up, both being full-time teachers, both coaching all those extracurriculars. So that, on top of having all that family close by, I'm surprised you travel as much as you do.

Kati: Yes, it's a big, like, I don't know, it keeps us sane, our adventures, our travels. And for him, biking is his big thing, and I love to bike too, but Spencer is big into mountain biking, I'm big into the hiking. And both of those things kind of keep us level-headed.

Tyler: Outside of what we just talked about, kind of the frustrations of planning, once you're actually out there and you're camping and you're traveling, what are some of the biggest frustrations you face then, especially now with all the permit systems sometimes to enter Parks?

Kati: I'm really a big pre-planner. Like, our road trip for this summer is already pretty much entirely planned, all the camping has already been booked. I have, like, a spreadsheet where I put everything in. But if we are going somewhere that you need a permit for, I try to get camping there ahead of time. For example, we are going to Glacier National Park this summer, and they have a permit system to enter the park between certain hours, but if you are camping there, then you can just get it. So I try to plan all of that ahead of time. But there are places where you can't, or maybe I just can't get camping or I don't want to camp in the park, so that is a frustration. But one that I understand. I understand the permit system and have full respect for it. It just stinks sometimes. And then some people are just so, like, out to lunch, they're so rude, they just have no regard for nature. We're constantly cleaning up people's garbage, especially in free and dispersed camping spaces. And that is a huge frustration as well.

Tyler: That's interesting you say that because that's one thing we found, like, it just seems so clean everywhere we went. A lot of the national parks, I know they take care of the parks there, but even we were doing dispersed camping. I always was under the impression that that's just, like, that lifestyle, that mindset, people who travel, they take care of where they go. But apparently that's not always the case.

Kati: Yeah, some places are great and other places are not so. That's definitely a frustration that we face, just cleaning up people's stuff or seeing things that we can't clean up, like, you know, food waste and things that just shouldn't be left on the ground.

Tyler: And those are the people that make the new rules, where now, whatever, wherever that location was where that trash was found, that's now off-limits. Like, I remember we were in Redwood National Park, the biggest tree in the world, Hyperion, you can't visit because too many people are visiting it and, like, leaving trash and kind of destroying the area around it. Yeah, biggest tree in the world but you can't see it because people were being people.

Kati: Yeah, and I'll never understand that mindset. Like, I just, I don't get it. But that's definitely a big frustration. And then, this is a fun frustration, but when people are just, I don't know what they think, but people are like, "Oh, I have no idea how you travel for so long." And we're like, "Well, we literally sleep on the floor." And, you know, people be like, "Oh, like, you're so lucky." And yes, we're lucky. We're definitely, you know, lucky that we have that time off. But it takes a lot of planning. I'm like, "Would you sleep on the floor for 20 days?" "Oh, no." Okay, so it's a little more than luck. Like, that's a frustration too that's not really directly related to the travel, but having those conversations with people usually after we come back is always like, "Oh, like, oh, you're so lucky, that view is amazing." I'm like, "We hiked 21 miles to get to this view."

Tyler: I totally relate to that because we've been told that like countless times, you're so lucky you can do this. And we were traveling in our van but like anybody can do it, it's just a matter if you want to put the work in.

Kati: Yeah, everybody sees the nice picture, they hear the stories, but they don't see the work that was put in, whether it was hiking to that location, putting the time in to put signs in place where you can take a long vacation. There's a lot of work that goes into it that anybody can do it's just a matter of do you want to do it.

Tyler: I look at it like, yeah, we're lucky, we're blessed in a sense where we're alive, we're healthy, we took this trip and everything was okay. But outside of that, anybody can do it, you know?

Kati: Exactly, yeah. I will always be thankful for my ability to be here and doing what I can do, but you could do it too if you try.

Tyler: One hundred percent. So transitioning outside of kind of the bad news, what do you love most about your travel lifestyle?

Kati: I love, we're so busy during the school year that we hardly see each other. Like, all volleyball season, I usually have the early practice slot, and then my husband, he practices tonight until 9:00 PM. So we eat dinner very, very late. We'll eat dinner at like 9:45 when he gets home, and then I go to sleep because I wake up earlier because my school day starts earlier. And he'll just stay up and watch whatever anime show he's currently watching. And then we just don't really get to spend a lot of time together all school year. So it's nice to be like, stuck together for however long we're on vacation for however long we're traveling for. So that is definitely nice and, like, truly being stuck, stuck together, like, you got to talk, you got to hang out, you got to talk about what you're doing next, if you're mad at each other for some silly little reason, you got to talk about it. So that's something that I really like about it. And then I like how physically demanding, like, camping and hiking and biking and, like, the itineraries we plan for ourselves because we're trying to squeeze as much as we can in, it's go, go, go, go, go. And I'm a mover, so I love that part of it. I like the challenge of it.

Tyler: You bring up a good point. It's fascinating how many times people have told us they could never be alone with their spouse for a month or two, but for a long period of time. It's like, well, you probably should be able to be with them for that's kind of why you married them, right?

Kati: That's kind of what my father-in-law's like. I don't know how you do these trips together. I don't even know how, like, I don't know how you drive straight back together. I don't know how you spend 25 days together. And I just laugh. I'm like, those are my favorite days of the whole year, the 25 days we're stuck together.

Tyler: You mentioned on your website, ExpeditionEducationBlog.com, that one of your goals is to help individuals seek adventure whenever possible. What tips have you been able to find that help people do that?

Kati: I think if you can look at your... well, first, I like to tell people, when they reach out to me or whatever it may be, my friends at school say, find like five or six places within three hours of where you live that you have some type of interest in for whatever reason. Like, I'm outdoorsy, so I'm looking for outdoorsy places, but that might not be what your interest is in. So whatever type of adventure you want to take, think of that and come up with five to ten places. You'd be shocked at how many places are within three, three and a half hours of where you live. And the reason why I use that number is that it's easy for a weekend trip. Like, you can leave work on a Friday and be somewhere within three and a half hours with still enough time to eat dinner, check into your hotel, or whatever you're doing. And then you have the whole weekend to kind of just enjoy it. So that's my biggest suggestion is like find those places and then look at your calendar, look at your schedule, and plan when you're going to go and hold yourself to it. Like, if you're gonna book a hotel, book it, because then you're forced to go. And once you go once, you're gonna be like, "Ah, I need to do it more."

I'm lucky I have worked work-in days off. Teachers don't really get time off that they can choose. I get three personal days. So like, I can pick and choose to use those where I need to. But people who have, like, an office job and such, I always tell them, like, just plan it around a time where maybe you have a day off for a holiday or, you know, if you add two days to this weekend, it now becomes a five-day weekend and plan your longer trips ahead of time. Like, get a whole calendar out, just plan it out. If you plan it, you're more likely to do it, as opposed to just saying on a Thursday, "Oh, I think tomorrow I'm going to fly wherever." Like, probably not going to happen. So figure out what you want to do and then look ahead of time and plan, because even if you work a job where you have to be there most of the year, like, you can figure out where to go and when.

Tyler: Do you find people are reluctant to just start looking and why do you think that is?

I think some people, and I feel like it's like the age range of like 25 to 40, where they're willing to, like, get on Google and look things up. I feel like we were just, like, outside of the cusp of you could Google anything when you were in school and now my students are like, "I could just Google it," and they're, like, so annoyed by it. I'm like, "You just pick up your phone and you could figure out anything." And I feel like there's a group of people that are in that range of willingness to do it because they didn't grow up with it. They've learned it, though, and it's so easy to do. And then you have, like, people who grew up with it and think it's annoying and they don't want to do it. And you have older folks who maybe they do it from their iPad, but they don't know how to organize all of their online thoughts. Like, my mom plans everything from her iPad and she just starts sending me links here, there, and everywhere, which is great, but I'm like, "I put it in a spreadsheet, Ma. How are you organizing your trip? You're sending it to me."

Tyler: Yep, we're spreadsheet people.

Kati: I think people are just reluctant to do the work because the research portion does take time. And if you don't know how to organize all of your thoughts online, then it can be really overwhelming.

Tyler: It's funny. I'm not sure why it is because, like, even right now, like, we planned our first trip a while back and right now we're planning our second trip, but every time we go to do it, like, I don't know about you, but I'm just, like, dreading it. I don't want to sit down and do it. But the second you start planning something, it just becomes addicting, and you find one place and you find the next place, and it just gets that ball rolling where you want to go. But I don't know what it is about not wanting to sit down and just start. I love it. A couple weekends ago, I sat down with... I said to Spencer, like, "Hey, let's do some trip planning," because I pretty much plan every single trip. He just comes along for the ride. So he sat here with the maps for maybe 20 minutes, and he then retired himself to the living room, and I finished booking campgrounds and all that stuff. And I always send him the spreadsheet as soon as I started, like, "Hey, here's the summer spreadsheet. Here's the Norway spreadsheet," like, whatever it may be. And he never opens it. We were driving through Norway this August, and he's like, "All right, where do we go next?" I'm like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "Where do we go after we're here?" Like, how do you not know that you flew across the ocean to come here, and you have no idea what you're in store for? Like, what if I told you we were cliff jumping?" He's like, "Okay."

Hope: I plan about 99% of our trips, mostly the weekend ones and the small ones, things like that. Tyler really only gets pulled in once we're doing those longer, extended trips. We do struggle to get started, but like he said, it is addicting. Once you get going, the spreadsheet definitely helps us.

Tyler: We'll be leaving for an airport to fly out somewhere, and I won't know which airport we're going to. That's how bad it is.

On your website ExpeditionEducationBlog.com, you have a bunch of services on there: you post blogs, travel tips, gear reviews, and one of your sections is the itinerary creation guide. What exactly is that?

Kati: So, with the itinerary creation, you would fill out pretty much a Google form, and it asks a handful of questions. You have to have an idea of where you want to go first, but then it'll ask you like what your interests are, what type of lodging you're looking for, and it'll kick it out to me. Once it's kicked out to me, I will kind of write an email back to whoever it is with like a summary of what I think they're looking for, so they can either say, 'Yes, you're on point from these questions,' or 'No, you're really far off,' and then kind of an estimate of, 'Hey, this is what you can expect to pay for an itinerary of this length.' I organize it into a really nice PDF that if you have it online and you click links, it'll pull up like your Google Maps, your link to your Airbnb, your hotel, whatever it may be, or you can print it and just look at it like that. It's a service that a handful of people have used. Some, I planned somebody's trip. They were spending five days in Paris and then five days in Ireland, so I got to plan like their whole trip for them. And then these people were coming from England to the Adirondacks to do like a leaf peeping loop, and I got to plan their whole leaf peeping loop. So, I pretty much do all the planning for you, but you have to do all the booking for yourself, because I'm not a travel agent. But, you know, for the Paris trip, I way ahead of time I was able to get it out to her. And for each thing, it was like, 'All right, you're looking for this type of Airbnb. Here are two options for you to choose from.' The people who were leaf peeping, they rented a van in New York City, and then they were camping. So, it was easy for me. I gave them a free and dispersed site and then a campground option in each stop for them. So, yeah, it's really fun when I get to do it based off of places I've already been. So, like the Adirondacks are my playground. So, that was super fun because I was able to give a lot of different suggestions for like where they should eat depending on what they're looking for and things like that. But then the other, like I've never been to Paris and I've never been to Ireland, but pretty much she just didn't want to do the research herself. And I find joy in the research. So, I was like, 'Cool, I will research up your honeymoon sister, and you're gonna have a great time.'

Tyler: Perfect. Yeah. So, they do the booking; you do the planning. It sounds like a great alternative for someone who just doesn't want to do the planning.

And we can definitely vouch for it. It was funny; we brought this up last night. But Hope saw your template on your website, which is the Nashville itinerary. And we went to Nashville back in, I think November. And one of the places you recommended was Martin's Barbecue. Oh, so good. I remember it was probably the best barbecue we've ever had. Like, the ribs, the dry rub, they were juicy, they were amazing. I'm hesitant to say they're the best because we have a place right down the street, Noble Smokehouse Mystic, which is great. I have to have them, like, back to back. But they were amazing.

Hope: I think you posted that reel, like, as I was at the airport waiting to go to Nashville, and I was like, 'Oh, perfect, okay. Saved what you said,' and we hit a few other things that were in that itinerary that you did. So, we definitely took advantage of it.

Kati: Yeah, Nashville was fun. That was a Mother's Day trip with my mom; we went together and we had a blast. But yeah, for any of my itinerary-style posts, I'm sometimes a little behind, but I make a PDF of whatever the itinerary is, and it just goes into a folder. So, if you follow me on my blog, join my newsletter, which maybe comes out four times a year because of teacher life, you get access to that folder that has all of the itineraries. So, it has things like Nashville, and then it also has national parks and things of that nature, too. And it's the version where you can click, and it'll give you the link to whatever the Google map of the place or whatever it may be. So, that's a fun little side project that I like because I love Canva. If you're a teacher that doesn't use Canva, like, email me; I will help you. It is amazing.

Tyler: Have you discovered any other careers that are similar to teaching where people can have these big gaps in between work and take time off?

Kati: I would say if you work, like, I guess not necessarily as a teacher, but if you work in a school building, like our school nurse, our school counselors, our social worker, our psychologists, like, they are not teachers; they have different degrees and different backgrounds, but they do still get those breaks. I do follow a lot of travel nurses who will do, like, they'll do their gig for however long, and then they'll give themselves a gap before their next one, and they go and they do whatever they couldn't do wherever they were. So, I wish I could crack the code, but I could never be a nurse, bless them. Angels. But if I was, travel nursing would be it. I mean, my friend who wound up moving down to Nashville, she was like, 'You make so much more money travel nursing, too.' She was like, 'You don't have the benefits of working for a steady corporation, company, whatever hospital.' She was like, 'But you make way more money plus whatever your stipend is for your living expenses.'

Tyler: So, do you have any travel tips on how people can save or make money for traveling?

Kati: Well, like I also freelance write. And there's a company that I've been working with since 2020, same company this whole time. And it's very nice because I can write as much or as little pretty much as I want. If I have a lot of time, I can get a bunch of posts done. If not, it can take me a whole month to write a post for them, and they're fine with it. So, that's a nice little, just, that money goes straight into our savings account, and I put it towards whatever we do to road trip for the summer. So, I mean, there's definitely little things. But teacher life, I have all those little things at school that I do to make a couple extra dollars. But then, if you like to write, you're a good writer, whatever it may be, freelance writing is definitely a great option."

Tyler: Is that through Upwork where you were found or was it through a different platform?

Kati: They found me through my blog. I've just been working with them pretty much ever since, but I was on Upwork for a little while.

Tyler: You had a blog post I read, the "10 ways to make extra money for traveling." I wasn't sure if you wanted to reference that at all.

Kati: That's an old one, but it's a good one. Yeah, that's from before I even owned my house. It's funny. And all those ways are still solid. I still use Ibotta, which is like an app that you use when you go grocery shopping or anything of that nature. You can look ahead of time, and if I was already going to buy something, I'll put it in and then you scan your receipt at the end and you get money back. It also works for things other than groceries, like Booking.com. I just booked my husband and me a hotel room in Orlando for next week, and since I booked it through Ibotta, I'll get 8% back. So, it'll come out to like, I don't know, 20 something dollars in that account. It's seemingly pennies, but it does add up. I have probably made like well over $3,000 on Ibotta over the years, just grocery shopping, things here and there. Like Dick's Sporting Goods, 2% back on your order. You just have to look ahead of time and kind of buy it through there. So, little things like that, like coupon apps, I guess you could call them. Just selling your old stuff. I sell my old stuff on Poshmark all the time. Or like, I don't know if you guys have Plato's Closets where you are, consignment shops, those kinds of things. And it's one like, "Oh, I need new gear" or "I'm getting new whatever." So, I'll bring it here and then sell it. And it's not like you're going to make a killing off of it, but it's better than it just sitting around. And then you can put that money towards something else. I'll link that blog at the end of the show notes for people to check out.

Tyler: How do you get internet when you're traveling?

Kati: If I don't have internet on my phone, I don't have internet while I'm traveling. And when I'm traveling, I'm just traveling.

Tyler: I like that if you don't have it, you don't have it.

Kati: I always bring my Chromebook. I don't think I ever take it out of it. Never comes out of the bag.

Hope: That's okay. You're just there to travel and experience it. So, it's perfect. What has been the coolest experience you've had while traveling?

Kati: I feel like it's going to be a general statement because I've really done so many cool things. But I think the meeting of new people when I'm traveling, especially when we travel to national parks and other outdoorsy places, I feel like it's not somewhere that people think, "Oh, you're going to meet people and make friends." I feel like you think you'll do that in a city at a bar, at a restaurant, like whatever it may be. But we've met some really cool people just out at the national parks. We made friends with this older gentleman and showed us his rig with his gorgeous dog. And then a couple of days later, we ran into him in Grand Teton National Park. We had first seen him in Yellowstone, and he was like, "What are you guys doing tomorrow?" And we're like, "Ah, like, we're hiking to Lake Solitude. It's 24 miles. It's a long day." He's like, "Meet me for dinner in town. Like, I'll buy you guys dinner." He was just an older man, but we had such a good conversation. We had dinner and drinks, and it's just fun to meet people and laugh. Most of the people we wind up chatting with are significantly older than us, but they have so much knowledge, and it's so fun to talk to them. And my husband is a talker. It's probably a good thing that he's at practice and not sitting in front of you guys right now so he can make friends with a rock, pretty much. Yeah, he's good like that.

Tyler: Through all your travels, what has been one thing you've learned that you cannot live without?

Kati: This was a question that stumped me. This is going to sound silly, but I couldn't survive without my phone because my whole spreadsheet gets downloaded onto my phone, and that is how we do our travels. So, in a silly sense, like, I couldn't live without my phone for that purpose. But in a more literal sense, I also couldn't live without a backpack that is functional for day-to-day things, and that changes, I guess, based on what the travels are like. Obviously, my hiking bag is my hiking bag, my day pack, and that's coming with me no matter what. But if I'm doing more like city travel, I have a different backpack that I use for that because just function-wise, it works better. And that seems like such a silly thing, but I hate nothing more than not being able to find something that I need.

Tyler: Yeah, I've been there before. Do you have any backpack recommendations?

Kati: My day pack for hiking is a Gregory, and it has been for the last 10 years, and I am dreading the day it breaks or something is wrong with it because I love it to death. Although I did recently get called out in a very nice, friendly way on Instagram because one of my Instagram friends was showing her washing her same exact Gregory pack as me, and she's like, "How often do you wash your pack?" And I responded, "Never." And she was like, "Well, how long have you had it for?" I was like, "10 years." She was like, "That is disgusting. I can't believe you've never washed it." I'm like, "It never even occurred to me to wash my backpack." And I'm such a clean freak that it's wild to me. So, I'm going to wash it, and we'll see how it goes. But that's definitely my day pack recommendation. So comfortable, so functional, and I've had it for 10 years. It's probably traveled like 2,000 miles, gone across the ocean, across the country. So, that is definitely it.

Tyler: Comfortable, functional, and after 10 years, I'd say pretty durable.

Kati: Yeah, definitely.

Tyler: It may not be the same color it was when you bought it, but it's still working.

Kati: I know. I said to Spencer, I'm like, "Uh, we have to wash our backpacks." Like, that's a good idea. I'm like, "Right?" He goes, "Why haven't we ever done that?" Like, I'm not really sure. But, and we're both super clean freaks, so we both like it.

Tyler: Yeah, I don't think we ever,

Hope: I was gonna say, now I feel like I need to go wash my backpack. We definitely haven't. I've never, never occurred to me. So, thank you for that. It's a good tip.

Kati: Yeah, so a very good call out, actually. I was called in. I have to clean my backpack.

Tyler: Contrary to that, what has been one thing you've learned that you don't need while traveling?

Kati: I don't need even half of the clothes that I pack for myself. And that is also silly, but I am a chronic overpacker. You should see my luggage for next week to go to Florida for the week. My husband today, he's like, "Oh, I see that you're packed for a full road trip." I just, I always want options, and then I don't wear half of them. So, I've learned that, but I've never actually done what I said I'm going to do and take less. Something's wrong with me here.

Tyler: But, yeah, she makes fun of me for how little I pack. You're only bringing like one pair of shorts and three shirts, like, yeah.

Kati: I, well, and I'll say this to my husband too, like, if we, like, go out. So, like, we were in Leadville a couple of years ago, and he was just able to throw on like a cleaner pair of hiking pants and a flannel and a hat, and he looks like a normal person. I'm like, if I throw on like my hiking pants, I look like a nerd. I don't want to go out like that. I want to look decent. So, I feel like I have to pack additional clothes so that I'm not looking like I just came out of the woods like a creature, I don't know.

Hope: Very true. Men have a different ability to transition their outfits from day to night, rather than we have. And I was laughing because he doesn't pack himself.

Tyler: But, but in my defense, our clothes are bigger, so I should take out more space, but I don't.

Kati: Yeah, my husband and I are the same size, so our clothes are the same. We, we're both like five ten, weigh the same. We are the same, exactly.

Tyler: I'm like 6'4 and she's 5'6 so like my shirts are like five of her shirts. Um, if you could have listened to this podcast when you were first starting out traveling, what is one question I didn't ask tonight that you wish I would have, and how would you answer that now?

Kati: We, we, I feel like we kind of talked about it, but just the planning process, like where do I start? How do I start to plan? Maybe like a planning, um, what's the word I'm looking for, planning template. It can be, once you know kind of where you're going, I guess planning gets easier. But maybe like a drawing board template, like how do I start planning my trip? I think that can be the hardest part. Like Spencer and I are really into the national parks. We pretty much plan every trip around them. And then once we have MapQuest, Google Maps, ever, like do our route, then from there we'll be like, "Oh, this is close to here, so we'll branch off and do that. Oh, that's close to here, so we'll do this too." But we always know like national parks are like the pillars of our road trip. I feel like some people don't know, especially if national parks are not their thing, like where do I start? How do I put my thoughts together and then plan?

Tyler: Yeah, that's true. It sounds like the solution is finding those big places you want to go, the big national parks, the big destinations, and then just, yeah, like filling in the gaps.

Kati: Yeah, even like big cities, right? Like what cities do you want to visit? Are you going to like plan around that? But I do think that when I first started, it felt daunting to plan any type of trip, whether it was a, like when I first started backpacking, I'm like, "Oh my god, get me a map, like help me." Just in general, the starting of planning. And now I've become a planner because I'm like a neurotic type A perfectionist. Some people are not, I don't know how type B people go on vacation.

Hope: They usually have a type A person planed, I think.

Tyler: Yeah, there a couple more questions before I wrap up here. If somebody wanted to pursue a travel lifestyle similar to yours but is in a completely different career, um, what is one thing they could start doing today to get them there? And the reason I asked that, because it, it does, it sounds kind of silly, someone to completely change their career to pursue travel. But we had an episode four, um, Jeff, he was a CPA for eight years, decided he wanted to travel and got his class a trucker license and loves it and just did this complete, yeah, did a complete 180 with his career, but loves what he's doing. He's having a blast. He's been to all 48 states in the continental United States. And, yes, you never know what people want to, if they're going to take a drastic change in their career.

Kati: Yeah, no, that's awesome. Yeah, I guess so if you want to teach, it's different for every state. Um, in New York, it's one of the harder states to be a teacher in. You have to have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree. Um, you can start teaching with just your Bachelor's as long as your Bachelor's is in education and you're a certified teacher. So, like, I had to do my entire Bachelor's and then take three tests and do a project. And then I was initially certified in New York state, and then I had to start my master's before I could be professionally certified in New York state. So, that's how New York works. So, there's a lot of schooling involved in teaching, which is funny because for a master's degree, you don't make enough money to be master's degree required. Um, but then you go to other places, and that's not a requirement. My, my, um, my stepbrother lives in Florida, and he did his undergrad in like sports management, and he is teaching right now. He just had to take a test, bachelor's degree, and a test, and then he can teach. And he has all the same perks, the health insurance, the time off, all that stuff. It's just different based on where you live. Interesting. Yeah. So, okay. So, if someone has their bachelor's degree, depending on their state, they could just take study up and take a test, and they could be on their way teaching.

Tyler: Yeah? I Didn't know that.

Kati: Yeah. I know like some states are, are a little more stickler about it than others like New York, California, Ohio, of all places are very like bachelor's Masters must be certified, uh, but then other states, not so much. Florida, you just have to have a bachelor's degree. You take your test. Um, then you're, you're in that school system. That's what my stepbrother had to do. And he's doing it.

Tyler: Have there been any YouTube influences or books that have inspired you to travel?

Kati: I, I feel like I got into the travel scene like before I want to say like before the influencer age, but like before the influencer age, it was when people were still using weird filters on their Instagram square photos, you know what I mean? Like so in that sense I, I, I just feel lucky that my parents value travel a different kind of travel than I do. We were like all-inclusive resort people and like go to Florida. But um, since then, I guess there are definitely accounts and books and things that kind of have made me feel more passionate about travel. A kid that I graduated from high school with went to college, was doing whatever, and then he just became a like a YouTuber for travel. He was doing like Southeast Asia, South America. I don't even know what I, his, his name is Steve Yalo, Yalowitz, and that's his like YouTube channel. But his stuff is, he's a fun guy. Like you watch his stuff and you're like, like, wow, he's so happy. Um, he definitely inspires me when I, when I see his stuff posted, different kind of travel than I really do, but it always makes me feel like, all right, I could do a little more. I could be a little crazier, I let loose a little bit. I read a lot of through-hike, so and I think my husband would divorce me if I was like, Hey, we're doing a through-hike. That's our next trip. I just find it so inspiring and it seems like such an incredible way like, you know, the big thing now is slow travel, right? And like can you get any slower travel than a through-hike? I'm not sure unless you lived somewhere, right, for a long period of time. So reading books on on through hikes and through hikers really, really give me a new appreciation for traveling and nature in general.

Tyler: Good stuff. Any titles in particular we can link below?

Kati: Uh, "Through Hiking Will Break Your Heart" by Carrot Quinn is so good. It's like one of the first ones that I read after, you know, the typical "Wild", which is also very good. I'm not saying it's bad. Um, I currently have "Thirst" lined up to read. I have not read it yet. I'm currently reading "Nowhere for Very Long", which is not a through-hiker book, but it is um, an like an outdoorsy influencers book that I'm really enjoying.

Tyler: While our audience is checking out those channels and those books one more time Kati where can they find out more about you?

Kati: You can find me on Instagram at wanderwithKT, um, or you can find me at uh, Expeditioneducationblog.com or Expeditionedu.com both will bring you to the same place.

Tyler: Perfect. And last question part two, you're coming back to talk about the travel tips segment and what are we talking about for that?

Kati: We are talking about a Colorado road trip that you could do in a week's time and you will get all of the national parks in plus I'll give you a couple bonus locations where if you find that you want to be in a place more or less you can add one of these in and enhance your trip.

Tyler: Great. Perfect. All right everybody keep an eye out for that and Kati thanks again.

Kati: Thank you.

www.atravelpath.com

00:00 Introduction

01:42 Overview of Skyline Drive

07:40 How Long Should Someone Spend in Shenandoah National Park?

09:00 When is the Best Time of Year to Visit Shenandoah National Park?

10:54 Is Shenandoah National Park Dog and Kid Friendly?

11:00 Can You Bring a Large RV to Shenandoah National Park?

12:45 Where is a Good Sunset Spot along Skyline Drive?

15:00 What Are Your Favorite Places to Eat in Shenandoah National Park?

16:00 Other Attraction in and Near Shenandoah National Park

17:30 What Are 3 Things Someone Should Pack to Shenandoah National Park?

18:00 What Should People be Aware of Before Visting Shenandoah National Park?

19:00 What is One Thing You Can't Leave Shenandoah National Park without Doing?

We were so glad to have the Banks back on to talk about this great destination. Lear some of the best sunset places, places to dine, and fun things to do nearby Shenandoah National Park and Skyline Drive!

Links

The Banks' Video on Shenandoah National Park:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2qpXxuJW7k

Big Meadows: https://www.nps.gov/places/big-meadows.htm

Spottswood Dining Room: https://www.goshenandoah.com/dining/big-meadows-lodge?utm_source=google&utm_medium=yext

Luray Caverns: https://luraycaverns.com/

Heritage Village: https://luraycaverns.com/explore/shenandoah-heritage-village/

Massanutten Water Park: https://www.massresort.com/play/waterpark/

Harrisonburg KOA: https://koa.com/campgrounds/harrisonburg/

Endless Caverns Camping: https://endlesscaverns.com/

Shenandoah National Park Pet Policy

America the Beautiful Pass: https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm

Relatable Blog:

9 Scenic Places in the US:

https://atravelpath.com/america-the-beautiful-9-of-the-most-photo-worthy-places-we-have-been/

Thinking of retiring in an RV? https://atravelpath.com/retire-in-an-rv/

Most Popular Blogs: Most Popular Travel Hacks: https://atravelpath.com/money-saving-travel-tips/

Travel Gear: https://atravelpath.com/travel-gear/

How to Budget For Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/how-to-budget-for-gas-for-a-road-trip/

Our Favorite RV Upgrades: https://atravelpath.com/rv-upgrades/

How Much We Made Renting Our RV: https://atravelpath.com/renting-camper-van/

Never Run Out of Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/road-trip-tip/

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

www.atravelpath.com

04:45 How Long Was Full Time Travel a Goal For?

10:20 What Were Your Biggest Challenges to Get to Full Time Travel?

17:50 Is Full Time Travel Sustainable?

19:20 What Does Your Budget Look Like?

22:10 Why Did You Buy Brand New Before You Hit the Road?

21:57 What do You Like to Cook in Your RV?

26:15 How Has Your Experience Been Owning Brand New?

27:30 What is Your Advice on Backing in an RV?

33:00 What is Mooch Docking?

35:05 How Much is Internet Costing You?

36:20 What Has Been Your Coolest Travel Experience?

37:50 Has There Been Anything You Learned You DON'T Need While Traveling?

39:30 How Did You Downsize?

What a great show we had with Duane and Belinda Banks! The show was filled with a lot of laughs and valuable insight as they shared their story of going full time in their fifth wheel RV. Learn all about:

🛣️Facing the fear of "going against the norm" when you sell your home to travel full time

😊How to CALMLY back your RV in without getting into a shouting match

✅The importance of selecting the right RV for you so it will fit your needs

And Much, MUCH more!

Links:

All About The Banks on Social:

https://www.youtube.com/@AllAboutTheBanks

https://www.facebook.com/groups/400022101306484/

https://www.facebook.com/duanebelinda.banks

https://www.instagram.com/allaboutthebanks_/

🥹Their Emotional Video on the Last Day in Their Home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx9X0HHjlhw&t=1136s

Episode 7 With Adrian and Ruth discussing a Home Base

https://atravelpath.com/full-time-rv-home-base/

YouTube Channels Referenced:

https://www.youtube.com/@KeepYourDaydream

https://www.youtube.com/@LongLongHoneymoon

Relatable Blogs:

RV Technician: https://atravelpath.com/mobile-rv-technician/

Our Favorite RV Upgrades: https://atravelpath.com/rv-upgrades/

From Empty Nesters to Full Time Rvers: https://atravelpath.com/retired-full-time-rv-living/

How to get internet while traveling: https://atravelpath.com/internet-while-traveling/

Thinking of retiring in an RV? https://atravelpath.com/retire-in-an-rv/

Most Popular Blogs: Most Popular Travel Hacks: https://atravelpath.com/money-saving-travel-tips/

Travel Gear: https://atravelpath.com/travel-gear/

How to Budget For Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/how-to-budget-for-gas-for-a-road-trip/

Our Favorite RV Upgrades: https://atravelpath.com/rv-upgrades/

How Much We Made Renting Our RV: https://atravelpath.com/renting-camper-van/

Never Run Out of Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/road-trip-tip/

How to get internet while traveling: https://atravelpath.com/internet-while-traveling/

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/abbynoise/rocky-mountains

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

www.atravelpath.com

00:00 Introduction

01:00 Who Should Visit San Francisco?

02:30 How Long Should Someone Visit San Francisco?

03:30 When is the Best Time of Year to Visit San Francisco?

04:50 What is the Best Mode of Transportation in San Francisco?

10:15 What is the Nightlife Like in San Francisco?

11:03 Favorite Food Spots in San Francisco

13:40 What are 3 Things You Should Pack to San Francsico?

15:10 What are 2 Complaints Someone May Have About San Francisco?

17:30 What is 1 Thing You Can't Leave San Francisco Without Doing?

Julie's Social (California Wayfaring)

https://californiawayfaring.com/

YouTube

Instagram

Facebook

X

Julie's San Francisco Blogs:

13 Movies Set in San Francisco

2-Day San Francisco Itinerary

5-Day San Francisco Itinerary

Ways to Stay:

Hotel Triton

Airbnb

TrustedHouseSitters

Presido's Rob Hill Campground

Angel Island Camping

Transportation

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)

Crissy Beach Parking

To Do

Golden Gate Park

Adventure Cat Boat Charter

Japanese Tea Garden

Places to Eat

Zushi Puzzle

Ferry Plaza Famers Market

Chowders

Related Blogs:

Julies recap from Part 1:https://atravelpath.com/travel-blog-tips/

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

Transcript from YouTube:

all right Julie welcome back to the travel tips segment of the podcast thank you so in case anybody did not tune in to part one um Julie has been blogging for only 21 years she's been a professional blogger it was a lightning round on anybody looking to get into the blog space I encourage you to listen to that she shared her story um today travel tips we're talking about one particular destination so Julie where are we talking about today we are talking about San Francisco California fantastic now what made you decide to want to share this location today well I was born and raised just south of San Francisco and after college I lived in San Francisco for three years and in the last two years I've been splitting my time between London and San Francisco so the city is close to my heart and I absolutely love it wonderful so obviously San Francisco is a city there's so much to do but for someone who likes what type of experience who should go to San Francisco and where should they go that's a great question San Francisco can be for anyone and that's one of the things I love about it because if you just love you know Urban spaces and cities you've got everything you could possibly want here we've got great restaurants we've got great sightseeing uh we got the water we've got you know everything from the Golden Gate Bridge to alcatra a cool you know street art anything you want you can find it here but if you're one of those people who's like H like I like to be in a city but you know I need my nature fixed and I I like to be outdoors more we have that too so we have one of the if not the largest uh Park of any city in the US um in Golden Gate Park we've got just across the Golden Gate Bridge we've got the Marin Headlands um you don't even need a car you can even take the bus out there or a bike out there and you can go for miles and miles along the coast um so what I love about San Francisco is we have this amazing balance between the city and nature and it's really easy to do both so I think it's kind of has something for everybody and every different type of traveler if you're a foodie kind of you have wine we've got wine country right you know just north of the city um if you like to get out on the water you can go whale watching you can go sailing uh there's just a lot to do here absolutely we can vouch for that we only spent about probably 24 hours in San Francisco that's the only time we've been there however we packed in um the Japanese tea garden we went to um Pier 39 uh we got on the water we went to the bridge so like you said it does have something for everybody and we got to experience a lot of that in just 24 hours but really to get that full experience how long do you think someone should plan their trip for you know the good thing is you don't need a huge amount of time San Francisco as a city is actually not very big because it's on a peninsula and it's only 7 Miles by seven miles so there's a lot that you can do in a short amount of time obviously like I said I I think it's amazing to go beyond the city and see things like the Marine Headlands or Mir Woods or wine country or whatever else you want to see so I would say you know at least three days it gives you enough time to see the city and do a little bit outside of the city and you can go at a relaxed pace and you don't have to feel like you you know morning noon and night you're kind of at this grueling sightseeing non-stop schedule uh but it gives you enough time to see everything you you maybe need to see and then a few things that you can take your time on um you know ideally if you have more time great but three days is probably a good amount of time if you're on a on a schedule and you have other places to go and things to see perfect so you can really take you know that extended weekend getaway and enjoy the city absolutely awesome and then what about the best time of year what would you say definitely October um San Francisco is one of those places where people think oh it's California so it's just sunny and warm all year uh what they don't realize is in the summer we get a lot of fog and so it can be very very cold in the Summers and very foggy to the point where you can't even see the Golden Gate Bridge at all I always recommend October because it tends to be the best weather of the year it's usually warm it's usually clear it's usually Sunny Winters can be rainy or sunny but October is fairly consistent and so I always tell people if you come to San Francisco come in October yeah I actually think we were there in October and it was perfect weather so the first day yeah we we've heard the nickname fogust yes yes fogust is real it's very real and a lot of people come to San Francisco not realizing that and it it's it can be a surprise yes the first day were there um we went to see the bridge and it was just complete fog I think we got a little tiny glimpse of it but um day two in the afternoon fog cleared up and we had um completely unobstructed views of the bridge so there you go October is the time to go that's great now switching over to Transportation a little bit as far as flying in for that quick weekend if you need to rent a car like what do you think is the best mode of transportation and how do you suggest most people get to and from San Francisco yeah it really depends on what you want you can rent a car uh that gives you freedom to drive around the city or drive you know again up into the mine Headlands or Mir Woods or wine country if you want to but you don't need one um there is a train that goes from the airport into the city center both from San Francisco Airport and Oakland airport it's called BART Bay Area Rapid Transit um and it'll take you right into the Heart of the City um there are buses that will take you around the city or again it's fairly small you can walk or you can cycle um do be prepared for the hills um you can also take the cable cars which is super iconic and fun and even as locals we take the cable cars when we want to just have a good time and just do something different um so you again you don't need a car a lot of people will rent bikes and cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge and down to saalo and then take the ferry back so you don't need a car for that um I I like to say it's really really up to you how much control you want and how much you want to do and see in what way you want to do it one thing I'll add to that is I'm not sure if it's a California thing or just the fact that we were from New England or we were driving all over the middle of nowhere out west before we got to California but it threw me off a little bit when we got to San Francisco like the way the street lights were positioned it seemed like they were like farther away than I was used to and it took me like a minute to get used to that I don't know if that's like a californ like I said a California thing or not but that took me a while little while to adjust to and then just parking we had a 21t van and trying to find parking for it was it took a little bit of time yeah yeah San Francisco parking can be a difficult thing um so yeah definitely definitely recommend rening a smaller car than not if you are going to rent a car um I don't I haven't noticed that about the the street lights or the the stop lights but I will definitely make a mental note to to think about that yeah I don't know what it was I'm not sure if we're used to like back home the lights are on strings are on poles so they're like above the roadway but out there they're on like pedestals right yeah that's true huh yeah so maybe it's maybe we're just weird I don't know but it took me like a minute to get used to I think we had also been in the middle of nowhere where there probably weren't any stop lights and there was no traffic so the first stop light we saw yeah yeah exactly it's as you're going cross country all the different stop signs positioning um it definitely is a culture shock sometimes so just be careful when you're driving didn't hit anybody but just took me a little while to get used to um I will say for anyone though that is you know a camper or a van life person for us what we didn't plan on is the challenging parking being in a huge vehicle I kind of thought we could find a parking garage but our van was too tall um but down by the pier there was a lot of not parking garages but you know parking areas and we found some luck down there so if anyone has a bigger vehicle head down towards the pier yeah that's great and um there's definitely a big parking lot at Chrissy beach too um I'm not sure about side requirements there but there's no height requirement so that's something you could potentially look into too very good perfect now um moving over to the lodging aspect do you have any hotels that you love is it an Airbnb friendly city that you kind of suggest people do that to get a better more authentic experience yeah so I always have stayed at Hotel Triton which is right near Union Square Downtown it's kind of on the kind of border of the financial district Union Square and Chinatown so you are in a great location um you're near the water you're near all of the sort of downtown attractions um you're not too far from the cable cars and it's just a it's a great Hotel nice rooms um and you're you're kind of set they do a even a happy hour every night with wine and and whatnot for guests which is fun in terms of airbnbs there's definitely that's an option um they're not cheap I think that's one thing with anything in San Francisco you're going to find it is not an inexpensive City so do brace yourself but there are definitely airbnbs that you can stay in in San Francisco um again it's a city you can do trusted house sitters if you're on a budget and you don't want to pay San Francisco prices for accommodation you can definitely look into alternative kind of ways um we do even have a campground in the precidio uh it gets booked up way in advance so make sure to plan well ahead but you can camp here if you want to um and there are other uh options if you want to uh Camp you can even camp on Angel Island um which is an island in the middle of San Francisco Bay again gets booked up way in advance but it's certainly something if you're up for something totally kind of different spending a night on an island uh is a pretty cool experience too yeah very cool actually hadn't heard of that so if we work our way back with the camper then that's definitely something we're to look into and good note on the um doing it in advanced because I think sometimes when you're traveling especially if you're on these road trips you want to be a little more spur of the moment but especially with cities where there's less camping options definitely something you want to look into to prior to uh your arrival yeah for sure now it is a city so obviously there's a night life what do you like to do you know once the sun goes down yeah there's definitely great amazing restaurants the food in San Francisco is hard to beat and then there's really good night life um whether you want a dive bar or a high-end bar or you want to go out all night dancing or you want to speak easy uh the one thing I will say is well there's a great variety San Francisco is not a l night City so it's you're not going to be at places most places till you know 4: 5 6: a.m. um most things close by two at the latest even on the weekends so do just sort of mentally prepare yourself for that if you are more of a late night person yeah that's okay because there's so much to do in the daytime so it's probably good that forces you to bed a little bit earlier to Rally up in the morning because like you said so many good um breakfast spots and of course you know all the fun activities on the water definitely now just transitioning into food in San Francisco do you have any favorite spots that you want to mention you think if somebody goes they should check out absolutely my favorite spot is Zushi Puzzle which is a sushi restaurant it's it's one of those places I always tell people don't judge it until you've eaten there because you're going to walk in and think where did she send me it's on this sort of random street um the decor is fine but it's nothing wow worthy uh but the food is so good and you should order from the special menu with the special roles uh the Salesforce role is amazing the butterface the Wasabi Tom you can tell I've been there a million times and I always send people there because it is so good so it's definitely something to try if you have a big budget or you want to totally Splurge sit at the sushi counter with Chef Roger and do the Omas menu where he just like puts food in front of you all night and it's amazing too but even if you just do the regular experience it's it's delicious tell Chef Roger Julie sent you right do you have any other food spots you want to mention I think the other food spot I would mention is more General but it's the uh fairy Plaza Farmers Market which is a farmers market at the ferry building right on the waterfront uh the main Market day is Saturday and it has a million food stalls selling everything from fresh produce to prepared foods to meals there's shops inside selling cupcakes and all kinds of other things and it is just it's like a food Paradise um and the stall where I always get breakfast is called Prima Vera and I get the Chila keyce and I sit if it's a sunny day sit outside facing the Bay Bridge and just watching the world go by and it's amazing awesome how about the uh the sourdough chowder is that a native dish to San Francisco I think so um that's what everyone says I as a local I I mean I think I had it as a kid I it's not something I eat on a regular basis but it is something that's very popular and it's certainly worth having if you like that um same thing with dungeon as crab in the winter uh it comes into season and it's absolutely delicious and um it's a great thing to to eat if you want to do Seafood uh especially down by the Waterfront maybe it's more of a touristy thing when I went there hope when I went there we got the Chowder because it's you know the San Francisco thing to do and uh I went there a long time with my family a while back and we did the same thing the Chowder Alcatraz and just all the San Francisco tourist things yeah yeah no I think it's great I mean I love clam chowder in a bread bll I just the the calorie count you can't have it every day yeah exactly you can't have it every day but it's definitely something to have if you like it yeah definitely something to have you're uh in the pi in San Francisco yeah for sure well great I guess we'll transition to the three two one Countdown the final three questions of the podcast what are three things somebody needs to pack when they go to San Francisco good question so I would say number one is good walking shoes because it is a walkable City but obviously again there are Hills so you know make sure sure your feet are comfortable um number two especially if you come in the summer bring warm clothes uh but at kind of any time of year you just never know um the fog can roll in when you least expect it or it can be cold in the mornings and evenings even if it's warm during the day so uh don't think oh I'm going to California I'll just bring some T-shirts uh definitely pack layers um and number three is uh pack an open mind and a positive attitude um San Francisco for some reason media is loving to hate San Francisco right now and a lot of people kind of come in with this mentality of it's going to be terrible or it's going to know I'm going to have to fight my way through this Doom Loop or whatever they're calling it um San Francisco is amazing don't listen to what they say uh it has its issues like every city does but it's a great City and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised so just come with an open mind we made that mistake when we went out there with my family a long time ago we thought it was going to be a sunny San Francisco and it was July and I think it was like 60 degrees foggy so that's really good advice to to bring warm clothes if you're going in the summer so just picky backing off that point you just made there what are two complaints or things people should be prepared for before venturing to San Francisco I think kind of dovetailing on that just be prepared for any weather um it's it's unpredictable uh at best and you can get surprises either way um and I think also be prepared for uh the Hills I think even for me when I come back from London and I've been away for a while I'm always like oh my gosh these Hills are real um so just don't be intimidated by them H you you'll walk off all those good sushi calories but it is something where you need to to be prepared there's some steep hills here yeah and now you just mentioned kind of like the role the media plays and how San Francisco San Francisco can get kind of a bad rap I know when we first drove in there we were at the Golden Gate Overlook and there were so many signs like lock your valubles in your car lock your car and it definitely we we had heard of you know all of the the stigmas associated with San Francisco and it and that definitely we were a little bit alarmed at first because we were not used to that um I will say in our the one day we spent there we didn't see like the 10 cities or the people sleeping in the street we didn't witness that I don't know if it was like just the area that we went to but um as far as we're concerned like where we ventured to it was a beautiful city yeah absolutely and I think like you said a lot of it's where you go um there is a homeless problem in San Francisco but there always has been uh I think the media sort of wants everyone to think it's brand new but it's it's been there forever it probably will be for for a long time if not forever more um it's mostly concentrated downtown so if you're downtown you're going to see more of that than if you're in other parts of the city um it's just something it's a fact of life in in San Francisco there are yeah break-ins are a thing um they were worse a few years ago because uh there was a policy where they sort of decriminalized smaller crimes and so crime skyrocketed and then they stopped doing that and now things seem to be getting better um I'd still recommend locking your car don't leave valuables um I do think that's a good thing to do in any City though um but definitely uh it's something to be wise about don't give anyone a reason to break into your car if you have one well I mean you're living there and you've been to 112 other countries that choose from another city so CLE you feel safe there all right Julie one last question we've talked about a lot of things in San Francisco but what is one thing if you could pick that you have to do before leaving San Francisco for me it's seeing the Golden Gate Bridge uh it's just one of those every time I drive across it every time I see it I just think oh man this never gets old it's just so stunning and so beautiful and the whole landscape around it whether you're on the bridge or you see it from the beach or you see it from any other perspective on a boat what have you it's just absolutely amazing it is a sight to see and we did the boat tour so the second day we were there it was such a beautiful day we're like you know what we we need to like make the most of this so we went to Pier 39 and hopped on one of the boat charters drove underneath it it was a you know shiny day it was beautiful we went around Alcatraz kind of regretted not going into it would that be like a top five or top three thing to do is a tour Alcatraz do you think if you have time I would definitely recommend it the audio tour is amazing they even have former prisoner is doing part of the narration for the audio tour so it's really really good and not only do you get to see alcatra and learn about it but you also get amazing views of the city from it and from the boat ride like you said just a fairy to and from so it's definitely worth a visit if you can and I did it when I went there a long time ago and we talk about doing it like gu so we didn't do it we bought the movie escape from Alat Tres after that and just watched it and we're like man I wish we went that's a great movie yeah yeah so that's my recommendation if you're going to go to San Francisco go watch the movie first cuz it'll definitely it'll make you want to go yes for sure a lot of history there yeah yeah actually on my California wafering blog I even have a a blog post about the best San Francisco movies to watch so that's definitely a list to look at if you want some inspiration great yeah we'll link that Below in any other blogs I'm not going to list all of them because already have a million blogs in San Francisco but we'll link some blogs in San Francisco below from Julie and one last time Julie where can our audience find out more about you you can find more about me at aady in london.com and California wearing. comom and all the social media platforms where I'm the same thing there awesome all right Julie thanks again thank you

www.atravelpath.com

00:00 Introduction

03:40 What Does a Typical Day or Week Look Like for a Professional Blogger?

05:22 How Long Did It Take You to Leave Your 9-5 Job?

06:00 What Was the Biggest Challenge You Had to Overcome to Leave Your Job?

08:30 Have You Discovered a Sweet Spot for the Number of Times to Post on Social Media?

12:40 Are Hashtags Still Valuable in Your Posts?

13:18 How do You Use Threads to Grow Your Blog?

13:40 How Long Does it Take You to Post a Blog?

15:15 How Long Should You Try Something New For Before Adjusting?

16:30 How Quick Can Someone Become a Professional Blogger?

17:50 What are Your Favorite Plug-Ins?

19:20 What Changes Have You Seen in the Blog Space?

19:50 What are Your Thoughts on Guest Blogging?

21:50 What Are 3 Tips for Someone Starting a Blog Today?

23:18 What Are Your Most Effective SEO Strategies?

25:45 What are Your Biggest Travel Frustrations?

26:40 What do You Love Most About Your Travel Lifestyle?

27:30 What Does Your Travel Budget Look Like?

29:20 What are Your Best Money Saving Travel Tips?

31:30 What Has Been Your Coolest Travel Experience?

31:50 What is One Thing You Can't Live Without While Traveling?

32:30 What is One Thing You Learned You DON'T Need While Traveling?

34:15 What are Your Safety Tips for Solo Travel?

36:10 How to You Get a Visa to Relocate Overseas?

37:14 How Can Someone Start a Blog?

What an incredible episode! Julie offered so much insight in the blog space after spending over 20 years blogging herself. There is valuable information in here for anyone who hasn't yet started a blog or wants to enhance and optimize what they currently have. In this episode you'll learn about:

How Julie left her high paying job to pursue a career in travel

3 important blogging tips she has been sharing with her clients for over 10 years as a blogging coach

Some tools and techniques Julie personally uses to enhance her blog and SEO

And More!

Julie's Social (California Wayfaring)

https://californiawayfaring.com/

YouTube

Instagram

Facebook

X

A Lady in London:

https://www.aladyinlondon.com/

YouTube

Instagram

Facebook

X

Julie's Blogs Mentioned in the Show:

Red Panda Blog

Blogging eBook

Julie in the Media

NY Times Article

National Geographic Article

Importance of Authentic Followers

Website Tools

SimpleTOC

Yoast

Travel Tips

TrustedHouseSitters

Packing Cubes: https://amzn.to/3I3McA2

Bose Headphones: https://amzn.to/42FZ9JU

(We may receive a commission from purchases made on this page)

Resources:

Lonely Planet

Johnny Jet Blog

Past Episodes

#8 With Andy and Rachel

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/abbynoise/rocky-mountains

Related Blogs:

https://atravelpath.com/travel-blog-tips/

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

Transcript from YouTube:

right Julie Falconer thank you for joining hope and ey in episode 14 of the travel path podcast you're welcome so we know you or we knew you on Instagram as California wayfaring and then once we connected and scheduled this podcast we did some research and found out you have a separate blog in a website called a lady in London which we then found out was the top ranked travel blog in the UK You' been to over 112 countries now um we found out you've been a National Geographic and then not only are you a blogger but you also do coaching and speaking you've been speaking to people at universities across the country um so we started thinking who is this person um so I just want to say you know thank you very much for coming on our show uh we appreciate your time looking forward to jumping in here I do want to get into the blog space I think there's a lot of overlap between traveling and blogging so anybody looking to get into that or to grow their blog so be a great episode to tune into um but why don't we first just start by having you share a little about yourself sure so my name is Julie and I'm originally from California and I moved to London in 2007 after quitting a job in finance that I didn't like very much and I had no plan and no job and I started a Blog in the process of moving never thinking it would be anything more than a hobby and two years later blogging became my full-time job uh it was a travel blog it still is um I've been doing it full-time now for over 14 years and it's been a total adventure and like you said um I started with the London blog and then two years ago I started splitting my time between London and California and launched the California wayfaring blog so I'm traveling all over the world I'm running two blogs and uh I'm trying to stay afloat as I do you having a hard enough time as it is with one so to my um what does a typical like a day or a week look like for a professional full-time blogger it depends on the on the day and the week um if I'm at home all week then it's a lot of time at my desk um either catching up from being away from my last trip or getting ahead for going away on my next trip or if I'm lucky enough to be home for a little bit longer um it's a lot of sort of blogging editing photos and videos um responding to emails uh negotiating Partnerships and sponsorships um whatever else comes my way and in between it's a lot of social media because that's my main channel for marketing the blogs sure so it sounds like when you're actually in the places that you're blogging about you're not doing a ton of blogging there you're doing research taking notes and then once you're back home you're taking care of doing all that exactly yeah I mean I'm always working while I'm on the road too but it's more sort of just um you know the bare minimum to keep things going uh so you know responding to emails that I have to respond to or things like that um but I try to spend as much of my time in a destination doing the things that people do there and sort of experiencing the destination so I'm not just working the whole time and missing out on what there is to actually do you mentioned when you had left your job in San Francisco you didn't really think too much about it but I do want to dig into that a little bit this podcast we we spent a lot of um time talking about how people can just start traveling and just getting started so obviously I know you didn't plan a ton there but obviously there was a time frame between when you decided you wanted to exit that job and start this new career and actually doing it so what was that time frame if you can remember know was like 20 years ago but definitely I I do remember so I left a job at an investment bank and I went to a hedge fun and I remember thinking I don't know how this is going to go but I'll give it a year and if I like it at the end of a year then I will stay and if I don't then I'm just going to do something probably move overseas is what I thought and within a very short time I realized I did not like the job and I did want to go so I had about you know 10 or 11 months of lead time to know that I wasn't going to stay past a year and to prepare myself for a for moving overseas and B for just a life change sure great and then during that time frame between when you actually left that 11mon period what was the biggest challenge you had to overcome to make that transition I think for me it was the first of all the decision of where to actually go I knew I wanted to go to Europe because IID studied abroad there in college and I'd spent a couple Summers interning at the US Embassy in Paris and the US mission to the EU so I really liked that part of the world but I had no idea you know how you get a Visa how you actually move overseas so that for me was the biggest challenge of just doing the research from a financial standpoint a lot of people when they want to make that transition especially going overseas or doing something that drastically different um they're saving up a lot of money sounded like you had something in place or a way to make income or or a job lined up I actually didn't but the nice thing about working for a hedge fund is you get paid very well so that was actually the lucky thing for me is I didn't have to worry about the money um the second time around though when I quit my job my first job in London to actually run the blog full-time about two and a half years after that that was when I had to start preparing financially much more and I had a job um in London with a a startup that I worked at for just under a year and I basically spent probably about eight or nine months before I left that job saving up money so every paycheck I would just put some aside until i' saved up a Year's worth of living expenses because I kind of thought okay if I have a Year's worth of living expenses it gives me six months and if I fail you know and fall flat on my face I have six more months to find another job so that was really how it went for me um you know first time I was sort of Lucky and that I didn't need to worry about the financial side but the second time I really was um you know diligent about saving so that I had a cushion in case things didn't go the way I wanted them to sure so long story short it's basically having a Year's worth of savings as a cushion um when you're going to be making a change like that that way if something falls through you have to make another change you have that savings there to you know help you out if you potentially need it yeah and I think I don't I think everybody needs that much I mean I'm definitely one of those people who worries about everything and so for me a year was sort of the minimum I was comfortable with I think some people you know they're like ah it's fine I'll I'll save a couple months and if nothing works then you know I'll figure it out so I think it's it's kind of I definitely worth having a plan but it's different for everybody it's different for everybody yeah um so we'll transition a little bit into the actual blog space you've been blogging for like we said over 20 years now and you're still posting pretty consistently on Twitter on Facebook I see your post PR every time I log in you know you hear all sorts of things of Facebook and Twitter are useless but clearly it's working out for you have you discovered a sweet spot in terms of like the number of times to post on those platforms yeah it it's different for each of the blogs for the London blog I've definitely discovered a sweet spot partly because I've been running the blog for I think over 16 years now um and so over time I figured out you know exactly what works exactly what to share exactly what people like and don't like um and so that's been nice for me to kind of get into sort of a Groove and a routine that I change it up every once in a while obviously because things change and the world changes and social media changes um but I generally with that blog I'll post once a day across all my platforms um with the California one because it's newer um a I'm still learning a lot from that one what people want to see what goes down well what people don't like as much um and B because it's newer I tend to share a little bit more depending on how things are going or what platform it is you know there's there's always that balance you have to strike though because you don't want to share so much that people get annoyed and they're like oh my gosh everything in my feet is you uh but you also don't want to share too little and you know risk people not even really knowing you're there so I think it's a matter of trial and error and testing things and really understanding your audience as well yeah have you figured out how much was too much uh I think depends on the platform you know on platforms like Twitter which are lower volume than they used to be um you know one post a day is probably enough on platforms like uh threads where people are just posting constantly these days you can get away with more um Facebook is always the big one that surprises me because I found once a day is great for me um but I know other people who say they post 25 to 30 times a day on Facebook and that works really well for them so it really depends on you and your strategy and your audience yeah yeah we're just getting started out with the Facebook and the Twitter we I think we just created the account about a month ago and it's been it's been like incredibly slow it's almost you're talking to a wall you post and then like I think we're at like I don't know on Facebook we're at like 50 followers now and then on uh Twitter it's just like seven eight it's it's it's it's gr it's very slow growth yeah it's I mean it's one of those things it's just that repetition but it's like and then but then randomly we'll get some somebody to like our post like a minute after it's been posted and we don't even follow them we have no affiliation with them it's like how is it reaching that person but it's not reaching anybody it's such a tough thing to figure out it seems like yeah sometimes the algorithms working weird and wonderful ways but I think a lot again it's testing things out seeing what works and it's also been consistent um you know I I posted on Facebook I think it was about 10 years every day and you know things grew and I had an okay click-through rate to my blog and then one day uh in I think it was 2020 one maybe a post just went viral and then ever since then my growth has been amazing and I I haven't done anything different it's just one day the algorithm decided that it wanted to show my Stu to more people so sometimes you just don't know uh other times it's more you know again a process where you can really understand uh how the algorithm works better and play that game too um and yeah sometimes it's just a total mystery so almost like there's no real way to figure it out but as long as you're posting consistently at some point whether it's tomorrow or next year at some point it'll hit that algorithm at the right time whatever it is and it'll it'll take off yeah I do believe that and I think also you know it's about being consistent and reaching the audience and the demographic you're trying to reach and if you do that um you know you're bound to to reach those people at some point and you may need to tweak it and you may need to you know change your strategy this way or that way but I do think being consistent is key now you're not hashtagging it doesn't seem like is our hashtag still a thing uh on which platform I think I just saw Twitter uh yeah I don't use hashtags on Twitter that much anymore I haven't found that they're that valuable these days um I use them definitely on Instagram I use them on threads I use them occasionally on Facebook but um yeah again it just really depends on the platform um you had mentioned threads we looked into threads briefly it didn't seem like it was like a platform that would support growing your blog but you do so how are you growing your blog with threads um yeah absolutely I it depends kind of how I'm posting but sometimes I'm just sharing a photo or some kind of content that is just sort of appealing to people which helps build my following and then other times I'm sharing links to my blog um and that way people can you know click on the link come to my blog see what I'm doing now this answer is probably going to vary quite a bit um but for somebody just starting out how long does it take you to to create a blog and I know probably varies by the word count but is there like a ballpark number in terms of like the amount of time per word count you've discovered it really depends what the topic is some topics take a lot longer because there's just more to write other topics are pretty quick um I'd say on average the actual writing part of it takes me anywhere from an hour to two hours maybe three if it's a really long post um but I find a lot of times you know it's it's the writing plus it's adding all the photos adding the videos doing the formatting coming up with titles tagging everything doing the social media for the post so it's it's a lot of work beyond that and that I think for me anyway is what takes the most amount of time it does seem like the writing is like half of it because then it's uploading and then doing the file name so it search engine optimizes and then yeah posting are you doing anything different when you post from Facebook to Instagram because I just take the URL and I'll just post it to that account is there a different way you're doing that for a different social media account yeah I mean I try to post different captions for different platforms or um just different content entirely on some of my platforms certain content works really well that doesn't work at all on other platforms so I tailor everything really specifically to the platform that I'm sharing on to the people who follow me there but um I think again it's a matter of trying what works and sort of seeing what's what's going to do well for you and then keep doing that and uh if something doesn't work then learn from it and you know don't do it again and move on to something how long should you try something before you realize it doesn't work and move on from it I think it depends how badly it does you know if you get no engagement at all then it's probably a pretty clear sign if it's you know a weak response you might TW it and try it again uh one one or two more times but I I found usually in my experience it's pretty clear what people are interested in what they're okay because our approach so far like this year this is the first month of January right now is we were thinking about doing like monthly kind of after Action reviews seeing like going like sitting down seeing what's worked what hasn't worked and then making adjustments then but it sounds like you can almost tell quicker than that almost like a week if you're posting every day you can get feedback pretty instantly yeah and it's a lot of the well I think all of the plat forms save a few give you pretty good analytics on even on the post level so you can look at how the post did what the reach was uh you know click-through rate whatever whatever your metrics are that you're measuring your your success by and you can see that pretty easily so you went pretty quickly so you you left your job and then in within two years you were blogging full-time I feel like that's a pretty quick time frame for somebody to become a professional blogger in terms of somebody starting out to manage their expectations is that still reasonable today how often were you posting during those two years to get you to that point yeah I mean I think there are two things I one I was posting probably once a week in the very beginning um and two I think it's so different now than it was back then I mean in 2007 no one even knew what a Blog was and even when I went professional in 2010 nobody knew what a Blog was um and it was not as easy to monetize blogs it was a very different landscape back then um nowadays it's everybody knows what a Blog is it's very easy to monetize blogs um I know people who go professional full-time with a full-time income in less than six months but you have to be posting every single day uh preferably multiple times a day and putting all your resources into either SEO or social media or both it also depends what uh vertical you're in you know if you're in travel unfortunately we just don't get as much traffic as food blogs or other types of blogs that just get loads and loads of traffic where you can go professional so fast um so again it really depends on you you know the pace that you're going how much time you have to dedicate to it but the good news is is today it's a lot easier to make a full-time income from a Blog than it was back then it is good news yeah right now we're goal this year is to be doing five weeks so Monday through Friday and so far it's the third week in January we've hit it but it is a lot it's a a big big workload yeah have you found like what are your favorite plugins on your website um I don't actually use that many plug plugins partly because they slow your site down and so it's not great to load up too many um I think probably the most important one for me is yoast which is a an SEO plugin that just kind of helps you optimize your blog posts for being found in Google um and it also kind of optimizes your whole site in general for SEO yeah Yos has been great I just I work on getting the uh the green lights there and then it looks good and I hit post nice the table of contents that's something I was I was doing a lengthy blog and I saw another blog that had a table of contents and I was like that was that seems like a really good way to keep readers engaged on there when I searched how to get one onto your blog I came across article saying that this greatly enhances your SEO because not only are you making people stay in your blog longer but you're actually adding those keywords again um do you agree with that yeah I mean I think it's whatever you find works for you SEO is a weird and wonderful thing in that what works for one person might not work for someone else and one strategy that works amazingly for one blog might not work at all for another so I think if you found that that is helpful for you from an SEO perspective then I think it's great I'll put I can't think of the name of it off the top of my head but I'll put a link in the show notes for that plugin we downloaded yesterday um you mentioned the blog space has changed quite a bit in terms of the number of bloggers um since you first started out what other changes have you seen so far I mean huge ones when I first started my my very first blog it was 2002 and you couldn't even put pictures on a Blog it was just writing and text and there was no social media Facebook didn't even exist yet um and today you know we've got you can do so much with a Blog and social media is everywhere and so I think that's probably the biggest change is just there's a lot more that you can do with a Blog and there's a lot more that you can do to Market your blog what are your thoughts on guest blogging guest blogging you as a blogger guest blogging for someone else or or I guess either or and I I asked that because we I just got a I've gotten like a couple inquiries over the past couple days like people they'll go to our contact us box and they'll ask about Guest blogging like oh reach out to us pay us x amount and we we have 50 million viewers you know we'll get um so I guess the first part would be guest having someone else guest blog for you that's what it looked like they were trying to do yeah I think that's fine as long as they're a legitimate person with without an agenda of trying to get you to add you know spamy back links to their website or something like that um 99% of people who approach you to guest post on your are those people um they're just SEO people who are trying to get you to do that and that's not great for you or your blog um but if it's you know if it's somebody who genuinely has an expertise in the topic that you blog about and you think that they're you know going to be a good person to write for you I think that's great so I know you had mentioned uh in a video previously that it's really important to having authentic followers on your account similarly with guest bloggers how what's a good way to make sure that anybody you're bringing on is an authentic guest blogger I think usually it's prettyy easy it's a matter of looking at who they are what they do if they've sent you a link to their website or what they're trying to uh promote and it looks legitimate then it's probably is if they're promoting you know teeth whitening toothpaste and you're a travel blog then Pro probably not a great fit so I think a lot of it is just common sense and kind of you know if it if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck and that kind of thing I would air on the side of caution anyone from a corporate standpoint going a guess blog probably it wants the SEO uh value out of it they're not doing out of the goodness of their heart so I would be very skeptical there but if it's a blogger or somebody like that and they have a legitimate blog and they want to write for you um you know that's something you can think about what are some of the best tips you would have for somebody looking to start their blog today I would say so basically I've spent I think I spent 10 years teaching classes about blogging I've written eBooks about how to blog I do Consulting and coaching for bloggers on how to blog and the number one thing I always say is there are three things it takes to be successful as a blogger especially in the beginning and those are time patience and consistency uh first one's the most important you got to put the time in I think a lot of people hear these get-rich quick schemes or oh start a blog and you'll make millions and this and that and and people think it's going to happen overnight and it does not and it takes a huge amount of time to actually even set up a Blog let alone put content on it let alone Market it and get the traffic to it um patience is is the second one it kind of go to what I said it doesn't happen overnight for 99.9% of people uh you really have to be patient and you can't give up just because you know the third day and you don't have 10,000 followers uh and consistency and that is the key to being successful as a blogger you have to publish consistently you have to be consistent with marketing it on social media if that's what you're deciding to do or doing your SEO if you want to go that route or both if you're going to go down the middle um and those things are really key to being successful as a blogger right so time patience consistency I just want to repeat that because keep in mind everybody she's been blogging for 20 years and she's been telling people this exact same tip for 10 years so that's got to be the key time patience consistency what have been some of your most effective SEO strategies you know I think it's a combination of on page SEO and off page so you know making sure all your posts are optimized in terms of the keywords that you choose and how you're structuring your site and all that kind of thing is important and then off page you know you want to get those backlinks from other places around the web you can be as assertive about that as you want to I mean some people are really um you know out there trying to get their backlinks other people including myself uh Focus just more on producing and creating high quality content so people will want to link back to it naturally um but again it's really up to you there's so many different strategies for SEO so many ways to do keyword research um I think everybody finds their own path in terms of how focused they they are on it how much they do uh about it but it is definitely an important part of blogging if you want to be found in Search and if you want to grow your site that way um I just my number one piece of advice though is you know be aware of scuzzy tactics if you're using what they call black hat SEO tactics you're probably going to get penalized by Google at some point and you don't want that to happen because you lose all your traffic that black hat that's like if you're making text like invisible but the keywords um what are other black hat techniques I guess yeah I mean there are a lot of them that's one of them buying or Andor selling links um that's a big one for Google um any kind of any kind of thing that sort of web spam keyword stuffing so repeating the same keyword you know 500 times in one blog post like it's a lot of it is just common sense if it doesn't seem like it's something you're probably supposed to do it probably isn't something you're supposed to do if it reads awkwardly because you have too many keywords and that's probably that's why I like yoast is it'll tell you if you have too many keywords or not enough keywords so I'm glad that you use the same um the plugin that we have I know there's a ton of different plugins out there so that's cool that we're using the same one yeah yeah for sure awesome well that was an incredibly fastpaced conversation about blogging I was trying to take notes and mental notes at the same time I feel like I've just got to relist this entire thing to get the everything we talked about but um yeah that was that was some great information I think we'll transition a little bit into more of the travel lifestyle cuz this is a travel podcast too um but yeah do you have anything to add hope no I think um it just transitioning into travel would be great and so you can let us know some of your frustrations currently that you face while you're traveling uh I think to be honest it it sort of depends where I am when I'm in California with my California waering hat on and I'm traveling um most of my travel here is road trips whether it's a day trip or a weekend trip or a multi-day multi-week trip um and usually my biggest frustration is just traffic which you know we all have to deal with when we're driving somewhere especially if it's a rush hour or a city or whatever so you know that is what it is uh when I'm in London it's more more of my trips are uh trips require flying and um I would say the number one frustration is just how difficult it is to fly anymore you know airport security has just gotten more and more tedious um Airlines have just started charging for literally everything you have to pay to breathe now um so it's just you know one of those things that just it is what it is but it's not uh it's not my favorite part of traveling pivoting from that what do you love most about your travel lifestyle I love the independence and freedom that I have and it's funny because sometimes it's more perceived Independence and freedom than it is actual uh because it is a lot of work to run one blog and it's a huge amount of work to run too and so I you know I work seven days a week 365 days a year there's no time off I haven't had of vacation in 14 years since I started doing this full-time but I do get to call the shots on my schedule I do get to travel all over the world all the time so again it's it's freedom and Independence uh or at least the perception thereof that that I love about it and if you were traveling consistently so it sounds like your travel lifestyle it changes quite often you're traveling full-time and then you're back home doing a lot of stuff catching up and doing your blogs um if you were traveling consistently for a week or for a month what would that budget look like yeah it for me it really depends where I am uh you know if I'm in a part of the world where cost of living is very uh low compared to what I'm used to then my budget is going to be a lot smaller than if I'm traveling in let's say you know London or San Francisco which are very expensive um so for me budgeting is a lot about backing into uh what my my costs are probably going to be in terms of accommodation food uh anything I want to do in terms of sightseeing or tours or something like that um looking at again cost of living average prices and then kind of saying okay based on all of those things I probably should budget X for this trip do you have any examples of any lower cost of living countries you've been to yeah I mean all over the world I'd say um you know for in Europe uh Portugal tends to offer really good value uh it's a great destination and every time I go I'm always pleasantly surprised by the costs um a lot of there are a lot of countries uh in the eastern part of Europe that tend to be really reasonable too Romania is great for that um and then I'm trying to think where else I've been the last few years Central America I had a great time there and it was not you know prohibitively expensive in most of the countries that I went to um yeah but again I could name I could name more south southeast Asia there's some countries I've been to Africa there's countries I've been to it just it just depends where you go think we talked before the podcast started we haven't been overseas quite yet where we we're kind of wanting to more and more after you we're watching videos and seeing blog posts about it and it's beautiful out there Portugal particular we watched a video on that a little while ago and didn't realize how beautiful that country was so great so someone looking to start traveling maybe on a budget maybe consider some of those countries that Julie just named what has been your best some of your best money-saving travel tips so far that's a good question and again I think it depends where you go um if you're traveling you know again to Europe and you're open to where you go I would say you know again research what countries aren't going to be as expensive as others so again Portugal for example or Romania or something like that um or if you're going to Asia you know you might want to choose let's say Thailand over Japan where your money is just going to go farther um I'd also say in terms of just everyday things um you there are lots of different little ways that you can save money um uh going to a grocery store instead of eating out the whole time you know accommodation if you can do uh something like uh trusted house sitters or one of those where you get accommodation for free in exchange for pet sitting for somebody instead of paying for accommodation those are great ways that you can start really saving a lot of money if you're interested in doing that method of house sitting or pet sitting you can listen to episode 8 we had Andy melon who had talked about how they still to this day they do that they travel they' been to Hawaii for free because they pet sit it pretty incredible to opportunities there a couple more questions before we start wrapping up part one here what has been the coolest experience so far traveling wow I think probably for my birthday a few years ago I went to Nepal and I did not do the usual thing people do in Nepal um instead because my favorite animal is the red panda uh I spent a week tracking red pandas in Nepal and it was amazing I stayed with host families and different Villages uh went tracking red pandas every day got to see two of them which was very exciting um and it was just a great experience it was a great cultural experience um it was an amazing experience just to be in nature all day tracking these pandas and it was nice because I did the whole trip through a charity and you know it was great to be able to know I was supporting conservation efforts while I was doing it yeah sounds incredible sounds you were tracking them were you expecting to see I know you saw it two is it rare to see them it is fairly R to see them yeah they're just there there aren't that many of them and they tend to hide in trees so it's not easy to spot them even when they are around I'm sure you have a Blog and some photos about it so we'll add that to the show notes this episode here yeah great um over your 20 years of blogging and traveling what has been one thing that you learned you can't live without noise cancelling headphones that's 100% I I don't know if I'm just very sensitive to noise or or what but if I'm on a flight or a train or wherever I am I have to have noise ging headphones it keeps me saying uh blocks out a lot of annoying noise in airports or wherever I am and it's definitely definitely my my go-to sure do you have any brand recommendations that you use yeah I I've always been pretty loyal to Bose I just got a new pair for Christmas of the uh the wireless ones that use Bluetooth and they've been amazing so far so I definitely recommend those awesome yeah good tip um contrary to that what has been one thing you've learned that you don't need a suitcase uh I'm a big never check a bag person I've been interviewed about it in the New York Times I've written blog posts about it um I'm very diard uh don't overpack don't bring more than you need and a lot of times things you think you need you really don't need them um so definitely be a minimalist capsule wardrobe travel size every everything roll your clothes um you don't need to bring that big bag use the packing cubes I I you know I have never Ed them but I know people who swear by them so I think they're great if you want to do it yeah yeah we swear by them so don't check a bag you're bringing probably a carryon and then a backpack maybe how long are you traveling for when you're not checking a bag I've done it up to three weeks before um I did laundry once in the middle I didn't rewear anything people are always like oh that's so gross but I really I really was actually clean the whole time don't worry um but you know it depends where you're going to where I was going for 3 weeks it was very warm and so my clothes were pretty small if I were going skiing for three weeks it probably wouldn't have worked because you need a lot more clothes so it depends but yeah I got away with it for three weeks at one point well one of us here I'm not going to name names so if we're packing for a weekend you'll think we're moving our entire house that's all right that's all right I understand I'm getting better that's good yeah it takes time hence the pack in cubes you've been to 112 countries so you have been through tons of different airports and solo travel and I'm sure travel in groups do you have any safety tips for traveling as a Solo Traveler or in a group yeah I mean for me it's always been a matter of just using Common Sense uh you know don't walk down a dark alley by yourself at night um don't go out and get too drunk or do too many drugs alone and then not know where you are and not be able to get home uh you know it sounds obvious but you know it's it's worth at least pointing out um I think also not as big of a deal I think in a lot of places in the US um as much as it can be in Europe although it does happen everywhere is you know just keep your bag closed and on your person and don't you know walk around flaunting valuables everywhere um that kind of thing can always be a good idea don't leave your bags unattended don't leave them you know sitting somewhere on public transport and walk away um but again a lot of it is just more common sense than anything else yeah absolutely do you find that you're traveling solo mostly or I know that you got engaged recently do you get to bring your um fiance on these trips with you ever uh it's it's a huge mix I do a lot of solo travel I do a lot of group travel and I do a lot of travel with either friends or my fiance or or whatever else so um it's it's a always a a crapshoot in terms of what I ends up doing yeah perfect well it's probably nice to be able to have that variety so you know you can get that solo time with yourself and really focus in on you know whatever country you're in to blog and get all the information but I'm sure it's wonderful to you know have your significant other or your friends with you just to travel and enjoy we typically just travel the two of us so this is all we know but that's not bad no it's not we like each other so it works out if you could have listened to this podcast when you were first starting out when you made that transition from your job in San Francisco what is one question I didn't ask tonight that you would ask and how would you answer that now I probably would have asked about visas is in terms of living overseas you know how do you even do that how do you get a visa do you need a job to get a visa and a Visa get a job that whole thing I had to sort of figure that out on my own and it wasn't the easiest thing to figure out um but I did um and I think that's probably something that I would have wanted to know and to get your visa was that just a lot of time involved in that or how was that process and we're not going to go into too big detail into it but um I guess kind of roughly yeah it took a couple months it wasn't as timec consuming as as you might think um there's the application is long and it's very detailed but if you are you know T ticking all the boxes and doing everything they ask you to do uh it didn't actually take too long um again this was a long time ago so it could be different now and it certainly wait times vary depending on what's going on with the government um but it's a lot of times you know once you figured out how to do it it's just a matter of applying if you're eligible and then waiting great and then if somebody were wanted to get into the blogging lifestyle and become a professional blogger but haven't started yet what is one thing they could do today to get them going well they could start a blog today that's always a good way to start the thing is I from years and years of teaching blogging and coaching on blogging I've realized that people think blogging is much more sort of intimidating and difficult than it is um starting a blog just creating a Blog takes about a minute and a half um it's the everything you put on to the blog content wise that takes a long time and so I think people put off actually even creating a Blog because they just think it's going to be so hard or so much work um and really all they need to do is go to whatever website they want to start a blog on and create a username and a password and you basically have a Blog after that so I think the the number one piece advice I give people is don't be afraid of it just start it's easy now with me there's so many YouTube tutorials and it's so userfriendly WordPress or whatever site you're using to actually create that website and start blogging do you feel that cuz we're in the real estate business and we've heard in in this kind of business people they they just don't start it's intimidating and once they start things start moving smooth and they start moving faster one of the big handicaps is just starting it's it's ring it's intimidating do you see that a lot with the blog space too where once people actually take that leap then they get more comfortable and it grows and it moves forward but what's the biggest thing that prevents people from getting started once people get started is it easier and and I think absolutely it is and I think the biggest thing that prevents people from starting is like I said just fear or intimidation or thinking it's going to be too hard but I definitely think once people get started you know they get that momentum going and then it's easier every day all right excellent when you were starting out in San Francisco and even today were there any other bloggers or YouTube channels or even books that influenced you and helped you get to where you are today to be honest when I was first starting there wasn't anything I mean I don't YouTube barely existed and there certainly weren't any blogs or or any books on blogging um so it really was just a matter of kind of stumbling through it myself and then there was a small blogging Community online you know in the very very early days um through like Lonely Planet forums and things like that and we all kind of found each other and started following each other's blogs um but I I you know I would say for me it was more in my blogging Journey after a few years of it once I started networking with people um I definitely found inspiration in blogs like Johnny jet if you've come across his blog it's great um lots of uh good like airline miles and credit card point points tips on his blog in addition to everything else um so that's one that I have always just really loved and admired great so we'll put a link to Johnny jet in the show descriptions as well as every the other resource we talked about today and one last question Julie where can my audience find out more about you well my blogs are a lady in london.com and California wearing. comom and then I'm all over social media on both of them with both of those names excellent I can vouch for that she's all over the place thanks again for coming on you're welcome thanks for having me

www.atravelpath.com

00:00 Introduction

01:45 Why are the Florida Keys so Special to You?

02:22 Who Should Go to the Florida Keys?

03:40 How Long Should Someone Spend in the Florida Keys?

04:40 What is the Best Time of Year to Visit the Florida Keys?

06:50 The 7-Mile Bridge Drive

07:30 Kid and Pet Friendly Activities

08:34 Flying into the Florida Keys

10:15 Campgrounds in the Florida Keys

13:40 Duval Street

15:20 Nightlife in the Florida Keys

17:00 Dog Friendly Beaches

18:45 Favorite Restaurants and Key Lime Pie

22:40 In & Around the Florida Keys

31:13 Two Complaints about the Florida Keys

32:43 What is One Thing You Can't Leave the Florida Keys without Doing?

Laure and Jason on Social:

YouTube

Facebook

Instagram

This was the ULTIMATE guide for visiting the Florida Keys! Jason and Laura did a fantastic job explain everything to do, from dining, snorkeling, museums, camping, things to watch out for, and much more. We feel like we have three weeks' worth of activities all planned out! Hope you enjoy!

Links

Blog Resources:

https://atravelpath.com/road-trip-with-kids/

Key West Calendar of Events

Catamaran from Fort Myers:

Key West Express

State Park Campgrounds

Bahia Honda

Curry Hammock

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park

Dog Friendly Beaches

Sombrero Beach

Anne's Beach

Key Lime Pie

Publix

Key Lime Pie Bakery in Key West

Key West

Fort Zachary Taylor State Park

Garbo's Grill Airstream Restaurant

Sloppy Joes Bar

Key West Cemetery

Mallory Square

Hemingway House

Key West Lighthouse

Southern Most Point

Key Largo

The Fish House

Mangrove Tunnel Kayak

Islamorada

Divers Museum

Hurricane Monument

Robbie's of Islamorada (restaurant and tarpon feeding)

Around the Keys

Robert Is Here Fruit Stand

Everglades National Park

Big Cypress National Preserve

Dry Tortugas National Park

Paws for a Cause Old 7-mile bridge fundraiser

Modern Marvels Episode: Overseas Highway

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

Transcript from YouTube

hey Jason and Laura welcome back to the travel tips segment of the travel path podcast yes thank you for having us stat nice to talk again yes if you guys haven't heard we had episode 13 Jason lore and their daughter Alexis came on the show talking about their 75-day road trip they took with the three of them and their dog Polly um they talked about everything from the frustrations some of the hurdles and obstacles traveling with children so if you're looking to get into an extended road trip with kids definitely check that one out today travel tips we're talking about one destination they know best so Laura and Jason what are we talking about today the Florida Keys awesome I'm particularly excited about this because that is very high on my list where we're going to end up for a little while at some point this year but tell us why this is such a important special place for you guys I think just it's very versatile I feel like there's just there's a lot out there and there's a lot of availability and um it just it's a great it's a fun place you feel like you're on vacation it's one of those plac as you go and you're like okay I'm on vacation and you can drive there and you can drive there it's accessible I would say and uh you you feel like you are far far away from anything normal absolutely now obviously this is a great vacation destination if you want warm weather this is exactly where you should go but what would you say for someone who wants what type of experience who should go to the Florida Keys well and that's great because like it's be there's Beach there's a lot of water sports but there's tons of like history there as well that's super interesting if people are you know it's not our thing but people just like to go bar hopping I mean you can't beat Deval Street and Key West or fishing a lot of people go fishing is huge um but again she mentioned the history the beaches there's not a ton of beaches actually in the keys people might think oh there's beaches there's not a ton of beaches we'll mention we can mention some few of those that we like and but again it's there's a lot to offer for a lot of different types of people there and a very laid-back Vibe I think that's the biggest thing is you really do feel like you're on vacation when you go I mean just it is very laate back it's not for somebody who wants to climb mountains or anything like that there's not a lot of intense sports to do probably but um I guess snorkeling you know that that can work up a good a good workout but yeah it's definitely like that laidback I want to be on vacation Vibe perfect and sometimes you need that especially you know for us who are doing these extended road trips and you know Are Climbing like you said climbing mountains and just constantly on Trails sometimes it's nice to get that vacation in where you can actually just wind down reset relax get your vitamin D and fuel you a little bit more for those longer trips that we're going to take later to get that full Key West experience how long do you think someone should plan to take their trip there I know for us like we say we want to have at least five days there but you can actually do a day trip go down to Key West and come back you can spend months there it's again it's very versatile with timing is that you know there's tons of stuff to do down there or if you really ever like I only have one day or I only have one evening or two days still do it yeah it's uh just so people realize from Mainland Florida to Key West depending on traffic you're looking between two and three hour drive yeah which really isn't that bad especially if you just want to be able to go down and experience it for a day or a night and then you know head back into like you said the mainland I'm sure we'll talk about it later on but that two or three hour drive is probably worth it just for the keyan Pai alone right it is it definitely is the type of driving that you're going to do there is not like anything else that you can do either so it's it's worth it just to make the drive MH yeah very true what would you say is the best time of year to visit or what time the year do you guys like to go so I will say we have two opinions so this is this will be interesting so I love to snorkel and be in the water but I found that going in the winter for me I don't like being cold the water was so cold I couldn't even breathe in my snorkel mask properly because I kept getting salt water let's let's get this up straight though it's it's maybe cold by Florida standards it's not cold by Lake Michigan standards or anything in the Northeast 70 degrees it's 70 degrees is what the temperature is it's probably a little bit cooler in the winter time than you would might think that it is right so the water itself is 70 degrees on average um in the winter time and for me that's just too cold to I just I was shivering so much so um I now I've only been in the summer the fall and the winter I haven't been in the spring um but I actually really liked the fall even though it's hurricane season so I know you do need to watch the weather but for me the temperature was just perfect it was it about 90 degrees the water felt wonderful and because I love being in the water and Alexis agrees we both really liked the fall even though I miss the Fall colors you know that we have in New England and Michigan we have beautiful fall colors but I really liked going that to my year because of the temperature the summer is very very hot and I haven't been the spring so it could be the actually Springs the best time to go and we just don't know so we haven't been there in the spring so we were actually just there a few weeks ago and it was high 70s low 80s to me I don't think you can get more perfect than that right so if you're just going and not going in the water winter is probably the best time to go because the yeah it's perfect temperature and that's a few weeks ago just for context recording this right now end of January mid January so that's yeah beginning of January yeah yeah we were in Florida right around the same time you were and I you couldn't have paid me to go snorkeling in that water I touched and I was like absolutely not way too cold I was like walking way away from it yeah and well I made myself go in the water I'm like I know I'm like we're here in the Florida Keys and like I need to get in the water but I was like okay I'm in the water there are a couple people with West suits but yeah not many yeah most people just we in their swimsuits Yeah you mentioned that drive to the Florida Keys was a drive you can't get anywhere else what did you mean by that well especially the seven mile bridge that is a very unique Drive you're literally driving over the ocean the views are awesome especially if you're driving near Sunset but I will say up in between kargo and Marathon you may not really feel like you're in the keys you really have to get south of marathon Marathon to Key West where you really are going from one little island to the next Little Island going over all these different Bridges um I think there's over 100 different bridges in the keys that you drive over you get more of a water view more frequently South America okay oh that's a good point now you obviously are traveling with your daughter and your dog most of the time so is that completely accessible I know you said she likes to go snorkeling with you but how do it go with the dog and her when you're down there oh yeah it's actually great there's Key West itself is super dog friendly tons of restaurants um are dog friendly and even the stores at first we were having somebody weit outside with the dogs while the other two P went into the shops and I started noticing I don't see any signs saying no pets allowed on many of the stores and so we started taking the dogs in and everyone the people that worked there were like oh they're so cute so even the stores like so most places you can take your dog in Key West Key West kind of anything goes anyway yeah key again it's that laid-back Vibe where you're just like you know even the mannequins Alexis noticed the mannequins in the store she goes mom their hair is really messed up I'm like it's because anything goes in Key West it doesn't matter if the mannequin is crazy hair that's nice that very relaxed Vibe so transitioning a little bit to um you guys are going to Key West you're probably bringing your Airstream right yeah have you ever flown from home to Florida and we actually recently just looked into it because our we're coming up on our 20th anniversary which is the emerald anniversary so we wanted to kind of do something with Emerald Waters and we were looking into flying directly to Key West and from in in January from Michigan to Key West is about 700 a person so you can fly to Key West you can fly into Marathon um but marathon's even more expensive than Key West so what a lot of people would do is fly into Miami is pretty low cost to do and then drive to the keys but Key West does have a I think a pretty large airport by you know Island standards um there's quite a bit of traffic in and out so if you have the budget for it you can fly directly there just not in our budget right yeah well we want to save the uh funds for those uh excursions and experiences right now when you fly into Miami how far is that drive you're probably looking around three hours because you just never know what kind of traffic you're going to get um even from Miami uh even you know Highway One going down through the keys you never know what you're going to because it's one way in one way out we haven't experienced any horrible traffic there but I know people have right well sounds like whatever your budget is however you want to have your transportation there's a lot of different options yeah you can even take a boat we've never done this but the Key West Express Key West Express leaves from Fort Meers and I think it's aadar that takes you directly to qf well that's arriving in style yeah exactly and it was pretty low cost from what I remember it wasn't a horrible price yeah it was a reasonable cost for you know getting you down to Key West now obviously in Key West there's going to be a ton of different boutique hotels and you know Cottage options when you guys bring your camper what are some of your favorite campgrounds we love state parks just in general Across America and the Florida Keys especially because they're pretty pricey um any you know unless you're in a state park so bah Honda Isa very favorite place to stay they have about 40 campsites total so it's a small Campground and maybe 15 of them are Waterfront so those were are very very nice obviously and we were lucky enough to get a couple of those a couple times ago uh they have cabins there that you can rent they do have cabins and tent camping but if you know I want to make it known that anywhere other than the state parks and anywhere in the Florida Keys you're $200 a night for a campsite or more usually if if you can find anything wow now I have heard that um from some fellow campers that we've come across they said it's very hard to get into those campgrounds that you have to be way ahead of time with booking so how how have you guys experienced that how far Advanced are you looking for your for your campsites it's it is it's it's like you said it's pretty stressful because honestly I would get on at 8 o' the day of that they would open up I did that for a whole month did not get any key sites and I would look at um bahah Honda Curry Hammock and John Penny Camp there's three different state parks I would look at all three of them I start always with theah Honda I couldn't do it it was like over a month I tried so he again he just keeps looking for cancellations and that's how we got we were able to get for nights at bonda and two at John Penny Camp so you really just have to keep on the cancellations because it's very hard to get into people are always cancelling I don't care what the campground is even small campgrounds like I said are only 40 sites at Honda people are always changing in their plans and you will find a cancellation if you can if you stay at it and even if you can get there for you know two nights the staff there like the Rangers are very they're very easy to work with like you just let them know hey we'd like to be here a little longer and just go into the ranger station every morning and check in with them if you only have two nights say hey were there any cancellations and we even um the one time we had one site for five nights but we really wanted a waterfront site because it was just it's so nice and we said for us it's worthwhile to move there for one night and go back to our site and they were actually able to find us a cancellation for a waterfront site we moved over there for the one night and we went back to our other site this that the Waterfront sites are just they're amazing oh like one of the best when you have that Waterfront site you you really don't want to go anywhere you just and bonda the other nice thing about that state park is you have like I love Sunrise I love Sunset and you have a Sunrise Beach and a Sunset Beach so in the mornings we would wake up we go see Sunrise you could do the walk around and then again the walks the beaches are not dog friendly on bajah Honda but you can still walk the whole Little Island there with your dogs so we would do our morning dog walk and um and loop around and yeah to me bah Honda is the best place to Camp so when you guys go just keep keep trying to get BAH Honda yeah it's worth it in terms of booking those campsites are you using websites those Campground websites or is there another website you're using for booking no this the Florida state parks website and we'll put links Below in the show notes for all the resources talked about in Today's Show Now obviously you know it's Key West so there's tons of restaurants there's a lot of bars like you've mentioned where you can hop in and out I'm sure it has a very Lively night life for um the bachelorette parties things like that but as far as families at times maybe not kid-friendly it was when we were there for around Halloween I can't remember the Fest is called but there's some sort of Fan Fest during Halloween where when you drive down dual Street people are not close and dval street is really the street that if you're worried about what your kids might see just don't go down dval street anywhere else is going to be normally okay so we turned onto dval Street and I didn't want to make a big reaction because then kids were gonna want to see everything so I'm like oh hey Alexis did you want to watch a show she's like yeah so we just gave her the iPad the headphones and we just and she she saw nothing well that's a good travel tip so as far as that is there anything else that maybe if you are a f traveling with you know small children that you should kind of avoid in the Key West area it's more just if there's a festival going on because like we walked down toal street just this last time and it was just F dur during the day it's okay you'll might see some things that you may not want your kids looking at and some of the windows but you might take the opportunity to distract them like Laura mentioned right when you see something just oh look at over here there's a chicken because there's tons of chicken CH are walking all over the place so there's always a way to distract them from seeing something you may not want them to see but during the day because everybody I think is sleeping still it's this a totally different vibe Walking Down the Wall Street but when the Sun goes down it changes yeah but again that's just the Wall Street right so the rest of the Key West is still very very kid-friendly for sure and like I said extremely dog friendly for sure awesome so what do you guys like to do at night when that sun goes down we're not really night lifers I'll admit we love to go see Sunset and then but the one night we were out a little bit later we went to Robbie's um to feed the tarpon and that was pretty fun too and then again I I'd read mixed reviews of dogs were allowed or not um but we brought our dogs and they let us go out on the decks to feed the tarpon but the Pelicans were just they were really aggressive bold it was hard to feed the tarpon you know and Alexis is trying to like you know shoe the Pelicans away and they're biting at her feet and everything ply wouldn't even bark at her no ply was hiding behind us we're like P do your job bark at them but one thing I would say about NTI and it never gets talked about the Nik at least not that I've heard is they have a a beautiful night sky yeah the stars there so if you're into you know you know nighttime photography or just stargazing especally at beah Honda it it was pretty nice pretty nice night sky so honestly like if you camp at bajah Honda you can really just stay there for your whole time because there's just there's so much even just right there like if you really just want to take a really late back you know vacation to the keys I mean yeah B Honda is where it's at well they have the snorkel tour there so you can you have an Excursion you can take right from the state park their their dive shop has a small restaurant in there they even sell key lime pie from there um so literally you you you have two or three different beaches there you can check out there's kayak rentals there so like Laura says there's a lot of opportunity just to stay put if you'd like to and it can help save money as well right but I wouldn't recommend that you got to at least go down to Key West you had mentioned there weren't a ton of beaches and going back to talking about the pet friendly activities and we're both frequenters of Honeymoon Island in Duneden which is a dog beach are there any dog friendly beaches in the keys yeah so in like I think it was the marathon area there's Sombrero Beach which is a really pretty nice Beach actually small but there's really pretty palm trees on the beach and yeah that's completely dog fry the dogs can go in the water there's a few others that we didn't go to there's one called an's Beach that's right off of the road that look kind of like a neat spot dogs are allowed there um um but one of our favorite beaches that dogs are kind of allowed at is the Fort Zachary Taylor State Park which is at the you know to of the Florida in Key West there dogs aren't allowed on the Sandy part of the beach are in the water but there's just this beautifully shaded palm tree Beach area that the dogs are allowed so like since Jason doesn't really want to be in the water anyway he would hang out with Polly in that beautiful Beach area shaded and Alexis and I would go in the water and you're really on the beach you you are I mean you you're sitting there looking at you know all the beautiful views that the beach offers and you're still sitting in sand but you may have a nice palm tree over the top of your head keeping you out of the sun right so yeah so it's and to us we feel like that was one of the most beautiful beaches we've ever seen it's one of the nicest beaches out there I think and it's nice too and then if you don't have your dog with you then um the fort Zachary Taylor is a very cool tour to take you can tour the whole Fort and there's just all these really cool little nooks and cranage I mean you could spend a couple hours over there just touring the fort they have historical reenactments sometimes so there just that was like one of our favorite places I think in in Q West was the for Zary Taylor State Park very cool history beaches nightlife dog friendly there's Little slice of everything for everybody cool good stuff transitioning a little bit and talking about food what are some of your favorite breakfast lunch spots or just spots you think you should definitely hit when you're in Key West or the keys area well we are huge key lime fans so we actually found Forbes Top 10 key lime pies we only made it through five of them because um some of them were just a little bit farther for us to drive and we didn't want to make the drive but each one was very very good um I will say Honestly though one of our favorite key lime pies is at Publix oh yeah really the grocery store the the grocery store wow but the one that we went to where was it the Key Lime Pie Bakery in Key West yes we feel according to our t bu is the best right and it said that it was the original key line place from like 1865 but of all the ones we've tried and that wasn't even on the top 10 list yeah some of those lists you wonder who put them together and but that one we really enjoyed it but you can't really get a bad piece of key pie anywhere in the keys um but surpr if you just in Florida you're not in the keys and you like key line pie just go to Publix pretty good Publix has a very good key line pie and then the other thing that's kind of neat too is that each place has her own take on key lime pie you know some will do whipped cream some do the mering some people drizzle it with raspberry chocolate covered um we actually found one we really liked um that was a coconut key lime pie that was probably one of our favorites as well so it's kind of neat so if you're a key lime pie lover just have at it from a restaurant standpoint in kargo we went to this restaurant called The Fish House for for dinner and it had a really nice you know being a sea type Vibe you know it felt like you're on a boat and uh they had really good food as well there and in Key West being airst streamers there's a restaurant called garos in Key West that has the food is cooked in an Airstream and it's all outside seating and they have live music there and then there's like a separate bar that's in like a old Cottage House that the drinks come out of there and the food comes out of the Airstream and really awesome Vibe and pretty reasonably priced for being in t West really good tacos yeah I got like the Fish Taco Trio I had the uh the burger I always from Burger man but uh those are two places that we can highly recommend and it was nice because it was super dog friendly because they had this big sign that says dogs preferred humans tolerated you always know that's going to be good you go in the bar and there was I think three golden retriever laying on the around in the bar by the bar area and yeah it was just yeah super dog friendly and then I know there's a whole list of restaurants that are dog friendly so and one we didn't eat at but we've heard good things about was Sloppy Joe's Sloppy Joe's Bar is a landmark a lot of celebrities are known to frequent that County chz just played a surprise concert there so that that's one that we could recommend there's there's just a lot of options for whatever your taste might be right and we haven't had a bad bad meal in in the Florida no robbes even robbes Robbie's where you feed the tarpon yeah and what was that uh Alam marada that's in Al marado so it's like halfway down the keys they have a good restaurant there we have their key lime pie um outdoor seating right on Waterfront so that's that's another place we'd recommend that place had a lot of neat stuff to check out other than just the restaurant again you can feed the tarpon the fish how was it five bucks for a right yeah for a bucket of fish or something very reasonably priced yeah so yeah I don't feel like can really go wrong because most of the food is you know fresh fish you know key lime pie can't go wrong with that well you guys are definitely making me hungry and now we have our nice list to follow when we get to uh the keys so if you haven't mentioned them already are there any nearby attractions that you want to mention well honestly the other thing too I know not this is not everybody's cup of tea but we went to the Key West Cemetery that was very interesting and very educational like in just the different kinds like the graves are all above um the ground because of the water level and just reading about some of the different people they had some really interesting gravestones like one was a big conch shell one was like a um a bookshelf with books on it of all her favorite books and I don't I I've always really enjoyed going to really old Cemetery like that I don't remember what the year what the year is on it but it's either somewhere in the 1800s I believe well Key West is Florida's first city right a lot of people don't know that but um cool places to check out is merer square uh oh yeah you definitely want to be there for Sunset that's a bucket listing we we just were able to do that this last trip there's three performers that perform right there there usually cruise ship import again it gives you that feeling that you are somewhere far away uh another cool place that we didn't go to that we want to may get to pretty soon as the dry to ugas National Park you have to take a a float plane out there or boat it's the only way to get there but that place is really awesome from what we've seen uh Hemingway houses there and so is the Key West Lighthouse there's a lot of different museums also in Key West for you know whatever your interests are you know there's there's just tons to do in Key like even just in Key West there's just tons to do awesome so you really could spend probably a couple weeks there and have just a bunch of different experience oh yeah and actually when I asked Alexis how long we needed to spend there she's like oh at least three weeks that was her that was her answer I'm convinced that you can spend as much time as you want in almost any place right because there's just there is so much it sounds like and it sounds like you guys just planned our entire 3-we trip down to the Key West and we'll definitely be listening to this podcast when we're making our trip down there cuz yeah this was really really informative yeah oh actually there's one more really cool thing that um you can take the you can actually walk or bike the old seven mile bridge to Pigeon key which you can only Access Pigeon Key by the old bridge now the interesting thing is dogs are allowed on the old bridge but they are not allowed on pigeon key except for one day a year there's sometime in January they do some Ser of a dog fundraiser so dogs are allowed on pigeon Key island but that looked like a really cool thing too it's like I think it's about two miles two miles of the old seven mile bridge like the original one that the train tracks were on um and just even the history of the Overseas Highway is really very interesting I think Modern Marvels Modern Marvels has a good episode about the Overseas Highway that I highly recommend anybody to check out if you're going to be headed down there because it's nice to know how it all came about and there is a hurricane Museum there as well because there was a huge hurricane in the 1930s killed a bunch of people and kind of impacted the Overseas Highway and there's I believe that museum is in is it Marathon or Isa marada I'm not sure which one but that that's there to check out as well the divers Museum divers Museum there's a lot there's a lot to do the list goes on and on yeah we could probably have a three-hour segment on what to do in in the keys the Florida Keys yeah we'll transition into the 321 countdown segment of the podcast the final three questions so what are three things to do around the Florida Keys area one thing we super duper recommend is the Robert Was Here Fruit Stand you heard that right Robert was here is the name it was called Robert was here for say I believe they've been operating for about 60 years it's in Homestead Florida it's just outside the Everglade so that's more of you're coming on the east side and they have just the most amazing variety of tropical and exotic fruits and not only that they have the best milkshake we have ever had hands down the best milkshake ever like I got um it's all made with fresh really fresh fruit um I got the coconut lime vanilla milkshake and Alexis is a huge fan of dragon fruit so she literally just got dragon fruit and ice in her smoothie um but the interesting thing too is that they have three turnovers as far as like different fruits so when we were down in October it was a whole different set of exotic fruit in January it was like a whole another set of exotic fruits it's kind of interesting we got to try these things called SEL and pomy and like all these really interesting C you know just very interesting names and very interesting flavors and then when I asked they said also June is another turnover so the big times are like summer winter and fall they have totally different fruits and you can actually just buy the fruit or you can put it into a smoothie or a milkshake but that is hands down a big recommendation and when we go because we're off we're Towing our Airstream either down or back from the keys there's RV parking there as well so don't feel like you can't go there if you're you're towing your rig right and not only that like we always just kind of stop get our fruit get our milkshakes and go but they have tons of stuff around there they have like a little petting zoo um they have different um like a I saw blacksmith little area so they've got a lot of things so it can be like a whole little stop if you want it to be couple other things though I mean you're right there at the Everglades National Park is literally right there and so is Big Cyprus just a little bit further north that's a really cool place if you want to see alligators there's tons of alligators all over the place you want to take an Al those uh swamp boat tours oh yeah you know those are right there check those out highly recommend doing that if you never done that before it's a really great experience so yeah basically is if you're coming down from the East side you know instead of taking the main Highway what's the road that 41 so 41 goes through the big Cyprus area and at every single little turn off that you can go on they have like a little Boardwalk you can see alligators like all over the place it's just it's really a cool kind of aspect of like getting down there and like we've talked about wanting to spend the night there we haven't yet but it's definitely a there's multiple there's multiple campgrounds along 41 between Naples and Homestead that you can you can spend time there if you'd like to and I highly would I highly recommend that like say we want to do that just for airb rides or if you want to hike Che ey alligators just a different vibe there oh yeah again it's a just that laid-back Vibe even in that at the national park there is super laidback and actually I talked to a lady at the visitor center I guess her and her husband don't sleep very well they said they were out kayaking at 2 the morning and they saw a cougar like just steering right Florida pan oh I'm sorry Florida panther yeah they have signs all over the place for Florida panther Crossing even when you're in Naples which is you know a high-end area they have signs everywhere Panther Crossing and the lights are flashing you know like you're gonna see one at any second so we we've watched we haven't seen any but I bet if you drove at night there's a slight chance you might see going across the road that's cool it's cool how informative this episode has been in terms of things you've done but at the same time you're talking about things you want to do so you've been here so many times you have so much experience here but there's still a ton of things left to do that's great so so in terms of three things around the park I have the Everglades National Park the Robert Was Here Fruit Stand and then the Big Cypress swamp why I got kind of one more so we can kind of combine those two but um kaying through the mang gr now you can do this at John Penny Camp State Park um I actually haven't gotten the opportunity to do it because the first time we were there there was eoli in the water which kind of brings up another point that very good at monitoring the water to make sure it's safe for people to go in they're constantly checking the you know bacteria levels um but there's also a lot of other independent places where you can kayak the mangr and even take your dog with you as well and I think that to me that's it's on my bucket list of of kayaking the mangr giant Penny Camp is another place that you that offers offshore snorkeling opportunities we weren't able to do that because of weather both times that we were there but they do have it and it's supposed to be really good and they have the glass bottom boat tours which is nice when you go through the state park it's only like $30 a person whereas if you go go to an independent you know person it's going to cost a little bit more so that's a pretty low cost activity to do what are two complaints somebody might have or not necessarily complaints but things they wish they prepared for before visiting the Florida Keys I think one of the the biggest thing preparations is a mental thing like sometimes you can research a place and all you see are the most beautiful things you know something that kind of happened with us at Glacier too where all we saw these all these amazing views and like it's not all amazing views there are just Woods which are beautiful but the same thing with the Florida Keys like when you you kind of expect that it's all going to be the seven mile bridge kind of look we're really driving from you know up until Marathon it kind of just looks like Florida does you know there's just you don't really see the water that much once you get to the seven mile bridge to Key West that section is you know that's that has that feel the Florida key you see the water you go to these little Islands but that was something that especially for Jason he was kind of like whoa this is the Florida Keys like it was kind of like a little bit of a shock to him because he was expecting seven mile bridge and like all these water views the whole time where it really is from Marathon to Key West is where you get those views so that was one and I think the other one which I know we touched on a little bit was the cost is that you know if you can get into a state park and utilize a state park it's great but the campgrounds are super expensive hotel are super expensive flying they're super expensive so you you can do it on a lowc cost budget but it can also be a very expensive thing to do yeah those are great tips it's planning ahead and then managing expectations in terms of getting into the Florida Keys yeah now we talked about a lot today and I mean a lot but if you were to leave the Florida Keys what is the one thing you cannot leave the Florida keys without doing and we we kind of had different answers on this I also agree with this his answer but for me you have to snorkel because part of like the Florida Keys is getting in the water that's part of the cool thing about the Florida Keys is that has all the coral reefs that are surrounding you know all the Florida Keys I know he had something that I also agree with but you can't go without going to Key West and you know visit the southernmost point um get to your picture by that it's a large like a buoy that's on land if you're not familiar with it there's always a line to take a picture so be prepared do that cross that off your bucket list go to m Square for the sunset and I think that'll complete the trip perfect now any you start talking about snorkeling any favorite snorkel spots in the Florida Keys well I found I know I gu you never got to do a boat tour because it just never worked out in our schedule so I hear that those really are the best if you can go to a boat tour but if you are just snorkeling um by yourself and you're just going to Beach Fort zre Taylor State Park they have four different little sections of rocks and when you when you s those rocks and we saw so many different fish we saw jellyfish we saw Alexa saw an octopus even at the one little section but to me that place was like just magical like you really like I said you felt like you were swimming in an aquarium it was absolutely beautiful and that was one place you can go that you don't have to take a snor boat tour or to now do you guys bring your own snorkel gear or do you know if there's a place you can rent them if you're just flying in for the weekend so John Penny Camp State Park and beia Honda offer all rentals and you can purchase things there as well and there's also tons other dive shops in the area as well yeah I would say like every every little section of shops you'll have you know scuba and snorkeling gear key lime pie and you know it's kind like you kind of see the same things like over and over so yeah there's tons of places to buy things or yeah the state parks rent them and I'm sure even other places rent them as well perfect yeah awesome wow yeah this was a ton of information here everything from from cruise ship location snorkeling spots restaurants dog places um yeah thank you guys a ton for coming on and and sharing your experience and your advice on planning a trip to the Florida Keys we definitely have a full itinerary for sure good good well we looking forward to seeing that video that's right awesome Jason and Laura thanks again for coming on the show and once again if you haven't heard the first episode episode 13 of the travel path podcast they talked about their 75-day road trip across the country how they did that with their daughter Alexis and all the cool things they saw out there so give that a listen and one more time Jason Laura where can my audience find out more about you guys so we are on YouTube as Adventures of Mom Dad girl and a little white dog we're also on Facebook with that same name and then on Instagram um as idesa Airstream but I will admit that I'm not a big social media person so you can find me best on YouTube I try to I try to answer my comments as much as I can Perfect all right we will link those channels below Jason and Laura thanks again thank you thank you