Tales From Scenic Route - Kate + Iain
Tales From Scenic Route - Kate + Iain Kate: ...with Kate and Ian Gilbert. We travel around the US in the 27 foot Airstream. We've been on the ride for just over nine months. We started off in San Diego and we've been traveling around the west. We blog at The Scenic Route and you can read about our adventures on www.talesfromthescenicroute.com. Iain: This is Iain, Iain Gilbert. I do all the driving and Kate does all the planning. Stephen: Today we have Kate and Ian joining us. Kate and Ian are former sales and marketing executives and they now blog at Talesfromthescenicroute.com and they'll be helping us understand what nomadic life is all about. Well, thank you Kate and Iain. Tell us about your decision to leave San Diego. Iain: That was a tough decision because San Diego is a wonderful place to live. It's also a relatively expensive place to live. We had always wanted to travel in our retirement years and we're working towards that goal. We were getting impatient and decided that we would do things a little bit differently than the traditional retirement route. Kate: Yeah. We both work in our executive careers in hi-tech and medical fields. We cherish our vacations and then at some point we started to think, "Oh, this is crazy. " At the end of every vacation, we started to dread going back to work. We started to think about things a little bit differently. We've been saving for our time and we decided that why are we waiting, why are we waiting until the time when we might not be as young as we are now and able to enjoy as much. We went through all the finances and decided that if we change things up and sold everything, then suddenly we could actually make a full-time travel lifestyle work. Stephen: I want to just backup a little bit. I'm an immigrant here myself. I’m from Ireland and I immigrated to Canada, first Toronto and then to Vancouver on the west coast. Here in Canada a lot of people from all over the Canada they want to move to the west coast to retire. One of my favorite cities is San Francisco, and I know you spent quite a few years there. Another favorite city, and I have friends there in San Diego. I think a lot of people listening, they're saying, "Wait a Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. minute, I want to live where you lived." That's my ideal retirement to go to San Diego or to move to San Francisco. Maybe I can ask, how did you choose San Francisco originally when you signed the immigration request? Because that's a brilliant place to go to? Kate: Yeah. As you can tell from my accent, I'm originally from the UK. I’m from England and from Scotland. I was actually working for a company back in the UK. We've moved around all over the UK for both of our jobs, for both Iain and mine. Then suddenly the company I was working for in the biotechnology sector was actually a quiet bio company in the bay area in Marin County in Northern California. They offered me a job right there and I come out and Iain and I took about 30 seconds to think about it and decided that why wouldn't we do that if someone is offering to move us? Iain: Yeah. We both visited on business trips in the past. We've never vacationed in San Francisco, but we're very familiar with the area. This was back in 1999 and it was the hot place to be at that time and we like it as today. It didn't take us long to say yes. Stephen: I just think the contrast is it's a great story point to a lot of people their dream destination or dream retirement for travel would be the two places. Yet, you've decided to explore. Sure we'll get into your story today about how North America is just fabulous. Canada and the whole United State, what a canvas to see on these travellers and people that have their minds open to it. I'm sure you're very excited about doing that. I just thought it was neat that you're leaving the place everyone wants to go to and you also gave up your careers and did that. Kate, you had mentioned about the fear of doing that, how's the show going so far, but maybe you could tell us about what do you think of the show so far? Kate: We have zero regrets. I think I speak for those, Iain and I, that this is the best decision we've ever made is to do what we're doing now. You just never know how life is going to go. We have friends and family who has been there in their late lives and even in their younger lives, you just don't know. I'm 46. Ian is 50. We've worked in the corporate world for 20 plus years each, and we just had enough of it. Really, I think for us even that we will see ourselves of doing it, I don't think there's anything wrong with having some fear. That just means that maybe you're pushing the boundaries a little more and doing something different. Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. I think so far we've not done anything that's irreversible. That's what I always think as well. People say you're so brave and I always think, "Why am I brave really?" I think you make a good point, Stephen. San Francisco, especially San Diego, we love San Diego. But San Diego is always going to be there and we could go back and visit. We just spent a month back there in December to be out with friends. It's still probably one of our favorite; if not, our favorite place in the United States. There's so much more to see. I think nothing is irreversible. We could go back to work at the moment. I think it's unthinkable for us to ever think about doing that. Nothing is forever and I think just going off and doing something and having an adventure. Why wouldn't you do that? You're not doing anything that you could never go back to your old life if you wanted to. Iain: Yeah. Right now we're sitting in Northern Arizona in our trailer and doin this talk for you and we're looking at the Red Rock Mountains here in our area. We're dry camping. We're out in the middle of nowhere in National Forest Land. This is being recorded as a Monday morning. Contrast that with nine months ago, a Monday morning would be a dreadful prospect of working week full of emails 17 hours a day. Kate: Meetings would go on forever and all the things that we walked away from. Iain: Yeah. It's not a hard thing to do. Stephen: Our age is just similar. I'm 49 now myself. My wife Ellen and I will be 50 this year. We have very similar background, marketing exec, marketing and sales. The reason for this summit is we're struggling and excited and conflicted and we're doing the research and talking to people that have done what we want to do. We have very, very similar backgrounds. A lot of people listening, they say, "That's okay for them. They immigrated. They are used to traveling. They're special somehow." Kate, you alluded to the fact that you're just regular people. That if you do the math, and you obviously did the math and you realize, "Wait a minute, if we sold our house and we invested this way or whatever it has to be," we can do this inexpensively, lots of people may think. What a great opportunity just to have the freedom. Maybe you could talk about the emotional and financial freedom of literally going nomadic. Tell us a little bit about that, that emotional roller coaster that you must have went through. Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. Iain: It is in some ways a little difficult to think about not having a regular paycheck coming in. But you have to think in that perspective of your new ongoing and living cost. We talked just a minute ago about San Francisco and San Diego, the West Coast being a wonderful place to live. It has a high cost basis too because it's such a popular place for people to go and live. Property prices are high. The property taxes are high as a result. When you don't have to pay those property taxes anymore and you can convert that income going to financing the nomadic lifestyle, it goes a long, long way, a long way. By selling our home and freeing up that cash, although it was a big step to begin with... Kate: Yeah. Iain: I think it's fairly refreshing not to have those burdens. Kate: I think the emotional side of it really was ... Particularly for me, I was in a pretty high stress job a year ago. I started thinking, "Why am I doing this? Why am I coming home every night being" ... I wouldn't say miserable, but just stressed by all of the things and feeling like it owned my life. I started to think about why are we doing that? The reason we were doing it was because we wanted to pay for mortgage, for a nice house, we were running a car, all those things that we were doing. Then we started to think, "That's what's stopping us from going and enjoying ourselves, kind of circular thinking. I'm working to pay for a house, but what I'd really like to do is travel. By reducing the financial burden of the house, that freed us up to travel. It's an odd circular argument that we got ourselves into that we need to work in order to pay for this house. What we'd really like to do is spend time away from the house, but we can't because we're working and it just comes on to this crazy circle. I think for us we'd work our whole ... Consumers in the United States said the last 15 years we've worked with our financial advisor so that one of the things they do for you is they can plough out your life and work out how much money you're going to need to retire and things like that. That was very ... It made it very easy for us to then model, "What would happen if we no longer have an expensive mortgage and property tax and everything that comes with it?" Once we'd has taken those things out of the equation, suddenly we could live mostly on what we save. It just makes things very different proposition for us once we took our expensive living cost out of the Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. equation. We live today, we were lucky we bought a house in California. We had a little equity in it and we bought out our trailer, our Airstream and our truck outright so we have no debts. The only outgoing we have is healthcare, a regular outgoing, and pretty much everything else we don’t have an electricity bill, we don't have a cable bill. We just don’t' have those outgoings anymore. It's just surprisingly affordable to do, to live life. Stephen: It's such a great ... It's a clean break. I have talked to other people and there's an option for people to try on the lifestyle. They could rent their house for a year. They could do a lease from short-term rent. There are all sorts of ways to trail this on. There is a recurring scene that I get back when I talk to people about that have actually rented their house and then experience the lifestyle. After a couple of years they said, "Oh, every year we went back when we need to lease," and then we decided, "You know what, let's just sell the house." They said when they sold the house it was even more financially freeing as well as mentally. But they said they have no regrets in not having it. You can always pop up in the game at some future date, like you said Kate, you can revisit having a house again in the timeframe. Iain: We considered doing that, but then we are the kind of couple who have always gone all in. If not for all in, we're not totally embracing. We went all in. Kate: I can totally see why some people want to keep rental property and stuff, but for us I just doesn’t want that feeling that the phone could ring at any time and you've lost your tenants or something has happened and you have ... That wasn’t' what we wanted. The whole idea was to try and simplify life as much as possible. Stephen: I think of the great things you did, you were just doing it anyway, was that financial planning and the modeling. We, myself and my wife, we've created a spreadsheet with our financial planners. My wife runs it all the time. It's a fun thing to do but it really fuels the wanderlust and it really fuels that drive because there's the fear of not knowing and sometimes just because you just don't have the facts. If you can document and do a "what if" what if we lives to 90 or what if we live to whatever and see how that goes, that really help me to realize just like, "That's very interesting." Is that the type of discussion you both had or the realization you had, was that early on? Was this decision to sell, was it during a couple of years or was it a spontaneous thing over like the weekend? Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. Iain: It kind of morphed. We had a Eureka moment, I supposed. We have a regular meetings with our financial advisor quarterly or maybe half yearly. We would always run the "what ifs." After the last one before we hit the road, it was in the beginning of last year. We had our stay of the union discussion with them and we said to hold on, what if. He said, "Everything is good. Everything is great. You're on target. Just keep working away and you'll be able to enjoy that retirement when you hit your 60s." We go off the call and had a discussion and I said to Kate, "What if we just took the house out of the equation and we'll have them run those numbers and see what he says?" A couple of days later, he got back and he said, "You guys are golden." Kim: We didn't have to rush if we start working today and we literally called the real estate agent. It was as simple as that. Stephen: Oh, that's excellent. I'm sure there's a lot of ... A lot of people in your position. Careers are good and they provide lots of benefits and enable you to create your next segment. Being retired or travelling to enjoy it is one thing, but there's lots of opportunities to do other types of work and creative work and other... Iain: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We could get very philosophical on career and work. It's something now that when we meet people on the road and they ask just as you do in normal conversation, what do you do, and so many people are defined by their job. You have to think, "What is it that we do? We are not defined by our careers anymore. We're defined by something different." That is a transition that I think people who perhaps do what we are doing before traditional retirement age, they need to think about what... Kate: What their identity is. Iain: What their identity is, yeah. Kate: Yeah, because so many people's identity is tied to their jobs. I mean I still work a little. I have some skills that I think sell a little, but the great thing is I only work with people that I want to work with, it's on my schedule, it's a few hours a week. That’s it. The rest of the time, we can do what we want with it. There are a lot of times that I'm also looking to do some volunteer, pro bono consulting work for a non-profit. There's just so many things you can fill your day with when you're not working. I think this could be that you lose your identity or you lose your sense of purpose when you start working. We haven't found that to be a problem for us at all. Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. Stephen: Absolutely. On the timeline, so you've sold your house. I want to understand how you came to the American icon, the AirStream and what a beautiful trailer it is. For people listening, we'll have links to Talesfromthescenicroute.com with everything we mentioned today. There are some beautiful pictures of ... I think Kate you did some decorating in the bedrooms. It just looks like a gorgeous trailer. Tell me the story of how did the idea of an RV pop into your head? I know you've done some camping before, but maybe the RV, the trailer versus the class B versus that conversation. How did that all unfold? Iain: For years I've enjoyed the California summer's tent camping. We want to extend our season for tent camps, which is a little too cold for us. We didn't move from that to owning a small class C RV, just a 24 foot long RV, just for weekend camping. We had that for ... Kate: About four, five years. Iain: Four or five years. We still had that when we made the decision to travel full time. It took us just a couple of minutes to think while living in a 24-foot Class C full time was not going to be practical, although we loved it. Then we started thinking about, "What mode of transport would we use?" There's all the options out there from fifth-wheels to huge 40 plus feet long. For us, the Airstream travel trailer had always been something special to us as an iconic design and the flexibility that we have with the trailer and the truck was very appealing. Kate: We were those people that used to walk around the camp trying to think pictures of other people's Airstream. We coveted the Airstream for a long time and we haven't thought it was practical for us while we're working in just weekend camping because we didn't want to toast the air cool and we didn’t want to do all that. It's just didn't make sense as we were part-timing. As soon as we went full time, I think we both very quickly realized that this is our chance to own something that we dreamed of owning the Airstream. We love them. They're beautiful both outside and inside You know what, I think one of the decisions for us we've always loved decorating our homes well. We love designs. We like that modern aesthetic. Unfortunately, for us, a lot of the motorhomes out there just don't seem to cater to that, which I think is unfortunate and we keep thinking they're going to change. Then we keep going on looking to all these trailers and a lot of them just ... They just haven't Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. modernized in the way that we wanted. It was a pretty easy decision for us both inside and outside. The Airstream was what we wanted to travel in, and we've seen a lot of advantages with the Airstream. You feel like part of the community as we did pull into a camp ground and there's another Airstream there. You always say hello to other Airstream. There's definitely a camaraderie between people who are Airstream. Stephen: I give the little digs to some of the manufacturers here. It seems like here in North America they're definitely still stuck in the '70s. If any, I'm sure they are now seeing the invasion of the European designs, especially in the Class B market. If you go to Germany or any of the large shows there, they just ... Europe really has it nailed. The aesthetic is gorgeous. They're actually doing a fabulous job. Even Airstream is definitely leading the way and they've really changed. Even in the last three or four years, the green materials they use, there's no off gassing. When you sit in one you kind of get it why they are leading the way. I'm shocked that there's not another manufacturer coming and challenging some smaller... Kate: We discussed that. Iain: We talk about it all the time. Kate: We talk about it all the time. It was actually great to have the competition, but it just seems that no one is willing to go there. I actually wonder sometimes if a European manufacturer would enter the US market or it's maybe somebody from the car world would enter, like BMW or somebody would enter that would have more of a modern design aesthetic because it just seems to me that the traditional manufacturers for some reason they just can't seem to do it. They just don’t seem to be able to pull it off. I don't know why. Stephen: It's a small thing. I mean it's an aesthetic thing. There's something about racing stripes. By the way, no offense to anybody who likes these swirls on there. There are some tasteful ones. Most of them you're thinking, "Why do you have to have such bizarre design graphics?" It's like my goodness. I don't flames and grizzly bears on my RV. Kate: Yeah. Stephen: No. It's great. Airstream has done a fabulous job. Kate, again, what you've done. Just personalizing it is fabulous. Like any manufacturers, there's probably some little growing pains are solved with their manufacturing output. I know they're Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. putting in a lot. Has the Airstream been fairly reliable so far? Have you been happy with it? Iain: Oh yeah, we have. I mean maybe we think here and there, but nothing major at all. Airstreams are extremely durable. There's an excellent vintage airstream marketplace. I hear these things last forever, their tanks, as long as you treat them a little better. If you buy one brand new, they do come with two-year warranty which I know a lot of our fellow Airstreamers have used right up until the very last moment and the company are great behind their products. Stephen: I think it's a great ... and for people to have the fear factor, and Kate and Iain, you had agreed with this that five years, six years from now you're going to have a built in market not only for your truck but also for you airstream. There's an escape patch if you wanted to ever sell it. A lot of people just don't. They just become family heirlooms and they pass, they just keep them. There is a way you could ... There's a strong resell market, especially ones like yourselves you've done some extra decoration and modification like your solar. I think you'll be able to sell it in an instant. That's another emotional escape out for you guys just like, "Hey, we could always sell if we had to." It's a nice function. Iain: Yeah. Exactly. That's part of what Kate was talking about earlier, nothing is irreversible about having an Airstream trailer. We would rather bought a gently used one and see if there's a little bit of cash of owning them brand new. They get snapped up pretty quickly. Kate: Yeah. It's hard to find. They're pretty valuable, especially the ones that are five or six years old, at the moment there's just not much many at it. To your point, we definitely could see it. We invested in the solar panels which would make it very saleable as well. Stephen: I want to just briefly touch on that. We don't have to get too technical, but tell us about the power of having your own ... Some little generator on the roof and how the solar works and what that means to you as far as cost and freedom. Tell us a little bit about the solar and any other modifications you've done to let you go off the grid and for people that aren't familiar with that, maybe you could explain a little bit about the joys of docking and off the grid living. Iain: Like I said earlier, in the high desert here in Northern Arizona right now... Kate: Yeah, we're just outside Sedona, which is so beautiful. Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. Ian: We're generating electricity as we speak with the solar panels on the roof right now. It allows us to go down some of these remote roads and national forestland and be part in areas just off these dirt roads and as well as we've got a tankful of fresh water and we've got our supplies, food and drink. We can go up to probably two weeks here at the outside, not needing to be in a traditional RV park or paying those daily fees. A budgetary point of view, you're completely self-sufficient. From our resources point of view, you're regenerating power everyday. We watch a little bit of TV at night. We are browsing the internet on a computer. It's taking care of everyday stuff that we would want to do. All off grid. It's wonderful. It's all part of that freedom. Kate: Yeah. I think a lot of people don't realize this, but the public lands, basically BLM and forest service land, as American citizen, we have the right to stay on there. For free of charge you can stay up to 14 days in most places. There are some restrictions. It's wonderful. We really, really experienced some wonderful spots. I think where we are right now is probably one of the best ones we stayed in. I think it's not just the financial side of it. For us, we love camping with beautiful views, not looking at your next door neighbor's solar plate or just being crammed in. RV park is not really how we like to travel. We do do it sometimes because it's convenient and it's where we need to stay that night. For us, we undertook this life so that we could get out and enjoy the outdoors. This just allows us having the solar panel in a decent capacity in our tanks, allows us just to spend time out in the open and freedom. Really, our biggest limitation is our tanks, if we shower. That is our number one limitation. It normally means that we have to move in order to go empty our tanks. Stephen: I want to talk about the health aspects and also the travel planning aspects a little bit. Kate, right now, and I'm looking at a great picture. It's your awesome magnetic ... it's in the kitchen and there's a great photograph. Iain: Oh yeah. Stephen: You have a marker current zip code and it was 92201, next zip 8536. I think that was brilliant. It was quite fun. Let's talk about ... I'm not sure what you're in right now, but I've been to Sedona. It's gorgeous. I love it. Let's do a little "what if" travel planning scenario for people that may not be familiar with the options you have. Most people listening here in North America may know of Sedona and haven't been or want to go. Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. I was a former a hotel person because that's usually what most people think of the only way to get there is order a hotel or maybe if they're lucky to have a friend. Essentially, hotel is the only option. Now, as using this style of transportation and your choice of this nomadic lifestyle, you now have many options. Let's keep this little scenario from people that want to live a day in the life of Kate and Ian right now. Let's say you're at this. Is it national forestland? Is that right? Is it a park or is it... Kate: Yeah. It's National Forest Land. They just opened National Forest Land. I think it's called Coconino National Forest here in Sedona. Stephen: Which is amazing. One of the benefits of having your airstream is you have this escape of your wonderful truck. Obviously, you spend time there relaxed, whatever, taking in nature, go for hikes. You can also lock everything up. Pop in your truck. I'm assuming within a few minutes or at least half an hour you're within Sedona and you're doing little walks along the cafes and coffee shops. Tell us a little bit about that and how you use your trucks to kind of augment your relocation. Kate: Yeah. Absolutely. It's been a wonderful thing about having the truck and the trailer when I know a lot of people who travel in motorhomes also tow a car behind them. We love the hiking and the biking, but we also love towns and cities. Stephen: People watching. Kate: People watching, and we love brewers. We actually visited a lot of breweries around the country. It's one of the things we love to do. The truck just gives us the freedom. Yeah. One of the things that's quite different, I think, when you're doing this full time is you're not on vacation so you don't just sit out and read a book outside your trailer all day long or go for hike. We also have to go do laundry. We also have to do a run to target to go buy stuff or to the grocery store. The truck gives us the freedom to just get around and do what there is and explore us in the local area. Sedona yesterday, we went to their little farmers market and then we actually met up with the fellow traveller who have contacted us via Instagram. We posted a picture of us in Sedona a couple of days ago... Iain: He said, "Oh, I'm in the same place." Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. Kate: He's like, "Oh, I'm Sedona too. Do you want to meet for a beer?" We've never met him before. We went to the farmers market yesterday. We went for a hike. We went to the farmers market then went to the brew pup, met this guy who we've never met before. We got chatting with him and then we asked him where he was staying tonight and he said, "I haven't quite decided yet." He actually traveled around in a small van. He said, "Is there any way I go with you?" We said, "Sure." He came up with us last night and we had a campfire and we sat around and got to know somebody new. I wouldn't say that that's that unusual experience for us. We've met a lot of people on the road and that's a wonderful gift actually that we signed on to full time traveling to meet other people. Stephen: Kate and Iain, describe to me a situation where ... Let's say you're in Sedona or it could be anywhere you've been in recent travels. You're sitting there. You know your trailer is safe, very inexpensive, it's generating power, it's all good and you're sitting there and you know people are watching. Do you ever just turn to each other and silently smile and pinch yourselves and go, "Wow, we've got this figured out pretty good"? Tell me a conversation or a moment like that. Iain: Yeah, that happens quite a lot. Kate: We're pretty smug sometimes. Iain: It's not like a secret, really. People would just take the leap. There are so many people who could be enjoying this rather than being chained to their desk doing the regular 9 to 5 job everyday. Yeah. Those are some of the best moments, either at the coffee shop. We sat around and fire last night with our new friend. We're sitting under the stars by the campfire in the middle of nowhere within seven miles of a town. It's a wonderful feeling that you get. Kate: We actually had an experience. We were staying in Lost Dutchman State Park, which is just east of Phoenix. We were staying there and we met up with this other couple actually who were Australian, slightly older than us. They've retired from corporate life. She'd scoped out a little brewery in Phoenix along the canal. We decided to go for bike rides with them. We biked around the canal. We ended up back at this brew pub. We sat there and we were chatting. Then Iain said to the guy that we met there, Brad, and said, "Just look over your shoulder." He looked over his shoulder and there were this group of corporate people, people we used to be just a few months ago. Although they work casual and they Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. were all ... They're obviously for some sales meeting or some company meeting and then they were all in the bar afterwards. We all said to each other, we used to be those people. We were those people that were away from our family during the week, and then she knows, and just there with the working ... People who are having to work full time and spend a lot of time travelling. We came and just pinched ourselves, like you say and said, "That isn't our life anymore. We're here because we want to be here and we're here with our friends." It was interesting to see a little window into our old life. Iain: Yeah, yeah. Stephen: There's a lot of little magic elements. Now, again, keeping with the scenario theme here, so you're just outside the Sedona. I'm jealous. I want to be there now. I'm shaking with the excitement, just the thought of it and doing it ourselves. We're going to be following your tracks for sure. My favorite thing is just to sit and then soak in the local culture and the people. I just love people watching and we would sit. Iain: Oh yeah. Stephen: You're doing that. Now, another special element is ... Again, for people, you have to ... People listening, you have to go to Talesfromthescenicroute.com and I'll have a link to this about Kate and Iain's airstream. It's just decorated beautifully. Your Airstream is far and away better than most hotels. I've stayed in a couple of hotels in Sedona and they were nice. It cost a thousand or so for the week. We paid a lot of money for them, but I would choose your Airstream over those hotel rooms in an instant. Tell people about the difference between paying ... I'm not sure. Later tomorrow you can find ... text me what the going rate for hotels in Sedona. I'm sure they're not inexpensive. We've all stayed in those expensive hotel rooms or with these resorts, and some of them are very nice and they have great amenities and spas, etcetera. Your Airstream compared to a hotel room, tell us that scenario. Kate: Number one, it's home, right? It's our home. We have everything. Everything we own it's either in this airstream that we're talking to you from now or in our truck which we can see. We have everything we want with us. We have inflatable kayaks that we travel around with. We have our bikes. We have all our cooking equipment. We have full kitchen. It's home. I've spent a lot of time in hotel rooms, we both have. Yeah, we both traveled a lot in our careers and we just ... there's nothing like... Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. Stephen: There's no comparison. It's your sheets. It's your... Kate: There's no comparison. Stephen: It's your ... Whatever your favorite thing is, your slippers. Kate: Exactly. Stephen: Your favorite snack, and there's no excessive fees for opening the fridge. Again, that's another part of the magic to this lifestyle, isn’t it? Iain: Yes. Sometimes when we are lying in bed and waking up in the morning, occasionally ... It hasn't happened too often, but occasionally, I thought for a second, "I'm home but where are we?" Kate: Yeah, but it changed overtime. We're so comfortable. We have a full bed that we don't have to pull down our bed every night. We have a bedroom. We have a nice TV. Like Iain said, we like our movies and we like to watch some TV shows and stuff. It's just comfortable. We love it here. It really feels like home. Iain: No matter where we are and what we're doing on the outside, you always come home to everything that you have. We met some friends a couple of months back who would be friends for a long time while we were still living in a regular house. We would go camp with them traditionally once every year, Memorial Day weekend and we're doing that again this year. We're going to meet up with them. As we were parting ways a couple of months back, they said, "Oh, when you come on Memorial Day weekend, don't forget to bring," whatever it was. Of course, we have everything. Kate: Yeah. There is no such thing as forget to bring. If it's in our home, it's here. Stephen: That's fabulous. Kate: By the way, Stephen, I just Googled, it's $415 per stay at the L'Auberge de Sedona tonight, which is about our monthly camping fees. Stephen: I was just going to say. I mean that's probably a fabulous hotel, but for... Kate: I'm sure it is. Stephen: For people listening, now that you know and you have your spreadsheet, you immersed yourselves in the lifestyle now. This is part of this fear factor we talked about to Kate and Iain as far as people, "Isn't it expensive?" You control where you stay. If you wanted to, you could actually ... you could actually book in that hotel if you wanted to. That's an option. You could do that. You could find a park Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. in Sedona. I'm sure you're just in one in there. Just take that $400, give people some scenarios, what would you do without $400 with some little travel planning stuff? It doesn't have to be about RVs. You could reinvest that in the spot or whatever. Tell us some scenarios you could do. Kate: We like food, so we would probably just go splurge on some... Stephen: Some nice meals. Kate: Some nice wine. Yeah, we would probably spend it on food. We actually don't spend a lot of money on activities. One of the things that we try to live by is because we've tried to move a little way from the consumer society. We're trying to be less consumer. Whenever we go places, people will always like, "Oh, go to this museum or go to that attraction," and we will go to certain places because we really want to go to them, but we try to avoid doing that kind of pay stuff because it's often very tourist based. Hey, for 80 bucks you can buy America the beautiful pass which allows you to go into every national park in the United States. That's definitely money well-spent. Yeah. I think the 400 bucks we saved, we'll probably spend on cheese and wine. Iain: What we could do with our 400 bucks is if we wanted to L'Auberge has a beautiful restaurants, isn't it? Kate: Oh, that's true. Yeah. That's true. We could probably easily drop our 2 or $300 in that restaurant. Iain: We could splurge on a real fancy dinner with the about half of that money and then we still have 200 bucks to buy groceries for a couple of weeks. Kate: Yeah, that’s true. We can always stay for free ... I mean we like to camp while we want to camp. We will stay in state park occasionally in national park. We don't always camp at all. We mix it up a lot. On average I would say for us we ... On average over a month, we spend at most $20 on night camping. That's outmost, I would say. Sometimes that's not, depending on how much boondocking we're doing. Some states are better than others in terms of how much public landmark there is, some place is ... There really aren't many options. You're going to have to go to your campground. Some places, there are the best places to stay. That makes it worthwhile. Stephen: These savings, that's for one night, right Kate, $400? Imagine staying a week, that's a lot of budget dollars for traveling. Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. Kate: Yeah. Exactly. Stephen: Yeah. That's crazy. Again, I'm sure in Sedona, the hiking is spectacular all around. Oh my goodness! Iain: Oh yeah. Stephen: It's fabulous. Some of the rock formations there are magical. A lot of people that have RV too, they slow down a little bit, which is part of the magic here. I think maybe we can talk about that a little bit too is not being in a rush. To really soak in in this case what Sedona has to offer and you could maybe even take a local ... A course and something, I don't know. I know Sedona has got lots of crystals. Maybe there's a crystal jewelry making or something, you could schedule that in. How do you decide obviously just taking in what's around you in doing the physical things, the hiking, etcetera? Have you scheduled in some activities like taking a course of some type for days or an afternoon? Kate: I'm trying to think if we've done something like that. I don't think so. Iain: No, we haven't. Kate: Yeah. Iain: We haven't actually done that. Even when we vacationed before, wherever we would vacation, whether we were weekend camping in our small RV or if we were flying to... Kate: Mexico. Iain: Mexico. We always try and live like locals wherever we go. We tend to try and seek out what's behind the tourist veneer on a lot of these places and seeing the local ... The local scent, yeah, where did the local go and have a drink after work, where did they go and hang out and the locals coffee shop as opposed to the tourist coffee shop. Kate: Sometimes we did do the tourist stuff. Sometimes the tourist stuff is tours for a reason because it's... Stephen: It highlights the feature of the word. Kate: There's probably snooty about it. Like Iain said, we like to live like locals as we can. Iain: Yeah. Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. Stephen: You have a great blog post from February about mindful consumption and I think you touched on it a little bit and just being aware of everything around you and taking that approach. The fear factor of people again is they're expensive, but the fact ... Tell me about it because you've been doing this nine months now and I'm aware of everything that's out there. People may not be. It's been dark to walk on. There's the BLM lands. There's the forest. There's the inexpensive parks and then there's the resorts out there. Was that a fear for you or is it ... Was there a point in your life that was the last nine months where you went, "Oh, okay, I can see how we can do this. We can slow down and take a week or two here and then if we wanted two week and park next to the city we want to see," or whatever happens to be, tell us about the mindset around realizing that financially that was going to be okay and you could do that. Iain: Before we hit the road we've already worked out a budget with a lot of it in terms of what's our maximum money that we felt we could cope with. Our camping budget has ended up being about... Kate: Even less actually. Iain: Half of less of what we're going to pay. We were tracking it very closely. In fact, we still do. We were tracking it very closely, to begin with. Every week is like, "What's the average that we'd pay for camping?" How close is it is what we consider to be our maximum on our budget. I think other than one fancy resort RV location up in Bend, Oregon where we paid... Kate: Seventy-five a night. Ian: Seventy-five bucks a night. Other than that, we've never got even close to our budget. Kate: I think what we've learned over the nine months, the first few months we're on the road, to begin with, it was June and July was when we hit the road and we were going to California and Oregon, which are not the easiest places to spontaneously camp because that’s just so busy and popular. We started off with quite a few reservations. Iain: That we've made ahead of time. Kate: That we've made ahead of time. Once we have the solar fixtures, so we didn't have the solar fixtures until Labor Day. Once we have the solar fixtures, we started to become a little braver and we went without reservation because we Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. knew now suddenly we could dry camp a lot more. There were infinitely more dry camping options available that we want to hook up on. The minute you open yourself up to dry camping, you have probably tenfold the number of places that you can go. Then we started to feel even braver and we started to boondock a lot or when we went on to public lands rather than an established campground. I think now we've realized that how we really like to travel is we like spontaneity. We like to not have reservations. We still do reservations occasionally. We go to the California quest in May, and there's no way I read along the California coast that you can camp without reservations, especially at the weekends. It's just too hard. Mostly, Iain and I, we travel without reservations and the big advantage with that is it gives us spontaneity. We've been here in Sedona since last Wednesday, I think, Tuesday or Wednesday. Iain: We've been here for five days. Kate: We don't know whether we like it here. We don't know what the weather is going to be like. We don't know whether there's going to be tons of bugs and things like that. Once you get here, then you can decide if you want to stay two days, five days, two weeks. Having no reservations really gives us that freedom. There's definitely a financial benefit to traveling like that, but there's also this freedom and spontaneity that for us I think has really improved how we travel and how we'll travel. Some of us this last summer when we had lots of reservations kind about safety net ... Then we always have that worry that we would have no sleep at night. We kind of got over that mostly. There'll always be somewhere. There's always somewhere to pull in somewhere even if you just have to sleep overnight in a parking lot. You can do it. I think once you get over that fear that you're going to be stranded somewhere with nowhere to sleep, then all of a sudden you've got many more choices available to you. Stephen: It seems you've eased into this ... It's not necessarily that it's a stress-free lifestyle, but it's ... You just know that there's always the way. For people listening and as part of your own planning, there are so many great resources out there and now you're part of that resource you're giving back the tale of two campers in the scenic route is just a fabulous resource. Maybe you can tell us in your own pre-planning or your own wanderlust, maybe some other resources Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. that would help people understand what's out there, either for maps or apps or other bloggers that you've found very, very helpful. How did your journey of discovery as far as internet resources or just resources in general unfold? Kate: Yeah, I'm a big planner. Even though I like spontaneity, I also like to know what are my options are. I do most of the planning in terms of where we're going. I'll do all research of an area and I'll shortlist it. The main resources I use are ... There's a website called Compendium, which is a really great resource. Not only does it have all the parks and state parks and camping parks, it also have boondocking spots on there with the GPS coordinates, which is really helpful. That's been super helpful for us. We also use other bloggers. There are other bloggers out there who we know either because we've met them personally or we read their blogs and have to know their style. We know that they travel in the same way that we do and they like the same things that we do. For instance, some of the best blogs that have good campground views, Wheeling It, which in my mind it's probably the best blog that I follow anyway. We've met Nina and Paul who writes it. They're fantastic. We use their website a lot. They have maps everywhere that they go and they write a review to everywhere they go. Then there's Watson's Wander. Tim and Amanda Watson who we also got to know quite well this summer. They also plot everywhere that they go. If we're going to an area let's say we want to go to the Grand Canyon, I'll look at their marks and see if they've been there and where they stayed. Iain: Yeah, we try to angulate some several different sources and find something that suits us and what we think we would like. There's other websites that... Kate: There's RV Park Reviews. Most of the people there don't necessarily quite travel the same way. I think that we do. I sometimes go there as well. I started to add it to our own website as well. We now also review every single place that we go to, partly because as you said we've learned so much from other bloggers. We want to pay it forward and we want to give our experience from everywhere we've been. Mostly that's what we use. Other people's blog, Compendium, that's mostly what I use in terms of finding camping spots. Iain: Free Camp Sites. Kate: There's Freecampsites.net. That has pretty much everything in it. That'll tell you what mark you can step in or paste it like that. That has pretty much ... And Truck Stops, and things like that in it. I tend to look at all different places. My Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. first site I'd normally go is Compendium and the two blogs that I mentioned, Wheeling It and Watson's Wander. I look at where they've been... Stephen: Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, Compendium is fabulous. For people that don't realize, if you embrace this lifestyle you want to try even for six months or a year. You can sign up and be part of it for free. Then as you give back, it builds upon itself. I think it's one of those great ... Again, it stops that fear barrier. It lowers the entry point because some of these resources weren't around five years ago or four. A lot of this has just really started to have a momentum in the last three to five years, especially the last couple of years. Really, amazing. Amazing! Kate: We meet some people on the road who have been on the road for a long time. We met a couple of Airstreamers who have been traveling for 13 or 14 years. You've got to admire them because as you said they couldn't just Google map and find the coordinates of some way the way that we can now. The other thing I would say is I think it's important for anyone who goes this lifestyle is to share where you go. We've met a few people who like to keep their favorite place a secret, and I'm just not into that. I just think these are public lands and if I find someone nice to go, we will share the exact coordinates of where we were so that other people can enjoy it. I think that that's really important that everybody share where they found that is good because that's what this community should be about. Stephen: Absolutely. Again, for people listening, everything we're talking about with the links underneath the interview. Again, immersing yourself and ... I'm not sure if it was the three or four ... You're learning all the time. Let me throw this question out. For people who are saying, "My goodness, this sounds amazing. How do you drive a truck? How do you tow? How do you even do solar?" It's an ongoing learning experience with anything you do. You're always improving. You're always learning from other people. Tell us about truck ownership and trailers and how did all that work out as far as the fear factor? Maybe that's part of your realm, I'm not sure who ... If you both drive or how that works. Iain: Yeah. Kate: That's definitely Iain. Iain: Let's see. Twelve months ago I didn't know anything about trucks. When we put ... In the market and we say that we were buying a trailer and a truck, I had a lot of research and learned about towing capacities and gross vehicle weight and all Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. kinds of stuff that I had no idea about. The internet is a great resource as well getting the recommendation of some friends and their experiences with towing. I've never towed anything before. We bought our truck and trailer the same day. Kate: I wouldn't recommend that by the way. Stephen: I was going to say. That's great story. Kate: Anyone who's doing that with negotiating cost out, people trying to buy the same day was one of the longest days of our lives. Iain: No. We didn't tow the trailer off the lot that day. We did come back and get it there. The day that we did go back with the truck and hitch up the trailer was the first time I had towed anything ever. We had planned ahead of time that we were going to be camping close to where we picked up the trailer. We were going somewhere that was a pull-through spot. I wasn't going to have to try and negotiate backing up the trailer the very first night. Before we got there, we went to a big wide open parking lot college or school and we got a couple of traffic cones out and try to learn how to back up after watching a few YouTube videos and it was a terrible disaster. Stephen: Patriots Champions is a great post. I think it's from June of 21st. Patriots Champ is our first week as full time, isn't it? That was Cradle Park. It was a pull-through spot and the Beverly Hillbilly, that's amazing. I guess it's part of the fun. This whole beginner's mind there's this concept about beginner's mind where everything is new. But it's invigorating. It's scary but it's also exciting. Did you find ... Was it fear and excitement in that first week when you were learning all about the mechanics of towing? Iain: Yeah. At first we had to use a checklist to make sure we didn't miss anything whenever we hook up the truck to the trailer. We would double check everything. We go through the list and make sure we had put the safety chains on, the brake. Inside the trailer make sure the water pump has turned off, all the doors are closed and latched and so on. We are pretty routine about that in the first three or four sequences. Then after that, you don't need the checklist anymore. It comes almost like second nature. Kate: We still double check everything. We hitch up together. We have joint responsibility. We know it's one of the most important things to do, then we go and check each other's work and make sure that we're hitched up safely. Iain is meticulous about checking tire pressures and things like that before we head off Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. anywhere. We're very cognizant of ... we're towing a big trailer and a big truck and safety is important. Iain: Yeah, and it's our home. Kate: The other thing I would say about backing up is, Iain and I, Iain is actually not really upfront at backing up... Iain: Hold on, don't say that. Kate: There's a few tips I would give to anyone who does it as ... Get some walkie-talkies. It works and we've seen it in so many places than a guy backing up a trailer and his wife screaming at him from somewhere where he can't hear her. We have walkie-talkies so that I'm at the back and I just talk about any obstacles or anything like that. We never use the word left and right because that's really confusing. We always use passenger side and driver side, which we learn actually when we're at home. We learned that. That was a better way to talk. We always try to be calm. If ever we're backing up and if anything we're not sure we just say, "Stop for a minute," and then we get out, we talk. We talk about where are we going to go and we never ever try and back up in a hurry. Sometimes that can be infuriating and causing you wanting to pass out or something like that. We try our best to stay calm and not argue. I wouldn't say that we always. It always works. But we do make a real effort. It's stressful. It's definitely a little stressful pulling a big trailer and backing it up. It’s not the easiest thing in the world. Stephen: That's excellent. We've been talking a lot about the pros, and if you have to do a pros and cons, the pros said is really long. I'm sure there's a few downsides too to being nomadic and there's a few issues that will come up. I think the overall umbrella is you don't necessarily have to be anywhere in a hurry. If you take that slow down mentality, then when problems do come up, you just take them and stride. I think you might have had a truck problem at one point and maybe just recently you had a flat tire. Is that right? Maybe tell us around some of the things that have come up and how you overcame them on the road. Iain: Yeah. We had a mechanical failure where the truck pretty early in the entire journey has manufactured and assembly defect. It was stressful at that time. We were lucky that where it happened we were familiar with the area. I mean it was a little easier for us. You're travelling full time. You have to deal with these things that are going to come up in everyday life. We've had a couple of tire blowouts, actually, separated by just... Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. Kate: About ten days. Stephen: Really? Kate: Yeah. We have two brand new tires at the back of our truck. Iain: Yeah. Luckily, those happened when we were not towing the trailer. I was just from driving the road and picking up debris and the tires on the freeway. You just have to cope with that kind of stuff. We actually use that roadside assistance which is geared towards fulltime RVers with travel trailers. We've certainly got our money worth of that with the assistance that we've used while we're on the road. Stephen: Can you mention that resource for people? Oh, Good Sam. Okay. Iain: Yeah, it's Good Sam Roadside Assistance. Yeah. They've been good for us and we have no complaints. Kate: Yeah. I would definitely recommend if you're going to get roadside assistance, get something that's ... Go with somebody who went to sign with RVs because if you break down, like we did when we had a truck failure with an RV attached to you, that's a very different proposition to just to call. They have to think. The first thing they'll try and work out is where can we get you tonight, where can we put the trailer. They'll call the dealership and they'll say, "Can you tow the trailer as well as the car?" That kind of stuff. It's definitely more complicated when you have your home with you as well. I think roadside assistance with an RV specialist is really important. Iain: Yeah. Kate: I think our philosophy is stuff happens all the time. It does when you own and fix the break, sometimes your roof leaks, sometimes your sprinkler system breaks. It's the same when you're on the road. It can just be a little bit more inconvenient trying to get it fixed because you don’t know the area, but it happens. I think as long as you try your best just to not overblow it, it happens. Stephen: It just happens. Yeah. The other side of the pros and cons list is then you're at the Albuquerque balloon festival and everything just must melt away. That must have been magical. Are you planning to do more festivals like that? Iain: That's an interesting question. We really enjoyed that. Kate: That was amazing. Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. Ian: It was wonderful. It was highly recommended that anyone should try and do that. It's a wonderful experience. We haven't really thought about... Kate: No, we haven't. Iain: ...like that or rallies. We'd say we're not the rally type. It's not really our thing. As a gathering on a special event, it was something that was wonderful. I don’t know if there's anything else that ... to look for Airstreamers, it was a gathering at the Airstream factory in Ohio every year. Maybe at some point we'll do that. It's not high up on our bucket list. Kate: Not really. Iain: There are so many things like that that people can choose to do. Even if it's the burning man or music festivals like Alumapalooza or Coachella. You can plan these things to be close to these events so you're part of these events into your nomadic lifestyle. There's so much flexibility. Kate: Yeah, this year there's one of the balloon fiesta we will go. We actually are Formula 1 motor racing fan. We took the trailer along to the Gran Prix this year in Austin. I know a lot of Americans don't really understand the Formula 1 but it's a big deal and 200,000 people they show up in Austin for the weekend and we took the trailer and camp right at the track. It was amazing. Iain: Yeah. Kate: It was a really, really fabulous experience. There were more things in that. Stephen: It's not a trend, but especially it's these big events like ... If you're into horse racing, same thing, the Kentucky derby. There's actually accommodations for that. These events get the RV, a contingent the Class As the trailers that you make. What a fun way you're right there. Iain: Oh yeah. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. It just a bit of a budget buster, but... Stephen: It was worth it. Iain: Being right there does succumb with the high price side. It's a wonderful experience. Stephen: Absolutely. There's a great website that people are interested and I'll link to it. If you haven't seen it, Kate and Ian, it's called Fest, F-E-S-T, 300, Fest300.com. It's the world's best festivals and a lot of them are here in North America and Canada. It's just a great way. Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved. Kate: Yeah. We'll definitely look at that. Stephen: Yeah. You have to look that up. In wrapping up today, we really thank you for your generosity of your time and sharing. I'm so excited. Like you said, I think we could definitely do a couple of more follow-up interviews. Today, Kate and Iain, is there anything you wanted to get across or any questions I didn't ask you or anything you'd like to impart upon people listening? Again, maybe with that research, they're just thinking about this lifestyle? Any advice or any closing thoughts? Iain: I would say there's so much information available out there of people who enjoy this kind of life and have embarked on it from all parts of society. You can find someone who's tread the road ahead of you that you identify with. If you're thinking about it, reach out to people. People love to talk about their experience as evidence today, as well as just going out and searching around and online research. Interact with people who you feel that might be similar to you. You'll be surprised how welcoming people will be in helping you embark on the lifestyle. That's what I would say. Kate: Yeah. I was going to say something very similar. We find the nomadic community to be very generous with their time and passionate about what they do. There are so many different ways to travel. There are people who travel on nothing, like no budget whatsoever. We've met people who settle in tiny van. We've met people who travel in big Class As or fifth wheels in their RV park. We've met solo travelers, people who travel alone. We've met both men and women. We've met people with families with young children with babies who are on the road. There are so many different ways to traveling and there are so many different sites to travel. If you're thinking about this, I'm sure you can find somebody who'll surely grab a night with you and would be happy to share their first time experience. Which isn't bad because it really isn't all roses and rainbows and unicorns, so there are practical things about this lifestyle that it's good to know before you step up to it. Stephen: I want to thank you both for joining us today and sharing your time. Thank you so much. Ian: You're welcome. Kate: Thank you. You're welcome. It's been fun. Produced by www.TalkSummits.com© 2015 RV + Travel Summit www.RVSummit.com All rights reserved.
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