RV LIFE Podcast
The RV LIFE Podcast, created by one of the premier companies in the RV industry, is for the RV Community with a mission to Educate, Entertain and Explore the RV Lifestyle. The Podcast will explore all things RV Life: living, working, exploring, learning. With hosts Dan & Patti Hunt, full time RVers, content creators, educators and explorers.
RV LIFE Podcast
Navigating Homeschooling and RV Life: Unraveling education & Life on the Road
What if you could provide your child with a top-notch education while traveling the country in an RV? Today we are joined by Kurt, Melodie, & Marcus from RV Plus 3, why they chose, homeschooling, how they got started and how it's working 2 years later.
Kurt and Melodie share their experiences with homeschooling while living on the road giving their insights on state education variances, the importance of having the right tools, and the online homeschooling curriculum they use. We also discuss the benefits of homeschooling like the ability to take breaks when needed, retake tests, and spend more quality time with peers. Additionally, we shine a light on apps such as Full Time Families and Kids Messenger that are assisting families to connect and providing kids a platform to socialize while on the move.
Most important we talk to Marcus, hear how he feels and what he things about being about being homeschooled and living on the road.
Get Connected with Kurt and Melodie
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As we navigate the free-flowing roads of RV life, flexibility is key, and a backup plan is indispensable. We share our experiences and strategies of planning ahead, adjusting plans when necessary, and always being prepared for any sudden changes. As we conclude, we express our heartfelt gratitude to you, our listeners, and invite you to follow our podcast for more fascinating stories and experiences. Join us as we traverse the RV life, sharing tales that might resonate with you and even inspire you to embark on your own unique journey.
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Could you have homeschooled your children? This is the RV Life podcast. I'm Dan Hunt, your host, with my incredible wife, Patty Hunt, and we've come to you every Wednesday on your favorite podcast platform, whether that be Apple, Google, Spotify, it just doesn't matter because we are on all of them. Our guests today not only homeschool their children, but they are full time RVers and have an active social media presence.
Speaker 2:Today is the first day of the Hershey America's largest RV show, and we are so excited to be here at the show and can't wait to see what what the show is going to bring this year.
Speaker 1:I got to tell you this place is incredible. You know, here we are, we're sitting in the Freightliner booth tent. It's actually a circus tent and there's these great big class A chassis out in front. That's what they make. So we're sitting in the Freightliner tent, Hershey Park and the roller coasters are right across the parking lot and I have to say the smell here it just the smell of chocolate is in the air. I love being in Hershey. This is one of my favorite 10 days of the year and the first thing I'm going to say is the America's largest RV show, the Hershey RV show.
Speaker 2:And you know what. We've been on the road full time for over two and a half years. This is the second time at the Hershey. We call it the Hershey RV show, but the official name is America's largest RV show, and we love it here. We're so excited for this week.
Speaker 1:Now I will give myself a unconditional plug and say that this is the first day of the RV show. Next nine days you can come and see Patty and I speaking at a seminar 10 am every single day in the president's room, or where are we at?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the room it's upstairs.
Speaker 1:It's upstairs on the concourse level.
Speaker 2:It's only five days. I know you want to do nine days.
Speaker 1:All right, OK, it's five days this year.
Speaker 2:And it is upstairs and all the information's on the website. When you walk in you can find out where the rooms are. All of that information is as soon as you walk in the door. I love their app. Yeah, their app is great the information booth and the information lady man, they will tell you where to go, where to stay.
Speaker 1:But you want to come to this seminar because we are going to teach you everything about RV trip planning what to do, what not to do, where to go, where not to go All of those things. We're going to talk about all of those things at the Hershey RV show this year. Now that sound means it's time for this week's fun fact of the week Fun fact saving. It is brought to you by the open road resort, with four great locations in Montana, utah and Texas. Now I got to tell you these people are incredible and if you're going to Yellowstone, you want to stay in one of these parks. These parks are right outside the gates, so you don't have to pay the extra price on the inside, and it is beautiful. You want to see the stars like you've never seen the stars. You want to go to this part of the country because it is just incredible.
Speaker 2:Yes, open road resorts has three, like Dan said, incredible locations in Montana and Utah and we are already planning to be there next summer. We can't wait. And this year we're actually going to Albuquerque and then we're going to be in Dallas, where they have a location it's called Dallas and E, and we can't wait to go to this resort. We will do video and fill you all in on how that was after we get there.
Speaker 1:OK, patty, it's time for that fun fact. We've talked about the, the sponsor of the fun fact, but we got to give them the fun fact. That's your job.
Speaker 2:So the fun fact homeschooling became a huge thing for everyone during the pandemic. But we wanted to look at how many students are still being homeschooled today. These statistics are 2022, the end of 2022. And according to the National Home Education Research Institute, 2021, which was during the pandemic 3.7 million students were homeschooled. 3.7 million, that's a lot of kids, that's a lot of millions and in 2022, 4.3 million were homeschooled. That number increased and it'll be interesting to see what happened in 2023, being the pandemic was over.
Speaker 1:Now I'll tell you what. I can't even imagine homeschooling Now. Between Patty and I we have five kids and they're all older. They're all out of school. As a matter of fact, we've got five, nine, nine grandkids now. But I just sit down and I think about my eldest, danny, and then Amanda, my second eldest, and then Caitlin, our third eldest. I cannot imagine sitting them around a table and trying to homeschool them, because those were some stubborn kids. I just can't imagine going down that road with them. It's not like we have, you know, kids like good kids, like Marcus over here.
Speaker 2:But I hope the kids don't listen to this episode because you just threw three of them under the bus and I gotta say when they were growing up I don't know that I could have imagined homeschooling them and I was a teacher for 20 years, Couldn't have imagined. But when Dan says sitting around the table, when you go out now and you see kids being homeschooled, they're not necessarily sitting around the table and I love that. And given this new information, I think I might have considered homeschooling, talking to people that are doing it. I don't know, I think I might have done it.
Speaker 1:We could take some of the grandkids and I will tell you that I was so impressed. We were at a campground, a thousand trails campground, right here in Pennsylvania. I don't remember the name, it was up by the Poconos area Timothy Lake.
Speaker 1:Timothy Lake and that's where we met this group of people called Party of Six and their kids. They did something that I was just so amazed. They had just come from a national park and one of the water spickets was broken. So what they did is they built their own reservoir and waterfall system and they contained that water and they brought it right back down into the sewage.
Speaker 1:I have to tell you, I was so impressed with these kids making their own national park. They called it thousand trails national park here in Pennsylvania and it was just incredible because they really they built the rocks out and they had the reservoir going there. They had the little Lego boats going across the reservoir. They had it down because they went through one of the educational programs at one of the parks that they were at. They told them about the reservoir system, so they repeated that reservoir system and built it. I was so impressed with not only the kids but the parents for allowing the kids to do it. I mean, you know, these kids went into the toolbox and they got hammers and they were breaking rocks apart so they fit properly. They were doing it all, but it was really really impressive, I think, if you go over to party of six. I think they did a video on it and it's really worth taking a look at that video. Patty, I like you to find that and put that in the show notes, if you could.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll get right on that.
Speaker 1:Okay, we are here at thousand trails in Hershey, pennsylvania, on the first day of America's largest RV show. The RV life podcast is brought to you by RV life and their project RV trip wizard.
Speaker 2:When traveling in your RV, how do you navigate? Do you use a paper map, a GPS, or do you use Google maps? Our sponsor, rv trip wizard, has the solution and it just works.
Speaker 1:And boy does it just work. This is the RV life podcast. I'm Dan Hunt with my incredible wife, patty Hunt, our guest today. Well, he is a United States Army veteran, the kind of guy that can figure out anything. They have an online presence and guess what? They actually met online and they have never looked back since they met. They have two children One of them is in the service today in a security detail right, and they are full time RVers with two years under the belt, and they are added users of RV trip wizard. This man right here is the only man I have ever seen that has scheduled out a year in advance. He knows where he's going to be a year in advance. I'm lucky to get two or three months out, but I'll tell you what gotta have a lot of respect there.
Speaker 1:We met them last year at the Hershey RV show and since then they have become great friends and supporters of the RV life podcast, including being our setup crew in Tampa. Now there's a story behind that, because in Tampa we pulled into Tampa and the day that we got there Patty's mom went into the hospital. So Patty got on an airplane and went back to take care of her mom and that left me at Tampa doing, I'm going to say, six seminars, six podcasts in different locations, and that was really spread out. Now I did have a golf cart, but I'd go over every morning pick them up. They'd come back over to my RV, We'd load up that RV and we'd go out to wherever we had to be and get set up. It is just great how the RV community comes together in people's times of need.
Speaker 2:And they certainly did. They've been incredibly supportive. But I want to introduce Kurt Melody and Marcus Clayton to the show. Welcome to the RV Life podcast.
Speaker 5:Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for being here with us. It's about time that you guys actually got onto the show. You helped me produce plenty of episodes. But let's start out with talking about your decision to go full time. Now we're here today and we actually have a studio audience. Are you guys all full-timers? Well, you're not a full-timer, you're a full-time worker. You three in the front, you guys are all full-timers. So let's talk about that decision.
Speaker 6:When you said, I don't want this house anymore, I don't want to mow the lawn anymore, I want to get out and enjoy the open road, well it kind of started, with us just looking at our life and, with COVID hitting, it's like where do we want to go, what do we want to do and what do we want to be with our lives? Our oldest was finishing out high school, finishing out as college associates, and with our youngest already being home schooled, with Marcus being home schooled, we're just like, all right, well, we can do something different.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 5:I feel like COVID taught us we could home school where before we would have never thought about it, and he did so much better home schooling.
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you already had to home school and, like you said, covid taught you you can do it, because, as Dan and I said in the open, I can't even imagine I don't think we could but to juror you forced into it. There it was. Now let's let's talk a little bit. We were talking before the podcast and we're going to throw this to Kurt. There's the whole state and domicile thing and that's not the topic of the show. But depending on where you're, what we're calling domiciled depends on what you have to do as far as education. So now you're domiciled in South Dakota. Is that correct, correct? And what did that look like? Why did you choose South Dakota?
Speaker 6:We chose South Dakota because there's no reporting, essentially back to the state. They leave it in the parents' hands, which is a nice transition that we're not set. They're going all right, there's a government entity hanging over our heads going you have to be doing it this way this many hours a week.
Speaker 2:So you chose South Dakota. I just want people to understand what it might look like in another state for people who aren't familiar. And again, we were discussing this beforehand and you chose South Dakota, you said, because you didn't want to report a state that you would have to report to. What would that look like?
Speaker 6:Well, state mandated testing and some kids aren't great testers. And that's the nice thing for our Marcus is he isn't the greatest tester and we can let him redo his test and go through it again. It's not a one and done.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I love that and as a teacher, I love that idea. I'm not going to go down that road right now, but certainly another time for a topic of conversation.
Speaker 1:Now the young lady in the front. Well, we were talking about this before we went on the air and you stated that where you were you had to do state testing. At certain times you rattled them off. What are those times that you had to do those state testing? Third, fifth, eighth and 10th, you had to give the children the state test and you had to sit there and moderate it like it's one of those, like an SAT type test. And what happens, just out of curiosity, if the child doesn't pass the testing?
Speaker 5:so if the child does not get at least a 13% child, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 1:Hold on, hold on 13% tile.
Speaker 5:Just like answering one or two questions correctly.
Speaker 1:Okay, so out of 100 questions we got to get two, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, Now, now I will say and again being a teacher for 20 years in that district 13% tile. Two questions right, but different states are going to be very different and I just want to give that Now what state were you in?
Speaker 2:Oregon. Okay, so she said that was Oregon. But you know, I worked in Pennsylvania and we did state testing two questions right, wouldn't have cut it. I don't know how they're doing it now. So again, I just want the masses to understand that different states can be drastically different, because I will say that my oldest son lives in Bend Oregon, and our grandson and granddaughter- are going to an elementary school in Bend.
Speaker 1:I got to tell you I went to this place. It's like a college campus. It was incredible, the school system in Bend Oregon.
Speaker 2:That's where they're from. So okay.
Speaker 2:And, again, the podcast usually doesn't go out to the audience, but thank you for sharing. Our goal is to let people know you know what their options are, what choices, and we get questions about homeschooling all the time. So you guys said you started homeschooling because you're kind of forced into it. It just worked for you, your residents of South Dakota, which you specifically chose because you don't have to report to them. Can you give people an idea of, then, how you figured out curriculum? Let's call curriculum an S system of education. You have an online system, right?
Speaker 6:Yeah, we signed up with one of the many online options that were out there that we felt Marcus would be benefited from the most. A lot of these kids nowadays they get their information from the devices. You know, that's how they absorb it. They watch these YouTube videos and then they can go out and do the thing just like most of us adults. Even on the road for RV stuff, something needs fixed and broke down. All right, I'm sure there's a YouTube video for it.
Speaker 2:Dan swears, if somebody needed brain surgery, he could just go on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Just go on YouTube, I could find out how to do it. He says it all the time. Is it the?
Speaker 2:red or the blue one he talks about this all the time, so I'm a little worried about that. What's the kid? Will you share the name of that program with people Just?
Speaker 6:we use time for learning. It's relatively inexpensive $20 a month and it covers all the basic subjects for them that we want them to have covered History, math, English takes care of all those basics. Then it's road schooling on top of that. Let's go to Gettysburg, let's go to Valley Forge, let's show you the history in person.
Speaker 1:Instead of reading about it. Now, I have to say, normally we record the RV Life podcast in the front of our RV. We're out on the road and we do it on the front of our RV and we bring our guest in through a thing called Riverside. Then we can see them and look at them. Here we are, where we have a live studio audience for the taping of the RV Life podcast For the first time in a very long time.
Speaker 1:A woman just walked in, sat down in the back row and she's got an RV Life t-shirt on. How great is that? Let's give her a great big round of applause, if I can find my applause. There they are. And before you leave, you want to come up? I'll give you an RV Life podcast sticker. You're now officially a part of the RV Life podcast and one of the reasons that we stay afloat is we have sponsors. So we're going to take a break right now, but after the break we're going to talk to Marcus about homeschooling, we're going to talk about friends, sports, prom, girls, all that kind of stuff, and we're going to talk about how he feels from a kid's point of view of experiencing Valley Forge as opposed to reading about it in a book. So we're going to do all of that right after this.
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Speaker 1:And you know they took care of it. We had some stuff done to the RV. I cannot say enough about these guys. They are true people. I was at an event with Brett where there was an event where I'm going to say there was 300 people there and he stood at the door and he shook everybody's hand as they walked in, right after COVID was over. He still did that and then, as the event was over, he thanked them all for coming as they were leaving and he remembered all 300 people's names. That was the most impressive thing I have ever, ever seen.
Speaker 2:I just want people to know we're talking about Brett Davis, who is the owner of NIRVC, which has six locations. They sell motorhomes class B, class C's right, yep. So they, they are absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1:Okay, so here we have the Clayton family, we have Kurt and Melody and we have Marcus. Marcus, how old are you?
Speaker 4:I am 12.
Speaker 1:12 years old, but you have lived a life where you have experienced going to real school and you have also experienced going to home school, right.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:Now my question that's on my sheet here is I would like you to talk to us and talk to the audience from a kid's point of view, of what you think of home schooling.
Speaker 4:From a kid's view of home schooling, it's actually pretty good, do you get to play more often and enjoy life a lot more?
Speaker 1:Enjoy life a lot more. Okay, from the prospect of a 12 year old enjoying life a lot more because you get to sleep in a little bit more.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Play some more video.
Speaker 1:I know I got two kids in the back over here. That, uh, that, uh, I've I've known them for what? About a year, year and a half now, and, uh, they get to sleep in a little bit more. But you know we were talking about before we went on the show. You, they also learn the chores and they learn the things that they have to do. Have you ever done your own laundry?
Speaker 4:I have helped with laundry, but no, okay. Well, how about doing the dishes?
Speaker 2:at night. Your that might be your lesson next week is doing laundry. What do you think from a home schooling point of view? As opposed to, you did go to traditional school right.
Speaker 4:I think it allows you to talk to kids more and take breaks when you actually need them and do not stress you out. Plus, you can then redo tests too.
Speaker 2:I love. I'm a teacher of 20 years. I've got to address this because I've seen kids stressed out in school, stressed out about testing, not being able to get up in the morning like and to be able to do it at the pace that works for you. You're a smart kid. I've been with you for a while so you're obviously learning. I just I just had to stop and say that because that, right there for you know, for kids, like like you and a lot of kids that I've seen, it's a great way to still learn. And you pointed out something that people ask all the time socialization. You're saying you get more time with kids than you did in a traditional school. Is that what I heard you say?
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:More quality time.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's plug time and Curtis and Melody. They are a part of a group called Full Time Families. Terry, you're that too. Are you a full time families too? Right, and you do too. So people here in the audience and they're saying, hey, I'm a part of that. That's a great thing because they have an app and you can kind of contact people when you're in and let people know that you're in a park, correct?
Speaker 2:Well, let's let Melody talk about that, because we have not done that yet on the show, and it's a big thing. Talk about full time. You're looking at Kurt. We could throw it to him, but go ahead.
Speaker 5:You're fine. So with Full Time Families, they have the app and sometimes you can get on there when you get to a park. Can you hear me now? Okay, there you go.
Speaker 5:So with Fall Times, amelie, you do have that app and you can go on. When you get to a park, especially, get a thousand trails and ask to join the conversation, and it's really great because you see what's going on. Like some people are like, hey, we're going to have a get-together at site B12. If you have kids, come on down. Or we're having a fire, come join the fire. It's a great way for you to meet other people and your kids to meet other kids.
Speaker 2:And so one of the things people say is again that socialization. You guys travel all over the country. Do you find that you're still? You know kids are still staying connected to one another, you're still seeing the same kids. Can you speak about that?
Speaker 5:Yeah, definitely. Well, we have. Of course, you meet friends along the road and sometimes you'll say, hey, where are you going? Oh, I'm going to be close, so you'll detour so your kids and you guys can hang out and be close. Our son uses Kids Messenger, like a lot of other kids, so he has a friend in New York and he'll be talking to her in New York hey, what's going on. And he has friends in, let's say, california, so they can keep in touch even though they're far away.
Speaker 2:I've never heard of this Kids Messenger. Tell me about Kids Messenger. What? Is it Okay, so it's a Facebook Messenger just for the kids.
Speaker 1:Now, when I was a kid, I played a video game in my living room on my TV. But I walked into your RV the other day and you're playing a video game with somebody else somewhere else and you're talking to them while you're playing the video game.
Speaker 4:Yes, I am Well, I was.
Speaker 1:You were, yeah, when you were doing that the other day. That is really incredible. So I mean, now you have a, you've taken something. No more video games. Well, wait a minute. That's their socialization time too. So they're playing a video game, they're talking to other kids, they're playing with other kids and they're forming relationships and building teamwork too. I mean, watching what you were doing the other day, it's like you know, they're working together to destroy the enemy.
Speaker 1:Whatever the game was I'm not sure. Okay, so the next thing we want to talk about is experiences, and I'm going to go back to when I was a kid. I grew up in Los Angeles, california, so I read in a book about Valley Forge, pennsylvania, and I saw a video maybe, but you actually got to go there. You got to go into those houses that those people lived in in the wintertime and you got to see how they slept. Do you think that's a better education than what I had just looking at it in a book? Yes, why would that be?
Speaker 4:Because you get to experience it in their educational plaques around that you could go to and read them.
Speaker 1:Now, have you participated in the Ranger programs where you get Ranger badges for going and doing different things?
Speaker 4:Yes, I have.
Speaker 1:That is absolutely incredible as far as I'm concerned. That is, you know what life is all about, patty. I'm going to go back real quick and talk about that couple that we met the very first week that we started RVing. We were in the Las Vegas area, at Lake Mead, and we were at a campground at Lake Mead.
Speaker 2:So I got to just chime in because, for people starting out RVing, this was our first month RVing. It was dry camping.
Speaker 1:Dry camping for our first month. Who needs water? I don't know why I have the hell, I made it.
Speaker 2:I had no idea Like here I am. So be careful when you I know, like your story, one of you convinced the other, kurt, you convinced Melody to go out RVing Be careful where you take that spouse that you're convincing to go out first. Just a little side note, a little off topic, but get ahead, talk about that family.
Speaker 1:Okay, anyway, this family. It was right at the beginning of COVID, or right towards the end of the year, I don't know. I think it was right at the beginning of COVID. They were learning about the Grand Canyon and this mother got so fed up with the kids not being able to go to school and being able to go to school and the rules changing every other day, she decided to put her kids in the back of their van caravan and told her husband to figure out internet so he could work off his laptop. And they got in their van and drove from South Carolina all the way to Nevada and took those kids to the Grand Canyon so they could actually experience it themselves. That, to me, is what homeschooling is all about, and one of the most inspirational things that I have seen in a very, very long time.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing, I guess, the point of this. Well, it is the point of this conversation. Homeschooling is not for everybody. Not trying to say it is, but if you're thinking about it, I see people all the time online. Hey, I'm thinking about homeschooling. I can't imagine, or I don't know, that I could teach my kid algebra or, you know, advanced science classes. There is support, right? You feel like as Marcus gets older and gets into those topics that you may not be advanced in, you feel like he'll have that support.
Speaker 6:Well, I wouldn't say just advanced in. It's stuff that we learned 20 plus years ago, having used since then actually.
Speaker 2:I would try not to call you on your lack of knowing algebra or something, but yeah so, but you have this support. You don't feel like you have to learn all of these topics and know them yourself because there is the online.
Speaker 6:Some we have to relearn and then others we can't outsource. That's the thing about the RV community and all these other homeschooling families that are out there. If we're stumbling on something, we can put out a message in the group and someone will probably have an answer for us. That's great.
Speaker 5:Or point you to where you can find the answers.
Speaker 1:That is great. I have a calculus question here, so we're going to send that one over to Mel.
Speaker 2:Mel for those of you who are not here, live is waving her hand. She is not your calculus expert, nope.
Speaker 1:Well, you need to be a calculus expert to figure out how sponsorships work in the podcasting world, and right now I'm going to take a break in here from one of our sponsors. We'll be back right after this.
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Speaker 2:Wholesale Warranties. This was another topic we had before we got on the podcast and Terry from Roaming Dad did I say that right, that's his channel, his YouTube channel was talking about some RV repair. I mean, if I asked that question, I'm sure everybody in here would say yes, they've had some RV repairs. We had Jeff Shelton on the show, so last week's podcast talking about warranties and I got to be honest, I was a little worried about the conversation. This is not the most exciting thing to talk about, right Warranties. Jeff is the owner of the company and he truly made talking about warranties fun and he didn't say, yes, everybody go get a warranty. He said, well, wait a minute, here's how you could decide whether a warranty may be the right thing for you, and I just love that when you have an owner of a company and not saying you need one and you need one and you need. It was just a great conversation and that was last week's show. If you want to go check it out.
Speaker 1:It was really a great show and you know I don't know about everybody else, but I have never had a warranty problem or an issue. Can you hear, there we go.
Speaker 2:There we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the red button had to be off the green button. I don't know about anybody else, but we have never had a warranty issue on our RV. Our RV runs perfectly 365 days a year.
Speaker 2:He's lost his mind. We have a 20 year old warranty, 20 year old RV, so the warranty company won't even cover it. And oh, they can't hear. She's saying she can't hear us. Okay, so we have a 20 year old RV and there's not been many I don't know six month periods of time that we didn't need to repair something. Right, there's always something to be repaired.
Speaker 1:It's constant, it is absolutely constant. You have to have your toolbox very close by all the time because there's always something to do, and then I always like to pull in and park next to my friend Curtis here because he'll help me do anything I need to do.
Speaker 2:And if I can't?
Speaker 1:figure out what the problem is. He knows what the problem is.
Speaker 6:Well, that's how we met Dan, remember? I was driving by, you were working on your rig and you needed some stuff and I helped you out. That's right, that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 2:Those little connector thingies, yeah, the wire nuts. There you go, those. They are a lifesaver. We've got, you've got to have wire nuts in your know how to use them, but you have to have them Well these are like.
Speaker 1:These are like wire nuts out of 2001 space Odyssey. It's just, it's incredible. You just put the wire in here, push down on it. What's it? What are they called? Wire?
Speaker 6:nuts, waggo, wago, wago nuts, but they're just a clip style versus the old twist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a clip style versus the old twist. I have used those all over this RV and on a couple of home projects that we were working on as well, so I got to tell you we absolutely love these things. Now I'm going to press that button, and that button means it's time for this week's RV life pro tip of the week New RV life trip wizard.
Speaker 3:customers are often surprised to see how many campgrounds are displayed on the map. To help narrow the selection of which campgrounds to add to your trip, use the filters feature built into the research menu. You can filter based on your preference of park type, rating, reviews, hookups, amenities, price and club memberships, just to name a few. Virtually every part of the RV lifestyle can be identified and filtered to show you the campgrounds, rv parks, state parks and more that are important to you. You'll find much of the same filtering available on the RV life pro mobile app as well, for those spur of the moment journeys. Create your best RV trip with the best filtering available. I'm Pat Buchanan with your RV life pro tip of the week.
Speaker 1:Now, curtis, I'm going to refer to you on this because you use RV trip wizard probably more than anybody that I have ever seen, and you know I use the filtering and I filter in the Costco's. That's really important to us. Where Costco's are Home depots, that's another one that we use a lot of. Patty loves the grocery store set up so she can find the type of store she wants. Talk to me about your experience with filtering in RV trip wizard.
Speaker 6:Well, the primary reason I got it is when we bought our rig. We bought a very large RV fifth wheel. It's 43 feet long and it's also about 13, 4, 13, 5 high. I don't move that thing unless I know exactly where I'm going, and RV trip wizard allows me to do that safely and accurately. All the different it's in its evolved and keeps getting better. They keep adding more features that make it easier to do what I need it to do.
Speaker 1:I got to tell you. We were at a campground that actually assigned spots and we tried to extend for a couple days and they said, sure, you can extend, but you have to move one spot over. So that night I said, okay, we'll move one spot over. That night, what did I do? I go and I sit down at my computer in my living room and I open up RV trip wizard and I'm like is it going to be safe to move one spot over over here? She was laughing at me, thinking I was a nut. But I don't move that thing an inch. I don't turn that engine on without first consulting RV trip wizard.
Speaker 2:It is really important to RV, safe, GPS the planning you know again, here we are in Hershey. It's the first day of the show. We are doing a seminar on trip planning to show people what it is, how to do it, some of the features. You'll want to be here. So it's the first day in Hershey. How do you guys feel so far about the show?
Speaker 5:Absolutely loving it, loving seeing all the RVs.
Speaker 2:Are your feet killing you yet?
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, definitely. It's a big show and a lot to walk around.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is a big show, not like Tampa. Tampa is a little bit bigger, although this is America's largest. It just seems like the space is more spread out in Tampa. But I had a golf cart last year that you guys actually used more than I did.
Speaker 6:Well, after helping you setting up, we're like, all right, we'll just go Cruiser on the show a little yeah get it out of the way.
Speaker 2:It helps a lot. Thank you, yeah, thank you. You guys were a big help. So I do want to say the RV Life Live event that's supposed to be that is, tomorrow night at this point is sold out. So it's been sold out for over a week. If you want to try and get tickets, go onto the website. They'll put you on a wait list and as people cancel, they will move you into that position. So I just want people to know. As I've come in, people are already asking about the show the RV Life Live event and this just means that when we do an event, you've got to get your tickets early.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to be giving away a lot of really cool stuff. There is an electric bike in my living room right now that I will be giving away at that event in just 24 hours from now, so we're looking forward to the event. If you do not have tickets to the event, too bad. You waited too long. You cannot come unless you call Patty and watch her get real mad at me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no calling me no baking. Don't walk up to me, sorry, no tickets available and we were supposed to have extra tickets. The idea is that we would have some extra tickets, but nope, nope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have some VIP people that want to come and they're not even able to come, so it's a great, great program and a great, great evening, and I'll be giving away a lot of stuff, including an electric bike that Terry really, really wants.
Speaker 2:It's going to look fixed if he wins it.
Speaker 1:I know Ha, ha ha ha, we're going to have a kid pick out.
Speaker 1:Uh-oh, there's that sound again, which means it's time for this week's Question of the Week, and this week's Question of the Week we're going to take from our studio audience right here Now we have somebody that we've known for, I'm going to say, a couple of years now. You camped last year at the Hershey RV show. You guys were directly across from us and your daughter came over and knocked on my door and said your son came over and knocked on my door and said we listen to your YouTube channel. We just wanted to let you know that we're here and we have a YouTube channel too. So your YouTube channel is traveling Roaming Dad, roaming. He's not traveling, he's roaming. He's the Roaming Dad. He's got two great kids that are out on the road with him and we really enjoy his company.
Speaker 1:You and I went to a Battle Born event together last year, right? So why don't you come on up to this microphone, step up to this microphone right here and ask your question? The question that we get from a lot of people is how do you decide where you're going to go? Wow, that is a great question. How do you decide where you're going to go next?
Speaker 2:I'm going to answer that first for us. I'm sure you guys have maybe a different answer. So for us, the first thing we do is decide on what we call our hard dates. So this is what RV trip planning is about. This is what we talk about in the seminar as well. He's muting me, he's playing with buttons, and so we look at hard dates. So our hard dates are the Hershey event, tampa event, this year Albuquerque, albuquerque, this year Albuquerque, albuquerque. And this year we're going to meet our family I don't know how many my brothers and sisters and all kinds of people, kids, grandkids in Florida. So we're going to Disney for a week, and so that's a hard date. There's no changing that. And then we kind of plan in between.
Speaker 2:Now, for us, which is very different than Curt and Melanie we find that sometimes somebody will say, oh, come here, freightliner invited us to come to the factory. We'll say OK, and within a week or two we'll change where we're going. And that's what's nice about TripWizard we can make those changes easily. But a lot of times, other than those hard dates, we're flying by the seat of our pants. We started back on our journey the beginning of July with no reservations, except for this one in Hershey, thousand Trails, the woman in the back, her eyes are bugging out. But that's how we do it, because stuff happens and then we make those changes. But you know Terry asked the question and you know as well as we do you have somebody from a company that wants you to come visit them and it's like, ok, where do I go and how? So you're probably flying more by the seat of your pants as well. That's how Dan and I do it and that works for us to fly by the seat of our pants.
Speaker 1:You know I want to put away a couple of myths because it's just not true and I see it online all the time and it makes me crazy. So last winter, starting at the Tampa RV show, patty's mom got sick. Patty left, she had to go up to Virginia to take care of her mom, leaving me all by myself in our 40-foot class A RV towing a Jeep all by myself. Now, while we were at Tampa, I was asked to speak at a thing called PodFest, so I had to change my plans from where we were going to be and get reservations in Orlando. And one of the things I absolutely love about my wife is she is persistent. If you get online and you see that there's no reservations available at Orlando for next week in the middle of the wintertime in Florida, if you get on the phone every single day, there's always, always, always a cancellation. We had the whole winter planned completely and we only stayed in one of those reservations. All the rest of the reservations were all changed or canceled or moved around. So persistence, getting on the phone and patience. If you get on the phone and you start yelling at those people the reservations people, it doesn't matter if you're in a thousand trails or any other campground program. You're not going to get anywhere If you get on the phone and say, listen, we've got a situation, this is what happened, and we would love to come to Orlando. And then six flags and then Peace River and I don't know what they all are opening all the way up the coast, the Oaks we got it in South Carolina.
Speaker 1:So is it hard? Yes, getting reservations in today's environment is way more difficult than it was five years ago. But if you have persistence and you have a good attitude and a good mindset about it, you're not going to have a problem. We have never once not had a place to go, and we have maybe 20 or 30 days where we woke up in the morning and didn't have a place to stay that night. So I'm just saying that if you have a good attitude about it and you realize that as many people are booking as are canceling right now because people have made these reservations a year in advance. You know, terry, I think you were talking that you can reserve some stuff a year in advance. So you're starting to look at stuff a year out. I know he does. I'm surprised he doesn't have two years in advance on his phone.
Speaker 2:And let this Kirk, because you do plan differently. So what's your planning strategy?
Speaker 6:The planning strategy is where do we want to go, what do we want to see, what we haven't seen yet and what places we want to revisit and explore even more. Right now, I've got from 2023 to mid-2024 already planned out. But we are flexible in our adventures because sometimes, oh, we'll hear from our friends, so they're going to be at this campground for two weeks and well, that's kind of in our route and oh, let's cancel and go visit our friends.
Speaker 2:So while you have things planned out, you also build that flexibility in. It's not going to hurt you if you have to cancel something and redo something else, and I think for a lot of people people are shaking their head. That's just part of a full-time RV life and I think a lot of people here are full-time.
Speaker 5:You have to be flexible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, flexibility is the key word here today.
Speaker 6:Well, that's a nice thing about being able to pick up your home and move it somewhere else. Right, there's a hurricane coming.
Speaker 2:Time to go. Yes, yes, and there's that. Luckily we've not had to deal with that. There was a tornado one time.
Speaker 1:There was a tornado one time and sitting in an RV and having a tornado come at you in Kansas, I got to tell you it's unnerving, but we were at a Boondockers welcome and they came out to the RV and they said listen, if this thing actually hits, let us show you our basement where we want everybody to go. So we would have been able to go in and get cover in a basement if the tornado actually came over top of us. Now we live our life in the 1000 Trail System, probably 80% of the time Boondockers welcome harvest hosts coast to coast. You use are the backup plans of other places to go.
Speaker 1:But I do have to say that living this life, the way that we live this life, and moving around the way we've been, across the country, from the West Coast to the East Coast, back to the West Coast, back to the East Coast, back to the West Coast, and now we're on the East Coast yet again, leaving here, going to the Albuquerque balloon fiesta, to the middle of the country. So we travel around. We have what? 17 days to get to Albuquerque after the end of the Hershey Show and then from there we're going to go from Albuquerque and make our way down to Tampa, and I haven't talked to Patty about this yet, but after Tampa I want to work ourselves up to Yellowstone and see our other sponsor at the.
Speaker 2:OK, then we did have another question from the audience. I know we usually take one.
Speaker 1:We only take one, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm going to Trump format and come ask the question. Let's talk about it. It's still about homeschooling right?
Speaker 5:So go ahead.
Speaker 7:The question I had was a lot of people ask me what state rules you follow when you're homeschooling and you're traveling full time.
Speaker 2:OK, and I don't think we clearly covered that. We did, and I'll leave it to you guys, because you're the travelers and the homeschoolers and we touched on it a little bit. But just to get into a little more detail, Well for us.
Speaker 6:Melody, before we got on the road, had her own business. So I was actually the stay at home dad for a couple years and I was watching all these YouTubers and how they homeschool their family, what resources they were using, like the HSLDAorg for the homeschool group, and they pretty much had every single state's rules and regulations and what you have to do to sign up and get into homeschooling.
Speaker 2:OK, so wait, that was HSLDA. You'll look it up later. I'll put it in the show notes for people that are going wait. What did he just say? So that'll be in the show notes.
Speaker 6:So would you think it is Hsldaorg?
Speaker 2:Hsldaorg, it'll be in the show notes.
Speaker 1:But I think you know, when I listen to your question and I take it back to the root basis, this comes down to a domicile question. You kind of have to follow the rules of where you personally live. So for you it might be different than Terry and different for us, because we're domicile down in Florida. You're, terry, you're domicile in Florida too, right, and you guys South Dakota, south Dakota, north Dakota, south Dakota One of them there, dakotas.
Speaker 6:Well, you can domicile just about anywhere you want to. There's so many different programs. Like most, people use escapees or, like us, we're using Dakota Posts, so we can domicile in a different state than what we actually left from. Where we left from is Arizona.
Speaker 1:Right. So we left from Nevada and Nevada actually changed their rules last year while we were on the road, so we couldn't domicile there anymore. So thank God to escapees, you brought that up when and we had the owners Travis and Melanie Melanie it's.
Speaker 2:Melody, a Melanie, Melanie Melody. I have to keep it straight.
Speaker 1:Okay. So we had the owners of escapees on the RV Life podcast just a few weeks ago and they talked about domicile and their domicile program. So that's how we get our domicile in Florida and it was a very, very easy project. They made it so easy. All we had to do is show up and then we got new driver's license and everything. But if we had kids, because we domicile in Florida, we would have to follow the Florida rules. They follow the South Dakota rules. Terry, you have to follow the Florida rules. Florida rules Is that an oxymoron in Florida? And rules in the same.
Speaker 5:I think it just comes down to what you feel you need for your family. What's gonna be the best domicile for schooling and for, let's say, taxes in the state, and just doing your homework and figuring out a state that works for you and picking that as your domicile and I think that's the best answer.
Speaker 2:I think with anything RVing, it comes down to what works for your family, for you. Dan and I obviously didn't care about education because we don't have kids on the road with us, but obviously if we had kids that would be our, for us, that would be our number one concern, our number one thought. So again, it's one of those answers that it depends. But, kurt, you'll click you on add something.
Speaker 6:Well, there's no right answer for the whole. I mean, there's right answers for yourself. I want to boil down to you're not stuck in your home state necessarily.
Speaker 2:You can read domicile somewhere else, right and that's a whole question of domicile for people. Again, a lot of people reach out to us that are just starting out or haven't even gotten on the road full time yet. Domicile is something that people want to look up and what that means and how that works. And again a lot of us talked about escapies and escapies for us was great in handling that and what would be best.
Speaker 1:Okay, Patty. Do you have any other questions on homeschooling?
Speaker 2:I don't think we do. I think we covered it, I think between the people here and the conversation before, and certainly Mel and Kurt and Marcus kind of handled the big questions. I know socialization is the big one and if Marcus didn't help people with that I don't know there's no help then because he did a great job.
Speaker 1:Excuse me. Well, Marcus, I gotta say that if you ever need a job when you get to be of age where you're allowed to have a job, you can come and be the roadie for the RV Life podcast any time you want. You helped us set up here, you're gonna help us tear it down and, most important, you're gonna help us carry it all out to the car afterwards. So thank you, Marcus, for being on the show.
Speaker 2:We do have to pay him $30 a week because the rate I negotiated with him $30 a week huh. Yeah, that's the rate, but thank you very much.
Speaker 1:I'll give you an RV Life podcast cup.
Speaker 6:It costs a lot more than that feeding.
Speaker 2:I know we had boys. Yep, we had boys, we know. And guess what? At 12, you're just starting with feeding him, as you know.
Speaker 6:Yeah, our role list is 21,. Nearly eight us out of house and home.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, there you have it. Yep, that's it. So now you have to teach him how to go grocery shopping. I hear there's a great calculator app to teach kids about money and, yep, next step next week is laundry and next month will be grocery shopping.
Speaker 5:Okay, sounds like a plan. There you go, there's your correct killer.
Speaker 1:Well, kurt and Melody, I'm so happy that you guys have come into our life and become a part of our community. In the RV Life, having community is so important People that you know on the road, people that you can talk to on the road, people that you can go out to dinner with when you're out someplace. It's just a great, great feeling and I have to say that we are grateful that you have come into our lives and that we can call you guys friends. Same here, dan.
Speaker 5:Thank you so much. We're so glad we met you too.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so sweet. Go ahead, marcus. You wanna say something.
Speaker 4:You're our great friends.
Speaker 2:Aw, thank you.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna let him ride my electric bike. I'm gonna be the best friend he ever had. Okay, I also wanna thank our listeners. We truly appreciate you listening to the RV Life podcast each and every week. Hit that follow button. It's up on the top or the bottom depends on what kind of phone you have, but hit the follow button so you don't miss any of our podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm. Dan Hunt saying have a great rest of today and a better day tomorrow.