A Travel Path Podcast

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Bronderlust:

https://www.instagram.com/bronderlust/

https://www.tiktok.com/@bronderlust

What show!

💣Todays episode featuring Staci and Garrett from Bronderlust is full of value bombs

Staci and Garrett share how they went from living a life where they weren't completely fulfilled, and took the leap to chase something more.

In this episode, you'll hear all about:

🤝How to structure your mindset, take a step back, and work as a team when doing a van build.

⛽Some apps to save you money at the pump.

❓They share a few things they both CAN and CAN'T live without on the road.

And more!

YouTube Channels:

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

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

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

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

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

https://faroutride.com

Music:

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

Links: (We may receive a commission for any below purchases)

📖Books:

"Mindset" by Carol Dweck: https://amzn.to/3N87yzk

"Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki: https://amzn.to/3N4wwiX

🧼Hygiene:

Shower Pouch Wipes: https://amzn.to/3T6Umyj

💵Money Savers:

Gas Buddy: https://www.gasbuddy.com/app

Upside: https://upside.app.link/PZHWN

📶Wi-Fi

AT&T Unlimited Data Plan

RVIT: https://www.thervitguy.com/

Starlink: https://www.starlink.com/

All right Stacy and Garrett welcome to the show thanks for having us thank you for having us so we know you guys are on Instagram as Bronderlust you guys have been living in your van driving around the country for the past just about a year why don't we start by sharing a little bit about yourselves and then letting our audience know what your travel lifestyle looks like oh man sure um I love that question well where do I even start so we've been together since high school and we've spent our whole lives together almost we had dated from high school through college and we got married and we had worked our jobs for a good couple years and after maybe a couple years of working our jobs we just kind of were like we could do more um like seven it just didn't feel very fulfilling when we started thinking about van life it was just a good opportunity to kind of like Get outside of our comfort zones and kind of just figure out you know uh maybe more or less like you know what we were made of and what we could do so this was a really fun way for us to kind of live our best life but also get out and do some fun stuff we've always loved traveling and just like going to new places and vacations just like you know anybody else would probably say they love doing but it was getting to a point where like I remember coming home and just being like Garrett there's just like there has to be something more to life like there has to be something else out there and so you know that's when I guess the the gears started turning more and then um he was the one to actually bring it up to me and I thought it was insane because I was like there's no way like how do you even do that you know it was like an immediate know and cuz I immediately thought of like you know our house and everything in it because we did have a house and everything for like four years we had our house before we uh Swit transitioned over and so I just remember trying to think of how to like put all of that stuff in a small space and I was like how is that even possible anyways that's kind of like a intro I guess of how we got there that's awesome yeah it's definitely quite the adjustment going from a house legitimate single family home to now living on you know four wheels and driving on on the road you can totally relate to that I know what you're talking about Stacy when I would come home from work just not satisfied kind of had an itch for to get more out of life and yet you know here we are kind of doing the same thing so that's great now now that you're on the road you guys are you're working as well what does your work lifestyle look like and about how many hours a week do you think you're working it's kind of changed since we've started in the beginning I had a very like I think it was like eight to fiveish like remote job so I work I am a dental hygienist and so I was clinical so I was in the office every day cleaning people's teeth all of that and I knew we were going to be doing this and so during the build process um I was looking for remote positions in the dental field just to kind of start that uh ball um and get it rolling and so I found something and uh it was like a good 40h hour a week job and it was okay in the beginning like it was fine it was doing all the things it needed to do for us cuz it was remote and it was letting us live our life but ended up switching positions um and I actually got something way more flexible um it's still in the dental field again it's like a training position and so um now I would say my hours are probably like at least 25 to 40 hours a week it really just depends on the the week and my schedule so it's very flexible I do like the fact that that my new job is letting me kind of like adjust my schedule as necessary so it's very flexible in that aspect so kind of rare um but I was very blessed to land that that's really interesting though you bring that up because when most people think remote work they think online they have to you know they can physically be you know in their car in a hotel room and be working online but so you decided you looked were like there's certain websites or how are you able to find a remote or I guess a remote position but as a dental hygienist or in the dental field I take it you were probably staying in places longer you probably weren't moving every other day what did that look like for both of my remote positions we were moving often like we were still remote so we have um we kind of focused everything around like those points if we knew there was going to be times when her job she was going to be working then we knew we would be stationary long enough so she could get settled and do whatnot and then if we had multiple things we would stay there for longer periods of time versus just being like on the go constantly right yes sorry yes and so like after my day was done then we would be like all right if we want to move we'll go move somewhere or if I had a break like we would move somewhere in that break so it was very like not chaotic but you know it was we made it work it was a lot trial and error like we had to we kind of had to figure out the best way to do it which didn't feel like too aggressively stressful yeah and now we've kind of got like a good flow on how to do it yeah now my schedule's a lot more flexible to where like I have longer like breaks and stuff and gaps you know it's more easy to move during the week I guess during that time I primarily searched on LinkedIn I don't remember what sparked that but I remember seeing something and linkedin's big for you know the job world uh you know re redid my page and everything redid my resume they have a little job section on LinkedIn and I literally just searched keywords filters and just kind of kept searching um over and over again Facebook groups and things like that as well we're big um but that's how I found it really cool how about you Garrett um so when we first started I was doing um remote sales for a company that was doing custom van builds the it just kind of didn't work out and then from there I pretty much put all of my energy into our social media page so organizing kind of like a lot of stuff we were going to do where we were going to be um to shoot certain things together um Stacy's really good at this but just kind of reaching out to a lot of the different like companies to do Partnerships with and um just kind of basically start laying the groundwork for you know like a social media marketing platform in a sense yeah he does a lot of of the um stuff that I don't want to do and all the behind the scenes Logistics of just van life in general so perfect team yeah it's been good thanks good for you guys and you guys put out some great content and those of you listening they're Broner list on Instagram they have all sorts of Van tips and all sorts of things they do when they're camping so check them out so during that time frame between when you wanted to get on the road what was one of the biggest challenges you fac to get there and how were you able to overcome that I would say like right off the bat we identified all of the things that kind of anchored us down so we're like okay if we're going to do this based on how we want to do it do we want to you know go for Spurs of travel or do we want to commit to this full-time we kind of made the decision that we wanted to do it full-time so the first thing was sell our house minimize our stuff get our very basic things find like our little luxuries and kind of identify um what we wanted in the van so and I think we decided to do all this in April and we had the house sold by may it was a very quick turn around we were like At first we wanted thought we maybe would just want to go live somewhere else in a different house and so we at first were looking into houses somewhere else and it just didn't feel right and nothing was looking good so after we made that decision then we were like all right let's do this how fast can we do this and so we ended up yeah in a month turnaround time we sold all our stuff basically downsized and sold our house which was insane now looking at it back I was like how did we do that that was I was going to say was it was it two of a turn around I know that the housing market it has been around that time frame it was on fire and things were selling like very quickly yes it had just started blow started blowing up so we were like we got to hop on this now like we don't know when we're GNA have this opportunity again so I think that's why also we kind of did it kind and it also worked out too where um I have some really close friends and we were just super fortunate that he had just bought a new house and originally our plan was to move to um a place in Georgia where we had a lot of close friends and family and what ended up happening was he had moved into a new house he's like well I have this other house for the next 30 days or so if you guys want to come here you can stay in this house for a month give or take and we ended up staying in that house for like two months so once we had sold our house we were like all right cool we beelined it you know to our friend's place and from there we pretty much started doing the research on finding the van as well as we started learning like the projects I mean after we had sold our house and got rid of all our stuffs and got settled and our like kind of temporary home we pretty much spent about two months researching the build projects and how we would go about them trying to find a van all that so it was really just basically figuring out all the things that would stop us from being able to do it kind of figuring out what the workr was and then kind of you know pulling the trigger on that sure were there any big YouTube channels or other other influencers that you guys watched tirelessly while you were trying to figure out how to build your van oh my goodness yes um sometimes it was random but y someone that I think inspired our kind of layout and just idea behind like just knowing that like anyone can do van life and you can kind of do it however you want I would say is the fine print um he's a van lifee gamer that's his big uh his big thing but he's we've always watched his videos W followed him and he's kind of been like a big inspiration for us more so on him like I don't think that he really puts out a lot of like instructional videos on like the projects but what we really kind of or really inspired us about his videos was that it was like this is what um van life meant to him like it was his particular flavor and at first when we were looking into it we're like okay it's got to be like this or it's got to be like this and then we kind of were like oh you know actually it can be however we want it to be we just got to figure out you know what that means so like if we wanted to have a gaming you know setup in our van then we needed to have the power to support it so that meant you know a big electrical system and then that kind of took us into other ideas but I would say as far as like our tutorials and like you know learning how to build stuff um Moser makes was a really big Channel we he had a lot of really valuable information we used a lot of his like Plumbing his diagrams really good um the explorist was fantastic he had a really good electrical um tutorial and that was really helpful and explor life is his and then I try to remember the one that we used for our framing oh man an cany build yes an cany build I don't know if I pronounced that right I feel like I've heard of that channel before yeah and we'll put a link in the show notes for all those channels you guys just mention so people can check them out so that YouTube University that's like 101 we do the same thing with our real estate property too did you guys have any experience before you started doing your van with like tools probably had less than no experience yeah yeah no well I remember when we first started we would use um an impact drill and every time it would make the impact noise Stacy would yell at me and she'd be like you're gonna break it like no it's supposed to do that's not sound isn't good like there's no way that sound could be good we that's a great sound all guys love that sound well by the end of our build she was she was going for it I was loving that sound at the end I was like this is great I would say we went from um should not attempt to semi competent we knew that you know you can literally learn anything if you put your mind into it and so that was our I guess driving Factor was like we know we can learn it we can learn anything we just have to like do it do the research put the time in and we'll figure it out and I can tell you behind your head there Stacy those cabinets look pretty Square to me so you guys did a good job clearly

*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

Ryan and Katy's Social and Website:

https://www.instagram.com/smilkos_lens/

https://smilkoslens.com/

In today's segment of Travel Tips, Ryan and Katy Smilko join us again to share one of their favorite destinations, Redwood National Park. Having been to 49.5 states (tune in to Part 1 for the explanation!), over 40 national parks, and have explored all over California, they know a thing or two about travel. This was a super informative guide for any first time or returning visitors to Redwood National and State Parks.

A few quick clarifications from today's show:

We (Tyler and Hope) saw our elk on Bald Hill Road near where it turns into dirt road. The sunset location we mentioned in the video was the Redwood Creek Overlook, not far from Bald Hill Road. This location is about an hour south of the Klamath River Overlook that Ryan and Katy mentioned.

Dogs ARE allowed in Mt. Rainier National Park but must be leashed and only allowed in campgrounds, parking lots, and paved roads.

Resources:

https://smilkoslens.com/booking-travel-with-points/

https://smilkoslens.com/credit-cards/

https://smilkoslens.com/activities-in-redwood-national-park/

https://smilkoslens.com/redwood-national-and-state-park/

Elk Farmhouse: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/28871227?source_impression_id=p3_1700937679_ukelVdhQBMvpf7bF

Internet:

https://soliswifi.co/

https://www.starlink.com/

Epic California Map & Guide

https://www.rexby.com/Smilkos_Lens/unitedstates

Within the above map/guide, there is an itinerary for Redwood National Park. If it's easier to link to that directly, you can use:

https://www.rexby.com/Smilkos_Lens/i/B4saWK_JTcanSHqGSwxV2Q

Other services/links for travel hacks

https://www.going.com/ https://www.google.com/travel/flights

https://www.travelzoo.com/

Transcript:

All right Ryan and Katy so thank you for coming back to the show we had an awesome time chatting with you guys the other day so let's now talk about destinations so let me know where we're going to talk about and where have you guys spent a lot of time this was really tough um you know we've been to 49 and a half States and we've spent an enormous amount of time exploring California in particular but uh we decided to nail it down to one place in California which is Redwood National and state parks for those who don't know it's in the far Northwestern corner of California so it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere uh not really near any major cities or anything um and we've probably spent a week or two their total um combined because you're originally from California right I am I'm from California but I'm from the Bay Area and despite it being called Northern California uh I think it's about a seven hour drive still from the Bay Area to Redwoods so redwoods what would you say it's a great destination for someone who likes to do what soft Adventures it is definitely a soft Adventure Park soft Adventures for us is um hikes and things that are accessible to the majority of people and you know you don't have to be an expert hiker or Backcountry camper or rock climber or anything like that so typically hikes that are less than like three to four miles yeah scenic drives Scenic overlooks you know things that most people W could and would want to do so there's no like specialty or special skill sets required yeah and we're big on that is that a term you guys coin yourselves soft adventurers or is that I wish yeah we definitely cannot take credit for that honestly I don't know where I saw it became like a daily term like we were with people who were very hard adventurers and I was like this is not for me this is I'm very soft adventure and like we started using it so much in our daily life we're like oh like this is our like how we Define what we do because when you're traveling people like for some reason gravitate towards rock climbing or like the hardest hike or like the 14,000 foot you know Peak Pikes and I'm like you guys can just skip inviting me if you need a bear canister I probably don't want to go yeah it's a good gauge but um that is one thing we love about redwoods is um it actually so it's a national park and state park so there's I think three state parks uh California state parks that make up Redwood National Park and it's the only National Park in the US that is a joint partnership between state parks and National Park it's ideal for people who like to be surrounded and immersed in nature and trees in particular so it's just um I mean it's just a magical place the trees are bigger than you could possibly imagine and it feels like there will be like a fairy that will pop out behind every corner and like it's just one of the most peaceful places and I think what most people don't maybe think of when they think of like a Redwood National Park is that it butts up to the ocean so it's really where like the forest meets the California coast and it's just like a really special place that I feel like you have to see in person to understand like the magic of it all I always call it Fern Gully because it if you remember that movie from way back when but it you just really made yourself old I know I did I mean if people could see the video the white in my beard would give it away first but um the I mean these trees are so big that you can drive through them they are you can walk through them can walk through some I mean they're almost 2,000 years old they are literally just towering sky scraper trees but it's also super-duper Lush there's Fern and yeah it's just incredibly beautiful and magical and it's one of the easier parks to visit to hi hike to experience um and so it's we also love a good drivable park where you get a lot of the views from the road um or if it's just beautiful from the road just you feel like you're in it without having to hike seven miles to get to that one Lake that everyone takes a picture of um so we love that about redwoods yeah oh that's awesome so how do you what would you say you need to spend in Redwoods to really enjoy that full like Redwood experience see all the big spot you know do that drive how many days are we talking because of its remoteness um drive time and travel time definitely needs to be factored in um for anyone who's flying in to visit at the park they're likely either going to fly into the San Francisco Bay area or maybe Eugene Oregon um further north and both of those are going to be basically a six to seven hour drive and so day one and then the last day of the trip are basically just travel days yeah so excluding those I would say two to three days is absolutely perfect it would allow someone to really kind of hit all the top spots best hike the best views scenic drives family fun adventures and experiences and really get to go home feeling like they saw it all oh awesome now and as far as time frame during the year what would you recommend as the best time to go that's really tough I think the blanket answer would be any time of year um California especially along the coasts the temperatures are pretty temperate and don't change drastically with the seasons so at worst in the winters I think the average high is about 40 um which is chilly it's not super fun for being out but you don't have to worry about six feet of snow or ice or you know freezing cold temp like the low even at that high the low would probably be like 35 like it would be such a small window and then in the summer at its warmest the high is maybe like 75 really I would guess that wow yeah it's pretty temperate most of the time um and because it's so remote it's also not a heavily trafficked Park so it's not like you're going to a Yos or a Grand Canyon or Yellowstone where you're going to have millions of visitors there every single day um so you don't really have to worry a ton about massive crowds but I think our preference if you could pick it would be spring or fall and I think one interesting thing to think about um when visiting this park is it doesn't have like you don't go for fall full foliage the trees don't turn for someone who doesn't like pay attention to that it would be like a maybe a letdown if they went for fall thinking I'm going to drive by trees it'll be pretty um so that's something to consider if you're looking for a fall destination yeah that's a really good point because the there's not those like drastic seasonality changes to it that does mean that people wanting to visit have a lot of flexibility because if they decide you know if they go I can only go in June or the only time I can get time off is in October it's not like they're going to go and have a completely different experience at the park than if they went at a different time of year so from a flexibility standpoint I think it's a great destination all right so I know you guys have Junior so obviously you're always on the hunt for those dog friendly um places and trails and just places and things you can do um but do you notice is there a lot of dogs when you go are there a lot of kids I mean there's not a lot of anyone but um it's not a very dog friendly Park unfortunately um but luckily if you're van traveling because it's always temperate you don't have to worry about the dog when you're hiking I mean not dog friendly like hotels or not dog friendly Airbnb's are not dog friendly um there are definitely accommodations that are dog friendly but they're pretty spread out and in some cases you might be paying quite a bit more or might not be convenient based on location you found campgrounds the three each of the state parks that makes up the National Park have campgrounds and all of the campgrounds are dog friendly so whether they're tent camping or RV camping or otherwise um those places are dog friendly I would say it's very kid-friendly though it is very kid and as someone who doesn't have kids from a dog friendliness perspective I would say um and this is sort of getting to one of the upcoming questions but it would be our only complaint I think of the park sure I find that a lot of national parks too like they're not allowed in the park but there's just a lot of trails where they're not allowed to be on the trails and I think I think one of the parks Mount Rainier actually there were no dogs allowed anywhere I think you remember that yeah so that's definitely something if you're going to National Park just keep an eye out when you're going to plan that we were actually just going over there's I think 17 dog friendly national parks Junior's been to 16 of them oh no kidding which one is he missing Alaska oh that's very interesting about Rainer I really want to look that up because for the most part dogs can enter but they have to stay in parking lots and paved that's good yeah definitely fact check us on Mount Rainier let know you find we'll put we'll put the uh I think you are right I think it is they can go in they just can't like you said they have to stick to the pave Trail but we'll put the answer in the description here down below so cool thanks I'll look for it yeah um so as far as like nighttime what is there to do or what have you guys done or like to do when you know the sun goes down because you're kind of in that that you know secluded area uh we're definitely not your nighttime crowd yeah uh we are early sleepers um and Ryan mentioned the remoteness so there's not like a city life or night life if you so our our ideal night life is like campfire um hanging out and just like enjoying definitely like a Sunset and yeah if there's campfire involved we're there I would also say because of its remoteness and the fact that there isn't any kind of major city nearby means that there's not a ton of light pollution and so from a night sky perspective it is definitely a beautiful place to sit outside and stargaze or look for way so that would be those would be kind of our those would be our nighttime activities yeah that's perfect that's what it's all about right up our alley yeah how about um speaking of nighttime what about sleeping Arrangements like where do you guys find that you can sleep when you're visiting um redwoods I would say that you know a lot of our travels we look for places that are free and legally allowed to park and um gosh why am I drawing a blank on the word Boondock boondocking I had no idea what he was saying thank you I was like you know you think after living in a van for two years that would beat you in these years but yeah there's not a lot available up there in terms of that California doesn't really have a lot of um like BLM land or free land that you can just go drive out and park on and so for the most part if you're in a van or an RV of some sort um it's going to be one of the state park campgrounds there are some RV parks scattered about the area as well that's typically what we do we did stay at an Airbnb once um during one of our visits which we loved it was there's a river up there and it was right on the river so you know whether it be for Sunrise or Sunset it was very beautiful and closely located to the parks I would say camping and campgrounds are going to be the best way to stay and EXP experience the parks but there are Airbnb's and hotels very nearby for those who aren't looking to Camp or families or you know or if it's in those colder temperatures it's just not fun yeah you're not GNA find me in a tent in a cold temperature yeah us NE it's not a soft Adventure no our we're glamping here with our with our same that's a borderline medium Adventure yeah yeah yes temperature does play into how soft our adventures are definitely it's good point what have you experienced with wildlife in the in Redwoods uh deer and Elk yeah I think are the only two that we've come across the elk are everywhere outside of the park um there's actually a place called Elk Meadow every day the elk migrate from one area to another and there's like a road crossing and it happens daily and so it's like if you are at that spot at the wrong time of day or the right time or the right time you're basically stuck there for like 30 minutes as this massive herd of elk just migrate from one area to another and then there's actually an Airbnb that the elk might like go into the front yard and I'm talking like 50 50 elk go into the front yard of this like Farmhouse Airbnb every single morning and just lay there and graze and it's absolutely incredible we've never stayed there but we've gone past it multiple times and seen people where they're just out there on the patio sipping their coffee and there's 50 elk just in the front yard hanging out can't be that is that that's actually inside the park I take it you know I'd have to double check and look it's weird because there's the park is made up of three state parks and they don't all they don't all up against it to one another and so there's kind of like gaps in between each section of the of the Park yeah elk and deer we've seen deer on the trails yeah they come really close too yeah they're like not really scared of people anymore yeah but it definitely adds to the beauty of the park and just sort of the majestic Ness of it you know being out there to see these beautiful animals just you know yeah it's incredible I know when we went to Redwoods we saw plenty we were up I think on the more southern part of the national park it was on our way out and we went to we went to the Elk Lodge or the elk crossing where you're supposed to be able to see him and we didn't see him over there but we drove up this hill um to eventually completely cleared out and it didn't look like Redwood National Park at all and then we just saw a bunch of them grazing never find yeah it's so fun just sitting there you know recording watching them you pull over for you know 10 20 minutes just watching them hang out we definitely did that every time we saw them it's like every time it's different right doesn't matter how many times you see them or how many different Parks you just have to sit there and watch you can never take too many videos and photos that's so true problem it's a good problem to have do you have a special sunrise or Sunset spot at redwoods or something where you've enjoyed in the past um Sunset would be the gold gold Bluffs Beach yeah um is really beautiful um that's actually where one of the campgrounds is also um so it's a great place to stay and experience sunrise and sunset nice obviously Sunrise would be on the opposite side of the sky so you're not getting it over the water but um still get the beautiful colors you still and to have the ocean right there is really really ma amazing I'm wondering if the Overlook that we went to for Sunset is the same one you guys went to because it sounds very similar but there's the I think the river that runs through is called the clamo river the place we went to is called clamo River Overlook and you drive up like up a a road and you get up there and there's just like a small parking lot and it overlooks the ocean and the river yeah that does sound like where we were I'm pretty sure the just said vist to overlook maybe there was another sign but that does sound because I remember something on the Internet different than like the actual signage yeah so I remember like we saw looked at the ocean we couldn't it was like kind of the neatest thing because we were looking at the ocean but there was a layer of fog where we couldn't see the ocean but we could see on top of the fog and it was something you know coming from the East we had never seen anything like that before and then there were clouds on top of that with the sun set and yeah that was it was like magical that was really cool how many videos do you think you have of that too many we had two phones and a camera so we had all three of them going I can tell you oh my goodness that would be us also y it's just like you can't you you can't stop yeah because we did have to drive a little bit for it so I think we that's one of the things why we enjoyed it so much and why we stayed there so long is cuz it was one other couple they watched sunrise or Sunset and then they left but like Tyler said we like when you wait a little bit afterwards and that whole Sky just lights up and like everyone's left cuz I think oh the sun went down so that's what we always wait for I do remember the bugs came out so I don't know same with you guys but we were fortunate we had bug spray and like there were mosquitoes that came out of nowhere once it that sun kind of set and it got dark so I don't know if that's uh well I guess September SE last year when we've been it's been cooler I don't think yeah I know we went in November once yeah it might have been it might have been cool enough that the bugs were yeah that sounds terrible though they came out of the Woodworks for us yeah so I guess just bring it in case you need it hopefully don't but we definitely did that night and we're glad we had it wonderful all right awesome so we're going to move to this next segment it's called the final four countdown we have four more questions and the first question is going to start with actually Four answers so um in Redwoods National Park or outside nearby um what are some of your favorite breakfast lunch dinner and dessert spots got to be careful at redwoods not a not a ton of uh hip happen in spots you know many of the places are kind of like small roadside gas station type places um um so I don't I don't have any specific dining spots whether it be for breakfast lunch or dinner the two nearest cities that kind of bookend the parks there's Crescent City which is at the North and then there's Eureka at the South um that's where you're going to find the largest cities and the most options in terms of dining and restaurants outside of that if you're kind of in the three state parks or the you know the overarching national park at all you're really going to be on your own for food want to pack it in you're going to want to pack it in and pack it out um which is typically what we do anyways I'm glad I asked someone might not know that and they don't show up with any food so that's good to know yeah I think that's a a very good you uh eat out of the van when you were there or probably we yeah we did most most of it was eating little Weber que we'd open up and you know PB and JS for lunch you know yes ham sandwiches and whatever we found usually you know Farmers Market stuff we'd Chef up for dinner nice yeah that's yeah stay at a campground bring all the grilling fixin and Grill some food at the campground that's that's the way to go what are three things to do in or around Redwood that somebody might not be aware of if they hadn't spent um a little bit of time there this is uh ideal for anyone who might be coming up from sort of the San Franc San Francisco Bay Area about an hour or so south of the park um there's a few really cool experiences there's a place called uh Avenue of Giants and it's basically a Scenic Drive that is I think like 10 15 miles long and it's just beautiful redwoods on both sides of the road and it's one of the one of the best places to kind of get a Scenic Drive type experience while surrounding yourself with the Redwoods there is a place called driveth through Tree Park and inside this park I think you pay $ five dollar to go in but there is a tree called the chandelier tree that the base is cut out and you can actually drive through the tree providing your vehicle is small enough I think the I think it's like six and a half feet by 6 and a half feet or something so Vans are not going to fit but if you've got you know a sedan or a smaller size SUV they will definitely fit but even if you don't drive through it it's a really neat place to park you can walk through it they've got a bunch of different things in the surrounding area um that are um you know we've got like gift shop and there's some little hiking spots that you can kind of walk around and peruse the area it's great for families kids adults Etc there's a place called Skywalk Redwood Skywalk it's some something Skywalk but essentially it's two things one they have a zoo it's called seoa Zoo cool and then the other one is they've got these uh like canopy Bridges where you can go up and actually walk walk among like up above amongst all the trees and so you got kind of get to experience the giant redwoods from above ground um I think it's like 50 feet in the air or something W you kind of get to learn about the trees they've got different um you know stations and displays and things to kind of help educate you of the surrounding areas and how the Redwoods came to be and how they Thrive and all that kind of fun stuff so those are three things that I would say aren't typically super common or well known when people are going into the Redwoods um they're all south of the park and kind of give you a different experience of not just going into the park and going on a hiking trail and sure yeah they're all they're all three things we did not do on our trip so yeah thanks for pointing that out there're some nice soft Adventures for us for next time I'm to go back they're great for families yeah they're very very accessible things to do so if somebody were to have two complaints not necessar NE complaints about the park but things that they might not be aware of or wish they had known prior what would they be we think the dog friendliness was kind of a bummer for us um and just that two two days basically our travel days so like the remoteness of the park um if you think people think they can go to California and like fly to San Francisco and then visit LA and visit like we have family come and they're like well we want to see the giant trees we're like well that's a whole another week trip so um those would be our two great and one last question what is the one thing you simply can't leave Redwood without doing that is really really difficult can we both answer one we can both answer yeah yeah I mean I think the scenic drives I can't pick one the scenic drives and uh okay so you go with the scenic drive that's perfect so similar to The Avenue of Giants that I mentioned earlier there is a en drive inside um the park called Newton bewery Scenic byway and similar to the other one it's like 10 or 15 miles long and it's in our opinion it's better than the Avenue of Giants it's the trees are bigger and wider and taller and the fact that it's inside the park um The Avenue of Giants is because it's outside of the park there are some kind of suburban areas that are kind of like intertwined with it and around it whereas be Drury it's just you and the trees and it's one of the most beautiful scenic drives that we've been on anywhere in the in the country I think the other one would be um there is a there's a couple Trails within the park where you can actually walk through a tree that has fallen over at some point and they basically carved out a section of the tree where you can walk through it um one of them is is not soft adventury so I'm not going to mention that one the other one is and it's sort of a combination of two Trails so depending on if you're looking on all Trails or if you're looking on the Redwood National Park website you might see different names for it but it's the Carl nap Trail and it's in addition to the tree that you can walk through it is also one of the just prettiest most MJ Majestic Trails that we've hiked in the park there's Fern everywhere it's one of the places we saw a bunch of deer um there's many many red giant redwood trees that you can just stand right up against and just you know have them towering over you and so I think those two really kind of give you some you know really cool and beautiful and unique experiences awesome yeah thank you for sharing that that was this has been such an informative video on Redwood National Park I think everything you mentioned pretty much we had not done before unless we did the same sunset at some point I'll have to find that out but you're totally right when you're driving through the that's it yeah but when you're driving through the Redwood National Park it's you're totally right when you're looking at these trees like I remember they're impressive when you're looking right out at them but it's not until like you start looking up and you can't see how high they are it's like oh my gosh these things are like massive that's when it kind of hits you like they're incredible yeah yeah it's when you start to do the pan and you're like this is a 25 second video and I haven't reached the top of the tree yet yes that's exactly it yeah good stuff all right guys hey thanks again for um spending the time chatting with us about Redwood National Park and previously your adventures and how you got started with Van life and everything else abolutely great talking with you guys and hope to do it again sometime we do have uh quick Shameless plug um on our on our website and blog we do have two different articles that we've written specifically on Redwood National Park and so kind of touch on how to plan your visit and so the drive times where to stay when the best time is to go that type of information and then we have a separate one that touches on like things to do inside and around the park and again all the things that we've talked about here are listed there as well um so that's smilkoslens.com and then we also have an interactive map for California um that we have um points of interest national parks hikes Trails accommodations wineries breweries Scenic views scenic drives you name it all the best places that you might might want to visit in California we have this interactive map within that we also have an itinerary um specific to Redwood National Park so if someone wanted to check any of that out those are available um the interactive map is easiest to access by going to our Instagram smilkos_lens and within the links in our bio we have a California map link there great and we'll be sure to link those both those two articles in your map I want to check that out we'll link that in the description below and yeah thanks again guys absolutely thanks for having us

*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

Ryan and Katie's Social and Website:

https://www.instagram.com/smilkos_lens/

https://smilkoslens.com/

Ryan and Katy Smilko share how they made their travel dreams come true after many, many years of trials and tribulations. Their itch for traveling together began after their wedding in Maui and they soon discovered the online content creation world and were all in.

🐾They share their insight on how they are able to travel in their van with their dog and have some advice for people who are planning any pet airline travel.

💸💣TONS of money-saving, value bombs on how they use credit cards, websites, and applications to save money both driving and flying, and how it can allow you to travel "without paying hardly anything out of pocket."

🛜They discuss the different devices they have used over the years, so they have internet access, both in the US and internationally.

🔨🚙They share their story on how it took them 13 MONTHS to build out their van, followed shortly after by transmission and engine problems that wiped out their savings.

🧳They share their insight on how they both shared a belief growing up that you needed to be wealthy and rich to travel. Over the years they have come to the realization that by being smart with their spendings and taking advantage of airline and credit card points, anybody can do it.

Resources:

Music:

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

https://smilkoslens.com/booking-travel-with-points/

https://smilkoslens.com/credit-cards/

https://smilkoslens.com/activities-in-redwood-national-park/

https://smilkoslens.com/redwood-national-and-state-park/ Internet:

https://soliswifi.co/

https://www.starlink.com/

Epic California Map & Guide:

https://www.rexby.com/Smilkos_Lens/unitedstates

Within the above map/guide, there is an itinerary for Redwood National Park. If it's easier to link to that directly, you can use:

https://www.rexby.com/Smilkos_Lens/i/B4saWK_JTcanSHqGSwxV2Q Other services/links

Travel Hacks:

https://www.going.com/

https://www.google.com/travel/flights

https://www.travelzoo.com/

Transcript:

Ryan and Katie thank you guys for coming on the show I'm looking forward to this conversation so we know you guys you're on Instagram you've been to 49 and a half states which I have to get to at some point over 40 national parks you've lived in your van you've explored all around California so why don't you start by sharing a little bit more about yourselves and then letting us know what your travel lifestyle looks like oh man um the short I guess version of it is uh we met in 2015 we got married in 2016 and we ultimately began our travels in 2017 at that point we both had full-time jobs we were doing sort of the typical you use your PTO time off from work to go you know take a vacation somewhere um we would do that a few times a year over time we basically just realized that travel was sort of our passion it was what we wanted to do more of and we didn't want to wait to travel and to experience all the places that we wanted to see and so it grab gradually built up and snowballed over time um but It ultimately led to us today where we're now living in a van fulltime we've as you've mentioned we've been to pretty much every state around the US tons of national parks our dog Jor uh has been with us on all of these van lifee Adventures so he's been to the lower 48 states and yeah we're basically just out there trying to see it all so 49 and a half States let's talk about that I have been to 50 states all 50 Katie's only been to 49 we typically only track places and things that we've done as a couple and so if either one of us have gone somewhere in a past life we don't count it as far as like our our own travel track we're kind of the same way yeah but I was like we're so close to 50 and the fact that I've been there I'm like nah I'm just gonna put 49 and a half I can't believe how many people read it and are like what is this mean hey it it raises questions got us talking about it yeah that's smart so what's the what's the last state uh Alaska Alaska Alaska for work yeah I've been there for work but we have not gone to any of the national parks it sounds like you guys have been obviously I think you said 2016 so you're you know many years in the works here um in terms of your travel lifestyle are you currently working full-time part-time what does that look like we are working full-time as content creators on the road um our own business smos lens and we are the smokos um so that explains our handle a little bit hopefully we both had full-time corporate jobs I worked at a bank for 18 years and Ryan worked at a company for 12 years I think before we quit so it was a really big jump to uh start our own business but yeah now we're working full-time on building our own business on the road when you first discovered your content creation I said around 2018 was that through Instagram or what platform was that it was it was Instagram there was a big influencer do you travel I think is what his account name was and his his Jack Morris he was sort of the pioneer of influencing that kind of made us aware of the fact that you could travel and earn money doing it through influencing and brand deals and all that stuff yeah I very very much remember him showing me a photo he's like he got $5,000 for this photo I was like I could do that so the time frame I know you kind of touched on this from the day you decided you actually wanted to travel um until the day you actually started in that around that 2016 time frame how long did that take once we got married in 2016 and realized that we wanted to travel it became our priority any time off that we had any savings that we had it went towards travel it was it was our goal it was our priority and we didn't really wait for it it was like that thing that lives in your brain and you're like you know I want I want to travel fulltime like I want to go to these places and get an apartment for a month and then go to the next place and go to the next place 2020 the pandemic hit we were working from home and we basically realized we didn't want to go back to the corporate office life I think everybody kind of went through those you know reassessments and evaluations we really thrived being this close all the time but it really came to the Forefront of our minds that we really want to make travel full-time feasible for us we wanted to have the dog with us and so then became how do we figure this out and I'd say that was mid 2020 in September of 2020 we bought our van it was a very very quick turnaround from having this realization of we want to travel fulltime we want to have the dog with us we're not sure how to do that she found van life on Pinterest it became this big eye opening thing to we're now shopping online for a van and we buy a van unseen we had to fly across the country to get it unbuilt it was just an empty cargo van and we spent the next 13 months building it it wasn't until December of 2021 one that we officially moved into the van and hit the road Vans were going for like double what they would normally cost and like materials were like if you wanted like a van fridge or like a van toilet like there was a weight list take it that's why it took 13 months to to get the whole thing done we could have an entire other podcast episode just on our van build we only had weekends to build it was definitely like a very very very long process yeah but we had my dad my dad's a carpenter so he had all the tools and he helped us took a really a long time even having like a professional on hand so those people that do it like they're like I have no experience that I'm using a power saw I'm like when we bought the van I was like three months tops my dad's built 200 houses this is g to be so easy so I guess that really getting the van done was probably one of your biggest challenges you had to overcome before you could actually start your real travel and your next Journey right I think there was different challenges when we were trying to travel internationally money was kind of probably the biggest like how do you overcome your spending and saving and how do you afford travel like you know as a whole any capacity I think that's that was definitely one of our biggest challenges and hurdles and I think it's it's something it's a roadblock that tends to keep a lot of people from traveling to places it's just that that fear of oh it's going to be too expensive or I don't have the money or you know whatever and plus every time you try and budget something it always ends up going over budget whether it's your monthly grocery fuel costs I know when we budgeted our trip it was almost like double what we expected to have to pay that brings up a good point so I know in terms of like your biggest struggle your biggest challenge to get on the road mine is actually building the van so the financials right you want to save up enough money so you can give yourself that safety net whether it was like a passive income Source I know you picked up the social media in making money you know as an influencer I would imagine going from your current jobs to just getting on Instagram so you're not going to probably start making nearly as much money as you were making previously so was there a um like a side hust you guys were doing any way you were making other income to save up for the trip or was it just kind of through social media that took off it was definitely not the ladder we're still waiting for that right there with you I would say like to anyone who's looking to travel whether it's like one trip or going full-time it never ever feels like there's a right time like it always feels like you could work two more weeks and save like for one more paycheck and like have like a better hotel or you know more savings and we had saved up what we thought was enough to live one year on the road and the three days after I quit my job our transmission blew and it cost half of what we had saved oh no and then like six months later our engine blew and cost the other half of what we had Sav go and that was a van you just completely renovated right yeah so there was no trading it in or like over I would say which is why I don't recommend doing what we do uh which is counting on our business to take off in the future and just sort of uh living off of savings and or debt until we get it really going we definitely get jobs working with tourism boards and like as content creators um but we're not getting $5,000 for per post if anyone's wondering if we not even close if that happened uh we would definitely tell you guys how we did it but that's that's not that's not the case in our van yeah the the plan and the goal was we've got this sort of savings that we set aside we budgeted thinking theoretically this money could sustain us for an entire year on the road that gives us a year to try and ramp up our business and hopefully get it to a point where we we don't have to use up that entire savings and maybe halfway through we're now earning enough money to to cover our expenses and whatnot but uh that obviously did not pan out and come to fruition social media is like it's such a tough algorithm like like we're kind of the same page our first year we got like a whopping $30 off of Instagram it was like right in December like end of the year but it's one of those things congratulations thank you it's something yeah it's something um paid for you know half a tank of fuel not in California I can that no back in California has been like oh my God I almost missed Texas yeah it's like a sickening feeling when you pull in and you're like I know I have to at least get some right like I need enough to get where I'm going yeah so saying on the topic of money and finance have there been any travel hack money-saving tips that you've discovered along the way that could help future Travelers definitely yeah and this is this goes way before our van life adventures um but I would say a credit card bonuses uh incentives for you know signing up for a credit card and you know you spend a certain amount within a certain amount of time and then you get you know 60,000 miles or 880,000 points or whatever those deals can be hugely beneficial when it comes to travel because those points can literally cover the cost of multiple roundtrip flights or multiple hotel stays or both and so in many ways those can help really offset any kind of outof pocket costs you might need for a vacation or trip or any kind of travel that you're doing and then the other one that I would say is um things like uh Google flights um or there's a service called going which used to be called Scots cheap flights um it's basically an email subscription service that emails you deals and mistake airfares so if an airline accidentally puts a decimal point in the wrong place they'll send youil and be like this roundtrip flight to Italy from Atlanta is only $175 right now it's a mistake airfare better jump on it fast it's only going to be there for an hour or two but um those sorts of things and if you have flexibility in the timing in which you want to travel they can really make it so that travel is not only super affordable but in many ways you can do it without paying hardly anything out of pocket awesome those are great two things I have not heard of and I'll put a link in the description for those um websites down below um in terms of credit cards do you have any recommendations that you guys use there's uh Chase has a platform called um Ultimate Rewards and the thing that's so great about Chase is that when you're spending you know using your credit card for your purchases or any kind of spending that you're doing you acrew Chase Ultimate Rewards points now what's amazing about it is that chase has this huge list of Partners Hotel Brands Airlines Etc where you can transfer your chase points at a one: one ratio to those Partners so for example if you build up 20,000 points with Chase you can transfer those points to Southwest and Southwest it'll be 20,000 points or 20,000 miles on Southwest whereas many other credit card companies whether it's Capital One or American Express when you transfer your points to a partner there's some kind of conversion rate like a currency exchange where you're usually losing value by transferring those points over um making it not worthwhile in many cases to do it um whereas Chase it's because it's one to one it makes it super super like valuable and they've got Partners like hayatt and Marriott uh Southwest Airlines United Airlines a bunch of different International Airlines and so no matter what kind of traveling you're trying to do there's there's Partners there that they've got that you can transfer your points over to and really makes um you know your your flights or your stays uh much more affordable in terms of I know you guys work from the road so you do need internet I take it um how are you getting internet Wi-Fi cell service all that good stuff so I think our Situation's probably pretty unique and specific to those who are doing kind of van life for RV life um we use um spacex's uh starlink for our internet so it's basically a a little portable satellite that we can throw up on top of the van when whenever we're parked which is what we're doing right now we're in a CVS parking lot we've got our satellite up on top of the van and it uses uh the SpaceX um satellite service that being said when we were doing international travels and before we were in the van um we were using like a little portable hotspot device and the one that we were using was called soless s o l i s uh it's this little orange Puck looking thing um but it basically gives you internet service in like like 150 different countries all over the world and they have U month-to-month um options that you can select from so it's not like you're signing up or database yeah or database so it's not like a you know you're signing into a one-year contract or two-year contract or anything you can literally pay as you go and do month to Monon based on your own needs it worked better out of the country than in yeah no kidding oh good to know I think because it uses like cell towers for some reason here it was just like just use your cell phone but like the whole country it was crazy is that one of the reasons why you gave that one up for the starlink because the service in the country okay that was part of it the the other thing that I would say is those like mobile hot spot devices are are great if you're needing them for like just basic you know web browsing or email or a FaceTime call or something like that um but the content for creation and uploading downloading photo editing for the business side of things need needing to be able to upload tons of content it just couldn't handle the amount of data that we were trying to put through it is it true you can't have be like near trees or any um big upu if you're using the starlink yes definitely hence the CVS parking lot right now right yes exactly we got our starlink earlier this year we were in Utah and we've used it all over the country yeah we've had really good luck we've heard other people not have as good luck I've heard mixed things too yeah and there's I guess two different models of that right there's two you can either put it on top of the roof or one you can plant into the ground and then one of them's like less per month startup cost the one in the ground I think is for houses or it's a permanent there's aent RV one the one in the ground is the one that we have which is it basically has like a new every day Ryan take over that's funny basically has like a 50 foot cable um and so you can literally just place it anywhere you want um based on you know visibility and and obstructions there is one that you can permanently mount the roof of your RV or camper um that one is more expensive and the downfall with that one is that because it's permanently a fixed like this you don't really have the flexibility of being able to position it in different locations or places based on visibility and trees and such so you would basically have to have your van parked exactly where you've got visibility to the sky whereas the one that we've got you can you know Park in the shade and then walk you know 10 feet out the shade and yeah I feel like I would like that better I mean it's obviously a little bit more of a hassle because you have to get out and walk around but you're right I mean it gives you a little more versatility you can put it and point it in whatever Direction yeah really but it would have been nice to have service when we drive that's a good point oh true that is that's a big one too yeah we were like if we get this one we'll get more done when we're stopped and we'll try not to work when we drive and then we're driving and we're like I can't even open the Internet it's like yeah y been there before and I have heard good things about that when people are driving with it it tends to stay the service tends to be pretty good from what I've heard so I think I've talked to anyone that's had it so I would be very interested to hear if they like it okay we touched on it a little bit earlier but you do have a dog what are your tips and tricks for traveling with a dog um any learning curves I know we had mentioned we had a really hard time getting our dog to like the car yeah Junior hated the van when we bought it like we could couldn't it was like getting a cat in a bath literally we could not get him into the door if we even so much as walked towards the van he would plant his arms like a cat on a b and be like nope I'm not going anywhere near that thing and he's 70 pounds so moving him was difficult he warmed up to it yeah I think that if someone is doing any kind of travel with their animal I would say put them in the car or van when it's not on for a bit and like sort of just stationary almost just like hang out with them in the vehicle I wish we had done that um we put him in when it was empty and loud and every noise scared him and then he never he never want it in again it's that first impression that kills him yeah so I think that would be like our number one thing if you're traveling with pet um but we've had friends that flown with pets and they're always pooping their things so just FYI now what would you say to somebody who kind of argues that they can't live on the road and live you know a travel lifestyle because they have a dog oh my gosh um wrong yeah I mean we we traveled internationally like we we were really lucky when we we had a ton of family and then the family moved away and we were now we can't travel because our pet sitters are gone and so we used Rover um we hired we hired pet sitters um to stay in our apartment because Junior doesn't always love other dogs so he um yeah we paid pet sitters and so that was our way around that and then in the van I know people worry about like heat cold like they can't leave them in the van at all um and there's so many resources out now on like there's pet monitors there's temperature monitors like there are so many dog friendly places now too like we went to a restaurant the other night that had a Dog menu and he got his own dinner and it's like you wouldn't find that if you weren't traveling so yeah I think there's there's two very different scenarios there one you know if you're if it's someone who's doing flight travel with their dog like that's a very different situation but I think at the root of both of them it really just boils down to doing research and trying to find how dog friendly is the place that you want to go to whether it's the activities know if it's hikes or if it's going to the beach or is it you know parks that you're going to like how dog friendly are there and then accommodations are the accommodations pet friendly are there bees associated with having pets and if so how expensive are are they so it's really just a lot of like planning and research to go into figuring those things out beforehand so that when you get there you're not blindsided by something you know whether it be oh your dog is over our weight limit we can't let you stay here like you don't want to run into that type of situation yeah very cool it's all about planning one last question before you kind of start wrapping this thing up and it's not necessarily the best destination or the most popular place you've been to and I feel like I'll get two different answers from you guys here but what is the most memorable experience you've had while traveling I think that inside or outside of the band either or man I think the best experiences that we have are like the people that we've met through traveling and like continue to get to see through travel um one of our favorite memories ever is we met a couple on Instagram and we became friends like we started we did a giveaway together so like we had a couple FaceTime calls and somehow this led to us going to Iceland together and meeting them for the first time in Iceland Iceland wow wow and so it's like we get off the plane and meet each other for the first time and then that night we shared a room and had bunk beds and like Road tripped the country together and we're Inseparable for 12 days and it's like you can't get an experience like that without traveling like it's just so unique to meet people who you feel that way about and you can spend that amount of time with and have so much in common without even meeting in person and so I think that'll always be one of like our one one of our top memories from travel I think the other one that I would say is whether it was international travel or it's Dom IC travel road tripping is easily our favorite and like most memorable travel experiences and it's largely because you know if you fly into a city and then you never leave that City and then you fly back home you've only seen like this ity little little bit of whatever that destination is whereas when you're road tripping you get to see so much of everything and you get the divers of the rural areas and the Suburban areas and the metropolitan areas and like the different Landscapes and the different cultures and the different people and the different food there's just there's so much more that you get to see in experience that you wouldn't otherwise get to see if you were just flying in and flying out mhm so true so it's the it's the journey right there you said it that's awesome guys um if you were listening to this podcast when you were first starting out um is there a question that I didn't ask today that you wish I would have and how would you answer that what do we wish we knew before we started traveling so the the question being what do we wish we knew before we got into travel So my answer to the question what do I wish I knew before was that you didn't have to be rich to travel and he mentioned that I hadn't traveled much before we met and um I when I found out that I could travel um when I was a kid the only time I got to go anywhere was when family members sponsored I call it sponsored trips um so like Grandma and Grandpa would pay but we'd visit family or like an aunt and uncle would take me somewhere so that my cousin had a friend I grew up in a really affluent area so I just thought rich people traveled and people without money didn't and there was no in between like it was just I'm just going to stay in my town forever and I'm okay with that and then I meet him and he's like I want to go everywhere and I'm like good luck okay whatever and he really showed me like through all like the travel hacking and points and you know saving and making it what you want to do it's very very much more attainable than I ever thought I had no idea like at all so it was very eye openening for me from the start so I wish you knew you didn't have to be rich to travel that's a good one earlier in my life I always had the travel bug I always knew I wanted to travel but there was always this kind of stigma that and it's very similar to yours but it was the places I want to go to are not affordable to me they're too expensive so maybe one day I'll get there and maybe it's 20 years from now maybe it's 40 years from now I don't know fast forward today it's so eye openening to me especially international travel like if you have any kind of aspirations to get outside of your country whatever your country is flight travel can be so incredibly affordable being a typical teenager early 20s adult you know I'm spending money on video game systems and clothing and whatever you know I'm just money is just going wherever I want it to go had I known back then that $500 could take me to any place around the world round trip and instead of spending $500 on a PlayStation or an Xbox I could then go fly somewhere on the opposite side of the world I think that would have really opened my eyes much much earlier on and I think my savings account would probably either be it would be empty but You' have gone places I'd be Fuller in experiences and memories that's for sure well guys thank you so much for sharing your story it's very inspirational um you know having you two people you had your dream of traveling and you know you made it happen over the course of whether it's 5 8 10 years wherever that number is I know it's kind of a gray area there um I think I think your tips on you know the travel um flying the credit card tips definitely some very helpful information I think a lot of viewers are going to find that informative and valuable so thanks for sharing that and uh where else can our audience find more about you guys Instagram would probably be the best place to check us out our handle is smilo lens so it's smilkos_lens and then our website is smilkoslens.com awesome all right thank you guys again yeah thanks for having us it's great talking to you guys

*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.

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Blog Resources: https://atravelpath.com/hawaii/

Dylan Davino thank you for coming back on the show today what is the location we're talking about today and how much time have you spent there so today I'm going to talk about Hawaii um I I spent kind of over a year living in Hawaii so I've lived in Connecticut for most of my life but there was a year period where my mom ended up moving to Hawaii because she got um relocated for her job which she um she's a biologist and studies cancer and different things like that she ended up getting a job at Pfizer and I I live out there for a little while and I've gone on multiple trips back since then nice and where specifically in Hawaii yeah I lived on O'ahu for one year um during that time and then I've went back and I've gone to also Maui um which is a beautiful island as well so is O'ahu is that the one that has the road to Hana that road that goes Maui is the road Hana I I would have to double check I'm pretty sure I did that a long time ago and that's like an incredible Drive I mean you're driving right on the edge you're looking down you're seeing cars that have like rusted out cuz they've fallen over but yeah that's that's incredible down there Hawaii is a great destination for somebody who likes what uh I would say if you're looking to get away I mean you know you're so far from everything else when you're in Hawaii you're in the middle of the ocean there's nobody you know around you within thousand Like A Thousand Miles um it's very tropical year round beautiful temperature you know amazing Breeze and you know you've got like the best scenery on Earth and probably one of the best my opinion if not the best but um if you're looking to get away and kind of either grow spiritually just personally or just have fun you know I think it's a beautiful place for all of those things so you're talking like perfect weather is it like 80° year round or what does that weather fluctuation look like yeah for the most part you know between 70 and 90° um you know just in like a nice breeze all the time like that Coastal Breeze yeah it's amazing we were in St John's like the last uh last month or in August and like they were telling us how like the coldest it's ever gotten at night was 65° which now you know we're getting into winter time here and that sounds pretty nice right about now yeah at night time you wear kind of like a hoodie or just a long sleeve and then you know during the day you could wear a t-shirt and shorts and you're just always year round that's a great a great way to do it so now to get the full Hawaii or O'ahuo experience how much time would you recommend somebody plans to stay down there so there are multiple ISS um there's a wahoo Maui the Big Island a couple others as well um I think that you could totally spend you know a week or two at each island if you had that much time there's really no you know cut off amount of time like you only need three days here you could spend a year there and not want to leave um just one Island and you know there's many islands but between all of them it would be cool to spend at least three or four weeks if you had that much time cuz each island is different in their own way so like the big island is much more um Rural and it's not it's not as much of like the tourist scene necessarily as O'ahu which kind of has like um the night life in the city um and then you kind of have Maui which is a little bit more touristy a little bit more Rural and um like a lot of parts of these islands in particular there's nothing out there like you could drive around the entire coast of the island and see parts of it that are just straight um Forest nature and you know the coast and everything so there's the weird part about Hawaii is how much diversity there is um each island is it's got a different culture different people different types of tourists um and different activities going on and you kind of can look into like the differences between the islands and see what would be the best fit for you and I know we talked about the weather it's pretty consistent year round what is the best time of year in your opinion to visit Hawaii and are there any seasonal highlights that You' recommend or that you take a note of uh in my opinion because I'm coming from New England I would want to leave New England to go to Hawaii in like the winter time um I'm not a huge fan of the cold and I think that Hawaii is beautiful year round so it's not it's not really like their Seasons necessarily I know that leaving Connecticut to go to Hawaii in the winter time would be my ideal scenario yeah so it's not so much a place you go because of a certain time of year you just you leave house for a certain time of year it's Beach weather all the year yeah I I read somewhere that I think the waves are bigger in the winter time I guess our winter time like December but other than that it's pretty much you know the same weather there is some huge waves yeah especially like we one day in Maui we were kind of on this Viewpoint and there were surfers surfing these like 50ft waves and it was just yeah it's pretty mind-blowing do you ever do any surfing down there I did try surfing um you know once or twice I'm not like good but but it is really fun to try out different things like that kind of write a passage if you live in Hawaii for a year you have to try I've never tried it but you got to try surfing and you know maybe like the flower necklaces and the Lays right it's got such a cool Vibe and just you know it's very peaceful and everybody's just in a good mood tropical it's Island time everyone's no one's in a rush time yeah one of the kind of funny parts about the islands is you will see a lot of like stray cats and stray dogs throughout the islands because they can naturally survive there you know by just going around and eating things that are like like Fallen fruits or whatever they might eat there's a lot of stray animals there's like a wild boar population on the big island and they even get overpopulated with them and people end up going out and hunting them and you know eating the the bacon or whatever the the meat it's a a big thing over there so there's like a lot of uh you know fruits that are just naturally grown own there it is really cool to try out like the the avocados or the Coconuts bananas and different things like that um in terms of like full meals I'm I'm not sure it would probably just be combinations of all of like the natural stuff grown there and you know maybe some wild boar and they used to have the dle plantation I think the pineapple plantation I know pineapple must be a native fruit down there too everything can grow down there I I mean yeah it's just year round it's great weather for for growing um yeah my cousin he did his senior project for school there and he was working on a coffee farm and he he loved it too um it it's really cool a cool place to be yeah so in Hawaii what is there to do at night so um for night life O'ahu would definitely be your best bet and I I think like Malachi is a really great City it's right on the water and youve they've got tons of things going on like restaurants and bars whatever I was not 21 when I was on the trip so I'm maybe not the best person person to ask but I do know that there's a night life on O'ahu and uh I'm sure you could look it up on YouTube and find some great places to go I'm sure you'd have a much different experience going there now in hu than we weren't 21 what are the three things to do in or around Hawaii that somebody might not have known about without spending a decent amount of time there uh I just want to do the obvious one first like you got to go to the beaches and go surfing just lay out on the sand um just basic beach activities because they are the the nicest beaches probably on Earth you know at least the ones I've been to um so that would be number one and you could probably like um try surfing and whatever whatever like activities you might be interested in that would be a good place to try it out um the second one I think snorkeling they have some really cool like coral reefs and places you could check out and I did go snorkeling on Maui and um some really crazy Wildlife like you kind of see all these fish that you never even knew existed and they're colorful and um yeah that's a really cool experience that the snorkeling and then you can go on like a bunch of different tours on boats like boat rides and you could kind of go um like Wildlife watching as well tours like that are really cool cuz there's like you know a lot of cool wildlife in Hawaii and even just like if you were going on a tour um through any of the islands somebody could take you through and show you a lot of the really neat places so so dolphin watching well watching I'm sure I know the Sharks out there too right shark watching there definitely sharks yeah do you know of any like beaches or snorkel locations you were you went to or just you just can't go wrong when you're down there you probably can't go wrong yeah I mean I've went to multiple beaches and you know they're all uh they've got different scenes going on some of them are more calm and not many people and then others are packed so it it all depends on kind of what you're looking for if somebody were to have two complaints about Hawaii and they're not exactly NE necessarily complaints they could be things that people just weren't aware of or things they might want to have been prepared for what would those two things be everybody's main problem with Hawaii is how expensive it is um it's kind of really hard to to live there because of how pricey it is you know a small house could be a million dollars and and yeah that that's one tough part about it and then the second tough part is that you're really far from civilization you know it's like a long plane ride you're a th000 miles from from any Coast um and so if you're trying to live there or even go on vacation there for a while there's no chance that you're going to take a quick stop back to the mainland or anything and if you're living there you're probably not going to come back more than once or twice a year that's a really good point yeah cuz it is a long flight and I can relate to that I remember we flew out from Connecticut we flew to Chicago and then Chicago to Hawaii I think it was like an 8 hour flight and I was a kid I remember my game boy died like an hour into the flight so I was just sitting there for like 7 hours and had nothing to do it felt like the long flight ever so it is it is a very long flight but once you're down there I mean you're kind of stuck there but you're stuck in Hawaii so it's not that bad it's a good place to be stuck yeah absolutely hey man I appreciate that this was definitely an informative conversation about Hawaii hopefully somebody listening to this this helps them plan their trip to Hawaii or hu um any last words before we take off I would say yeah try your best to travel and you know experience different places whether it's Hawaii or anywhere else if you uh feel like you want to travel make the effort and plan the trip and make it happen great and where can my listeners find out more about you yeah so I'm on Instagram I'm Dylan Davino and then I'm also on YouTube if you just look up Dylan Davino um so my Instagram is more personal and then my YouTube is more about business and then you I also have a website davinodigital.com for my website agency awesome yeah check it out again he designed a travel path.com our website if you haven't been there before check out Davino digital Dylan thanks for coming on thank you so much for having me.

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Transcript from YouTube

Dylan Davino thank you for coming on the show today I know you as a web designer and a bit of a digital Nomad I know you took a two-month long cross country trip you have an incredible story of how you overcame two days into your trip your camper flipping over which we'll get into a little bit later why don't you start by sharing a little bit about yourself and then telling the audience what your travel lifestyle looks like yeah well thanks for having me on the show Tyler um so my name is Dylan Davino um I'll just go a few years back to kind of start my story I was going to yuk on studying engineering and this was during Co I was not liking my classes it was all on my laptop I was miserable um no social life no parties physically didn't see campus once and yet we were paying $30,000 a year for school and I was going with my cousin at the time so we both initially decided to drop out of school and start our first business which was Modern Age marketing and we pretty much did that for a year and a half building websites doing marketing for local businesses and that was a really great experience I did end up kind of splitting off for my cousin um he bought a window washing company and I started Davino digital so I started Davino digital in January of this year and you know fast forward to now it's about November of 2023 so about 11 months in you know we're we're doing really well I'm super excited about it and I'm also super excited to talk about the cross country road trip and just a lot of the lessons I've learned along the way awesome I can definitely brag about your web design skills you actually designed a travel path.com which is our website so anybody listening if you haven't checked out our website yet it's atravel path.com got a Blog a community Forum feel free to jump on there hang out for a little while um but yeah you did a great job with our website so thank you for so much at travel.com check it out definitely I can totally see why you know working paying the $330,000 in tuition and not having the social life that would just drive you crazy so that's some very admirable you you know started your own business and here you are now talking with me so that's awesome man um so when you were on your trip your cross country trip I know you were periodically working right you were you were working remotely how many hours and what did that lifestyle look like yeah so I I really was trying to make it more of a lifestyle than just you know going on a trip and not thinking about work because really like when you're working in a digital industry you have the ability to work from anywhere on the globe as long as you have internet and I kind of figured like this could be a lifestyle for me I could be you know going everywhere and doing this non-stop as long as I'm getting the hours in now during this trip I I was aiming originally to do 30 hours a week and then you know things happened we had scenarios you know which we'll talk about but I ended up working probably between 15 to 20 hours a week and that was mainly like me sitting down in coffee shops or restaurants or hotels responding to all my emails and talking to my team making sure that they're on top of all the projects that we had running and campaigns um so you know mainly communication I also kind of counted other time of like reading and trying to just better myself while on the trip and you know probably 15 to 20 hours to answer your question so from the day you decided you wanted to travel to the day your actual attire at the road and you were traveling what was that time frame yeah so I did the trip with my brother I don't know if I mentioned that but we one day sat down at like a breakfast place and we just started talking about the random idea of tra tring and that was about one year before we actually set off for the trip so we we sat down we had the idea and then one thing led to another we started saying you know this we might actually do this like it's not just an idea oh we're going to do it throughout that year we started um really planning the details of the trip trying to figure out what the itinerary itinerary would look like and how long it would be um where we would go and what we would do for fun and you know those are all things that we were ironing out until pretty much like the day before we left for the trip but um yeah about a year so that's great I can totally relate till you know you have that idea in mind and it doesn't sound real you're repeating it you're telling people you're going to take it but in the back of your mind you're still not quite sure I remember when you beat me by a long shot it took us like three years we had that goal in mind to do a two-month trip similar to yours and we took three years to do it but um I remember like thinking you know telling people writing it down we're going to take this trip but really you know not quite sold on it until you know a couple months it doesn't hit you until you're on the road you're behind you're behind the wheel and it's like yeah you're you're doing it you're doing it yeah during that time frame when you were planning and before you got on the road what was the biggest challenge you faced and how were you able to overcome that yeah so I think the biggest challenge for me was being able to get myself and my business in a place where I could actually leave for two months and it's not as easy as it sounds like I had to pretty much be able to hire and train new team members and have them be able to understand what we do and what my job is because you know I'm not working as much I'm not here to to take full responsibility I needed to make sure that I had a project management system in place and that I trusted my team members and that they were able to do my job essentially without me kind of being there to oversee them all the time because you know I knew even going into the trip that there would be times where I didn't have internet there was a couple um stretches where I probably went to or 3 days without any internet and I didn't being in Tech is impossible yeah yeah so there were probably you know some some times when u i really relied on them to you know take take that responsibility so so you say the bulk of that year I know you had a lot more going on but in terms of the biggest obstacle getting you know systems in place and hiring people was that full years worth of work was that like the last six months or how much time if you could kind of ballpark that yeah I I probably didn't start focusing on it until about 6 months before we left I started the company in January of 2023 and I initially immediately brought on one team member her name's Amy and then you know throughout the whole year we were focusing on training her getting her up to speed and just working on the way that we cooperate because quite frankly she's a better web designer than I am anyways but really just trying to figure out how we work together and how the systems and communication all Loops in um that was like one of the things we were working on initially and then bringing on another team member and being able to get them up to speed and learn how our company works you know so it's kind of just being able to repeat that process and get people on board it does take a good amount of time I know you're a huge Bookworm like I am were there any books or other influences that helped you overcome that challenge H I'd have to look at my collection I mean I think initially the book I'm thinking about is the 4-Hour Work week um you know he talks about a lot of different principles that you would need to understand to be able to only work 4 hours a week and to be able to travel and do the thing that we're talking about right now um one of the things was delegation so being able to or Automation and delegation being able to either automate tasks or delegate them to other people um so that you can free up some of your time yeah the 4our work week I remember I I don't know if I finished that I read that a long time ago I remember I think after read that book at the right stage in your life cuz when I read that I was still working W2 didn't really know what I wanted to do and it didn't make a lot of sense for me but if I read that now I probably should pick it back up I'm in a position where you know I am self-employed and I'm working towards this lifestyle I would probably have much bigger impact on me right now so thanks for bringing that up I'll have to check that one out next yeah I feel like there's you know a lot of situations like that where you you don't really fully understand something until 6 months later when you're trying to put it in practice and you're like oh that's what that guy was talking some of the biggest frustrations and struggles you faced on the road I like asking this because like myself you know we worked really hard to get on the road and you know some people they think once they get there and they reach that goal it's all sunshine and rainbows obviously having been on the road for two months yourself there are things that happen probably frustrations you weren't expecting so any of those frustrations or hassles that you weren't prepared for that you might want to help a fellow listener before they take their trip yeah would now be a good time to talk about the trailer flipping that is a bit of a hassle yeah let's let's go on that one sure yeah so probably one of the biggest um hassles that we faced during the trip was so this was on the second night of the trip we yeah we we left we were in Tennessee we we were driving all day so we we left in the morning um and then we drove all that day and then um we drove all the next day and then that night um you know we were driving and uh essentially what happened was the weight distribution in the trailer was off so you need to have um weight in the the front in the middle of the trailer but not the back and we think that there was too much weight in the back which essentially when we were on the highway and kind of going around like a corner and maybe like a gust of wind came from a truck driving by but it started to cavitate back and forth and death's way they say right were you driving when that happened I was asleep and then so what happened it started going back and forth and then uh eventually the whole car and trailer ended up turning all the way around and then the trailer was flipping while that was happening and the way that ended was we were facing kind of the oncoming traffic on the side of the road um and yeah the trailer was in complete pieces hopefully we can get a little video of that going over this but yeah if you're watching this on you Youtube I'll overlay some of the the photos and the videos I saw Dylan and like thankfully you guys were okay but I mean that trailer was completely shredded there was no you couldn't recognize it yeah that's that is wild man yeah it was wild and you had the you had the sway bars on defin I think just the weight distribution was the main thing we didn't know at the time and you know um yeah I would say just study up on the way that you're going to be um mounting your trailer or just the vehicle that you're in and you know safety you know thankfully we spent a year preparing and had like a whole list of things that would be good for emergencies and we brought like everything you could think of all the tools all the this the that emergency supply and we ended up using all of it like you know we we had to use every every essential thing that we brought and bring all of that you know ask Chad GPT what is all the emergency items I need for a road trip and bring all that um it'll probably help you out was your car all banged up I mean I guess not oh it was okay yeah we had a big dent in the car cuz when it was turning around the trailer um hit hit the back of the car so man so walk me through what was going through your mind so that happened probably I think it was late at night you said and you're probably on the side of the road for all night right waiting for you know you have law enforcement emergency um what do you thinking you're 2 days into the trip you worked a year for thinking about turning around you're going to persevere I mean you don't really want to sleep in your car for the next two months with your with your brother so what what was going on in your head there I you know I was asleep when it was happening and then I woke up as it as we were starting to turn around and everything U my brother who was awake and driving um told me that there was a 30ft wall of Sparks when when the trailer was flipping and everything um and there was you know there was another kind of car that was right like behind us when it was happening and they ended up um seeing what happened they immediately called the police and you know tried to get us help and everything um and then the police showed up about 20 minutes later and um later on the tow companies ended up coming to try to look at what was going on and they ended up determining they wouldn't be able to to help because it was just too much yeah it was too heavy too big tooo much stuff everywhere and we essentially we ended up sleeping there all night on the side of the road on a like a blanket outside and then um we had the toe company came kind of like in the morning and in the during the night we were also Gathering all of our valuables and putting them in a pile and then we ended up taking that pile and going to early check in for a hotel at like 4:00 a.m. um so we brought it all to the hotel we got our stuff situated and then and yeah it was kind of the the next day that we found out that they wouldn't be able to deal with the trailer for almost a week so it sat on the side of the road um just for a week yeah man that must have been like I said just so emotional and everything go I mean you're probably having a little bit of you know post-traumatic stress too cuz you know like thankfully guys are okay but it might not have been I mean that's a pretty yeah it's a miracle that we all we all made it out safe and then to kind of go into what was going on like in my mind mind at the time um well my brother and I were talking like what are we even going to do like do we just turn back we're only a day into this thing you know well on our second night but um you know we we figured we spent too long and we worked too hard to just cancel everything and turn back so we ended up deciding to stick out the trip and just do it in our car and that was quite a challenge which I'm sure we'll kind of talk about throughout this as well changed the dynamic you have cites booked and you had to kind of reschedule everything or were you just going to um we didn't have anything booked yet which is good but we had um we paid for this thing called Harvest host which lets you kind of park at different wineries or Farmland different areas like that and we were just planning on Walmart parking lots that and anywhere we could pull over to sleep you know having the trailer and then when we lost the trailer we were like yeah well we don't have any sleeping plans whatsoever we're going to have to basically um just pull over wherever we can find and that's worst enough cuz Harvest hosts don't allow if you don't have a functional camper or trailer you know with water kitchen electricity you can't sleep in the car there I'm sure you try to talk to the host and everything but um yeah that's that is an incredible story of just adversity and I'm going to have a hard time getting another show that's going to Top This one in the future cuz that's that's incredible how you guys were able to not only get through that but then have the mindset and just to stay positive I'm sure there were some you know some moments where you were kind of shaking your head but to move forward and go through with it yeah I think optimism is definitely uh like one of the the key traits I would say if you're you know it just in life you know try to be optimistic and always keep your head up and don't let anything stand in front of your way of you know what you want to do yeah I'm sure this goes without say but obviously you made the right decision right continue on that trip memories it was great you know no regrets at all and even looking back on the whole trailer experience like there was a little while where it was really stressful and I was there was a good part of the trip where I was like freaking out I was like I don't have a room I don't have a bathroom like you know I'm dirty I haven't showered in four days and um you know it was not easy for me I'm kind of like a homebody um but you know the trip made me a lot tougher and it was like really good life experience that now I could take that and you know I can know that I can live in any part of the country in a car and I don't need anything except for my body and you know a few essential things and I can survive so feels and then you get old and you realize you were taking your bed and your hot water for granted for the past you know your whole entire life did you do I mean I'm sure you stayed at like a couple airbn bees or hotels throughout or was it we did yeah yeah we needed it every once in a while um and we also had friends that we stayed at occasionally like I have a couple friends in California um you know in Colorado my mom lives there so we were kind of like bouncing around staying with friends and then getting hotels um tried to stay some in some sort of house like once or twice a week to keep our sanity um but otherwise we had to be on the road and driving and going to new places so you can't always just chill in the hotel room you know you got places to be well Swit gears a little bit into kind of money tips and budget do you have a any travel hacking money saving tips that you learned along the way that would like to share with our audience so I think one of the initial things is if you have all your backup supplies and especially things that you're going to be using a lot of so like propane was a perfect example of um if you don't have all of the extra propane that you're going to need for the trip you're going to end up having to buy it from Super overpriced like rural convenience stores that are charging you like $20 for a little can of it and you know keep in mind this is to cook pasta or rice you know so you're talking about 20 meal not including the food you don't want to pay that much for propane or stuff like that so try to um stock up where it's cheap and then use it you know in the places where it's not going to be cheap so after traveling consistently I know you did two months what would your monthly budget look like did you have a budget in mind did you completely blow it like we did did you stay on track with it or what would that budget look like for a listener yeah so I had a rough idea of how much I wanted to spend and we kind of did like a spreadsheet calculation which by the way we were way off I mean it was like not even completely relate with that yeah yeah the gas was one thing because you plug it into Google Maps or whatever and it's going to say this is the distance that it takes to go from here to Florida to California to Canada back to Connecticut and it's going to tell you that that's 12,000 mil but what you didn't consider is that there's probably an extra 5,000 miles of going driving around the national parks or the cities or going back and forth to your hotel and um you know the roads are curvy and like there's just all these little things you didn't think about that ended up adding thousands of miles to the trip that we didn't anticipate um but that being said we actually ended up spending less on gas than we originally anticipated because we didn't have the trailer we're Towing it yeah you got much better gas mileage so we anticipated uh 10 m per gallon with the trailer and then we ended up getting 20 because we didn't have it the whole time but we ended up going at least 50% over the amount of miles that we predicted so that kind of balanced out I think that I roughly spent $2,000 a month to to go on the trip and to live and you know which is really not that bad all things consider you're probably eating out a lot too cuz you didn't have a kitchen for the most part buying food and eating out like at least you know probably once a day or every other day you know cuz we needed place to work too so um yeah gas was the biggest expense and then all the food and supplies that you need is the probably the second biggest expense and excursions can also cost a decent amount um if you were staying at hotels that price would go up a lot um and you know there was particularly we were in Vegas and I I spent $500 for pretty much one night in a hotel there that quickly adds up you you can't be doing that if you want to spend one or $2,000 a month but if you want to you know if you're young if you're dependent and you feel like you want to travel and you don't have a lot of money it's totally possible you just have to rough it a little bit and uh it's not a bad thing plus the the gas prices I know you were talking about earlier when we left it was like four in change the price of gas per gallon and then out in California we saw $7.49 I know you had it similar price so that threw us off a little bit too yeah definitely looking at all the different prices for everything across the country there were some places where it's cheaper too I mean you know we got to like Arkansas and we saw like to maybe $250 I don't know exactly but it was in the $2 range which was cool too um kind of seeing all aspects of it but definitely uh yeah you get a lot of like life experience just seeing all the different things that different states have to offer too so I know you were working periodically how were you getting sell service um was it coffee shop Starbucks I know you mentioned that earlier if you want to add to that a little bit I had an unlimited hotspot plan on my phone so typically I would just be creating which phone plan offers that um AT&T okay yeah unlimited plan and yeah we pretty much I would just create hotpots like whenever I had service but no Wi-fi which was a lot of the time I mean you know in the car if I didn't have the Wi-Fi password for somewhere um but alternatively if I was at a restaurant or a coffee shop I would hook up to their WiFi and um use that because there's definitely times when you don't have service and if if that does happen then you need to find a restaurant or somewhere that can provide Wi-Fi to be able to connect all right one last question I have before you wrap up it's not exactly the best destination your favorite place but just one cool experience that you want to share like one memory that really stands out when you think about it you think man I'm glad I took that trip um I really liked Colorado and that's where my mom lives and my sister moved there on the trip we actually brought my sister to Colorado um kind of dropped her off along the way and there was a lot of different things there like the 12,000 ft mountains you know beautiful if you're into like hiking and you know scenery I think that those were some of the coolest spots that we saw for that and then in particular like one of my favorite memories was going to the Red Rocks Amphitheater so it's basically like a a concert Stadium on top of a mountain overlooking the city of Boulder um and it's like super cool maybe maybe I can get a picture of it over here as well we'll overlay that listening on YouTube we'll have a picture of it here yeah yeah and you know we just went and saw like a guy named camp and I'm not like a huge fan of his music but my family my brother does like him and my mom as well um but just like the experience was super cool like thousands of people up on top of a mountain Red Rocks all around you and like the city lights you know behind where the person's like playing their music so it was really cool first time going there y yeah have not been but definitely I've seen pictures and you're definitely making me want to add it to my list so yeah yeah definitely add it for anybody listening to the show right now who would like to set up a similar travel lifestyle that you set up what would be your one call of action for them to start doing today yeah I think it kind of depends on the route you want to take it so there's kind of two routes I could see um route one would be you're in a digital business um and you can work from anywhere and then you're trying to do a trip where you're also working and that's kind of like the approach I took to traveling um which which is trying to juggle both traveling and digital work at the same time and if you're trying to do that then do your research on all the different industries that you can go into web design social media marketing email marketing copywriting you know there's a lot out there a lot of options um and once you can kind of figure out your process and it does take a while to start anything like that or really any business whatsoever um but once you figure out your process and you start to get it rolling it doesn't take that long to be able to go on a trip like this because it only costs $2,000 a month you know like we said and if you can just if you can build up an income of a couple thousand a month from you know your business then you are able to do that and then kind of like the other route would be if you wanted to be in any career whatsoever and then just save up the money and then you don't have to work on the trip and that's another great way to do it as well because you don't have to be thinking about work and you can just enjoy the strictly just the traveling part of it which yeah most people that's probably what most people would want to do uh and it's a great way to do it as well sure I think the toughest thing to do is just finding a career that allows you if you are W2 that allows you to leave for a month or two months that's one thing we had to make an adjustment for obviously you had your own business but yeah that's a great tip um any YouTube channels or other influencers out there that you watched that motivated you and inspired you to travel um your channel for one the path Beyond so I mean you you announced it we already kind of had our trip planned like before I knew you were going on it but then seeing your videos come out on Instagram um was definitely motivating and also talking toar that yeah when you got back talking to you and seeing all the pictures and everything you know kind of like we mentioned earlier it doesn't hit you that you're going on the trip until you're on the road and I didn't really know like what to anticipate but um yeah I was just seeing all the videos and I was like this is going to be crazy like I don't even I know that when you take take a picture of something it doesn't really capture the full effect of how cool it is and I was like man these look really cool on the camera on my phone just imagine how they're going to look in person um so your channel is is definitely a big one but yeah besides for that I actually didn't do like a ton of research or like um you know I kind of just wanted to dive into it and see what happened and I was busy as well I'm so glad to hear that man I know that's like I'm sure you've gotten the same thing but like when someone tells us that we've inspired them to travel it's like one of the things one of the reasons why we did that Vlog and one of the reasons why we're doing this podcast now and I'm sure you've gotten the same feedback like you've inspired somebody else and you know this episode will Air hopefully it'll Inspire somebody else and that just that chain keeps unfolding so that's great man yeah I think that's the point yeah just try to uh you know Inspire other people and do do good things and yeah good stuff hey man thanks for coming on the show again I appreciate you taking the time here where can my audience find out more about you yeah so I have a YouTube channel um an Instagram on Instagram Dylan Davino and on YouTube just look up Dylan Davino and you'll find me so my YouTube channel is more about business and then my Instagram is just my life personal so and in terms of your work your Davino digital.com that's something you can do pretty much remotely if someone's listening to this podcast from across the country they can reach out to you and you can help them right I know we did our Google remote calls when we were setting up the website so mhm definitely we can work with anybody across the world as long as we uh speak your language right um and yeah you can look us up at Davino digital.com if you are looking for any website help or you know boosting your online presence we'd be happy to help awesome hey thanks D again for coming on the show this was a great podcast what an incredible story thank you for sharing your story on the adversity you guys faced with the camper flipping over and all the helpful tips So yeah thank you thanks for having me I appreciate it

*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.

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Transcript:

Hello Pathfinders and welcome to the travel path podcast a show that empowers you to achieve your travel goals and live a lifestyle so that you can travel on your own terms. I am your host Tyler Hespeler join me as each guest I interview shares their wisdom and knowledge so that you can take the actionable steps necessary to begin carving your path.

Hello Pathfinders!

Thank you for tuning into the first EVER episode of the Travel Path Podcast. My name is Tyler Hespeler, and if you haven't already, check out my website at atravelpath.com. Here, you'll find a blog and a community forum, so feel free to ask questions or share any travel knowledge you have that could potentially help a fellow traveler.

It will just be me and you today in this brief intro episode.

I want to start by sharing my vision for this podcast, and then diving a bit deeper into Hope and I's journey.

Starting next week, I'll begin the interview-style podcast where I'll be having some exciting conversations with people who have been able to quite simply, travel. Whether it's taking a multiple month trip work free that just seems impossible for so many reasons, or you'd like to structure your life so that you can start some remote work and make money online, this podcast is for you.

Every listener will have their own unique set of circumstances in life. As such, each listener will have a different path to get them where they want to go. The beauty of this podcast is I'll be talking with guests from all walks of life. While some guests may be more relatable to you than others, I'm confident each episode will deliver valuable information to your ears.

I think it's important to let you know how this podcast was born. When Hope and I were taking our two month long road trip, by far the most-asked question we got was "How are you able to do this?"

It was not uncommon that an older couple would stop and tell us how they wished they could have explored in their younger years, before they retired. They were happy for us, but they were also envious that we were able to travel to all these places and go on those long, steep, scenic hikes that, at their current age, they just couldn't do. We made many friends on the road, and I soon learned that while the desire to travel is shared by many, what some people seemed to be missing was the path it took to get there.

Whatever your goals are, my mission is to have this podcast serve as a guide and to get you on the right path, YOUR travel path, wherever that may lead. It's a big, beautiful world, and I believe most people want to see it.

Whether you are stuck in job you aren't satisfied with, like I was, or want to set up a lifestyle for yourself or family so that you can reach your travel goals, or both, you'll want to be tuning in each week.

There are so many questions, it can seem impossible to know where to start. How much should you save up and when should you begin? What about kids, pets, or school? How will you be able to quit your job or talk to your boss about traveling? Can you make money online or find remote work? Should you stay in hotels, airbnbs, or what type of RV should you buy? How can you restructure your days and change your mindset now, so that you can take actionable steps to make extended travel a reality in the future?

Fortunately, each week will bring a unique and motivational guest who will answer these questions and more.

One of the things I'm most excited for is to be able to share not one, but two episodes of the Travel Path Podcast every single week. Each inspiring guest I interview will have a two-part, thirty minute or so long podcast.

In Part 1 we'll be diving into the nitty-gritty details on how my guests have been able to set their lives up so they can travel. Together we'll be gaining knowledge, as well as learning from mistakes, on exactly what it takes to achieve your travel goals. We'll cover everything from what their travel lifestyle looks like to money saving travel hacks and more. I'll ask each guest about some of the frustrations and problems they still face while traveling and, my personal favorite, what is the biggest challenge they faced to get on the road, and how they overcame that.

And of course, I'll be asking them to share the coolest experience they have had while traveling.

The aim with Part 1 is to combine the knowledge and expertise we've learned from each guest, as well a pinch of inspiration, to get you going full steam ahead on your own path.

Part 2 will be a change of pace. During this episode, I'll be asking each guest to give us all the details on the one place they know best. Whether it's their hometown or a destination they've spent a lot of time at, we'll be digging up all the secrets.

I'll be asking everything from the best time of year to visit, things to watch out for, their favorite restaurants, nightlife, kids, pet friendly, and rainy day activities, and more, and I'll wrap up with asking them what is one thing you simply can't leave town without doing.

The goal with Part 2 is to provide you with knowledge that you probably wouldn't find online or know without having lived there for a little while so that you can best be prepared for your trip. Overtime, I hope to have an entire library of destinations that you can pull up and listen to as you create your list of places you want to visit. Like Part 1, Part 2 will bring value to you from either end of your path. If you are just starting out, you'll be finding out more about a destination you've always thought about, or you'll hear something for the first time that really resonates with you that you'll want to work toward experiencing. And of course, when you are ready to make your trip, it will be a great guide to relisten to as you pack your bags. Or if you're really last minute like me, play in the car as you are approaching your destination.

Whether you are making your commute, going for a run, or putting away the dishes, you will have two new episodes of The Travel Path Podcast each week that will accompany you as some extra motivation and encouragement.

I know that when we began carving our path, this is something I would have loved to have been able to listen to, and I look forward to you tuning in.

A little bit about me.

My wife, Hope, and I had pretty normal jobs and lived in a small town in Southeastern CT. At a young age, I went on a cross-country road trip with my family, and at some point I decided I really wanted to set up a life so that I could take Hope on an extended road trip and show her some of the amazing things this country had to offer. Together, we set a goal to take a two month long road trip before I turned 30, and over the course of three years, Hope and I worked really hard to make that happen. We educated ourselves, made some passive income investments, and I left my job to work for myself so I had a scalable income source which would help us save up. Sure enough, on my 29th birthday, we picked up our new class b van, and a few months later we hit the road.

The trip was amazing, and I can't explain how free it felt to be behind the wheel. Our experiences and the things we saw made all our hard work worth it.

I'll get into more detail as to the specifics on how we paved our way in a later episode, but as I mentioned earlier, I am keeping this show brief.

We are by no means retired, have definitely made some mistakes, and just like a lot of my listeners, I have a lot to learn as well. But by combining my passion for travel with the opportunity to learn from others, I am confident this podcast will help you in your journey.

In putting this show together, I tried picturing myself several years ago and asking myself what I would have liked to have listened to and questions Hope and I would have had as we were starting out.

It's been very gratifying whenever someone tells us that we have inspired them to travel. I hope to do the same with this podcast, as well as provide you with the tools and knowledge it takes to get you there.

But it doesn't stop at this podcast. My goal is atravelpath.com become the place to go for travel seekers everywhere to both seek guidance and share their wisdom. So go ahead and checkout our forum at atravelpath.com and become a member of our community.

If there's one thing I've learned its that life is short. If you want to experience some of the awesome places this world has to offer, there is no better time to start planning then right now.

Thanks for tuning in. I'm so excited for what this podcast will bring, and I hope you are ready to lace up your hiking boots and find your path.

And that's the show thank you everybody for listening I hope you learned as much as I did on this episode of the travel path podcast if you found any value please consider writing review on whatever platform you listening to. I read every single one and it will help me understand what content matters most to my Audience. By leaving a review you're helping me reach my goal of empowering as many people as I can reach their travel goals. Speaking of that please share this episode with anyone who you think could benefit from it check out atravel path.com for access to Today's Show notes resources and to join our community. Before I Let You Go what is one thing you can do today that will bring you one step closer to reaching your travel goals? my name is Tyler Hespeler signing off.

*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.