Links: www.rvblogger.com
This week we sit down with friends, bloggers, and YouTubers Mike and Susan! We meet Mike and Susan during our time on RV Unplugged Season 2
They have been RVing now for over 5 years, and have owned 2 different RV's
Join us as we catch up and chat about the RV Industry and a bunch of Industry news!
Links: www.rvblogger.com
This week we sit down with friends, bloggers, and YouTubers Mike and Susan! We meet Mike and Susan during our time on RV Unplugged Season 2
They have been RVing now for over 5 years, and have owned 2 different RV's
Join us as we catch up and chat about the RV Industry and a bunch of Industry news!
Welcome back to the RV shenanigans podcast. I'm Ryan.
Speaker 2:I'm Lauren, and together we're Millers in motion. We sold our ranch in Texas and are enjoying a new season of life in our Alliance Valor.
Speaker 3:We are coming to you live from the 2024 Florida RV Super Show once again, because this is our second episode that we're doing here. We are super thankful for the team over at Alliance RV for giving us some space to come in and talk with some of our friends guests, deep dive into some of these RVs, as well as the lifestyle and a whole bunch of other stuff. Well, I feel like this is sitting down with old friends at this point.
Speaker 2:So it is.
Speaker 3:We are welcoming in RV blogger. Hey, here we are. Good to see you guys, mike and Susan, obviously so also castmates from season one of RV unplugged.
Speaker 1:Yes, we are now bound together as friends forever.
Speaker 3:Because of RV unplugged all because Tony tried to torture us.
Speaker 4:Yes, he did, he didn't try, he did, he made it happen.
Speaker 3:So full disclosure. Tony's also over there and I'm trying to talk over him just a little bit. So no, we are coming to you live. So if you hear some noises in the background airplanes, that's because we're doing a live recording in the Alliance booth. So you ready for the hard hitting questions, Mike, I'm ready, bring it on Tons of sleep last night.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:Okay, perfect.
Speaker 1:I was drinking Scotch last night, as you know. I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3:I'm plead the fifth and everything we're talking about. So just out of curiosity, what got you guys in RV in the first place?
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good question. We were actually planning a vacation one year and we were thinking about going to an all inclusive resort because that's what we enjoyed. Susan came up with the great idea of let's rent a camper van and cruise the PCH in California. And I was like you know that sounds like an awesome idea, so the more I was looking into it, we weren't RVers yet, by the way. Okay, you know we were. We had RVed in the past, but we weren't full time RVers not together.
Speaker 1:We were just, you know, planning a vacation, so I discovered that camper vans don't have bathrooms in them at this one place we were going to rent from. And then Susan was like well, you can rent an RV. So we did rent an RV for 10 days, drove all around California and it was life changing. It was the best 10 days of my life, and yours too, I hope.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes. And we got back from that trip, I went back to work and I was like I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1:I we need to find a way to get out on the road and do this all the time, and so bought an RV that spring this was like 2017 and or 18 and then we investigated a bunch of ways to get going on the road and we started RV blogger as a business that we could use to help us travel and run our business at the same time, and that's how it all started, and now was that an area of the country you saw prior and you just were seeing it in a new way.
Speaker 1:No, I had never been to. California, but not the PCH.
Speaker 4:I got you and I forgot what I was going to say. Good thing it's not live, susan, I know. It'll come back.
Speaker 2:She needs more scotch.
Speaker 1:She actually wasn't drinking scotch. Last night she was drinking tequila.
Speaker 3:Tequila, yeah, a jug of tequila, yeah, I recall is what that was. I remember what I was going to say Perfect.
Speaker 4:So, when he was trying to figure out what we could do to work remotely, that's when we came up with the idea of being, you know, a RV blogger or contributing to the RV community, because that's what we did prior to our first trip was watching YouTube videos and reading blog articles and learning everything we could.
Speaker 4:so our trip was going to be as successful as possible, and so when he was like you know, we have to figure out a way to work remotely, I'm like, well, you know, why not do what we? You know exactly how we learn and be able to contribute and give back to the community.
Speaker 2:We feel the same way. It's such a resource and then, once you learn about it, you want to contribute to it, right?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we really enjoyed it. And then we were learning tons of new things because we bought our new. Well, we bought a class C RV, and so we just figured, well, we'll share what we learn as we go along. And then off it went. We started our blog first and then we started the YouTube channel later. Right, but we've gosh. We just celebrated our fifth year anniversary of the blog. There, you go when we've been doing the YouTube channel for almost four and a half years.
Speaker 3:So did you start the blog before you bought the RV, or during or just after, or where was the timing on that About?
Speaker 4:a couple months after we bought the RV in April 2018. Yeah, and we, you launched the website in December.
Speaker 1:December. So about you know, half a year later or so Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So what was the first RV, besides just classy?
Speaker 1:So it's a classy Gulfstream.
Speaker 4:conquest you still have it, though, we still have it.
Speaker 3:Yes, we are the proud owners of two RVs Well because when you guys were on the show, you had your current class A.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you had mentioned that you, like you, still have the classy, and it just popped in my head that you'd said that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we had. We leave that. At home. We take the A. Most of the time our adult kids and grandkids use the C, so when we go camping we'll rent two sites that are next to each other and they can go next to us and we can all camp together. They can enjoy it too.
Speaker 2:So I know this wasn't on the questions list, but you were saying that you have multiple blogs now. So in the timeline, when did those come in?
Speaker 1:So we no-transcript Gosh. We started TravelTrailer Pro and Motorhome Facts about a year and a half ago, and we did that when we sold RV Camping Magazine. So we figured, you know, we do so many blog articles and RV Blogger was getting so big I mean, I have 800 articles on there so we thought let's do some more specific websites. One is specific to TravelTrailers it's called TravelTrailerProcom, and the other is more for motor homers and that's called MotorhomeFactscom. So we write articles specific to those two different kinds of RVers, cause, you know, trailering is much different than driving around in a motor home.
Speaker 2:So as we learned with Phil and Stacy, oh yeah. That was not a short conversation, as normally.
Speaker 3:It's not, I mean, I think, just like them and with you guys we could probably sit here and talk about this for way longer than anybody at Alliance wants us to.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, yeah, we could go for hours.
Speaker 3:So when you guys started the blog what I mean I know you said you wanted to kind of fund the adventure essentially with that. But outside of that, what were some of the reasons why like a blog and not necessarily like a YouTube channel or anything else?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's a long story, but it kind of will.
Speaker 3:We got time, Mike.
Speaker 1:I had been studying different business models, and one of the business models that I was studying they had a website with a blog and they had a YouTube channel, and I bought a $2,000 course to learn what they were teaching about and I was, and then I wasn't.
Speaker 1:I decided not to pursue that business avenue, but it intrigued me like I'm a sales guy I've been in sales my whole career and they got the sales guy to go ahead and buy a $2,000 course. How did they do that? And it just intrigued me so much that I began to study what they did and I learned that what their business model was, which was a combination of blogging and YouTube videos, and it created a bond in the audience. You know, once I read their articles for the information and I watched their YouTube videos and I got to know them, and once I knew them, I liked them, and once I liked them, I felt comfortable going ahead and buying their program, and so it just was fascinating to me. I'm a geek in that way. I'm a marketing guy and I've done sales pretty much my whole career, so that was how it started.
Speaker 3:Gotcha. So was there, Susan? Was this mostly your idea, or was it a joint idea, or was this one of those? Mike went off in the left feeling like what's happening.
Speaker 4:No, the blog was definitely his idea.
Speaker 3:OK.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm not a writer so it would have never been my idea, but so that was his. The reason the YouTube channel came later was it was actually supposed to come way later, but we weren't a lifestyle RV channel, we were still living at home, I still had a corporate job, so this was full time for him, for the blog, and we didn't really feel like we had anything that we could contribute to the YouTube community because we weren't lifestylers, we would be weekenders and that would have been boring.
Speaker 4:So, it wasn't until later on that we came to the conclusion that we could do RV tours and do them the way that we did, and that would have been our contribution to YouTube. So we were going to wait a lot longer than we did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the original plan was to wait until we were on the road full time and then begin the YouTube channel then, but we pushed it up and one of our most popular articles on the website was called Eight Small Campers with Bathrooms. Ok, so we went to the Hershey RV show and this is back in 2019.
Speaker 3:We also call those no ways for Ryan.
Speaker 4:Yes, he would not be comfortable in them. I'm going to look at them. That's Ryan in them.
Speaker 1:No chance and we showed up there. We had 99 subscribers. I remember we called Susan's dad and said hey we have 99 subscribers. Can you subscribe? So we have 100? And he did yes.
Speaker 4:I don't know why he wasn't already a subscriber. To be honest, yeah, I don't need them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's all.
Speaker 4:We'll have to ask him about that, that's true.
Speaker 1:He probably doesn't watch any of our videos.
Speaker 3:Well, that podcast Digging Up Family Stuff, there you go yeah, thanksgiving will be fun this year. You are welcome.
Speaker 1:So we did our first video, or one of our first videos called Eight Small Campers with Bathrooms, and it worked out really great and that got us started on doing the RV tours, and then we found that lane for ourselves where we could be different, you know, if you don't want to be doing the same thing that everybody else is doing out there. So that worked really well for us.
Speaker 3:So is there a synergy between the blog and the YouTube channel that kind of go hand in hand, or are they just kind of solely in? I mean, they're similar things. I know that as far as topics, but do they go hand in hand or do they kind of just do their own things on their own time?
Speaker 1:Well, there's a little bit of both. I mean, some articles we write we don't have a blog article to go or a YouTube video to go with the article, but many of our RV review articles, we would take our YouTube video that goes with that topic and embed it into the article. So when you're reading the article you can just watch our video there too, got you, so they go hand in hand really well OK.
Speaker 2:And that's great for business too, that you're sharing those platforms back and forth and offering that resource in a way. Yeah Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So if you had to kind of put a circle on the people that really watch RV blogger or read RV blogger, what type of an RV? Or I'm saying RV or like it's RV. I mean, who knows, Maybe there's just random people that wish they were you watching. But in the RV community, what is the main demographic you guys land in?
Speaker 1:Well, it's funny, we have an awful lot of beginners who read our articles and watch our videos because they're trying to buy their first RV in many cases. So we have a lot of folks that don't even own an RV that watch our channel, and then that goes all the way to experienced people, because a lot of the articles that we write are very specific, like what do you do if you can't get propane and your water heater is not working, or things like that, and so if folks are having a problem out there, they're probably experienced RVers to some degree and they can research that topic and will pop up in the search results and they can read our article and see how to solve that problem. So we really hit a wide variety. If you look at our analytics, we have almost an equal share from 24 years old all the way up to 65 years old oh wow. So it's a pretty wide audience.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine, you know, sometimes people watch for entertainment, sometimes they look for information. Yeah, Over the five years can you imagine how many questions you've answered?
Speaker 1:I mean, what an impact on the community that you've had. Yeah, it's, we take it really seriously too. We woke up this morning extra early.
Speaker 2:We sit down.
Speaker 4:Is that 9am or is it? Yeah, yeah, I wish. Yeah, we were 6am this morning and that's the first thing we do is we answer.
Speaker 1:We get tons of emails, we get YouTube comments, we have our private Facebook group and the first thing we do is answer all those questions every day and it's, it's a lot.
Speaker 3:But say, how long does that normally take you on an average day?
Speaker 1:On an average day a couple hours, oh wow, At least.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's just to answer YouTube questions and and the social media.
Speaker 3:And that's two people doing it. Yeah right, not just one of you guys. You're both sitting down doing it. Yeah, wow, yeah.
Speaker 2:And what? What kinds of questions are they, you know, or just variety?
Speaker 1:It's a wide variety, it just depends. But it could be anything like. I had a lady last week send me a question about what's the best trip planning tool to use. They're just getting ready to get started. They bought a brand new RV. They haven't even taken it on a camping trip yet. What do they do, you know, and so we we try to answer those. I even ended up on a phone call with her to explain to her like okay here's here's a couple of good ideas, like take a shakedown trip close to home.
Speaker 1:You know, try that first make sure everything works okay, and then we got into the trip planning part of things. But we get questions from there to what model do you recommend? Or I'm considering buying this RV, what do you think of it, or what do you get you? Get a lot of questions too.
Speaker 4:Well, I think on the YouTube, because we do so many tours, a lot of people are saying you know, I liked you know because a lot of our tours are categories like size or features that an RV has which, by the way, is something that I love that you guys do, because so many people just do a tour right. Right.
Speaker 3:And they all have their own particular twist on it. Some are more entertaining, some are super technical, but the fact that you guys take a handful of those things and do one, it's really cool that you can kind of almost automatically compare them to two, three, four, however many you guys put in the video, right?
Speaker 4:And we keep them brief, because there are three or sometimes more per video and we don't want, you know, an hour or an hour and a half long video. So we do keep the tours relatively brief, but we will have people who are saying I'm looking for something like this, but I need this kind of bed or you know or I need it on a certain kind of weight. And you know we'll take a minute or two and see if we can research, because we keep a database of every RV.
Speaker 4:Oh wow, so we try not to duplicate content.
Speaker 1:Ryan is freaking out right now. Yeah, Spreadsheets.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, they're going to chase him in his nightmare. The vein in my temple just started pulsing.
Speaker 3:I'm like I can't keep track of three videos simultaneously, let alone every RV on the market.
Speaker 4:So I'll be like let me see if I can find something that might you know and you know and gear them towards that video. But we also have our Facebook group. We have a RV camping for newbies and it has about 120,000, over 120,000 members in that and so you know we'll try to answer all kinds of questions for that and you know we get such great feedback from people who are brand new and it's not just for newbies.
Speaker 3:You know we encourage people who have, you know, been RVing for years because they're helping answer the questions I was going to say, because the nice thing about that is a now there's almost like a social media database of those questions because you can search those things. And then two, you get people that have maybe maybe they did it two, three years ago when you guys started it up or whenever that was, and they've answered that question Well, now they've become a more advanced RVer and they can almost help you with answering those questions.
Speaker 3:Because I know thanks for us and I'm sure this is even more difficult for you guys. It's sometimes it's hard to really dial in every single little thing. You guys sound like you're doing an amazing job of it, but it does help having people that already know some stuff to kind of chime in, even just for speed purposes.
Speaker 1:Right, oh yeah. And the other great thing about the group is there's so many people in the group. We've had people go on to the Facebook group and say, hey, I'm at a campground right now. My refrigerator stopped working, what do I do? And in within 10 seconds there's 10 or 20 answers of hey what kind of fridge do you have, and.
Speaker 1:And then they get some tips on what to do and very often they'll they'll be like hey, thank you so much to everybody in the group. We got it fixed, we're good to go for the rest of the weekend, so it's a really cool resource.
Speaker 2:So with that workload because you have the blogs, you have YouTube, you have Facebook, you have questions, everything like that, and email things how do you split that workload with your hundreds of thousands of point of contact? Well, we split it Scotch.
Speaker 3:That's how it's going.
Speaker 1:All right, just kidding. Well, we do a couple of things I run the blogs and Susan handles all of the social media stuff, which includes and YouTube, which includes YouTube.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 1:So I stand in front of the camera and I blab that's my, that's my deal. And then Susan does all the shooting of the video and all of the editing as well, and then she handles all the Facebook and Instagram and all the social media stuff. And then, as far as the blogs go, you know, we have a team that helps us out. There, too, we have several writers that work with us, we have editors, and so they help with creating and cranking out all the content that we make. And then I review every single thing before it ever gets onto the website. Good, and so it's a team effort, that's for sure.
Speaker 3:It's a lot of work. We have a lot of people that watch the channel and listen to the podcast that are thinking about, or maybe potentially creating their own social media, which is very popular in the.
Speaker 1:RV industry. Yeah, extremely.
Speaker 3:Just out of curiosity for more of those people how many hours do you guys think you normally put into the whole thing individually Each week? Yeah, like per week On an average week, just normal, not show week.
Speaker 4:Yeah, not yeah, this extreme in circumstances this week?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I don't know, just for all of them, sorry, yes, all of them.
Speaker 4:Well. So the beauty of this lifestyle is we can determine at what point in the day works best for us. So if it's a rainy day, we are dedicated 100%, all day long.
Speaker 1:That could be a 12 hour work day. Right, it's raining, can't go anywhere. Let's crank it out today.
Speaker 4:We typically wake up, have our cup of tea and start diving into social media, answering questions and checking emails and all of that, and then we might explore. We might go somewhere, do something, come back later on and he might have something to do, he might have a meeting. I might start editing a video. So it's kind of hard to gauge it. I mean, we feel like we work 24-7. But that's just because we're available 24-7.
Speaker 2:Right, that makes sense.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I mean each day. If we calculated our time, we probably do about five, six hours a day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say that, but it's probably seven days a week. Oh, over seven days, not five. We work almost every day, and so it's really comparable to a full time job for each of you. Oh yes, and our dinette is our office, so it's like we're never away from the office, right?
Speaker 3:That's one nice thing about.
Speaker 1:Toei Hollow, I know.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry for the first time I can shut that door when.
Speaker 2:I don't want anything to do with that. It kind of turn it off for at least a minute or two, until my brain starts falling over and vice versa, and by shut off, she means shut me off I understand.
Speaker 1:I understand.
Speaker 3:So out of all the questions you guys get, is there one that just kind of from the newbies side of thing that just kind of keeps reoccurring no matter what.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm always amazed by people who have never RV'd before. And then they go out and buy a brand new RV and then they want to know how it works. And then I'm like, well, ok, that's one way to do it.
Speaker 2:We put the cart before the horse. Yes, yes, a little bit there, a little bit, a little too excited in that purchase process.
Speaker 1:I'm always amazed by those folks, but there are lots of people out there doing that.
Speaker 2:But A for effort, I guess. Right, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:And we tell people all the time like watch YouTube videos and the RVing community is the nicest group of people.
Speaker 2:I think you'll ever meet.
Speaker 1:We completely agree so if you're new and you don't know what to do and you're at your campground, just go knock on your neighbor's door and they'll come over and help you. I mean they will.
Speaker 3:And if you're an introvert, I was going to say and if you're an introvert, the two most. If you don't want to go knock on someone's door and ask, what are the two things you can do, mike, that will get someone's attention every single time.
Speaker 1:Well, one of them is lift the hood on your vehicle and they will come a-run.
Speaker 3:Bingo. What's the other one?
Speaker 1:Stand on your roof. Got it All right Two for two. We didn't even practice that.
Speaker 3:And it is crazy, I was on the roof of the RV doing something. We had just had a hail storm. I was just inspecting the shrouds on the ACE and just you know, I want to make sure there's no damage. And so I'm up there and I'm not joking. There's this campground we were in. Maybe had 40 sites. I talked to all of them.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And of course, they see somebody work and everybody wants to see what's going on, right, why?
Speaker 3:are you up there? Can I help with anything? Like yeah, pop on up your seals and stuff. That's how you get them to move on.
Speaker 2:It's true, that's true. Put them to work Right, it's all moral support, for the most part, absolutely.
Speaker 3:So do you guys have any big time tips for newbies, maybe either in the purchasing price or purchasing process or just after?
Speaker 1:Well, the biggest tip we give out is really what we did Rent an RV before you buy one. When we took our big trip to California, we rented an RV for those 10 days and we learned so much about what we wanted and what we didn't want in an RV. For example, the Class C that we rented had a wet bath in it. We quickly learned we do not ever want to have a wet bath in our RV.
Speaker 3:Wait, hang on, mike. You're saying you don't want a multitask.
Speaker 1:No, no, I'm a one thing at a time kind of guy, at least in that department.
Speaker 2:I'm going to build on that because we did something similar and I don't think enough people realize you can rent RVs and the first time we actually had it delivered and set up so that we didn't have to deal with that and that way we could just see about the space and our usage and those sorts of things.
Speaker 4:We did that with a fifth wheel because we had no way of towing a fifth wheel, so we rented a fifth wheel.
Speaker 3:I'm imagining you all on a fifth wheel now, because I'm only on you in the class I'm going to imagine me on a fifth wheel too.
Speaker 4:We love fifth wheels they have so much space and everything.
Speaker 1:But honestly, driving that thing around and watching everybody trying to back into their campsites and all, we're just more used to going from the C to the A and in my opinion it's a much easier setup process than a trailer or even a fifth wheel. But man, you get so much space in those fifth wheels.
Speaker 3:Yours is huge.
Speaker 1:I mean it's incredible, your whole office setup. You got the whole back toy area. It's amazing. And then you have all the storage space.
Speaker 3:So what storage space are you talking about when I set up the bar yesterday, right there? Oh, that's where I set up the bar. I forgot. It was hard to see past the Scotch and Tequila James. What do you got?
Speaker 2:Do you see yourself in your current RV for an extended time or are you planning to change, and what would you change to?
Speaker 3:That's a good question. That's a good question.
Speaker 4:So we do plan on seeing ourselves in the A for a while. We do see ourselves eventually wanting to downsize. I don't think it'll be our forever RV, no, I don't think so, but we do love it. I mean love the floor plan, we're enjoying it and we live life like we're gonna do what makes us happy, what fits our lifestyle, for as long as possible. And when the time comes when we're like let's change, then we will gladly do it. So we're very open to change.
Speaker 2:And that's the beauty of this lifestyle. You can't, absolutely. Yes, yes, yeah, you can't.
Speaker 4:So I think we will eventually go smaller, and one of the things that I would love to do is get a truck camper.
Speaker 1:I knew that was coming. I knew that was coming.
Speaker 2:You may need two.
Speaker 3:I'm warning you, we're coming back to that. Well that's how we can dive in right now, like why a truck camper?
Speaker 1:Well, we looked. I'll tell you what. There are some here at the RV show. They're amazing and hosts makes the mammoth and the Yukon. They are unbelievable truck campers.
Speaker 4:They have three slides on them. We saw one two years ago here at the Tampa show and we've been in love with it ever since. And we came back to see it again this time and we're still in love with it, and you can full time in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it has three slides, so it's got a washer and a dryer, it's got a fireplace, it's got a full kitchen with a convection microwave. It's got a driveout.
Speaker 4:It has the three slide outs, it's got a lot of space.
Speaker 1:It's got a king size bed, like we walk in there and we're so used to our class A, which is 13 feet wide when it's open, when the slides are open, and we still feel like it's roomy enough that we could do it.
Speaker 2:And no wet bath.
Speaker 4:No wet bath. It's out of drive-out. It's incredible.
Speaker 1:All I need now is a one ton pickup truck.
Speaker 4:Yes, so if there's any sponsors out there, hello Ford.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say Ford.
Speaker 4:GTE Mike and Susan are accepting donations.
Speaker 3:That's right so lately.
Speaker 1:But yeah, we could do that one day. Maybe we would head up to Alaska if we had a truck camper. I mean, that's kind of a dream of ours to do that.
Speaker 4:That's when the radar. Well, let's go, let's do it Okay.
Speaker 1:I could, I could, but I hear stories that it could be a rough ride up there and you know, I'm not sure I would want to do that.
Speaker 3:That's something I've always been curious about. Alaska is yeah, there's some horror stories that go along with suspension, leaf springs, all that stuff. Whether it's drivable or towable, it really doesn't matter. But I'm wondering how many of those are the way they are based on, how many people go? The second half of that number is the other thing I never heard. Is it the exact same percentage of people that drive through Louisiana?
Speaker 4:Right, if you've been through three port races, that might as well be.
Speaker 1:if that's like Alaska, we're fine. Right, that's right. You can go anywhere. If you can make it up 20, you can go anywhere.
Speaker 3:Well, I'll tell you what we're trying to talk. A handful of friends and getting up there If we take our big rig, you have to take your class.
Speaker 1:Oh man, and we'll just go together. All right, we'll share this on. Let's go.
Speaker 3:We'll like somehow bond our starlings together so we can get some decent internet, there we go.
Speaker 2:Super starling, that's right.
Speaker 3:So is there a destination other than Alaska? That's like you haven't been yet, that you sort of like I need to get there sooner rather than later.
Speaker 4:Well, there's quite a few, I think, yeah we have quite a few. Yeah, there's still states we haven't hit, but we next year we want to hit Utah and Nevada. Okay, we're going to go to.
Speaker 1:Idaho and Montana.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we just haven't hit that Pacific Northwest area. Okay, so we want to go to Quartzite instead of Tampa next year, and then we're going to do a West Wing. We're in Tampa. Yeah, sorry, tampa, but we're going to do a Westward Swing and hit the Pacific Northwest and then make our way across through Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, all that fun stuff.
Speaker 3:But it's beautiful out there. I can tell you that once we get the boondocking set up going, that's our mission too is to head out West. We have to maybe spend a few little nights together, or at least a few destinations. Yeah, definitely, let's do it.
Speaker 4:That is so on my radar, like since day one. All I wanted to do was get somewhere where no one else is. You're completely off grid, you know just. You know, just. See the beautiful views and, you know, be unplugged.
Speaker 1:You're speaking our language now, yeah, and since we've been on RV Unplugged, we are ready to go boondocking.
Speaker 2:Oh, we got this and we do. We got the whole solar system. Now that's right. You got a crash course in that. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3:See, that's what I was about to ask is do you guys prefer boondocking now or do you still prefer more of the RV Park Resort, anything with hookups?
Speaker 4:essentially, we're all about balance.
Speaker 1:Yeah we love it, we love it all. Yeah, I mean, we love going with full hookups because of all the conveniences you know and we like. Susan loves the fact that we have a washer and dryer on board and we can do all of our laundry there.
Speaker 2:Yes, she does, because she's a smart woman.
Speaker 1:She is she is, and she keeps me straight, that's for sure. Yeah, we spent some time boondocking in New Mexico in an incredible area.
Speaker 2:We had antelope running by where we were camping. We were the only ones there, we were camped on a lake.
Speaker 1:I mean, when you get into those situations it's unlike anything else you could experience you know, but we also like being in the campgrounds. We're a thousand trails members and so we see all the same people over and over again and we enjoy the camaraderie and hanging out with everyone and you know we just enjoy that aspect of it too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's what's great about RVing, you know, like we've had people ask us, you know, do you prefer the beach or do you prefer the mountains?
Speaker 3:and I'm like, yes, you know, like.
Speaker 4:I don't, you know, I'm not limiting myself in any way, shape or form. I want to see everything go everywhere boondock, pedestal camp, you name it. And that's the beauty of RVing.
Speaker 3:It really is so be outside in that West, the stuff you want to go do. Is there a specific like? Is it Monument Valley, like what's the thing that excites you most about going out there? Just the whole thing, literally.
Speaker 1:Well, I say the whole thing, but we haven't been to Utah. We planned a big trip out there to visit the Big Five and then COVID hit, so we had to cancel all that and we haven't made it back there yet. So that's one of them. That's a big one on our radar. Glacier National Park is another really big one that we want to hit, and then, of course, I want to see the Badlands so bad.
Speaker 3:That's actually one of the first places, so that's one of the first boondocking places.
Speaker 4:We want to go through the wall up there? Yeah, but if you're listening.
Speaker 3:Don't go, yeah Right, leave us a spot, right.
Speaker 1:And we also want to go somewhere where we can be out there for a week and like not see another soul, Right, Just enjoy the tranquility and peace and enjoy nature.
Speaker 4:No light pollution, just be able to see the stars.
Speaker 1:So you know we'll find it, it's out there.
Speaker 3:It is. So I've got a few kind of rapid fire questions for you. This first one's not so much a rapid fire because it's probably a little loaded, but you guys do. You feel like you have a pretty decent pulse on the RV industry with what you guys do every week.
Speaker 1:I guess I feel like we do. I mean, we're always in tune with what's going on, with new models coming out. You know, we go to Hershey every year because that's the first chance you get to see the new model years every year. So we're all over that. And then we come down here to Tampa. We go to dealerships all across the country. So not only do we see what's going on on the East Coast, but we know it's coming online in the West Coast as well, and they're very different models sometimes, right. So I feel like we have a decent handle on it.
Speaker 3:So where do you guys see the RV industry going in 2024 and beyond?
Speaker 1:Well, there's a couple of things that I think are going to happen Right. First of all, most people that buy a camper end up realizing they didn't buy the right one in about a year or two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, about a year or two after they bought it.
Speaker 1:Ryan, what do you think? And so you know, many people that bought their RVs through the whole COVID thing and there was a lot of people that bought RVs are going to be realizing that, hey, this doesn't really fit our needs, let's go get the RV that does Right. So I think that I think that the market is going to restrain, remain strong and there are so many more campers out there now, but everyone that you talk to loves the experience. It's very rare that we run into people that go camping and just don't like it there are a few.
Speaker 2:of course there are a few, but a few far between. Yeah.
Speaker 1:For the most part, folks really enjoy the experience and it's because of the RV community, I think. I mean people are friendly, they're helpful, they're fun to hang out with. You know you're out on the road. For a lot of folks it's their vacation or a weekend getaway, so they're out there to have fun and enjoy the experience. So I think the industry is going to remain strong. I know shipments are down and things like that right now, but I don't see this industry going anywhere. It's become very mainstream.
Speaker 3:It has, and a lot of that is because of blogs and YouTube videos and all that stuff, and it's kind of the. What I've noticed too is the demographic age, like if you average out the age of all RVers, I feel like that's come down quite a bit it has.
Speaker 1:I mean, in the past, you know, the average age of an RVer was 60 plus, right, because it was a lot of retirees. Right, I'm retiring, I'm going to get an RV and travel, and but now it's just really blown up.
Speaker 4:So all each work. You know so many people that are working remotely and this is the perfect lifestyle for that and the information and having all that out there has also kind of broken the stigma.
Speaker 2:And so now you have people with more access to more information, and they're more willing and less fearful, right yeah?
Speaker 3:So you guys have been sprinting around here like chickens with your heads cut off for the last day and a half so far right Yep. So what's something at this year's show that's just standing out so far to you? Or do you have blinders on? You haven't really noticed.
Speaker 1:Well, a little bit of both because we are very focused about which rigs we need to shoot when we're at a show we have I hate to say it again we have spreadsheets full of like we need these rigs to make these videos and blah, blah blah. But we didn't run into some cool ones.
Speaker 1:I think that one new thing that we've seen which is really cool is, you know, the tiny house thing really took off too, as well as the RV industry. Well, now those two things are combining Right, and we saw a really cool trailer, but it was has a tiny house on it and it's built by one of the RV manufacturers.
Speaker 3:I think I saw that same thing. It's kind of a cross between, like a park model and a non park model and it almost has like a patio built onto it. Yes, permanent.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's got a back patio with a sliding glass door and it's got everything inside of it from a dishwasher to washer dryer, two lofts for sleep. It's really incredible. It's like a tiny home, but it only weighs about 7500 pounds. Oh, wow, and so you can tell it with a three quarter ton pickup truck, and so that's really new and different and unique. In fact, we were staying at TTO and one pulled in right next to us.
Speaker 1:This family had a tiny home on wheels and they pulled in right next to us and they stay there for a couple of weeks and off they go. So I think that's going to be a neat change that we're going to see right coming up in the next couple of years.
Speaker 3:That's one of those things that I always like. You just mentioned that they had kind of that version which doesn't seem like an RV. I'd want to move super frequently.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so it's always interesting to see how other people do it, because there's no one cookie cutter away for everybody out there that RVs. There's people that don't like staying more than a couple of nights in a place. There's people that want to stay a month in a place, and that's the beauty of RV life is it can literally be whatever you want it to be, based on how, what rig you purchase and how you want to do it.
Speaker 1:And it can change over time as you camp differently, right, because we're much different campers now than we were when we started. When we started, we wanted to see everything as fast as we could. So it was like let's go, go, go, we'll spend one night in a camp ground and then off we go to the next destination. And you know, now we've learned to slow it down.
Speaker 4:That was extremely exhausting. Then you were tired.
Speaker 1:Yes, but we loved it. You know, we were exploring, it was new and all that fun stuff. But now we slow it down a little bit and stay longer, and you know it's changed over time.
Speaker 4:And we prefer this lifestyle.
Speaker 2:And to piggyback off that question just a little bit what about the future of RV blogger? Is there something new that's coming out, or do you find yourself in such a place that providing this content is just it? That's what it is, because that's what they demand.
Speaker 1:Well, we're actually here today because we're going to start a podcast too. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, do it?
Speaker 3:There's not, so we're giving a plug to ourselves.
Speaker 4:No, I don't think we have anything. We're trying to slow down a little bit we're trying to do and, you know, not put more on ourselves. We're trying to, you know, enjoy the lifestyle, savor it a little bit, right yeah?
Speaker 1:we're working a lot of hours as it is. And luckily we sold the magazine and so that helped decrease our workload a little bit, and so we thought about doing a podcast.
Speaker 4:We really did At one point.
Speaker 1:And I was like you know just how much more can we do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, when you get that, just come on and do another episode with us and be like got that out of our system. Sorry, let's go Right, yeah.
Speaker 3:We'll have state of the industry with Mike and Susan.
Speaker 4:Very, very good Our V blogger just wants every quarter or something to satisfy that. That, that is for the podcast.
Speaker 2:We want, that'll work.
Speaker 3:Super Well guys. We cannot thank you enough for joining us today, and not only that, but the friendship that we've made thanks to meeting you guys through RV unplugged. I know that you guys will hold a special place in my heart, Lawrence kind of gonna know you still a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, but you love Lauren, love you.
Speaker 2:And your chocolate cake was awesome. I miss the chocolate cake.
Speaker 4:I totally did. I didn't even know about it till today.
Speaker 2:I told her all the way. I still have some.
Speaker 3:But thank you guys so much for joining us. Where can everybody find RV blogger, everything?
Speaker 1:Well, you can go to our website at RV bloggercom and if you sign up for our newsletter on there, you'll. You know that's a great way to connect, because every week we will email you all of the blogs that we write. You'll also get an email with our YouTube video of the week, and you also get a free subscription to RV today magazine. Damien owns that magazine. We sold our magazine to him, but for all of our viewers, they also get his magazine for free, so it's great for them to take advantage of that and become a really well informed RVer while you're on the road, and so that's a great way to connect.
Speaker 3:Perfect.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 3:Thank you guys so much for joining us and we want to stay another big, big thank you to Alliance RV for hosting us during the 2024 Florida RV Super Show. We will talk to you next week.