RV Podcast show

RV Podcast

Summary: Celebrating the RV Lifestyle by Mike and Jennifer Wendland. Tips, travel ideas, RV news and great interviews about the RV Lifestyle.

Podcasts:

 RV 211: New Technology from the RV Capital of the World | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 58:54

This episode comes to you from Elkhart, Indiana, the RV Capital of the world. We talk about what we’re seeing here this week at RV Open House, recorded on location at the RV Hall of Fame in Elkhart and featuring a comnveration with Darryl Searer, the president of this awesome museum and exhibit center. Also, in our interview of the week, we talk about some innovative new technology being shown by Roadtrek and the Erwin Hymer Group of North America. Jim Hammill comes by to tell us what the new WATT Fuel Cell technology will mean to RVers. Plus your questions, comments and much more. RV NEWS OF THE WEEK JENNIFER California woman falls to death taking selfie at Michigan's Pictured Rocks Another sad story of someone dying at a national landmark while taking a selfie made the news last week. This time the location was Michigan's Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The victim? A California woman who paused to take a selfie on a 200 foot cliff overlooking Lake Superior. The woman apparently slipped, fell into the lake, and died. So sad.    MIKE Vail, Colorado, setting aside local tax dollars to pay for federal workers to monitor U.S. campgrounds, trails We have been writing for some time about the maintenance backlog in our national parks because of shortages in the federal budget. But a story I saw last week was the first I've read of towns near popular tourist destinations taking local tax dollars that would normally fund roads, police or fire, and instead giving it to the federal government to pay for federal land expenses. The story focused on Vail, Colorado, setting aside $120,000 to pay U.S. Forest Service employees to monitor federal trails and campgrounds, and discussed several other cities throughout the country also taking their local taxpayer money to pay for federal land care. JENNIFER Airstream Hotel is coming to Yosemite A California start-up called AutoCamp has teamed up with Airstream to create a “glamping” experience for visitors to   Yosemite National Park who can book accommodations in 80 Airstream trailers. The company promises luxury camping with the same amenities found in many boutique hotels. Besides all those Airstream trailers, the development features a 4,000-square-foot clubhouse with meeting space, fire pits, and a marketplace for food options. Other amenities will include a rooftop deck and an outdoor swimming pool. The Airstream hotel is just outside of the park and will have shuttles running back and forth all day. I warn you, when it opens next ear it won’t be cheap: Nightly rates start at $225 MIKE This camper trailer folds into a box that fits inside a sprinter van - and comes out when it is time to camp A story about a new kind of camper that fits into the back of a van caught our eye last week. The camper is a modular box, with extensions, that fits in the back of a sprinter van. Only unlike a Class B, the van is still a van - the camper fits inside of it, and comes out at a campground, with several slides until it has the shape of the letter "L". It is then a normal camper trailer, complete with beds, a kitchen, TV, storage and more. To read more about the unusual European made ioCamper, click here. JENNIFER

 RV Podcast 210: What Thor’s purchase of Roadtrek/Hymer companies means to RVers | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 56:15

The Big Story this week, and we mean BIG, is the purchase of the Erwin Hymer Group of Europe and North America by Thor Industries, which already is the biggest RV company in North America. By making this purchase, which also includes the sale of Roadtrek Motorhomes, Thor will become the biggest RV company in the world, with more than 24 separate RV brands. In this week’s News of the Week segment, I’ll talk about this massive $2.45 billion deal and explain what this means to the RV community as a whole and especially those who own Roadtrek or Hymer of North America models. Also this week… we have lots more news, your questions, lots of apps to suggest that will help with your road trips and a great off the beaten path report. Show Notes for Episode #210 Sept. 18, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast: WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK MIKE Before we get going let me offer this programming note. The “You are Never Too Old” segment about RVing that I had promised in our newsletter and Sunday night in our Ask Us Anything RV Lifestyle broadcast on YouTube won’t be airing this week. The magnitude of the Thor plan to purchase Roadtrek’s parent company is breaking news that we need to devote an extended period of time discussion. But never fear, that segment and interview with an 87 year old RVer will be coming in just a couple of weeks. We’ll get to the Thor/Hymer deal in our News of the Week segment in a few minutes, so stick around for that. Meanwhile, we’re just back from the Hershey RV Show, known as America’s Largest. We’ll have a full video on it Thursday. JENNIFER It was so great to meet so many of our fans and followers. We felt like celebrities there! Everywhere we went people were recognizing us and sharing their love of the RV Lifestyle. We were overwhelmed with the kid words and encouragement and had a ball meeting so many people. I had Mike video many of them so they can share their excitement about this lifestyle and inspire our entire audience. But it was a great show. They had just under 60,000 in attendance that week and we walked miles looking at new RVs. The show occupied more than three football fields and had over 1,400 new RVs of every shape, size and form on display. MIKE Next, we head to Elkhart, Indiana, the RV Capital of America. In fact, next week’s podcast will come from there. We will be attending RV Dealer Open House. It’s not open to the public but to RV dealers and sales people. All the major RV manufacturers have displays there and many use the Elkhart event to introduce new products and innovations.  Thus, it’s become a major event for the industry, so we need to be there, too, and will be reporting it for you. JENNIFER A couple of Episodes back, Episode 208, we talked about how the RV Lifestyle can NOT be healthy for us because we often sit too much and eat too much. Mike interviewed a weight loss expert and decided then and there to go on a healthy eating program. He’s sharing his progress at 7PM every Sunday night on our Ask Us Anything live broadcast on YouTube. But since that healthy eating program started on this podcast, I think Mike should give a short progress report right now. MIKE Well, it’s been very good. I am down 11 pounds from what I was when we recorded that segment two weeks ago. This a very easy program, consisting of lean, organic program and limiting sugars and carbs. We were a little worried how it would be sticking to it on the road and since I started, we did our Roadtreking gathering at Algonquin Provincial Park up in Canada and the Hershey RV show in Pennsylvania last week. And because we had our own kitchen with us at both events, it was easy to do our own meal prep and then be sure I was eating properly.

 RV podcast #209: America’s National Parks in Crisis | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 54:09

America’s National Parks are in crisis. A growing near $12 billion backlog of desperately needed repairs and maintenance is seriously affecting America's National Parks. Inadequate federal campgrounds and deteriorating or closed roads, bridges and facilities negatively impact visitor experiences and RVers in particular. In our interview of the week, we talk to Chris Bornemann, Senior Manager of Government Affairs for the RV Industry Association, who will tell us what we can do to help persuade Congress to restore our parks. Plus, your questions, comments, lots of RV news and Tips and a great off-the-beaten-path report from the Burketts. [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #209 Sept. 12.2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast: WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK [spp-timestamp time="2:14"] JENNIFER As this episode comes your way, we’re way up north at Algonquin Provincial Park in Canada, attending one of our Roadtreking boondocking gatherings with a couple dozen fellow RVers. We’re enjoying the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, hiking, taking a lot of pictures and enjoying some early fall weather. Though it’s supposed to warm up later in the week up here, the nighttime temperatures have been in the mid 40’s. MIKE And Bo, our Norwegian Elkhound, loves it. He’s grown weary of the heat and humidity of the past few months as we’ve traveled through the southern US and the Gulf Coast. This Ontario weather is much more to his liking. JENNIFER This is a very busy week for us. We have to leave here and on Thursday start traveling to Hershey, PA and America’s Largest RV show there. We always have a ball at this show. More than 45 RV manufacturers will be displaying over 1,300 RVs here and there are over 100 other companies that make RV accessories and provide RV related services. We will be shooting videos and we have two live broadcasts we plan to do on our Facebook Roadtreking Page. MIKE We will be doing two Facebook Live broadcasts from the Hershey show next weekend. The frst will be on Friday at 3:30 PM from the Rad Power Bikes display.  The second will be Saturday at 3 PM from the Roadtrek. Hymer display.  Both will be on our Roadtreking Facebook Page  Also, we’ll be doing meet at greet appearances at the Roadtrek and Hymer display Saturday and Sunday from 11 am to 1 PM. We love meeting you and invite you to come by if you are attending the show. If not, then tune in to our Live reports on the Facebook Page for a look at what we’re discovering. Again, that first live report is Saturday at 3 PM. The second will be on Sunday at 3PM, when we’ll go live from the show from the Rad Power Bikes display. JENNIFER This has also been an exciting week for us as Mike is now well underway on his new healthy living program. If you heard Episode 208 last week, you learned why the RV Lifestyle and all the sitting while driving and eating at those great RV gathering pot lucks can really put on the pounds. Anyway, Mike entered the program that is run by the weight loss expert he interviewed last week and we’ve been following it faithfully. So far so good, right? MIKE Oh yeah… very right. We update my progress on this plan every Sunday night on our YouTube Live broadcast on our RV Lifestyle Channel there. So if you want the details, make sure you tune in Sunday night. But so far, in the first week, I’ve lost several pounds and because this is a s...

 RV Podcast #208: Is the RV Lifestyle Making You Fat? | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:00:51

Today’s interview has to do with weight gain and unhealthy eating habits and examines the way the RV Lifestyle can contribute to both. For me it’s true confession time. And from this week forward, I’m going to do something about it. This week, you’ll meet Dr. Jason Olafsson, whose Custom Health Centers have helped more than 10,000 people lose weight and regain control over their eating habits. Specifically, he’ll address the RV Lifestyle and why you, too, need to pay attention to his insights. Plus, we have lots and lots of RV news and tips, your questions and a great off the beaten path report. Click the player below to Listen Now or scroll down through the show note details. When you see a time code hyperlink, you can click it to jump directly to that segment of the podcast. [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #208 Sept. 5 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast: WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK [spp-timestamp time="2:10"] MIKE First off, we want to celebrate a major milestone! Our RV Lifestyle YouTube Channel now has over 50,000 subscribers! We had a contest on our Ask Us Anything Live YouTube show the other night asking viewers to guess the rime and day we would hit that mark. And the winner is Thresa Abramson. Her 3 PM Monday prediction was the closest to the time we hit that mark... which happened at 3:39 PM Monday. Theresa wins two T-shirts from our shop.rvlifestyle.com store. Now...on to 100K!!!! JENNIFER That is so exciting. 50,000 is a lot and it’s happened pretty much over the oast year and a hakf or so… we’re very happy! So… you are doing a true confession this week about losing weight. I’m impressed. Are you going to tell everyone that you are going on Dr. Jason’s program? MIKE I am. And I’m then going to give weekly progress reports on how I’m doing on our Sunday night “Ask Us Anything” Live YouTube show. I’ve done just about every weight loss program out there and am hoping this one is the one that results in a permanent lifestyle change. JENNIFER How will you be able to do this in the road? MIKE It’s a sensible plan, with real food, organic food, lots of fruits and vegetables and healthy fats and, besides, Dr. Jason specializes in long distance clients, using technology and video conferences. Anyway, we’ll talk more about it in the interview if the week, especially the part that relates to the RV Lifestyle. JENNIFER We are coming to you this week from our Michigan sticks and bricks home where we’re catching up on some chores and appointments before we hit the road again thus coming weekend for a very busy fall travel schedule. Essentially, we’ll be crisscrossing North America from this weekend through just before Thanksgiving, chasing down RV Lifestyle stories, attending Roadtreking gatherings and making appearances at RV shows across the country. MIKE Speaking of those shows, lets share the location and dates. We'll be attending America's Largest RV Show in Hershey, PA Sept. 15 and 16; RV Open House in Elkhart, IN

 RV Podcast #207: Before you buy an RV, have it inspected | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:06:18

Next to our house, buying an RV is probably the most expensive purchase you will make in a lifetime. When buying a house, it’s normal to have it checked out by a home inspector. Do you realize you can do the same thing with an RV? In this week’s RV interview of the week, we’ll introduce you to the National RV Inspectors Association of America and tell you what needs to be checked out by a pro before you sign on the dotted line. Plus this week, some great RV tips, lots of RV news and a wonderful off the beaten path report from the Burketts. [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #207 august 29, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast: WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK Well here it is…it’s the big Labor Day Weekend. Summer’s last big hurrah and a major travel time for millions. JENNIFER I can’t believe how fast summer has gone by. It seems like we were just talking about Memorial Day and the start of summer and now Summer is coming to a close. I saw on our Roadtreking Facebook Group that our friend Campskunk awoke in the Beartooth Mountains out west to a pretty thick covering if snow the other day! Snow! Can you believe it?  We’ve been sweating in the heat and humidity that has gripped most of North America these past couple of weeks but those snow pictures from Campskunk tell us what is coming. MIKE Seeing those snow pictures got me thinking about snow and winter and our annual campout in the snow that we do every January. So, Jennifer and I want you to know that we are once again taking Bo up camping at Tahquamenon Falls in Michigan's Upper Peninsula January 11-13, 2019. If you want to come, you need to make reservations now. JENNIFER This is an informal gathering open to all. We have a tradition of five years of doing this and Bo insists on a snow vacation before we head south. Anyway, we have reserved site 177. If you also want to head up there, you need to reserve your own spot with the Michigan DNR at Tahquamenon Falls State Park, at the Lower Falls Hemlock campground. We’ll put a link to the Michigan DNR booking site in the shownotes for this episode at Roadtreking-dot-com-slash-207 There are electric hookups at each site. MIKE If you do reserve a spot, then join our Facebook group for the winter campout. We’ll also put a link to that closed Facebook Group site in the shownotes for this episode at Roadtreking-dot-com-slash-207 Let us know there that you're coming and what spot you reserve. JENNIFER Depending on how many will also be there that weekend, we will make dinner reservations in Paradise. There will be snow shoeing, hiking and exploring. All kinds of RVs are welcome! Here’s the RV News of the week: Bear attacks boy, 10, hiking with family at Yellowstone A 10-year-old boy was attacked by a bear at Yellowstone National Park last week while hiking with his family up Divide Trail. The bear appeared out of the bush and charged the family, causing the boy to flee. The bear chased the boy, knocking him to the ground, while his parents got out their bear spray, sprayed the bear in the face,  enabling them to grab their son and flee. The boy was taken to an area hospital and is expected to be ok. But the report got me thinking back to an interview we did on the podcast two years ago with an expert on Bear Spray.

 RV Podcast Episode 206: See your campsite before you reserve it | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:01:18

Ever booked a campsite that sounded great when you read the description only to be very disappointed once you arrive? This week…coming up in our RV Interview of the Week, we’ll learn about a free service that lets you see photos and videos of campgrounds and even individual sites. Also this week, we answer a bunch of your RV-related questions, offer up some RV Tips and share some traveling technology tools to make your RV Lifestyle a little more fun and efficient. [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #206 August 22, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK MIKE We’re still down on Okaloosa Island on the Florida panhandle’s Emerald Coast. We’ll be here another couple weeks, doing weekend tailgating trips to Georgia to watch our grandson, Matthew play high school football. JENNIFER Yup. School has been in session down south since early August. I don’t know how the kids play when the temperatures are in the 90’s and the humidity nearly matches. MIKE We have Bo with us. He stayed in the RV with the AC on last week while we attended Matthew’s first game. But they take football very seriously down here and whenever one of the teams scored a touchdown they fired off a canon… a canon!.... and they also launched fireworks at the beginning and end of the game. Bo is not a huge fan of fireworks or canon blasts! JENNIFER Nor does he like the heat and humidity. We take him out every morning and night for exercise. But even at 7 am, the temperature is in the mid-eighties. Same right after sunset. We visit dog parks in Fort Walton Beach and Destin FL but really have to watch him because with his Norwegian Elkhound double coat, he can overheat very easily. Most if the days he stays in our condo, soaking up the AC. MIKE    Speaking of Bo and the heat and relying on AC, I’m anxiously awaiting a new pet safety temperature monitoring system that I’ll be installing in the RV this week. We have tried list of different systems over the years. But none are quite as reliable or a rugged as I would like. The new one is the most pricey one yet but I’ve come to the conclusion that you get what you pay for and when it comes to a pet safety in an RV bargain prices seldom bring satisfactory results. Those who subscribe to our RV Newsletter got a heads up about this system in an email over the weekend but for everyone else, I’ll show more in a video I’m planning for sometime next week. JENNIFER There’s a lot of continuing talk down here about the red tide. It has devasted Gulf of Mexico beaches in south Florida all summer and shows no signs of easing off. Several have asked us if the red tide is affecting the beaches up here in the Florida panhandle. It is not. There is no indication that it is moving north at all. There is a lot of sea grass or seaweed in the water up here this week but those are seasonal in nature and usually don’t last long. The red tide further south is horrendous. It’s been going on for 10 months now. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Committee said the red tide outbreak continues to occur on both coastal and inshore sites from Manatee to Collier counties, over 130 miles of coastline. MIKE The outbreaks have caused respiratory and other health problems in humans. It has also caused the massive kill off of marine wildlife. Over 100 tons of dead animals have washed on up beaches in the last few months, including 12 dolphins in the span of just one week. The current red tide began in October 2017 but has intensified in the l...

 Episode 205: The Brown Bears of Alaska’s Brooks Falls | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:03:04

Every spring and fall, Brooks Falls in Alaska's Katmai National Park is the scene of a massive sockeye salmon run that draws dozens of magnificent brown bears. Thanks to a network of webcams, the bears are watched around the clock by tens of thousands across the world. In our interview of the week, we talk to a ranger at Katmai and learn more about the bears and what it’s like being there. Plus, lots of your questions, RV News, RV Tips and a fun off the beaten path report from the Burketts [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #205 August 15, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast: WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK MIKE Greetings from the hot and humid Emerald Coast of Florida’s panhandle. This episode finds us on Okaloosa Island, overlooking the beautiful turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Last week we were on a family campout at Silver Lake Michigan and had a ball exploring the awesome Lake Michigan sand dunes there. We’ll have a full video on that coming our tomorrow on our RV Lifestyle You Tube Channel.  But now we’re in Florida. We’re down here through the end of the month. Catching some down time, catching up on some video editing and catching as many of our grandson Matthew’s high school football games in southwestern Georgia, which is a couple hour drive from our condo here on the Gulf. JENNIFER That’s right, school has started in the south and even though the temperatures are often pushing nearly 100 degrees at this time of the year in Georgia, the Friday Night Lights are shining again. This Friday is Matthew’s first game and we’ll be driving over to cheer him on. We hope to get to three of his games before we have to head up to Northern Ontario for our Roadtreking gathering next month at the Algonquin Provincial Park. MIKE And then we hit the road for a the very busy fall season for RV shows. We’ll start out in Hershey, PA at what is billed as America’s largest RV show. We’ll be doing meet and greets at the Erwin Hymer/Roadtrek display on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 15 and 16. We’ll also be visiting the Rad Power Bikes ebike display at Hershey on Saturday afternoon. Then we’re off next to RV Capital of the World, which is Elkhart, Indiana, where we’ll be meeting and greeting at Elkhart RV Open House. Elkhart-based RV firms account for more than 80% of industry shipments. The Elkhart Open House draws most major manufacturers, thousands of dealers and by most estimates, for as much as $2 billion in wholesale sales. So you can bet we’ll be there! After that, we’ll be in Los Angeles, attending the huge California RV Show on Saturday and Sunday, October 6 and 7. Look us up there you West Coasties… we’ll be hanging around the Roadtrek/Hymer display area and Mike Thompson RV. JENNIFER I love RV shows. They are places where you can see every make and model RV in one place, allowing you to see different floorplans, walk around and see how they will fit with your RV Lifestyle and, of course, get good deals and trade ins. I like them because of all the other Rvers we meet and get to hang out with, picking up different tips from them and learning about places we should visit. I can’t wait for the shows. They’re great opportunities for learning. MIKE One quick announcement. If you haven’t been to our RV Lifestyle Merch Store yet, be sure to check out the new T-shirt designs we have added. We have a great line of men’s and women’s apparel that celebrate serendipity travel, boondocking and our small house, big yard lifestyle. Head over to http://roadtreking.com/shop to see the designs.

 Episode 204: Dealing with Mosquitos while camping | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:01:20

Show Notes for Episode #204 Aug. 6, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast: It’s summertime, a great time to be outdoors. Except for one thing: Mosquitos. They can really ruin a day outside. In this week’s episode, we talk to the Centers for Disease Control’s top expert on mosquitos, Dr. Janet McAllister, on just what we can do to keep them from ruining a camping trip. We also ask her about ticks and an alarming new trend the CDC is noticing about these disease-carrying bugs. So stay tuned for our interview of the week. Also, this week, lots of your questions, our answers, RV news, RV tips and much, much more. [spp-player] WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK MIKE Well, here we go. We are back on the road after a week’s respite at our sticks and bricks home in Michigan. JENNIFER And I can’t wait! This is going to be a camping trip with two of our kids son, Jeff, and daughter Wendy, their spouses and four of our eight grandkids. We’re headed up to the sand dunes along the Lake Michigan shoreline for several days of family camping. MIKE Then, we leave Lake Michigan and start heading south, through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and eventually Florida. We hope to take in a couple of football games played by grandsons Matthew and Jacob and then grad some downtime along the Emerald Coast down around Destin Florida. JENNIFER Speaking of downtime, just when are you planning to do that? Between the blog, the podcast, the newsletter, YouTube and social media, you’ve been working seven days a week now for years. You have never missed a podcast in 204 weeks! I know you love it and don’t consider it a job but that’s a lot of stress! MIKE Good stress, but stress nonetheless. As all if our platforms have grown so has the workload. But, yes, I have a plan. I plan to take two whole weeks off… the last two weeks of December. That’s the plan. JENNIFER But can you keep it? I think you can. I will help. MIKE Hey, have you see our new T-Shirt designs on our RV Lifestyle Merch Store? We have a bunch of new designs for the T-shirts. I especially like the new Small House, Big Yard shirt. We have new ones coming for Serendipity Travel and lots of other concepts we talk about here. I love the new designs and we have lots of ideas of fun things we can add to the collection. JENNIFER I can’t believe that summer is almost over. School has already started in some of the southern states, with more resuming classes each week. And Labor Day is just around the corner, signaling the unofficial end of summer. High School football – which we’ll be watching – starts the 17th. Those Friday Night Lights are about to shine again. Time just passes so fast, doesn’t it? On the positive side, with the kids back in school, that means it will be easier to find open campsites again. MIKE Meanwhile, here’s the RV News of the week: JENNIFER Man caught on video harassing Yellowstone bison alleged involved in slew of issues at several national parks  Did you see the video of the guy caught harassing a bison at Yellowstone National Park last week? The video has gone viral, and as more information is known about this guy, it appears he was causing disturbances at a number of national parks.  At Grand Teton he was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct. At Yellowstone he was involved in a traffic incident before he harassed the bison. Then at Glacier's Many Glacier Hotel he was apparently creating a disturbance when rangers caught and arreste...

 RV Podcast #203: Finding Great Places to Overnight with Harvest Hosts | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:03:37

Lots of us have had it with crowded campgrounds. And we resent having to pay $30 bucks and up for a simple overnight stay. But then, we’d like something a little better than a Walmart parking lot. Sure, there are alternatives. But just for overnight, finding a dispersed camping spot in a state or national forest is often too much of a hassle. Well, we have a much better alternative: Harvest Hosts, a unique membership service that lets you stay for free at hundreds of wineries, farms, breweries, museums, and other attractions across the country. Coming up in our interview of the week, you’ll meet the new owner of Harvest Hosts and learn just why you should consider joining the service and what it offers you. You can get 10% off the Harvest Host annual membership ($49) using the discount code: HHFriends Plus your RV questions, RV tips and a wonderful off the beaten path report from the Burketts. Click the player below to Listen Now or scroll down through the show note details. When you see a time code hyperlink, you can click it to jump directly to that segment of the podcast. [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #203 August 1, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK [spp-timestamp time="2:15"] MIKE This episode is coming to you from our sticks and bricks home in Michigan where we just returned after about two months of travel that had us crisscrossing North America, traveling over 10,000 miles and visiting 14 different states and a Canadian province. Whew! No wonder we’re tired! JENNIFER But we won’t be here very long. We take off in a few days for a family vacation along the Lake Michigan shore. Naturally, it’s a camping vacation and we’ll be in our RV. Joining us will be two of our three children and four of our eight grandchildren. Son Jeff and his family will be in their 27-foot travel trailer and Wendy and her family will be tenting. We’ll be in our Class B Roadtrek campervan with Bo, our Norwegian Elkhound. MIKE Bo’s a great camper. He loves the adventure of it and the togetherness. We love traveling with him. Speaking of which, we have put together a new ebook called The Ultimate Guide to RV Travel with a Dog. It’s filled with lots of tips, suggestions and information about RVing with your dog and its absolutely free. You can get an instant download of it by going to https://roadtreking.com/dogguide. JENNIFER Meanwhile, here’s the RV News you need to know about this week… Extreme dry conditions trigger wildfires throughout western states The devastating fIres out west really is THE story this week. Extremely dry conditions are contributing to fires throughout the western states… some on federal land and in or near national parks.   Wildfires were reported on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, but there are also wildfires burning at Yellowstone, Crater Lake and Sequoia national parks. A fire in northern California has claimed several lives, and fires are also burning in Oregon. For a summary of what is happening at the national parks click here. For more on the northern California wildfires click

 RV Podcast Episode 202: Is your RV water safe to drink? | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:02:57

In this episode of the RV Podcast we look at the hidden dangers of campground water supplies and the water in your RV’s fresh water tank. There are concerns that bacteria and E.coli contamination are much more prevalent in RV water systems and that without proper filtration you and your family could be at risk when drinking water out of RV faucets. Coming up in our interview of the week segment, we’ll talk to the former CEO of a large RV manufacturer about what you need to do to have safe drinking water. Plus, a serious warning about an outbreak of canine influenza, Jennifer’s RV Tip of the week, your RV questions, lots of important RV News, traveling technology ideas and an off the beaten path report from the Burketts. Click the player below to Listen Now or scroll down through the show note details. When you see a time code hyperlink, you can click it to jump directly to that segment of the podcast. [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #202 July 25, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast [spp-timestamp time="2:10"] WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK MIKE Greetings from Southaven, MS, just outside Memphis, TN, where we have been all week watching our 12-year-olld grandson, Jacob, play in the Dizzy Dean League World Series on a team coached by our son, Scott. It’s been great family time for us and we’ve been using our Roadtrek RV as a “boy cave,” an air-conditioned respite for Jacob and his teammates from the 100 degree heat they’ve been having down here, a place to chill out with the AC between games. Those solar panels on our roof have soaked up the southern sun and kept our lithium batteries charged up and we’ve had plenty of power out there in the parking lot. JENNIFER This heat we have experienced this week is happening in many parts of the country. Temperatures approached 120 degrees in parts of the U.S. Southwest on Monday, and forecasters said this week could bring the region's hottest weather of the year. Forecasters issued excessive heat warnings to much of Arizona, including parts of Grand Canyon National Park, and extended into areas of Southern California and Nevada. A heat advisory was in effect for west Texas and southeast New Mexico with high temperatures well into the triple digits. In Waco it was 114 degrees. Parts of Utah were also issued an excessive heat warning with temperatures this week expected to approach 109 degrees. Phoenix reached a sweltering 115 degrees, which broke the previous daily record, according to the National Weather Service. MIKE We are excited this week to announce that our online store is now up and running. If you’ve been watching our RV Lifestyle You Tube Channel you’ve seen us both wearing our hats and shirts complete with our logo. Lots of you have asked how you can get them and we promised we’d find a way. Well we finally have it all set up. Just go to shop.rvlifestyle.com. That’s shop.rvlifestyle.com. And let us know what you think about it. We’ll be adding lots of cool things in the weeks ahead, but right now it has the T-shirts, in men and women sizes, our, hats and a very nice sweatshirt for the colder months that are just around the corner. JENNIFER We’ll be leaving Memphis by the weekend and headed back north again to Michigan where we’ll pick up Bo. He’s been at our daughter’s house there. It has just been too hot for him down here in Memphis. We did take him with us last week to the Owner’s Academy in Cambridge Ontario. We were there in April and they invited us back to the Roadtrek and Erwin Hymer of North America factory there last week. We presented a seminar on our Serendipity Travel style and told some stories from the road as we got to hang out with another cool group of fellow RVers. Bo was really well behaved. The Roadtrek folks are very dog friendly and he ...

 RV Podcast Episode 201: Boondocking and the Different Stages of the RV Lifestyle | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:07:49

Are you an RV newbie? Maybe you travel with young kids. Or grandkids. How far do you drive each day? Do you like state parks? Commercial campgrounds? Or are you interested in boondocking and camping off the grid? Then, perhaps you’re a seasoned RVer entering those golden years and not able to be quite as physically active as you once were. In this episode of the podcast, we talk about the different stages of the RV Lifestyle and the opportunities and challenges each stage presents along the way. I think you’ll really enjoy – and perhaps learn a few things – in this picnic table campsite conversation we had with a fellow RVer coming up in our interview of the week segment a little later in the program. Also in this Episode. Lots of RV news, RV tips , technology ideas and a wonderful off the beaten path report from the Burketts. Click the player below to Listen Now or scroll down through the show note details. When you see a time code hyperlink, you can click it to jump directly to that segment of the podcast. [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #201 July 18, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast  WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK [spp-timestamp time="2:25"] MIKE As this 201st episode of the RV Podcast is released, it finds us in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, staying in Bingeman’s Campground Resort along the Grand River, just a couple miles from the Roadtrek Motorhomes factory. We’re up here this week to present a seminar at the Owner’s Academy organized by the Erwin Hymer Group of North America. We brought Bo with us and he has been a really good boy and has greatly enjoyed meeting his many "fans." The folks at the Hymer factory are very dog friendly and Bo is very happy with all the attention. JENNIFER We have been very busy. We came here fresh from a wonderful week in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, at another one of our Roadtreking Gatherings. This was the fifth gathering of the year and one of the most active ones we have ever had. We did white water rafting, tubing down a river, took a train excursion in the Nantahala River gorge and Mike is still pumped about an exhilarating zip line mountaintop to mountaintop adventure he took part in. MIKE Exhilarating is right. That zip line had us traveling 1.5 miles across the mountains at speeds of up to 55 miles an hour and 350 feet above the ground. It was a blast. JENNIFER  We’ll have a video coming out about the week there but if you are looking for lots of outdoor adventure, the area around Bryson City, NC is a perfect place to go. But now we’re off on another trip, this one to Canada. We’ll finish our seminar and immediately hit the road again, making a beeline south to the Memphis, TN area, where we’ll be for another week. I’ll tell you, no grass is ground under our tires this summer. We have been criss-crossing North America pretty much on stop since May! MIKE Besides the traveling and exploring, we’ve been shooting videos every day and have a whole bunch of them to edit. Besides that, we’ve been working on a special book, a guide to RV Traveling with a dog. It has lots of tips and helpful advice, learned first hand by us with our dog Bo and shared by many of you who have been gracious enough to share your K9 wisdom. How much will it cost? Nothing. We will be giving it away. It should be done over the next couple of weeks. JENNIFER What about our Merch store? How is that coming along? People are asking all the time about our RV hats and T-shirts and the like. MIKE That, too, will soon be ready. We’ll start with a few items and then expand it. The best way for people to know about these things is through our RV Lifestyle newsletter.

 RV Podcast #200 – How to stay safe from lightning while camping | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:05:30

On this 200th episode of the podcast we talk about a very serious issue – lightning and the particular dangers it poses to campers and RVers this time of the year. Lightning is nothing to take for granted as is all too evident by simply following the news. Campers are injured or killed by lighting much more frequently that the general population and this week in our interview of the week, we talk with a top expert Plus your RV questions, comments, Tips and an off the beaten path report. Click the player below to Listen Now or scroll down through the show note details. When you see a time code hyperlink, you can click it to jump directly to that segment of the podcast. [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #200 July 11, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast: WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK [spp-timestamp time="2:03"] MIKE This episode of the podcast comes to you from the heart of the Smoky Mountains in Bryson City, NC. We are recording this very special episode - number 200 – from the picnic table outside our RV at our Roadtreking Whitewater River Gathering near the banks of the beautiful Nantahala River. JENNIFER And what a special gathering it is. We were surprised by a beautiful 200th episode cake, complete with our logo, by our fellow Roadtrekers at our social hour get together last night. What a great way to celebrate. Thanks to everyone for making us feel so special. Tom McAllister, who says he has listened to every episode, orchestrated it all and it was as delicious as it looked.   MIKE We have people here from across the country and again, as always, our gatherings are for people in every sort of RV. Roadtreking is built around a lifestyle, a state of mind, not a particular brand. We have people in Airstreams and other travel trailer brands, an Itasca Navion  Class C, a Coachmen on the Ford Transit chassis and of course lots of Roadtreks. JENNIFER Our people will be spending the week whitewater rafting down the Nantahala and a couple of other rivers nearby, doing a mountaintop to mountaintop mega zip line ride and sightseeing on a train that takes us into the Natahala National Forest gorge. The weather has been great and the scenery is terrific, unbeatable. MIKE We have had a great time and we had a great time getting here. Our GPS directed us on US Highway 129 after we left I75 near Knoxville, TN. And the two lane road took us into North Carolina. It started out like any other two lane road but after a couple miles as it climbed from the foothills into the Smoky Mountains, we noticed it seemed to have a lot of curves. Then we noticed how many motorcycles there were on the road with us. JENNIFER Turned out the road is one of the most famous in the world for motocyclists. It’s called the Dragon and one particular stretch if it – 11 miles in length - is known as the Tail of the Dragon. It has 318 curves in those 11 miles. And we did it in our RV! We were so impressed by it we shot a video on it that you’ll be able to see in a couple of weeks. MIKE Speaking of videos, we have posted a special video about our 200th episode. We’ll embed it with the shownotes for this episode at Roadtreking-dot-com-slash-200. JENNIFER And tomorrow on our RV Lifestyle Channel on YouTube, we will post our video of the week, which takes you on a boat ride in Lake Superior to visit the spectacularly beautiful Apostle Islands. Please check it out and be sure to subscribe to our videos there on YouTube. A new video is released every Thursday morning. Of course, Sunday night at 7PM eastern is our Ask Us Anythi...

 RV Podcast 199: How to Write a Book in Your RV | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:08:23

In this episode, an interview with a best-selling author on something that a lot of RVers are interested in: Writing from the road. We’ll help you scratch that creativity itch that traveling unleashes in all of us. Who know, you may have a best seller just waiting to come out in you RV, just like Kevin Tumlinson, an avid RVer himself, keeps turning out. Plus lots of news, RV tips, off the beaten path destination suggestions and much more. But first my lifelong traveling companion and my bride, Jennifer Click the player below to Listen Now or scroll down through the show note details. When you see a time code hyperlink, you can click it to jump directly to that segment of the podcast. [spp-player] Shownotes for Episode 199 of the RV Podcast WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK [spp-timestamp time="2:49"] JENNIFER Happy 4th of July to all our American listeners. And we hope or Canadian listeners enjoyed their Canada Day on July 1. We are in the heart of the summer travel season! MIKE The Auto Club says fuel prices are the highest they have been in at least four years for this holiday. Gas nationwide averages $2.86 for regular, diesel is $3.16. Highest prices are in the west  and New England where regular is over $3 a gallon. Cheapest is Texas, the Dakotas and the deep south, where it’s under $2.70 JENNIFER We’re home but packing… heading out for North Carolina and the eastern edge of the Great Smoky Mountains. We’ll be there starting this weekend and most of next week, attending another one of our Roadtreking RV Gatherings. This one is themed around river rafting and white water adventure along the Natahala River. We’ll be doing next week’s podcast from there and we will also be broadcasting our weekly Live You Tube “Ask Us Anything” video show on Sunday night. MIKE Speaking of which we are moving the Sunday night Live Broadcast up a couple of hours. We will be going on our RV Lifestyle Channel live at 7PM Eastern Time on Sunday nights, instead of 9M as we had been doing. JENNIFER Here’s a quick programming note: Tomorrow, Thursday July 5, on our RV Lifestyle Channel on You Tube, we'll release our newest video,  a recap of our just finished  fabulous gathering at Glacier National Park. We even got most of our encounter with a hungry bear and a very frightened Mama Moose and her calf on video. It was an exciting time with a happy ending. Here’s the RV News of the week: JENNIFER Summer is lightning season, make sure you stay safe Did you know there are places in the country that have a lightning season? A report released last week by the National Lightning Safety Council analyzed U.S. lightning deaths between 2008-2017 and ranked states. What caught my eye from the numerous stories around the country it triggered was some national parks have a lightning season. For instance at Zion National Park, 20,000 incidences of lightning traveling from a cloud to the ground were reported during a nine year period with 82 percent of the lightning happening between July to September, usually between noon and 8 pm. Here is a link to the Utah story, or click here...

 Episode 198: Top 5 must-visit RV places you never heard of | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:02:11

A fun and helpful podcast episode is in store for you this week as we look at Five Top Must-Visit RV Places that you have never heard of. As Jennifer and I have traveled the country this summer, we’ve been asking RVers to give us a report on their absolute favorite places. We expected them to be the standard bucketlist destinations, like Alaska, or Yellowstone or the Maritimes. Instead, they were much more obscure, places not in the major RV guidebooks, places unique and very appealing. You’ll hear them all coming up in a few minutes in our interview of the week segment. Also this week, lots of RV news you need to know, a very handy clean up tip from Jennifer, the best on the road apps in our traveling technology segment and much more. Click the player below to Listen Now or scroll down through the show note details. When you see a time code hyperlink, you can click it to jump directly to that segment of the podcast. [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #198 June 27, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast: WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK [spp-timestamp time="2:31"] MIKE Well here it is the 4th of July Holiday is almost here and June has sped right by! JENNIFER It sure has. We just pulled into our driveway for a brief stop at our sticks and bricks home in Michigan after being on the road pretty much the entire month. In all we covered 4,384.7 miles from the time we left the driveway until last night when we pulled back in. We traveled through nine states making our way to Montana and Glacier National Park, where we just finished an awesome Roadtreking gathering attended by more than 130 people from all across North America MIKE There’s a post on the roadtreking.com travel blog with a full report and lots of photos from the gathering. And we’ll also have a video on it…. Just as soon as I have time to edit it. We came back with 9 videos in the can ready to be edited. But since each one takes about 20 hours to complete, I have my work cut out for me. JENNIFER As we reported last week, we did great going out and keeping to our “330 Rule” of driving no more than 330 miles in a single day, or stopping by 3:30 pm local time so we can still be refreshed and not too tired from the road. That gives us lots of time to explore… and shoot those videos! Coming back…. Well, let’s just say it was hammer time, pedal to the metal all the way, though we did stop by 3:30 one time. MIKE Except it was 3:30 AM! That was Sunday night. We stopped on the way back in the Wisconsin Dells and did our regular 9 PM Sunday night You Tube Live report on our RV Lifestyle Channel. But then we made the tactical decision that because we didn’t want to drive through Monday morning traffic in Chicago – which even during no rush hour time is horrific – we would drive through the night and avoid the traffic jams. JENNIFER But there was still lots of traffic… even at 1 in the morning. We debated taking the ferry across Lake Michigan. They have ferry service from a couple places in Wisconsin. But we couldn’t justify spending $400 to get us and the RV across. So we drive around, spent what was left of the night in a rest area just inside the Michigan border, and then made our way home. MIKE So we’re back in our sticks and bricks house. There’s lots of laundry to do and some house and yard chores but we take off in just a few days for our next Roadtreking gathering, this one to Bryson City, North Carolina on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We’ll be camped on the Natahala River there, a beautiful white water river and we will have calm river float tours, raging rapid runs in a raft for those willing to brave i...

 Episode 197: How to Camp for Free | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 56:06

Camping fees are skyrocketing. It’s common to pay $30 a night at state parks, nearly $50 at commercial campgrounds. Even close to $100 a night at some of the resort-style campgrounds.  Many of us think there is a better way. A free way, in fact. And this week on the podcast, we sit down with our friend Campskunk, a fulltimer and a regular reporter on our Roadtreking.com blog. And Campskunk tells us how to camp free, or if you must pay, how to camp for a very low cost. He’ll reveal his secrets in our interview of the week, coming up a little later in the program. Also this week, RV tips, lots of RV news and a great off the beaten path report. [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #197 June 20,2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast: WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK We are coming to you this week from the Big Sky country of Montana, right, in fact, outside the entrance to Glacier National Park. The big news for us is that we followed out own rule – the 330 rule and kept it for 10 days in a row, stopping by 3:30 pm every day local time wherever we happened to be, or driving no more than 330 miles, thus assuring we would be fresh and not too tired each day to explore the area we happened to be in. If you are a regular follower, you know that while Mike and I recommend that rule to everyone, we have had trouble keeping it sometimes ourselves. But we did it this time and has a ball.  Going home may be a different story as we have to be in certain places at certain times but we will try. We are having a wonderful time here in Montana. This is where we are holding one of our Roadtreking Gatherings this week and we have just over 100 people here from all across North America in all sorts of different style RVs. We are hiking and doing nature walks, taking wildlife and landscape photographs and doing a lot of socializing. Last night, we did an RV stuffing contest to see how many people we could fit into a Class B Roadtrek RV. We think we set a world record with 22! Here's a video of the shenanigans! The weather for the first two days has been pretty wet with all day rain. The forecast is great for the rest of the week but everyone is having a great time. Here are the stories making RV News this week, starting off with a very sad story: Man camping with wife dies after getting pinned between trailer and truck A man died at a North Carolina campground last week after getting pinned between his pick up truck and his fifth wheel camper. The 63-year-old man was trying to hook the camper to the truck when the accident happened. The man's wife called for help, a campground employee used a tractor to lift the camper and free the man, who later died. To read more click here. Oil Refinery gets permit approval from North Dakota officials to build near Theodore Roosevelt National Park Last week, while Jennifer and I were camping at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, I read a story saying North Dakota Health Department officials approved a permit for the construction of an oil refinery three miles from the park. While there are still a few hurdles for the company to pass, placing an oil refinery so close to a national treasure is something conservation and environmentalists are fighting. To read the story, click 

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