The Millers in Motion Podcast
The Millers in Motion Podcast
Join Ryan and Lauren Miller as they take you beyond the world of RVing to explore all things travel! Whether it’s road trips, flights, cruises, or the hidden gems of small towns and big cities, the Millers bring you along for the ride. In each episode, we’ll dive into our latest adventures, share insider tips, discuss travel challenges, and meet fascinating people along the way. Whether you're an experienced traveler, a weekend wanderer, or just looking for inspiration for your next trip, we’ve got stories and insights that will inspire your journey. Let’s keep those wheels rolling—wherever the road, sky, or sea might take us!
The Millers in Motion Podcast
What do you want to know about Full Time RV Life? From the 2024 Alliance National Rally
What do you want to know about Full Time RV Life? From the 2024 Alliance National Rally
Recently we attended the 2024 Alliance National Rally, and during our time there we got to host a few panels! One of our favorites was the Full Timer panel, that included a bunch of other Alliance owners answering questions and chatting about there experiences, tips and tricks, plus what to watch out for if you’re thinking of make your RV your full time home!
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The 2024 rally season is officially underway. We just got back from the Alliance National Rally. Storms are absolutely battering the North Texas and Oklahoma areas. What you need to know about what's going on with the weather pattern down there and if you're interested in going full-timing or if you have some random questions from a panel of full-timers All that coming up next on the RV Shenanigans podcast. Welcome back.
Speaker 1:My name is Ryan and along with my wife Lauren, we make up what's called Miller's In Motion. We've been filming our full-time journey now for a little over two years and all of the travels in between, and we're excited to have you here on the RV Shenanigans podcast. A few housekeeping things before we dive into some of our topics today. One if you watch this podcast, please, please, please know we are no longer posting it on the main Millers in Motion channel and you'll find out why very, very soon. Let's just say, youtube doesn't love it when you make slightly different content, and so we do have its own podcast. So if you are listening to this and you want to watch it, please go to the RV Shenanigans podcast YouTube page Now if you are watching this on that page, because we're no longer posting it on the Miller's In Motion side. Do us a favor, let your friends know we are trying to get the word out about the podcast. Youtube doesn't love when you make big changes like this, and so we are asking for your help to try and get the show out to as many people as possible so that we can continue to grow and talk about all the things that you guys want to listen to. Also, if you have any show recommendations, please feel free to leave it in the comments down below. If you are listening to this, you can email us at info at millersinmotioncom.
Speaker 1:Okay, rally season. It is in full swing now, so Elkhart Campground is booked back to, back to back, and we just got back from the 2024 Alliance National Rally. But before we dive into all the craziness that was that rally, we're going to talk a little bit about the weather. Texas and Oklahoma and areas of the Midwest have been absolutely getting annihilated lately. There's been multiple confirmed tornadoes. We actually, upon leaving North Texas to go to the Alliance National Rally, had to literally play Dodge the Tornadoes an area very close to where we keep a more permanent site. So we have somewhere to come back to. In between, some of our other travels Got hit pretty hard, literally just a few miles down the road from where I'm currently sitting. So do us a favor Just be very, very weather aware as you're traveling around the country. Make sure to use some of those things. In fact, what we're about to get into, we talk a little bit about weather and how not just us but other full-time RVers kind of approach that process.
Speaker 1:All right, the 2024 Alliance National Rally is officially in our rearview mirror and, oh my gosh, was it a lot of fun. If you've never been to an OEM rally for us that's Alliance or any of the other manufacturers you may want to consider doing it. It is an absolute blast. Not only do you get to hang out with like-minded individuals, but they put on quite a show and the OEMs always sponsor it. There we go, support it. So a huge thanks to Coley and Ryan Brady, jeremiah Dumka, joe Mell, the director of marketing over at Alliance, rob Boyer, who pretty much ran the rally, and Jim Belletti. With those two guys it was an absolute blast, and I've heard a few rumors of what's coming and I can tell you that that is just going to get bigger and better, with more production value and all of the things. Also, alliance is doing its second national rally officially, but they're doing it on the west side of the United States. So, yeah, it's going to be in Las Vegas, vegas, and it is very sold out. So we're trying to figure out if we can even squeeze in time to get out there. Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 1:But what we're going to talk about today in our longer discussion we actually recorded back at the 2024 Alliance National Rally. So one of the things they do a great job of is kind of bringing together people that know a little bit more about a certain topic and putting panels together, and then they talk a little bit about what's going on and, in addition to that, they also are able to ask and answer a bunch of different questions. So the next few shows we have some of those panels recorded and we're going to bring them to you. So, without further delay, this panel is all about full-time rving. So we're going to go blast from the past, literally like four days ago, and we're going to let you listen in on the full-timer panel that I got to emcee back at the 2024 alliance national rally. All right, good morning. Uh, this is the 1030 full-timer panel.
Speaker 1:Before we get into anything, we're going to go through and introduce everybody. Also, full disclosure. We are recording this for the RV Shenanigans podcast, so if you do get up and talk, you're going to get to hear your voice again on the Internet. I'm going to start with us, just because I'm kind of holding the microphone. Sorry, guys, my name is Ryan Miller. My wife, lauren, is somewhere. Oh, she went to the back of the room. That's nice. We're brand ambassadors for Alliance. We do full-time and we are in a Valor 44V14, and we have been doing that now for just over two years. So I don't know which end you guys want to start on this. One way down here that has no mic perfect hi, I'm Roger Hardy.
Speaker 2:This is my wife, deb. We have been full-time since 2017 and we just reached, on the Wednesday, our fourth anniversary in our 340. We spend six months out of the year five to six months out of the year in South Texas during the winter and then are traveling on the road the rest of the time.
Speaker 3:I know it's hard, because we have the same thing to say. I'm Pat Hanisch, my husband.
Speaker 4:Joe DeLucia.
Speaker 3:We actually we have been on the road. We just finished our third year, so we're starting our fourth year. Oh sorry. Started our fourth year basically in June, because we bought it 2021. We actually travel, literally travel around the country full time, and so we've been kind of just about everywhere. There's a few states left, but we'll get those, hopefully this summer.
Speaker 4:And we have a paradigm 310.
Speaker 6:I'm Mitch Drake. This is my wife, Jane. We have been full-time, coming up on four years in a 370 FB. We never owned an RV before and we took off full-time. I'm also the administer of the Alliance Full-Timers page and I don't use my name. I use a fake last name, Mitch Argg. I'm a retired police officer and my wife is a retired nurse.
Speaker 7:Hello, my name is Shane Turpin. This is my wife Kelly the better half. We've been full-timing for about four years now, but only two years in an alliance. Our first was a bumper pull that we bought, and our alliance is a 372RK which they no longer make and we're not willing to trade for anything, so we're going to stay in that one for a while.
Speaker 8:He said it all.
Speaker 9:Hi, I'm Lisa Goodman, this is CJ, and we're probably the newbies of the group in that we only retired seven months ago. I hear myself perfectly. I hear myself perfectly, but we actually have been in our 370 FB for almost two years. We sold our house in 22, went ahead and moved in and just gradually worked to the point of being able to retire and travel, of being able to retire and travel.
Speaker 1:Okay, so obviously we want to answer any questions anybody has out there, so start formulating them. When we do get to that point, there is a microphone sitting right there that we're going to ask you to go kind of line up at and or use so we can record. But I have a question for the panel essentially so I get asked this all the time is what's the right time to go full-time versus part-time, or even get into the full-time life? I'm cheating because I know my answer. Oh, pat, you got it. Somebody want to take it. You have to pass it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sorry, you know we did the same thing that Mitch and Jane did. We had never camped other than a tent, and so we basically bought our RV and we were going to do this for a year. That's kind of how we started. Joe has traveled around the country as a kid I never did, and I said I want to see as much as I can of the United States before we build, because we knew we wanted to buy property and build. So that's kind of what we've been doing for three years and now we're on the next stage. So maybe, joe, you want to tell them about that.
Speaker 4:Well, we'll save that for later, but we did buy property. We're closing on Friday, we're excited. Well, we'll save that for later, but we did buy property. We're closing on Friday, we're excited. Yeah, we thought we'd do this for a year and it's continued on for three years. But the question was when is the right time? And the first thing that comes to my mind is you know, everybody's circumstance is different, but why not? Stance is different, but why not If you can make some money or if you can afford it? That's really the key. But nobody's getting any younger. So that was one of the thoughts in our mind too is you know, parents that have passed away and our families and other people that have. We thought let's do this while we're still young enough to really have a lot of fun and do adventures and really enjoy it before we can't. So there we are.
Speaker 8:For us, it was always our goal that once we retired, we were going to go full-time RV. We had our five-year plan and it got in 2020. With COVID it got bumped up a couple years. So we're four years into our two years. We should have been, but have loved every minute of it. So it was always our goal. So I think it's for you know, choice for each person. We both grew up camping. We went from backpacking camping with a sleeping bag in the open to tent camping to on way. Up to now I'm in a house and I don't really consider this camping Just luxury living. So but for us, I think it's just individual choice and know that there's going to be trials and errors all along the way. So that was for us.
Speaker 2:Our full-time journey started probably five years or more before we actually retired. This was our goal for many, many years. The only decision we had to make was is it going to be a fifth wheel? Is it going to be a Class A? It going to be a class a, and every time we went to an rv show, one of us was in favor of one, one was in favor of the other. We left the rv show. One was in favor of one, one was in favor of the other but they were reversed.
Speaker 2:So we kept going back and forth, and when we talked to our financial advisor and he said, yeah, you're ready to retire, I couldn't get there fast enough, and we set a date and said let's do this. And Deb was just a little more hesitant about that. This was in the fall of 2016, but in January 2017, she said so when was it that you were planning on retiring? Yeah, I'll do it. Then, too, she was absolutely ready. But the thing is, this is not an inexpensive way to live For anybody who says that oh well, I'm going to travel around in an RV and I'll cut my expenses. I got a deal for you. That's not going to happen, so be prepared for the likelihood that it's going to cost you more than you think it's going to cost you and plan accordingly. But the big thing is for us have a plan. Don't retire from something. Retire to something and have a goal. Have something in mind that you want to do, all in this rig around.
Speaker 1:Anybody else?
Speaker 10:And for us that was a baseball game in every Major League Baseball park and we've gone to 22. So we've got some more to go. We've got to get to the West Coast but it's going to take us some time because we have little kids that live on the East Coast. But you know it is an expensive lifestyle but it is a very rewarding lifestyle because in this lifestyle you get the family you choose, not the one necessarily you were given with, and we've met so many fantastic people.
Speaker 10:so the time has yeah the time has to be right for you which, as everyone has indicated, it just depends on your circumstance.
Speaker 9:But for us we kind of jump ship early. We retired early. It has indicated it just depends on your circumstance, but for us we kind of jumped ship early, we retired early and our thought process was our kids didn't necessarily need us. They're grown, able to take care of themselves and my parents are still able to take care of themselves. But at what point will that change? If we wait two years, three years, four years, five years, we may have a totally different circumstance. So it's like let's go now have some fun, enjoy life, while we can still walk around. Of course, after picking up ducks at the game the other day, the walking around part is not as good as usual, but for us that was our circumstance. We just felt like we needed to go while the opportunity was available.
Speaker 1:Can we grab a mic for a bit?
Speaker 6:Yeah, there you go as far as the right time. First of all, there's a lot of people that go full-time and they work from the road.
Speaker 6:Uh, we run into them all the time, as a matter of fact joe does contract work, where they'll leave the rv where they're at and he'll fly somewhere. I think you're. Where are you going next? Rhode Island, rhode Island for a couple months. I said when I retired I was never going to work again, and that lasted five years, and now I'm also working a contract job that ends in August.
Speaker 6:So people that are not going to retire a contract job that ends in August. So people that are not going to retire but still want to do this. The key is it has to be something that you can do either remotely, or you have to have the resources to fly to where you want to work, or there are a lot of stationary full timers also that park their RV work. We have a lot of traveling nurses on our Facebook page and they I mean they go and they work a three month contract on the west coast and then they pull all the way to the east coast and they work a three month contract there. So it's very doable to work on the road. So we're kind of talking about what it's like, you know, when it's time to retire.
Speaker 6:In our case, I was coming up within a couple years of retirement and I did retire and we were still planning on buying the RV and then my brother suddenly died and he was just a few years older than me and my wife called. I was helping take care of him and she called me up right after he died, said I turned in my paperwork as soon as you get back, let's order the RV, because that was the whole kick in the pants. You know you're not guaranteed a day. You're not guaranteed a day in this life and you want to die. You don't want to die with stuff, you want to die with memories. And that's the way that we felt about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad you actually went that route about kind of the working and just out of curiosity, just from a quick show of hands, who is fully retired doesn't do anything. There is no other residual income from up here, okay. And then how many people like part-time work or work camp, that kind of stuff? Yeah, and then who's still full-time gig? You know, at least 40 hours a week, regardless if it's remote or stationary, I'll be doing 40 hours of short-term what I'll be working 40 hours a week, but three to six months.
Speaker 4:Oh, okay, and then you're going to tone it back a little bit and then I will. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then we both still work full time, and so it's funny because you get all different age groups that do that, because a lot of people like we're in our late 30s and early 40s and we have to continue working. We don't have a choice, right, but we don't want to not do the lifestyle yet because, just like you heard a bunch here, you know we feel like we get an even more head start because now we get to get out, and our reason why for going full-time was we lost lauren's dad back in 2020, back in 2020, and he was a big camper. We tent camped with him, all of that stuff, and we looked at each other other, especially post COVID and all those things, and said you know what, we just don't want to wait anymore, we're going to do it, and we do it a little partial, stationary, because she still has to go back to a in-person job every once in a while that she can also do remotely. In fact, she was working the last two days. That's why she's been hiding, but she's done now and in the back of the room.
Speaker 1:So, for you guys, and if anybody has a question, by all means pop up there. We will go to that very, very quickly, so feel free to jump up there whenever you have one. Is there something that anybody on the panel just is like? I wish I had known this before I went full-timing, because that's probably the number, that is, the number one question we get by a mile. Go ahead Go ahead, joe.
Speaker 4:Where to begin? Go ahead, joe. I'm trying to come up with a good answer for that, because it's like where do we begin?
Speaker 1:It's very loaded.
Speaker 4:What I wish I had known, what I wish I had known. Well, we did a lot of research ahead of time on, you know, the right rig and all that stuff. I wish I had known that boy. You know, every time you get on the road it's like a 3.2 earthquake for your rig, for your house, and things will shake apart. And so there's, you know, there's kind of the constant maintenance and fixing of something. Things do break, just like your house, your sticks and bricks, things will break down, and they always break down at the wrong time. It's always inconvenient, and you know we're usually on the move somewhere, and so that's where it's always challenging to juggle all these I've got to get parts ordered and, you know, set aside the time to fix this thing that's broken, you know, depending on the priority of it.
Speaker 4:So yet the fixing of stuff doesn't go away. It's not a it's not always a smooth travel. And then, of course, weather too. That's always a challenge when traveling. You know, we've heard about the tornadoes in Texas and Oklahoma and all that stuff, and you know, if we have to make a trip across country, we're really paying attention to that, and sometimes we need to be flexible with our travel plans depending on what kind of is going on with the weather High winds or, you know, bad storms. We want to try and dodge those whenever possible. Boy, I'm sure there's more thoughts.
Speaker 1:I know I opened Pandora's box by this one. I understand.
Speaker 10:Who would think that planning your RV travel would be a full-time job? Yeah, raj does it, and it seems like most of us, one person kind of is responsible for planning the route. But it's a full-time job. I mean, he sits at that computer and he's working, and working, and working. He goes. What do you think of this? But I never dreamt it would be a full-time job.
Speaker 1:I'm sure, but so let's run through the rest of that question for the other panelists and then we'll come right back to that one. Ok, is that OK?
Speaker 9:Perfect, so what you wish. You knew anybody else before you started full timing. Well, for us, being younger, the biggest issue is health insurance. So if I had known then what I know now, I would have bought less stuff and stashed more cash, because cash is king. So if you can kind of make your income what you need your income to be, you can use that stashed cash for your reserves. Because if you make your income real low, you may not be able to travel the way you want to travel, so you need that stockpile per se to pull from. So I would have done things differently as far as just cash.
Speaker 1:She was told to quit buying wine.
Speaker 9:I have my limits, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 1:The life still has to be enjoyable. Come on, is anybody else on the why?
Speaker 2:Most of us live in about 400 square feet, live in about 400 square feet. That's a lot of togetherness. We always love each other, but we don't always like each other.
Speaker 1:I love you Lauren.
Speaker 2:So we have found that togetherness is next to godliness, but so is apartedness. So have some things that, and something we never thought about was to have activities and things that we can do separately. So for us, a lot of it is just walking. I walk at a different pace than Deb does, so we walk separately. We may both go out and walk at the same time, but we're going in opposite directions. But that time away from each other is also very important and I just never thought that was going to be an issue yeah, it's a great point because I play golf and so I'll go play golf.
Speaker 1:Lauren runs and so we normally get a little bit of time apart and you can always tell there's a twitch in like normally her eye, because I'm annoying her and that's time to go play golf. Anybody else on that question, before we come back to the one from over here, I just expand on what.
Speaker 6:Roger said. What Roger said is very true. When I worked, I ended up being the boss, and when Jane worked, she ended up being the boss. I ended up being the boss and when Jane worked, she ended up being the boss. And I had a condo over by where I worked and we had a house about an hour and a half away from where I worked. So we saw each other about two days a week and it was always like a honeymoon To come there.
Speaker 6:We were all happy and everything and we went out to eat and we had a good time and everything, and within a two-week period we sold everything and we're in 429 square feet, 24 hours, seven days a week, with two people who are both used to being in charge. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't pretty.
Speaker 1:How big was the therapy bill?
Speaker 6:That first six months was a little trying and you might want to bleep this out. We were sitting about six months in At the time. We weren't mad at one another or anything. I was reading and she was doing something, and we're sitting next to one another and it's just dead quiet in the RV park and she just turns to me and she goes. You are always effing here. So what Roger said is really true. I mean, we love each other, but we also love our part time. After about seven months into it we bought a second vehicle and when we travel she follows behind me. Travel, she follows behind me. And I like about a four hour travel day because I get to listen to the music I want to listen to. It's nice and quiet. I don't have to carry on a conversation.
Speaker 6:I don't have to hear as I'm pulling 30,000 pounds oh did you see that when you and you jam on the brakes because you think you're about ready to run over something?
Speaker 2:My little helper in the car.
Speaker 6:I'm only laughing because I kind of know what you're talking about, so a part time is very important also, and I would say that I didn't realize that either. I thought it was just going to be like it was on our days off. You know we were going to just run around, it was all going to be sunshine and rainbows, and you know you get on each other's nerves.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the important thing there is like and everybody up here is married, so you kind of know what we're talking about is marriage is work regardless. Just work inside 400 square feet is a little more. So I'm going to come back to the question that was over here when we were talking a little bit about kind of some of the route planning stuff down there. What does everybody use to kind of plan their routes, figure out where they're going? All that good stuff. Just to clarify the question. You're talking about the software and all that. Right, I'm coming to you.
Speaker 13:So what have you found useful as far as travel planning and weather monitoring? I mean, there's Weather Channel, which is like watching Armageddon every day, and then there's apps and RV Trip Wizard and any of the apps that were handy, yeah, so just essentially the handiest apps and or I'm going to say pieces of software.
Speaker 1:maybe, if you're not actually on the road, like RV Life, I like on a computer versus the app personally.
Speaker 2:So we've been using RV Life for for several years and I will not try to plan anything on the phone, on the app, it's just it's too small, too big of a pain in the rear, but on the computer it becomes very easy and you can tell I mean I've got 300 miles as my maximum that I will travel during the day if at all possible, and so I'll plan that out.
Speaker 2:And I like it because I highlight where I'm trying to go from and then I search and find something that I want to go to and it will show me exactly how many miles that I will be driving that day and how long it's going to take me to get there and that I really like and having. We use Passport America for the one-night stands going from Part A to Part B. We use that a lot. So on Monday through Thursday you can usually get half off on sites. It's a very inexpensive program to have and you'll save 100% of your cost, usually on the first stay, First one or two stays. But RV Life has been what we've been using.
Speaker 1:So just because we have so many panelists is a little format thing, I'm going to kill this mic and bring it up here for you guys and I'm just going to wander around. So if you have a question, just throw something at me. Essentially, okie, dokie. Yeah, we do use.
Speaker 3:RV Trip Wizard as well. Found it to be very, very valuable. Same thing you know, like what's our final destination and then what we can see along the way. The benefit of that one too, is that I can then send our link to family and then they know where we are, even though when we talk to them they're still gonna say where are you? Again, I do tell them where we just left, yeah, but we, so we do use that and the way we've kind of divvied up you know up the time is that I do all the planning and the navigation to get us somewhere.
Speaker 3:And then we get there and Joe picks the activities we're going to do. He basically sets our daily agenda, whether we're going to go hiking or biking or whatever museums, whatever it is in that area. He plans all that out for us. So we kind of share that.
Speaker 4:And I'm also the meteorologist of the couple, so I watch the weather. So what apps do I use? The ones I love myRIDAR Pro, which is a Doppler weather. It also shows winds, high winds. I also use AccuWeather a lot. I have the app on my phone and then, depending on what we're doing, national Weather Service radio, noaa weather radio, and then occasionally I'll look at the weather channel as well for a different perspective. But I really use the AccuWeather and MyRadar Pro a lot. Also TripAdvisor for agendas. You know things to do around town. I love TripAdvisor and the folks that give ratings and reviews.
Speaker 17:There's also an app called DriveWe where you put in your route and it will show you the weather and you can watch it deteriorate or whatever ahead of your route. You mean get better, get better, get better there you go Improve when to leave that kind of stuff, but it will show you the weather all along your route and it does have wind speed on it, which is really important.
Speaker 7:So Kelly and I hello, kelly and I usually do it together and I'm going to say it can get very frustrating at times, but she'll usually be on the trip planner and then I'll go to Google Maps and we'll try to see about. You know, we want to go about 300, 400 miles, whatever. So I'll use the Google Maps and, you know, scroll in and see what towns are along there and say, oh yeah, that's about right. And then we'll also use Google Earth and that way we can zoom in on the different campgrounds. We're interested in see what they look like. You know what their sites look like a little bit better. You know when they put pictures on their website it's like the best it's ever been.
Speaker 7:So if you get the Google Earth, sometimes it's a little more up-to-date. So we'll just sit there together and just go back and forth. We usually have somewhere we're trying to get to eventually and I just might say this, to eventually. And just might say this it's like in July we're going from Elkhart because we have to have some repairs done to Utah and common sense would say, oh okay, jump on I-80, goes right to Utah. Oh hell, no, we've got to go all the way down south, go down here, and then we'll come up north a little further and then go back down, so we never go in a straight line. That's the fun of it. You don't have to, right.
Speaker 9:So essentially all the apps that they've already referred to are the same ones that I would use. I would add to whoever said that trip planning is a full-time job, that is 100% the truth because I can spend an eight-hour day literally just planning a trip. But I'll also add that YouTube and the YouTubers great source of information. If I know we're going to a certain destination, just go to YouTube, plug in that destination or campground and you'll be able to see all the information you want, in most cases about that area and a lot of things to do. So they kind of cover everything I needed to do in that area. I usually have a pen and piece of paper and I'm taking notes of the places that they attended in that particular location and then I go back to RV life, look at campgrounds and try to just pinpoint those things. But that's been a great resource for me, just simply YouTube.
Speaker 1:And I'm gonna add too because I'm probably the only I'm going to say dumb one up here we typically do an average drive day between 8 and and 12 hours. Well, so when you talk about going full-time too, the hard thing is that sometimes we have to get back for a meeting, Sometimes we have to get back for something that we don't necessarily want to get back for, but that's the reality of it and that's the reality of the life we chose.
Speaker 2:And so as it ought to be young again.
Speaker 1:But like, for instance, we're leaving here Saturday morning no later than what did we say 7 am, because we have to be back in North Texas, which is a little over 1,000 miles away, by Sunday at 2 o'clock. So that's kind of so. Some of the things we also use is we do use RV Life on the computer in the planning process. Now we also have a Garmin RV 895 that we use in the truck itself. Unfortunately, they don't talk to each other. That would be amazing, but that allows us to input everything and so I have my entire route, actually for Saturday, already loaded in that in a planning thing and then it also will show you weather upcoming and those types of things, as long as you have it connected to your phone and you have cell service.
Speaker 1:Another app that we use for weather is called Windy. We've liked that one. It seems to be. It's real basic, but it loads really fast and sometimes when you get into some high wind stuff or some of those situations, it'll actually notify you based on your GPS location. Something else that we don't do this with our families, but some other people have done, is they'll use like a location sharing app, whether you have an iPhone or like Life 360.
Speaker 1:So if you have family members that are a little concerned for you being on the road or you're going through an area that maybe you're questioning, like a big mountain pass for the first time, that kind of stuff they can kind of keep an eye on your location. If you want someone to do that as well when you're doing the planning process and so when you're actually on it. If you were to go dark, let's say, let's say you're in a bad, you get a blowout. Right, it happens you, something happens with the RV, you get stuck somewhere where you don't have cell service but your phone still may have GPS connectivity and you haven't moved in a few hours. Now you've got someone going hey, what's going on? And you might have somebody else Life people this week and sometime over the next few weeks.
Speaker 2:those two are basically going to be coming together, so when you're going down the road, all of the EFS truck stops are going to be included on RV Life and they're going to show live current prices. So that's going to be a nice combination.
Speaker 7:One thing that we learned is, when you're traveling, if you can do it, don't book just one night. You just, I mean, you get there, you know you have to leave the next morning and then you find all this cool stuff you want to go look at and you're like, well, we'll get back to it someday Someday. Just usually doesn't come. So if you can try to book at least two nights in one location so you can go out and see what's in that area and not miss out on all that cool stuff. Also, if it's possible and you do use your trip planner, try to stay off the freeways. Take the highways, because you see things you'll never see on that interstate Little cool towns, all kinds of different sites to see. So if you can do that and can do it safely, the RV trip planner, when you plug your info in, it'll tell you if there's any little bridges or anything like that. Get off the freeway, man, because it is so much better. Yes, it's going to take more time, but it's nice.
Speaker 3:The other one thing I want to just ask everybody and tell everybody. You know I don't know about you, but I rely heavily on reviews. I read those reviews in RV Trip Wizard or on the DIRT or wherever I'm booking through, and so I encourage you if you don't leave reviews, please start doing it and give good information about rig size and how you fit and those kinds of things. I started getting better and better on doing that and I appreciate it so much when other people do. So if you're not doing it, good, bad, indifferent, whatever they are just please take the time to do it, because it not only means something to the campground but it means a lot to fellow campers. You know it's really, really important. So I encourage you.
Speaker 1:And that brings up a good point too is obviously you've got varying sizes. I mean, typically in the paradigm world, you're in the valor world, you're going to be a certain size. Our valor, because we're in the 44V14, is 46 feet and change long, and we're just over 13.6 high because we had independent suspension put on to actually raise us up close to 13.7. So being able to type those things in, because we're 64 feet when we're connected, that's as long as most of the semis that are out there, and so we travel a little differently than, say, somebody that's in a Delta travel trailer, because they're shorter, both height and length, and so they can get away with doing things a little bit differently than we can essentially. So you have to take all those things into consideration. So the question's a very loaded question, unfortunately of what do we? I mean as far as we all use the same thing, it sounds like. But just know that do what you're comfortable with with your rig. Don't do anything past that, because if you get uncomfortable, that's when bad things start to happen. So slow down and do it right.
Speaker 1:And I was going to ask one follow-up question to this whole thing what's everybody's average tow speed? 65. Yep, and that's the reason I say that is every time we happen to tow faster than 65, maybe trying to get somewhere 10 minutes early, or whatever. Something's broken. It's just the random is random. It doesn't matter what it is, but there's something about 65 in RVs that that's a sweet spot. So, if you, I've seen fifth wheels fly past us, going at least 75, 80 miles an hour, and the only thing I can think of is they're probably broken every pex line in that thing. So I had a question over here first, real quick, and then I'm going to come back to you guys.
Speaker 17:I'll tell you while you're getting there. A very wise person told me early on in our travel plans to use the 3-4-5 rule when you're traveling. That's 300 miles parked by four, cocktails by five. So you mean the Miller's in Motion version of 10 hours. Maybe have dinner by midnight. Yeah, it's a little different than that.
Speaker 1:There are no cocktails because I have to be up at 5.
Speaker 14:Hi, I travel solo, me and these guys, and I've got a bird, so I know about the alone time. I know about the trip planning taking hours. I know about the driving the 300. The other day was 400 miles, which about killed me, mr. 1,000 mile a day. We were talking about apps and stuff like that. One thing that I do for weather is Ryan Hall y'allall on YouTube. He is awesome. The other day I sat in North Tennessee waiting out the storms watching Ryan live, because those storms were right over us. That's why I had a 400-mile day the next day. So he's a really good one, will you have her say that name again, so it was Ryan Hall Yall.
Speaker 1:So he's a meteorologist. There's a handful of them on YouTube now that actually have become pretty solid. We watch him as well because he does national weather, and so he's a great resource. He has two channels. If you go to the main one, there's a few. He's got one where he updates kind of quickly if there's something happening, and one that's a little bit more drawn out. That's kind of the weather for the week kind of a thing.
Speaker 11:I had a follow-up question. You had said you recommend taking the secondary roads, the state highways, that kind of thing, and we try to do that as well. But my stressor when we do that is how do you find a place to stop when you're 55, 65 feet long? You can't just even Walmart parking lots. Sometimes you can't maneuver because they're too full, they've got all the islands scattered about and so on. So what do you try to do when you're traveling?
Speaker 7:When you're planning your trip, try to look also at fuel stations where they're at and see if it's a truck stop or something that's big enough for you to go into or wing it and hope to hell you get there.
Speaker 1:The real question is how good at backing up are you? Then you're fine. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 8:Yeah, that's very true. A lot of times that we're like really sweating over whether or not we're going to find a place, but sometimes you just find a big parking lot anywhere. That's an empty business that we've pulled over in, and we try and make sure that we know where the gas ones are coming up so that we know where we can get the gas. And there's times where we have like, okay, this route is not going to pan out, we have to go on the freeway, but we avoid it at all costs. But it is definitely. That's just one of the things that you deal with.
Speaker 1:so, yeah, yeah, we do that we do a lot of like where's it coming up, and so yeah, so one of the things we do is, if we know where we need to roughly I mean most truck stops and that if we're just getting fuel, it's, you're safe.
Speaker 1:If the trucks can go there, you can go there.
Speaker 1:We fly and fly out, kind of a thing. But if we're looking to stop somewhere for the night, like a Cracker Barrel or Walmart or whatever else, if it's a spur-of-the-moment thing, then Lauren will essentially pull up Google Maps and do the street view and we know how many spaces horizontally that we need to maneuver and then how many we need so we can stay the night. And that's kind of a general rule of thumb that we use. Now, if I typically don't like to start moving the rig until I know my next destination, whether it's a truck stop, whether it's a Cracker Barrel, whether it's a harvest house, whatever, and so I kind of know what I'm getting into and then we'll kind of leave that spot on Google Maps up on our phone. So if I need a little refresher when we get there, I can pull it up and go yep, I need to pull in here and that and all that stuff and the new garments actually do what's called eagle eye view, which is kind of cool. It actually shows you a satellite view at the 895 and up.
Speaker 6:So I swear to god I'm not going for a joke here, but you're probably going to laugh.
Speaker 6:Hang on, let me reposition the camera no you will be in situations where you'll run into an accident, and we were in one where it took us four hours to go 11 miles by a urinal. I'm dead serious Because there's going to be times where all you can do, you can't pull off to the side of the road and drop the steps to get into the bathroom because you're dead stopping traffic, you know, and unless you want to sacrifice clothes in the format of your vehicle, you know, and the person who yeah, it depends, yeah, it depends, yeah, it depends, but the person who sent me two of them was Jim Bonacci from Alliance, when he was telling me about us going four hours to go 11 miles. Yikes.
Speaker 18:Hi, my husband and I are both retired and we're full-time as well in our alliance and we love it, um. So I have a couple of tips and a question, um, one tip is for for those who are curious about going full-time and staying at places and saving a little money. Um, state parks are always looking for volunteers. We have not done it yet, but you can volunteer. They look for a minimum of a month and you can stay there for free, and they generally ask for about two to three hours a day of just like normal grounds maintenance and stuff like that. So we haven't done it yet, but it sounds like a great idea.
Speaker 18:Another one is over here for you. So Love's Truck Stops and others are now putting in RV hookups, so we've actually stayed at those and it it's fairly inexpensive and that's an easy you know if you've got one that you can stop at. And then my question is so we have our home base and we have our doctors and things like that there, but we also we just travel around the US full time, similar to you guys. What do you do when you're out on the road and have you know, maybe, prescriptions that you need renewed or need to go to a doctor. What have you guys done for that? If it's anything unique, I don't know if we're missing something. Great question.
Speaker 17:So our doctors are in our home base where we used to live, and we do that annually. We get there and get our prescriptions renewed If it's something not life-threatening kind of emergency. There are apps, and one that I like is called Call on Doc and you can enter your information. They'll connect you, they forward your information to a doctor. I mean sometimes they'll have you take a picture of something. They'll ask you your medical history. They ask the important questions what medicines do you take? All that kind of stuff, and I've used it twice and I've always had a prescription the next day. So it costs about $40 for the consultation. So there are some apps.
Speaker 17:Urgent cares I would tell you to make sure with your insurance that your insurance can be used in every state. That's not true with all insurances and as we get to Medicare thank you April 1st make sure you pick a Medicare supplement that will be accepted in every state. The Advantage programs are great if you sit still. They are not great for travelers and our prescriptions we use pick a pharmacy where you'll find one in many places. So we use Costco and Walmart Walgreens Walgreens now because of Medicare but pick a pharmacy where they transfer. The problem that you'll have with prescriptions is if you use a controlled medication. Pain is if you use controlled medication, pain relief, that kind of stuff. Those are a challenge.
Speaker 2:Or what. Or you go to Mexico.
Speaker 17:Oh yes, definitely if you're near Mexico stock up Tequila pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 1:I would also add talk to your provider. I saw your tag. It said Dallas, texas, so Fort Worth. Talk to your provider. I saw your tag. It said Dallas, texas, so Fort Worth. Talk to your provider. A lot of general providers are offering virtual visits now, and so if there's something along that line that they may be able to also facilitate, that way you can still technically see your own provider. Now they may or may not, I don't know who you're with, but that's worth a question at least, or they might point you in a direction that makes it easier for you and them to work with somebody else if you needed to.
Speaker 17:So along those lines. There's also a great app that I blessedly haven't used, but I think it's really important. It's called find er now, and all you do is hit the button and it will show you you're the closest emergency room, because I never know where the heck I am. Yep, I'm going in order I got them.
Speaker 12:So a little bit of a follow-up with that my wife and I full-time. We full-time travel nurse and to follow up on the insurance stuff there's a gypsy nurse through our travel nurse locations and stuff that we talk with for getting nationwide coverage. You know the same thing goes with anything Good insurance is not cheap and cheap insurance isn't good. But to go for. My question for you guys was again cheap Internet is not good and good Internet is not cheap. Is there anything that you guys have stuck with or found a sweet spot in your Internet?
Speaker 6:Right down the line Starlink, Starlink. I just like the. When I volunteered for the panel, Rob said pick people to be on the panel. I just want to say that this is something that happens when you full time. These are basically our best friends and we have met up all around the country and gone and we basically know more about each other than anybody should know about each other.
Speaker 1:It's not that kind of panel man or want to know.
Speaker 6:And we all have Starlink and we just recently got it. Shane and Kelly just got theirs yesterday. Lisa, if you need an install, CJ's your man right there on Starlink. So, cj, what do you charge for? Oh, Deb and Roger don't have it.
Speaker 2:But we use T-Mobile Home Internet for now. They've just announced they're going crazy and they're trying to go from $40 a month to $150 a month if you're going to be traveling around the country. There is also a program called Calix Institute which still uses the T-Mobile towers, but it's a nonprofit so you can go through them. You'll get the same program that you have on T-Mobile Home Internet You've got to pay for it a year in advance that you have on T-Mobile Home Internet you've got to pay for it a year in advance, but so it could be like $750 for the year.
Speaker 2:That includes your router and one year's service and after that it drops down to I think it's $500 for the year, but it still ends up being like $40, $45 a month that you pay for that. So there are other alternatives and we're gonna keep using T-Mobile home internet until they kick us out or until they jack the price up so much that that we kick them out one of the two, but we've been very pleased with that and, if I could add to that, a lot of people using cellular is an option for internet.
Speaker 4:We started using cellular and found that we traveled a lot of places where we just don't have good cell coverage.
Speaker 2:Got frustrated and said, you know Starlink, and so once we did that we can go wherever we want regardless of cell coverage and have very good internet and to piggyback on what Pat said about leaving reviews one of the things that I find very helpful, since we stream pretty much everything nowadays on TV if you're going to leave a review for a campground, also leave a review on what kind of speed you get on your cell service. I find that very helpful. If I'm planning on a particular campground, I want to know what I'm going to be able to get while I'm there, and I have most definitely changed campgrounds, changed locations, because the cell service for T-Mobile was awful.
Speaker 7:So Kelly and I just got Starlink. Like Mitch said yesterday, and if you find the instructions and read them and follow it, very easy to set up If you try to do it on your own not so easy, but it's a simple setup. The only thing that we didn't really like is now we have $150 a month bill, but you know we're tired of our TV doing this circle thing all the time. Trying to watch OP live and you get a circle.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say. The funny thing about internet, too, is how. What's your need? Because if you're working virtually from home and you're both there and you have a high use, redundancy is probably your biggest fan. So we use a T-Mobile 5G, we have an AT&T card and a Pep Wave. We also have a Starlink. For whatever reason, when everybody started to get here, our T-Mobile 5G started to tank as far as speeds, especially for doing video calls, which Lauren was doing the last couple of days, and so we leave our Starlink in a paused mode, which is one of the nice things about that, so we don't use it all the time.
Speaker 1:But if we're going to be off grid a lot, then we'll obviously fire it up, and in this scenario it's actually better than T-Mobile, at least for us at our campsite over there. So we fired it back up. And so if you don't have like, if you're retired, for instance, and you just want the luxury of Internet and you don't really require it, get something simple and then, when you're off grid, just understand you're not going to have it. But if you are still working and you need that, then redundancy is going to be your best friend, so you get the most coverage possible. So, mr Starlink, would you like to talk about that or do you want me to do it? We don't care, mr Starlink. Okay, so in Starlink, if you're in I don't know how it is for the home version, the residential version, but in Rome, which is the one that RVers use, where you can use it anywhere you can I think you have to stay signed up for the first two months, to the best of my knowledge, and then after that you can pause it at any time. So you're paying month to month, essentially, when you buy Starlink. So you do have to buy the actual setup through a provider or direct from Starlink, or however you choose to do it, and then do what? Oh yeah, and if you want one, they're over in the vendor's tent along with RV life. So, but when you do get it, you can pause it at any time. So you'll finish off that month cycle, you're on, and then it'll just not work again. And so what we do is we pack it up when we're not using it, like we hadn't had it on in the last probably three months, because the 5G home thing was working great, so we didn't need it. So we didn't spend that $150. We were only spending $50. We got here, we needed it150 and it fires right up.
Speaker 1:You do have to have internet to be able to turn on, to pause and unpause it. So you do have to be somewhere where. Just think about where you're going. If you're going like way off grid, like out west somewhere and you know you're going to need it, turn it on before you go, kind of a thing, because if you get out there you don't have cell service on your phone, you're not going to be able to turn it on. So just, you have to think ahead a little bit on that one. But that's how we kind of do that.
Speaker 1:Is it a follow-up to this? So, yeah, so if you buy a Starlink system, your cellular is not going to work through that? Oh, yes, you can. So what she's saying is a lot of modern phones now assuming everybody's got an iPhone or an Android or something that was built in the last 8 to 10 years you can use voice and text over Wi-Fi. So as long as you have a decent connection, you can still make calls, do text, all that stuff, because it's going to use the Wi-Fi as that cellular carrier essentially for you. So are there more follow-ups to internet stuff. Okay, because I've got a few questions over here I need to come back to before.
Speaker 6:I just have one plug here. The reason we went to Starlink is because I did take a contract job that required streaming like live streaming, like 100 cameras at once. But before that we didn't have a need for that type of capability and we used what was called RVIT guy and we found that to be for people that are retired and not trying to work. It streamed well. It did very well for us 90% of the time. It pulls off of T-Mobile and AT&T both, and it's $100 a month and the equipment's a lot cheaper than Starlink and you can pause that also. So when we got Starlink we paused RVIT guy, but we still have it. So when this contract ends we may do it the other way. We may save 50 bucks. We'll pause Starlink and turn the RVIT guy back on.
Speaker 1:So the question, the follow-up question, was how does everybody mount their Starlink? And I'll just say that this is obviously again another very loaded question because everybody's got their preference, but not all of the, some of the normal dishes. You think everything comes with its own stand, so you just put it out. Some people will permanently mount them on top of the rig, some people use poles. What's everybody do?
Speaker 6:Silence. Mine's on the ground most of the time Because I have 150 feet of cable and you have to get a clear view of the sky. So I don't, I just need to have a clear view of the sky and you can move it practically anywhere with 150 feet of cable.
Speaker 4:I have a pole that I mounted to the stairs so when we land somewhere I climb up there. Put it on there.
Speaker 3:I'm going to clarify that if there's a tool out there, a prop, that you can buy, joe can make it for about two cents and that's what he does. So we don't buy the ones that you pop up. We have a PVC pipe that he attached onto the ladder and it works awesome. That's just who he is. He's my MacGyver and I'm glad I've got him. Saves us a lot of money, while I like to spend the money on the other stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then there's also there's some aftermarkets, but if you did choose to spend a lot more money, then maybe give him 20 bucks or something, or more. You might charge more now after this Pole Buddy, okay. So like, pole Buddy makes the stair mounts, that kind of a thing, and then you can get the little attachment or again pay him to make you one. They also have something that uses what's called a tile sucker. So we don't on our 44, we're testing a new Lippert ladder that's just a block, and so we don't have a traditional ladder on the side of our coach, which means I also lost the ability to mount my Starlink that way. And so they make these things that are like suction cups. They're just really, really strong suction cups.
Speaker 1:If you see people that carry like big windows around, it's those. That's actually on the side of our rig right now, and the nice part is I can elevate it above the coach still, but I can move it up and down the coach line as needed, or just keep the original mount and do exactly what you were saying. If I'm in trees but there's clearing out front, I'll just run it out front and then put it on the ground, the ground. So if it's a quick one, we'll go. So can you mount the Gen 3 flat? Oh, you can mount. It's a statement more than a question, got it? So you, apparently, you can mount the Gen 3 flat. I have Gen 2, so I have no idea.
Speaker 8:We just got the Gen 3 also in it. Yeah, it's just right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the downside there is you're stuck with it where you mount it, though. If you do that, so if you're under trees you can't pull it out. Gotcha, so not to get off the internet. But I know I had a couple other questions right in here, so, oh wow, there's a lot more. So we have time for probably about five more, and I know your hand came up when I was back here with them I was curious what everybody picked for domicile state and why.
Speaker 1:Texas because I'm from there and it's awesome. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were from Illinois and so we stuck with Illinois, only because, remember, we were doing this for a year. Here we are, three years later we still have Illinois, which is not the best choice for anybody. So don't do it, just don't do it.
Speaker 1:Well some people may like paying taxes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, obviously.
Speaker 17:We're domiciled in Florida. We're originally from Illinois, we learned our lesson, so we domicile in Florida and that works really well. It was an easy process. They walk us through it. Our mail service is in Florida. We use st Brendan's Isle so our mail goes there. They help us with stuff like registering the vehicles, voting drivers licenses. Everything was was less expensive there.
Speaker 1:What's that St?
Speaker 17:Brendan's Isle.
Speaker 1:That's what it's called.
Speaker 9:We're from Mississippi and if you know Mississippi, it's relatively a poor state. So there was no need to domicile anywhere else because we figured our tax base our property taxes, insurance et cetera would be more affordable if we just left it Mississippi.
Speaker 1:And I think it's important to note, just because everybody up here full-time people, you can still own property and full-time, that doesn't necessarily change. So if you have property, you can use that as your domicile or camp, or maybe it's a lease property. Whatever it happens to be, you can still use that. And then there's escapees. Essentially, Livingston Texas is a really popular one.
Speaker 8:We are in Maryland and because that's where our family is, so we had everything there, so we didn't change anything. We just got a post office box and we're there often enough, or our kids have access to it for us and they just save everything for us. So that's what we do.
Speaker 2:We still own a home in Colorado so we maintain our domicile there. But we're there about two weeks out of every year and that's about it, and we've got family that's living and taking care of the house. We also own property in Texas. So if we ever sell in Colorado, we've got a small property in Texas. We still live in our fifth wheel 365 days a year but we own the property so we can domicile down there when we sell the house in Denver. But it's more advantageous for us tax-wise to maintain our domicile in Colorado.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's companies that you can work with. Another popular option and it's what we actually do is we use Lauren's mom's house because it's free and I like free. So that's what we do. So that maintains, and all of our business entities and everything are in Texas, and so for us it makes sense to stay in Texas. Who's got another question Over there? Oh, you had your hand up a while back sense to stay in Texas.
Speaker 1:So who's got another question? Oh, you had your hand up a while back. Sorry, I'm going to come this way to that way, and we have to be wrapped up at 11 45.
Speaker 19:So we have about 15-ish minutes, all right. So we've only been in this for five months and we have two small kids. My biggest concern is security. Have you guys ever run into have you run into a lot of security issues in parks or even outside of parks, whether it's at state parks or wherever you're going? Has that ever been an issue?
Speaker 2:We have not found any issue at all with security. It's always been great, and we winter in deep south Mission Texas. I mean we can spit across the border and we have not had any issues down there either. So security is probably something that has just almost never crossed our mind.
Speaker 6:It just almost never crossed our mind. I would say that I was probably really security conscious in my line of work when we took off and I've evolved to the point that we don't even lock our pass-throughs anymore. We've never had anything taken. There has been a couple campgrounds that we've gotten into that we were going to stay a couple days maybe two, three days and we've got set up, took a look around and said we're getting the hell out of here because this is not a good area. But seriously, we have not had one thing taken. I went to being hypervigilant about it and, to you know, nothing's locked up anymore.
Speaker 1:I think, too, the best security system is your gut. The beautiful thing about this lifestyle is, if you feel uncomfortable, just go and at the end of the day, like I can't tell you, we've been at a Walmart before. We're like, nope, hard pass, and we just move on down the road a little bit and find something else. And so, whether it's an RV park or a boondocking site or anything else, trust your gut and if you're not comfortable, just find somewhere that you are comfortable with. So I'm going that way as fast as I possibly can.
Speaker 16:I would just like to go back to medical, particularly dental insurance, because most dental insurance allows two cleanings per year and I take very good care of my teeth, so I want my two cleanings.
Speaker 16:But I go home once a year to get everything done and so I get my first cleaning Six months later I'm out someplace else.
Speaker 16:So I told my dental provider because most dentists you go to out you know in other states, they want to take x-rays, they want you to become a patient. I have already done that, you know, once a year year. So my dental guy said told me hey, we're going to give you a list of everything you have already done right now, which was last month, and just give that to the next dental place wherever you go, and they can call us or you let us know where you are for the cleaning, because the only thing I want is a cleaning, right, six months later I want a cleaning, that's it. He said he would contact them and let them know that we would send your dental records to them to know that you have already got, you know, x-rays and whatever else. All you need is the cleaning. And he said he's pretty sure that will work. So for anybody else who, in my condition, who wants two cleanings a year because I, my medical, my dental, paid for it. I want that.
Speaker 1:Let's see if that works there you go, who had one, as I'm coming this way, all right, this question is for the ladies.
Speaker 15:How many of you? We had a situation recently. My husband fell off of his electric bike and broke his wrist. We were in Bullhead City, arizona, and we needed to be back in Michigan real quick, so I had to do all the driving. How many of you ladies drive, hook up and park?
Speaker 3:Actually, I've only driven three different times, and always on the interstate. We just had a situation where Joe got stuck in Rhode Island and we had to be out of a park, so I was by myself. I actually I had everything packed up, I had it ready to hook up, I had the truck backed up and my brother-in-law, thankfully, was nearby and came and hooked up and we just moved it to another location. But yeah, so from that situation I've decided I need to drive more so that I have that experience. I have not really done it much and I felt kind of at a loss. I knew I could, but I hadn't done it with him, and so I want to make sure that I do it when we're together so that when I'm by myself I'll feel more confident.
Speaker 15:I drive. I drove like 11 hours a day to get back and we stopped at one RV park and he couldn't back it up because he only had one hand to park it. I asked some guys, they backed it up and they hooked everything up. So, and I need to learn how to you know, hook it up and now park it.
Speaker 1:So I'll say, just as a little plug for some people, we know there's a YouTube channel called 52andYou. It's like a women's empowerment in RVing. If you look that up, they worked with the NRVTA A couple of them. They're both actually instructors through the NRVTA and they specifically work on kind of how to teach women to specifically kind of use and operate their RV. So now I check them out yep, 52 you.
Speaker 1:So the? Yeah, the National RV Training Academy. Yeah, the National RV Training Academy. Yeah, the National RV Training Academy does have what's called the fundamentals course. It's the kickoff for the tech process and then they have eight more weeks. But it's also for owners and specifically every year Alliance actually hosts an Alliance-specific fundamentals class. In fact, the last one they're not here anymore, the WAGs just hosted it. They were right there a second ago, unless they moved. So Alliance always does once a year an Alliance-specific. So they just kind of narrow it down to things that are relevant for an Alliance RV that we do a little bit differently than other manufacturers. So that's another great way to kind of go down there and it's a week of hands-on. They actually have you mess with stuff and you'll be able to fix. I think they say 80% of your RV, and then they have a home study guide as well.
Speaker 15:We have some other brand and at their rally they provided the Training. Training. They provided a woman's training. Yep, you could back it up, hook it up, but it was all straight up Where's Cully when you need him.
Speaker 1:We can start making that happen Exactly. I'm going to go here there, and then I saw a hand pop up very briefly right over here.
Speaker 22:Hi, we're about to dip our toe in this retirement thing and we're finding through the RV life. Everything is good, but we don't want to spend a year or three or four years every night in either a Walmart or two nights at a campground. I wonder if we wanted to explore, if we could. How do you negotiate, like I want to go for two weeks and do the Virginia area? Do you negotiate with a campground or are you paying, you know, $70 a night? Is there a way to do that without buying a like your domicile? Do you return to that and have a plug-in on an acre of land in the woods, or how does that work plug-in?
Speaker 17:on an acre of land in the woods, or how does that work? Most campgrounds, the longer you stay, the bigger the discount you get. The nightly rate is the most expensive, so one to six nights will always be your most expensive. Most campgrounds you stay six nights and you get one free, and staying for a month is cheaper than usually about two and a half weeks. If you're going to stay longer than two and a half weeks, book it for a month and any time you can stay they call it seasonally, like three months at a time. That's your sweet spot for the lowest per night cost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's always a slider scale. I'm going to go right here real quick.
Speaker 21:Going back to the booking, you guys said it's a full-time job. What percentage of your time is actually spent just planning?
Speaker 3:You know what I think for me in particular, I will spend probably two full days a month planning and booking and then filling in the gaps maybe here and there along the way. But it really is, and I do it because the way I do it is I get out everything. I get out the maps, I get out my notebook, I get out my phone. Sometimes I pull up my computer or a second device and that's what I do. I mean, I don't really go anywhere those days. I don't do anything else. That's my focus, because I like to get it all done at once, because I feel like if I lose track of where I'm going, then I forget. So to me, that's kind of how I do it.
Speaker 4:And remember she reads all the reviews.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do, and I started doing the trip planning but I don't read reviews, and so I've been banned from trip planning. Yes, two times, and they were both very dangerous situations Both.
Speaker 21:He's never booked another site, so do you usually start with like big rocks, I want to go, we want to adhere it here and then fill it in between and go from there.
Speaker 3:This is our final destination, and what can we see along the way?
Speaker 17:Yeah, we pick our big major spots. Like this fall we'll be in Glacier, so we get that booked and then we build back. How far do we want to travel? Where are the other spots? And rainy days are great for trip planning, that's a given.
Speaker 2:And I kind of do the same thing. I usually start planning in January. I'm a planner, I want to know where I'm going to be, when I'm going to be there, and by God I want to know what campground I'm staying in and I want all that stuff laid out. But I usually start in January and once we determine, okay, we're going to go to this part of the country, that's where we want to be, okay, then I'll fill in all the stuff in between and and kind of plan the route. And once we have that more concrete, then I'll start making reservations. And we're thousand trails members, so once I get into my open window I will make those reservations as early as I can. I can always change them, I can always expand them or contract them if I need to. So it's always kind of nice for that.
Speaker 2:I put reminders in my phone. If I know that, like we're going to Moody Beach in Maine this year and if I need to get up there I've got a 120-day booking window, I'll put a reminder in my phone at 120 days out so that I will call and get that or I'll go online and get it all booked. But I am an uber planner. But as far as time early on, yes, there's a little bit of time, but then as things start to get more concrete, that's when it gets just a little bit more intense. As far as making those reservations, and on my Google Maps, if I know I'm going to go to Moody Beach, but it hasn't been booked. It's there in red. Once I have it booked, I change the color to green so that I know it's there, it's solid and I've got my confirmations.
Speaker 6:You'll find the three things I'm thinking. So, on the other side of the coin, from Roger, my wife does everything that Roger does, and I do feel for people that are doing this alone, because I swear this is absolutely true. I would say, 30% of the time we are hooked up, she's in the car, I'm in the truck getting ready to pull out, and I will get on the radio and call her and say where the hell are we going, and then I put it in the GPS, all right.
Speaker 1:So we maybe have time for the two questions that were back here left. It in the GPS, all right, so we maybe have time for the two questions that were back here left, but where were the hands? Just so, I don't one, and once I'm gonna go here, and then you guys, and then, unfortunately, our time is rapidly closing on us just a quick question about the Starlink equipment.
Speaker 20:We were online last night. Quick question about the the Starlink equipment. We were online last night and saw a big range in prices 600 to 4,000. And they all receive satellite signals. So do we need to get the $4,000 package? 600.
Speaker 1:Anybody want that one up there? You want me to take it? Go ahead. So short answer is no Depends. Do you want it to work in motion? Do you not want it to work in motion If you're in a trailer? I don't really see the point. I don't see the point in it working in motion ever personally, but some people in motorhomes would prefer that. Obviously, if you're here, you're more than likely in a towable. So I would say start with the entry level and go from there, and then if you, down the road, decide you want that you can always upgrade later. So that's my two cents, and it was right here.
Speaker 5:Okay, we are just starting our research to plan out. We're probably two, three years. I understand all the maintenance. We've camped for many, many years. What about tires? I hear that people are having to go through tires so much more frequently because you're on the road all the time Is that true.
Speaker 4:We got three years out of our tires and so, yeah, it really depends on mileage how you treat them. We do have a TPS tire pressure monitoring system. I would highly recommend that, by the way. So try and keep a good eye on the tires. But they do wear out, so it is a point of maintenance. Same with the truck Truck tires wore out too. We got about three years. Point of maintenance. Same with the truck Truck tires wore out too. We got about three years out of them.
Speaker 6:I'd say that's a real good rule of thumb. When we first started out we were rolling I mean, we put a lot of miles on the trailer and a lot of miles on the truck I just figured it out and we pulled the RV just at 50,000 miles now and we've been in 45 states. I just changed my tires for the second time, but I didn't have to. They weren't quite wore out, but I knew that with our starting to travel we're going to have a very long, several thousand mile travel and they would wear out on that trip and I would rather not do that on the road. Have the tires changed on the road? So we just had it. I bought the tires and I got new rims actually, and we put them on here.
Speaker 1:What brand and rating did you do Sorry?
Speaker 6:I actually am very fond of the Alliance tires. They're Sterling or Westlake.
Speaker 6:They are the same tire, the exact same tire and that's what I've always used. There's probably less expensive ones on it. But depending on your rig, you want at least the very least a G-rated tire and 14-ply. 14 ply. Some of the heavier rigs, some of the triple axle Valors that are pushing 20,000 pounds. I've seen people go to H tires on that. It's a personal preference. I found that on our 370 that the G rated tires and the 14 ply have been good.
Speaker 1:So also, if you have a newer Valor, alliance is one of the only, if not the only, manufacturer that actually puts an all-steel on it. That's not something that we had in a different brand as well.
Speaker 10:I just have one quick comment. We talked about that women should learn how to drive. Well, this group had an experience where the men had to close up the inside because the wife wasn't there.
Speaker 1:How much stuff fell out of the pantry on that trip. I know because my TV about fell off once because I had to do the same thing. So this is going to be our last question, unfortunately.
Speaker 23:It's really not a question, but I was going to say we've been full-time for two years and one of the things that we did early on was my husband became a Moose member and an Elks member, and if you're in Moose or Elks, that's a great place to stop and stay. When we were in Alaska last year, we actually stayed at a Fairbanks Elks Lodge and we stayed like that was our home for two weeks. It was full hookups, $ bucks in Alaska. I mean you can't beat it. So, on the road, that is a really good place to either stay for two or three days. On the coast of Oregon, we did it the same thing, I mean right on the coast, and we were paying $25 free laundry. I mean it was great. So that is another option as well.
Speaker 1:There you go. Do us a favor. The Facebook group where people can find that or what's the name of it, and all that good stuff. What? The Facebook group online where what's the name of it? How can people find?
Speaker 6:it what the hell's the name of the group.
Speaker 6:Dude, it's your group man Dude, it's your group, man. Alliance RV full-timers. Now I'm going to throw a caveat in there. This is probably the most heavily regulated alliance group and I have three other administrators. There's questions that have to be answered or you will not be accepted. If you cannot provide a VIN the last six of your VIN, which we are able to verify the people own alliances you will not be accepted. You have to have definite plans and a time frame to go full time or already be full time and a time frame to go full-time or already be full-time. And the first rant that gets on there that says this is a piece of junk and, bill Martin, you're an asshole and stuff like that, you're banned from the group immediately.
Speaker 1:Did you say what is defined as the first time?
Speaker 6:Oh, full time. Full time is over six months of the year on the road or in the.
Speaker 1:RV, living in your RV Perfect. I'm sure anybody up here would be happy to chat more about full time, but unfortunately rob's already sent me one text message saying are you done yet? So that is going to do it for us. If you're interested in listening back to this. Yes, thank you guys. If you're interested in listening back to this or have someone that thinks it might benefit from it, it will be on the rv shenanigans podcast in a few weeks. Thank you guys for showing up.
