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
Inside RV Life Pro: New Features, Trip Wizard Tips & Planning Tools You’ll Love
I (Patti Hunt) sit down with Patrick Buchanan, a long-time team member of RV Life, to unpack the latest updates to the RV Life Pro Suite of Tools. From the robust RV Trip Wizard to the sleek new features in the mobile app, they explore how RVers can better plan, navigate, and track their adventures. Patrick shares insider knowledge on the development of tools like RV Life Garage, improved campground reviews, and mobile GPS navigation features like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or just starting your RV journey, this episode has essential tips and updates to elevate your RV lifestyle.
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Did you know? There is an app that helps RVers plan smarter and travel with confidence? I'm Patti Hunt and you're listening to the RV Life Podcast. Patrick, what happens behind the scenes of RV Life?
Speaker 2:I think the most interesting thing is that our customers and our audience in general. They have no idea of the amount of people working on our products trying to make them better, the amount of time that is spent on these products and how much they truly, truly care about getting it right.
Speaker 1:RV Life. The RV Life podcast was created to educate, entertain and explore the RV lifestyle, with the mission to inspire you to live life to the fullest. Today, I have Patrick Buchanan from RV Life on to talk all things updates, upgrades, improvements to the RV Life suite of products. It is April If you're looking to get out and start your camping experience. Open Road Resorts has five incredible locations in Idaho, nebraska, new Mexico and two in Texas. These parks are all highly favored by you, the RVer. On the RV Life Campground Review site, you can check out what RVers have to say about these parks by going to campgroundsrvlifecom, and you could also go to openroadresortscom.
Speaker 1:Patrick, let's jump into this. Patrick has been an RVer for 10 years and has been with RV Life for six years. He currently works with the development and design teams to bring to life the RV Life Garage. We're going to find out what that is. He also works with the marketing team, the rally and show team, the podcast teams and works with RV Life affiliates and content creation partners. Wow, that's a lot. He and his wife vacation in their RV with their pack of mini dachshunds. Welcome, patrick Buchanan, to the RV Life podcast.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, Patti. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:I am so glad We've been talking about this for several months because there are so many new things coming to the RV Life suite of products. But before we start, I would love to start with your story. You've been an RVer for 10 years. How did you get started RVing?
Speaker 2:Well, we got started RVing because we were looking to take a vacation. I thought we wanted to take a little cruise or something along those lines. And my wife said, well, then we got to put the dogs in the kennel and all of that. And she said I've always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, so how about we rent an RV and drive to the Grand Canyon? And the funny thing about that is, as I've told that story before and thought about it, it occurred to me she's never said that in her life to me. You know, I don't. We've been married 40, almost 40 years now, but at some point she's never said, hey, I think I want to go see the Grand Canyon. All of a sudden, out of the blue, she says this. And so we're like I was like, oh, wow, okay, we'll do that and we did. And then that was kind of that was kind of it right, that's setting the hook and reeling it in.
Speaker 1:You were hooked from there and I've got to share with people and we don't have to tell this story. But not only do you travel with miniature dachshunds, there are eight of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a whole other podcast, possibly a YouTube show and maybe a TikTok channel, I don't know.
Speaker 1:It totally is YouTube show and maybe a TikTok channel. I don't know. It totally is, because if we are on the phone, if we're on the call together and it is feeding time, those dogs sound like they are being killed. I know, yes, that would make for funny content, but after about four years you started with RV Life, so talk about how that happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's crazy. In fact, I just celebrated my sixth year, which is on April Fool's Day, which you know. I guess I could think maybe it was just a joke, but I still keep getting paid, so I guess it's not. But it was just a byproduct of my background as an IT professional, with a lot of exposure to software and things like that and spent some time I had actually, when I had taken our very first RV trip, I made some bad navigation decisions Fortunately none of them that appeal at the top of my rental RV, but they did result in some really really long travel days that I just did not anticipate because I was trying to use Google and normal ways of planning and it just doesn't work.
Speaker 2:And after a brutally long particular day from Flagstaff to Amarillo, I said there's got to be something out there that does this better and I actually did find at that time was just called RV Trip Wizard, which is now RV Life Trip Wizard, part of the whole RV Life Pro package, and I said, wow, this is amazing, this is exactly what I was looking for. And in my efforts to sort of give back to the community, I found myself on IRV2.com, which everyone knows is the number one RVing forum out there, and I was just helping people that were having struggles trying to learn how to use software, and I just, of course, being in my career for a very long time I was able to answer those, and one thing led to another. I got connected with the RV Life team and April 1st 2019, a new journey started.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, and so I guess I have to be really grateful that I didn't have to go through the issues. So I started RVing four years ago for those people who are new to the podcast and it was during COVID and my husband, dan, just said let's sell everything and buy an RV and I thought he was kidding. So I just looked at him and laughed and he actually got on to all these different trip planning. I don't think there were many, but he settled on RV Trip Wizard and he would plan these trips and then show them to me to convince me to go RVing. So this was like RV Trip Wizard was my gateway drug into RVing and so from the time we started out we had our trips planned and RV safe GPS. So I'm very grateful that we didn't have to learn the hard way by trying to use Google Maps. But we'll talk more about the RV Life suite of products as we go along. You and I met. It's actually been almost three years since we met Two and a half years.
Speaker 2:No, it's longer than that.
Speaker 1:Is it?
Speaker 2:longer. It's longer than that. We met in Albuquerque at the Balloon Fiesta that was. If that wasn't 2019, it was was well, it couldn't have been 2020 because of COVID. I thought it was 2019.
Speaker 1:But no, I think it was after that, so it feels like I'm holding for guests now.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, yes, well, I'm not going to admit to that, but it's been a long time. We met at the Balloon Fiesta. We hit it off. I started to speak at some events for RV Life and an affiliate, and so I've been RV Life for three years. I have to talk, though. About six months later, after we met, dan started talking about a podcast, and I was like I do not want to take one more thing on, and no sooner did I do that. You come along and say RV Life is looking to start a podcast. We think you guys would be great hosts, and I was outnumbered and I tell people that story on the podcast all the time.
Speaker 1:So, I have to thank you because you are an executive producer, the executive producer for the RV Life podcast, and because of you, it has had great success. Ok, so let's move on. For my listeners that aren't quite familiar with the RV Life suite of products, let's talk about that. Let's explain what that is. We'll help each other remember all the pieces of it.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm getting better at it. You know I really should have it mastered and I think for the most part I often do. But as time goes on and you get pulled in different ways, you don't always remember every single little component. And we've had a lot of exciting new things and in fact today we officially sort of announced a new feature that's been lurking in the background. But you know, the core of our product is the RV Trip Planner. You know, which we call Trip Wizard or RV Life Trip Wizard, and our mentality is really simple Plan your trip carefully, slowly, on your laptop, on your tablet. If you are addicted to your phone and you want to plan it on your phone, go ahead. You know, addicted to your phone, then you want to plan it on your phone, go ahead. And then, when you're ready to take that trip, pull that mobile phone out, get the RV life app. Your trip's already there. You can start navigating your RV trip. The way that you carefully planned it and that suite together is is just genius right now, especially now with the RV Life mobile app being both Android Auto certified, apple CarPlay certified, loads and loads of new features being poured into both products, and there just is no better way to plan a trip. I always say well, when you're driving a 40-foot living room down the freeway, you just don't make ad hoc decisions, and most RVers will agree to that statement. And so we've got other components in there. You alluded earlier to the RV Life Garage.
Speaker 2:One of the things we offer as part of the RV Life Pro subscription is this access to a maintenance tool that we offer and you know it's not a secret, it's long in the tooth and it needs to be replaced, and it in fact is being replaced and if you're going to have an RV to keep track of, you're going to need a garage to put it in. So we sort of have that digital garage that we have. That's going to. It's sort of a repository. You can get there through TripWizard, you can get there through the mobile app and it just keeps your RV there.
Speaker 2:We're working on it. It's not there yet. Mind you, this is something new that's coming soon the ability to have mileage logs, fuel logs, generator logs, maintenance tire pressure tracking all kinds of goodies that we're looking to build into this tool throughout the course of this year. Hopefully, within a few months we'll have something out there, and the ultimate goal is twofold Number one to replace the aging tool. We currently have something out there. And the ultimate goal is twofold Number one to replace the aging tool we currently have and then, of course, have this far more new and modern, spry little tool that you can access easily with your phone and multiple different ways to keep track of all kinds of things within the RV Life app. And even now, right, you look at that app, there's access to articles and, of course, the campground map, and there's just loads of good stuff in there.
Speaker 1:Right, and so one of my favorite parts of it is the campground review piece of this. And what I loved and why I chose the campground reviews through RV Life is because it was from all of it was from RVers. That was so important to me and meant so much to me. They were authentic reviews. You have to read through reviews, obviously. What one person doesn't like, somebody else may, but I knew that all those reviews were coming from RVers and that was important. So as I was planning my trip looking for a campground within the circles and you know we'll put some pictures out there I could see which campgrounds would be right for me and look at the reviews and all the information. That's part of the suite of products. I didn't have to go off of RV Life's suite of products to find a review, to do all this other research, because it just became too much. So really nice how everything is in one place.
Speaker 2:It really is, and TripWizard itself is legendary for that aspect of it. Like you mentioned, the driving radius, the campgrounds, it's all just built in street view, satellite view, elevation grade. All of those things are built into the single tool. I always use it on a laptop. I have used it on a tablet. I refuse to use it on a phone, but that's but. I've seen people just use it on the phone as if they've been doing it their whole life. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:Am I correct in still saying that when somebody first sets up their program and again with all the changes, I'm not up on all of them when somebody first sets up their RV life program, they have to do it on a laptop or a tablet or an iPad. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:No, they don't really have to do that anymore.
Speaker 1:It's the team has done well.
Speaker 2:they've done such an amazing job of integrating all of these languages into a singular platform. It's quite remarkable what they've accomplished over the last few years we do. The thing you might be referencing is the old maintenance tool is still a little bit dated and you kind of have to do that from a you know more or less from a laptop or a tablet. But as far as the RV Life suite of products, they're infinitely flexible to use on any device you want.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's something new, or I wasn't aware of that. And again for me, I use my phone a lot, but I really like the planning on the computer. And for people who haven't used the RV Life program yet, there's also all kinds of filters for it, and we'll talk about that because I know a lot of there has been changes in that. I want to take a minute and take a quick break. When we come back, we have so much more to talk about Changes. We didn't even jump fully into the changes that RV Life has made to their products I do want to talk about, for those people who don't yet have an RV or are looking to buy a new one, blue Compass.
Speaker 1:When you're an RVer, you want to know someone is with you every mile, whether it's sales or service. That someone is Blue Compass RV. With over 100 locations coast to coast, featuring more than 15,000 new and used RVs and over 1,000 service bays, with more certified RV technicians than any other dealers. Blue Compass RV is with you today, tomorrow and the road ahead. Visit your local Blue Compass dealer or go to bluecompassrvcom today. Okay, so many people already have this, the RV Life product. For those people listening that don't, there is a seven-day free trial. Some of what we're talking about may be a little more difficult to understand if they've never used it before, but you know they have seven days they can get on. They could try it to see if it's you know would work for them. So let's talk about those new changes. What are some of the new features?
Speaker 2:new changes. What are some of the new features? Yeah, one of the, and actually we'll probably start on the mobile side, because it was kind of on my mind here that just to remind folks that we have a ton of customers that never plan trips, they just rely, you know, and, in fairness, you know maybe they've got a pickup truck and a small travel trailer and you know they're not worried about giant overpower, low overpasses or bridges or things that are going to be a problem for them, but they love the campground map and the RV safe direction. So we've got a whole, really strong percentage of RVers that have the RV Life Pro mobile app and just use it for that navigation. And so one of the exciting things we've built into that is I'm thinking we call it traffic avoidance or construction avoidance.
Speaker 2:I think it's less to do with traffic avoidance than it is some kind of a construction, a long-term issue, right? And a common scenario is you plan your trip. You know, here it is April, right, I plan my trip and I get to October when I plan on going or wherever I'm going, and they've started construction on this road, like the main road I need to take, and you know, I don't know where we're going Yellowstone or whatever and and all of a sudden, my trip, which is supposed to be a four or five hour day, it looks like it's going to be a nine hour day. And so that mobile app will say hey, something's going on here, do you want to find a different route? I don't know the exact language it's using, that avoidance that we're building in. You know, it's not like a Waze right now where you can just go behind somebody's side street. Right, you can't take that 30 or 40 foot camper down any old streets you want. But at least now, if I know that that trip's got a delay built in and that delay could work to my advantage, right, perhaps it's like, oh, we could grab lunch now. Right, we're not in a bigger hurry. Or it might be hey, I better find another route here, let me pull the app up, or whatever. So that addition is really important and we'll continue to build on those types of things.
Speaker 2:It's no small feat. Obviously, we did this last year, but becoming Apple CarPlay is a pretty big process. But becoming Android certified is a nightmare, any Android developer will tell you, because of all the different pieces of hardware and all the different Android flavors and all that. It's a tough road and our team just kept working, kept working, kept working, and so that was a big deal.
Speaker 2:With regard to some of the mobile stuff, one of the most unbelievable things that we've done is they implemented something called route feedback, and so we're now taking feedback on when somebody finishes a route. You know, hey, how was that route? Were there any problems? We're now grabbing, we're now asking for any road conditions. You know, did you go over a section that was super bumpy or super windy or was there a problem with it? And we can go into our tools and flag something. We're actually working towards getting a route score so that we can begin to present different options with different route scores and start to do. Essentially, what we're doing is sort of that ways like mentality, where we're getting a lot of the feedback. You know, your, your map providers, no matter who they are, just can't tell you if the road's bumpy or not, right or narrow, or too many trees or whatever, and and so this type of feedback from folks that are navigating with the mobile app is unbelievably valuable and is going to end up with us providing the absolute best RVing routes in the industry.
Speaker 1:And that's incredible and all of these things have. I've seen the progression of the RV Life products over the last four years. I mean, I loved it when we started four years ago. It's always, you know, how can it be better? I'd love the fact that it's on CarPlay. I do CarPlay because I'm Apple and now that it's on Android, a lot of people are very happy about that. And now that it's on Android, a lot of people are very happy about that.
Speaker 1:I have to tell people, when I was using this, I was about six, seven months into the trip and we were taking a trip of the 101. And we had had a garment that was for the RV. So it was there and what we do is at night we would look at our trip and we would compare what the garment was saying and what RV Life was saying. The RV Life Trip Wizard was saying, and we would look at both and if there was any kind of discrepancy we'd talk about it. We did it the night before. Then in the morning we'd recheck because, like you said, maybe there was some kind of whatever traffic issue, whatever traffic issue. And we're on the 101 in Oregon and the trip wizard had a certain number of miles and the garment had miles that was literally a hundred miles more. And I had to keep looking at it. Well, what was happening is we were on the 101 and it had us get off the 101 and it like took us all the way around to come back onto the 101, literally 100 miles.
Speaker 1:And so when we looked at TripWizard, it showed a tunnel that TripWizard was saying we could go through. Well, we were a 40-foot Class A towing a car. So what we did is we called the state police and said look, this is what we have. Can we go through this tunnel? And the guy said yeah, tractor trailers go through there, no problem, stay in the center, here's what you need to do.
Speaker 1:That trip alone saved us 100 miles. And then I also learned that you could do the view, so I could have focused in on the view to see the tunnel and what the measurement was. So I was able. Later I knew I could find these things out myself without calling the state police, but that's not a bad idea if you're concerned. But you know I was already hooked on the products, but that solidified it for me and as we traveled across the country for three and a half years, the people that told the stories of the bridge they came up to, or they should have gone over or they were too long. We have heard stories after story after story and you know, I always say to them look, this product would have helped you with that, so okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, anybody that's heard me before knows I'm a big advocate for getting on there and looking at the trip right. I mean, we're providing for you satellite view, street view and all of these tools to vet out If you're going somewhere. You've never taken your RV, why would you not want to check that? And so I don't leave anything to chance and I don't think anybody that's concerned should. And, like you said that, that tunnel and that type of thing, those are the types of things you can vet ahead of time, and I wouldn't necessarily find myself defending Garmin in a lot of cases. But we do know that sometimes the data you get from the map provider is just it is what it is alluded to earlier this whole issue we have, or this whole ability we have now with the various types of route feedback, improving our pin positions, all of these things. We've got a whole team of people that grab this stuff so that even if the map provider provides a wonky route, it's always going to be safe. It's just not always going to be the smartest route. We have the ability to go in there and massage that.
Speaker 2:And I did talk about some of the new mobile features, but we do have some other features, some new things coming to TripWizard, rv Life, tripwizard. The first and foremost is a new, updated version. You know, we really we've been adding small tweaks for, you know, forever, right, but the overall face of the product hasn't changed a whole lot in the last three, four years, maybe even longer, and we now have have introduced a refreshed version. You know, I don't know about you, especially being an old IT guy, when I, you know when Microsoft would offer new updates to Windows, or Apple offers new updates to the Mac or the iPhone or whatever it's like. All right, sweet, what's going on in there, right? And so this new Trip Wizard is a real strong refresh of what it looks like visually some color changes, some placement changes that make a lot of sense, and some real exciting sort of building, if you will, building a frame to the door the door is not there yet, but the frame's built and some things that we're going to be able to show and offer on a daily trip basis. So, like right now, if you look at your trip in the new version, you can actually see that elevation and grade that we talked about now on a daily travel segment type basis versus the whole trip at once. So little stuff like that. I won't get too far into the weeds for that from you know, regarding that.
Speaker 2:But of course, the big recent announcement and the email I actually just got the email before we started recording this is we have integrated with Harvest Host so that now you can click on the Harvest Host icon in our menu and display those locations. Host icon in our menu and display those locations. You connect your Harvest host account directly so that we're allowed to show you the locations and let you add them to your trip. If you're not a Harvest host member, you'll need to be one or take advantage of that feature. But there's so much synergy between the two companies and so many of our customers, our crossover.
Speaker 2:You know I can't tell you and I know, patty, you've seen this as well how many times I've been asked at RV shows hey, when are you going to show Harvest Host locations? And you know the answer was pretty easy for a while. Right, it was like, well, I could show them to you, but then they would have a problem with that because they want you to. You know, penny up for that. So we fine-tuned with them. It's an exciting arrangement. It's really and it's really cool when you're in there using it in that regard. So that's new. The new features I talked about we're introducing slowly. I think about right now, as you log into TripWizard, you may see a prompt to give those a try, and right now I think we're about 30% or 40% saturation. You don't want to bring on hundreds and thousands of people at one time in case you have any problems to flesh out. So those are some of the new things, kind of on that website.
Speaker 1:And for people who already have the app and have looked at TripWizard. This is, I'm sure, making sense for those people who haven't yet had the experience. Go on, try it out. You have seven days free. But something that has been on trip wizard that I was asking for way back when was things like I'm a thousand trails member, so having thousand trails that show up for me, as well as other type campgrounds koas are on there um, so it's the. The filter system on the trip wizard is amazing. I can look for Cracker Barrels and I can look for my Costco's, I can look for gas stations. There's so much already there and it's always great to hear that more things are being added. More updates are constantly being added.
Speaker 2:In addition to those kind of chain campgrounds or what you will branded campgrounds, we've got all the private campgrounds and then every city, state, local, national park, corps of Engineers, blm land. My typical saying is that if there's a campground that's not on our site, it either just opened the other day or they changed their name and nobody told anybody, but otherwise it's there.
Speaker 1:Right, and every week on the podcast I give a feature campground of the week. So anybody that listens to the podcast there is a feature campground and I always say RV Life is the most comprehensive source. It's like you said, city, state national parks, the private parks, the resorts, and if it's not there, people could just let RV Life know or let the campground owner know hey, just add it to the RV Life campground review site and that's free for theer and for the campground owner. So it's really nice to have such a comprehensive source. When I'm looking for campgrounds, campground reviews is probably one of my favorite features, after the Trip Wizard and the planning.
Speaker 2:You know and I know Patty planning. You know and I know, patty, you spent some time at the campground owners shows. And I know, right, because I, because I know you and I've experienced the same thing when people come up to your campground owners, come up to you and they have no idea that we exist, that hundreds, if not thousands, of people have reviewed their campgrounds and given ratings and posted pictures and they have no idea whatsoever. It's just shocking to me.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's shocking to them. So I have to. You know anybody listening that's connected to a campground owner. It is shocking to them. I was just at an event a couple of weeks ago in Boston, outside of Boston, and I make these connections where you know, I truly create relationships with these people. I have been, excuse me, invited to a number of campgrounds where the owners come visit us and I had a campground owner that I had followed up with and said, wow, I went on and there's all these reviews and I didn't realize this existed. They didn't realize it existed. People are coming into their campground, there's all these reviews, they just have to claim their park so they can respond to the reviews. And I mean, this person I was speaking to just this past week was shocked by how many people are going to our site and that's because RV Life correct me if I'm wrong has over 2.5 million members, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. And you know we're no different than the Yelp, than you would with Yelp or Google, where you're going to claim your restaurant or claim your hotel. It's like, hey, you know this is a campground, it's the same deal. Claim your campground because you know millions of RVers are currently using our tools and our websites.
Speaker 1:It's just incredible. Now I have to talk about something. Last year, some people know I came out of the RV and I sold it, and it's been a year now, and so I've been flying and staying in campgrounds or driving and staying in campgrounds, been flying and staying in campgrounds or driving and staying in campgrounds, and last year at the end of the year I was filing my tax return. I know what this has to do with RV life, but the accountant said how many miles did you travel with the RV? Because it's a business, those miles make a difference. And I was like I have no idea. And literally I got in bed. I was tossing and turning, how am I going to come up with the miles? And then I thought Trip Wizard. So I called him the next day and I said Listen, I have this app that showed all of my travel, all of it, and all of my travel is, you know, pretty much business, because I'm doing a podcast or YouTube video. And he said as long as you have something that shows it, that's fine. What's the miles? And I was easily able to add up the different trips and give him the miles. And now that I'm not in the RV, I am still using TripWizard for my trips, both for keeping track of these things, keeping track for tax purposes, but it also helps me to find places along the way, even though I'm just in a car. It's been really helpful.
Speaker 1:I was at a campground Spacious Skies Country Oaks campground this weekend with the girl campers it was. We had so much fun and I spoke to somebody, denise who raved about RV Trip Wizard. I got her on video so I just want to put it out there. I will have her audio added to this podcast as well as video on my YouTube channel, inspired Travels, with Patti and she just talked about how she traveled one time across the country by car and was able to put her hotels in, so it helped her keep track of things. So it's got probably uses that RV Life hasn't thought of, but it's got a lot of great uses.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, it's interesting because you bring up something that I will often show people at a show. I don't usually talk about it because the visual is really helpful. But the search tool we have built into the map, aside from the fact that with our menu system you can find and select and filter campgrounds, you can find and select and filter fuel and restaurants and Cracker Barrels and Walmart, all the stuff you talked about, but you can focus in on an area, right, let's say we're focused on where did you guys have that girl camper thing? That was in PA.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it was in Dorothy New Jersey, right, Dorothy New Jersey, Okay.
Speaker 2:So you could center on New Jersey roughly right With this search tool or with our map and then when you go to this search and type something in, it knows to focus on that area first. So if you're in an area you've never been to and maybe you need to find a hotel right, I know with Patty it's got to be Embassy Suites or something like that, she's not looking up Motel 6s. But if you're in an area and you want to find a brewery, a winery, a veterinarian, of course we've got veterinarian filters and things. We've got a lot of those filters built in. But whatever you're looking for, right, maybe a go-kart repair shop, it doesn't matter. Whatever you're searching for is map-centric and so it's really easy to find something in the area that you're going to be.
Speaker 2:I had to do windshield repair one time. It was really easy just to center in and say, oh, I'm going to be down here by the end of the day and I'm going to need that chip fixed right away. So zoom in, type windshield repair. And I set a point with a guy and when I got there he came to the campground and fixed the chip.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I have to say, even though I've been using this all of the products for so long, there's always something new that I learned. There is something that somebody will say hey, I did this, just like the woman at the campground this past weekend, I wouldn't have thought to put the hotels in For me, because I have a business and I travel for business. It's really great to keep all of that in one place, and, you know, my accountant was really happy with it, and so there's always another feature that I'm learning about or another filter that you guys have added in. That's just incredible. Yeah, are there any other updates that you want to talk about right now? I'm sure there'll be more coming.
Speaker 2:You know there are so many and I have to be careful because I sit in on so many meetings and some of the things are six months away and some are three months away and some are tomorrow, and they often become a blur and so I don't always know and I don't want to announce things too early. Obviously, for me, the big thing is trying to get some kind of a maintenance tool out there and get that in the hands of people, and I think it's going to be amazing when we do. That's been my focus and continues to take more of my time and focus and continues to take more of my time and focus as I sit through these various meetings. There are just constant, constant tweaks, updates, changes, the process we have for taking customer feedback from the support desk to the analysis and testing team, to the product owners, then to the developers. I mean it's remarkable and so many of the features we introduced were at some point a customer asked for those features, or generally more than one customer. You know it pops up two or three times and our help desk is amazing because they're attuned to this right.
Speaker 2:So it's one thing if somebody says, hey, you guys should have 31 flavors on your map. Yeah, okay, right, right. But then if all of a sudden, a couple of weeks go by and 10 people have asked for that, all of a sudden it's like, hey, we should explore this Now. No, we don't have 31 flavors on our map, it's just an example. But they take this stuff very seriously and they take it to heart. And you know our team knows not to get overly offended by things. Somebody says, hey, this position of this button or this menu or this tab or this color is just dumb, right, it doesn't make sense. Our people will go back and say, you know what? I think they're right, it doesn't feel right. And you know we're all going to go through those growing pains as we're developing or presenting things. But sometimes you don't see it until 10,000 people start playing with it. And then you're like, oh, okay, I see what they're getting at.
Speaker 2:It's one thing when you have a dozen testers and those testers are used to testing software. It's another when you get 100 people that barely know how to use it. That go, hey, why can't I click on this? You're like, wow, gee, you're right, you should be able to click on that. And so the process is amazing and it's a really long way of saying that. We take and we value the feedback tremendously. We send emails and do surveys about the usability. We do testing groups. We send our developers to trade shows so they can ask our viewers in person. I mean, it's a very serious matter for us to create the best tool on the market and we have and that's one thing I have to say, I have to give.
Speaker 1:I have to give a shout out to the customer support. When I am dealing with a company whether it is my cell phone or any company that I have to deal with my health insurance, any company I have to deal with I call a doctor's office, that person that answers the phone. That is the first most important field. Customer service is so important. If I have an issue I want to know I could go to customer service. There's going to be a human being that answers the phone. There's going to be a human being that takes their time. They're going to listen, they're going to try and help me.
Speaker 1:I am not tech savvy at all, so I want somebody who can understand that not make me feel stupid and answer that. And I have to say, the support team at RV Life is above and beyond and I have been to so many trade shows now. Rv Life is at Tampa every year and in Hershey every year and I have met people from the tech people and the customer support people and they are all working together. There are no salespeople in the RV Life booth. There are people looking for feedback, looking to help customers, looking to help people who are already customers as well as educate people who aren't, and so that was a long way of saying how impressed I am with the customer support at RV Life, because you could call them and they pick up the phone and they care.
Speaker 2:They really, they really care they do, and we don't pick up the phone a whole lot, but we do answer through the email and through the contact tabs or tools. We don't really have phone support, which is surprising to some, but when you realize that all of our support people are US based and they're all real RVers and so they're all scattered around the country checking emails at all hours of the day and night you know we've got early birds in Maine and late night hawks in California and that type of a cycle ends up almost feeling like a 24-hour support. It's not we don't claim it to be, but the way people access the support tickets and the service it often feels. People are often shocked to get a support answer on a Saturday or a Sunday or a Friday night or wherever, because our team is all over the country tapping into those resources at all hours of the day. But it is mostly an email support base and there's a reason for that.
Speaker 2:Again, obviously we can't just run phone lines or virtual you know VPNs and different things to all these RVers. But when you contact us through the tools we provide in both the Trip Wizard and the mobile app and through our campground site, not only are we able to get things like screenshots. We're also able to get versioning information from your operating system and your phone and your device. That can often cue us into why you're having a problem. So it's really it's a benefit to do it that way. It's easier to get different perspectives right. If you're talking to one person, you get their perspective, and if they don't know what are they going to do, they're going to put you on hold. You're going to listen to some terrible music and they're going to go talk to somebody else when that ticket is in a digital hopper, if you will. Multiple eyes can be on that. People can chime in and answer those questions. It's really a great system.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I agree, and I hear people all the time talking about you know my question was answered quickly and then if you have a follow-up or still have a question, just follow up on the email and yes, it's been incredible. I want to talk a little bit about, first of all, andy Rabinowitz is the owner of Harvey Life and if you go to some of the events I know he shows up in at the Hershey event as well as the Tampa event at times, so you might catch him and, you know, actually have a conversation. He is there, he wants to interact with people who were there. He doesn't, you know, just stand around. He actually interacts and is interested in hearing what people have to say. Something that's really very important for Andy, for me, for you, is community, and I want to talk about RV Life's community, because it is huge. We embrace community and people getting together. So can you talk to us about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I can. You know, a company started. Really, its roots are in the RV forums. You know the sites like irv2.com, which I mentioned, and airforumscom, and we've got another 20 plus RVing forums covering brands like Forest River and Keystone and Jayco and all of these. That was kind of the basis of the community.
Speaker 2:And for those that don't know what a forum is, it sort of predates social media. Social media, but when you ask questions you get real answers. Media, but when you ask questions you get real answers. The things don't roll off and get absolved.
Speaker 2:Social media is not a bad place to get started, but people find out pretty quickly that it's a very shallow sort of a one-sided offering. And when you want a little more meat, you know, with your potatoes you end up going to a forum. And so that's where we started. And that carries on to our campground site which has I don't know, I mean half a million reviews or something like that. It's a vast number. The site's been around 20 years. And then we try to carry and we're working even more so to carry that over into TripWizard and the mobile app. We're going to try to sort of bring that community into that space. We're doing it another way with our podcast. We have two podcasts and you're out there liaisoning with the community. We've got a rally team that does shows and rallies. They're interfacing with the community and of course, we have articles, blog articles, social media we are it's virtually everybody on the planet, I suppose that's in the RV space uses hashtag RV life, and so that engages us automatically. It's funny how that worked out.
Speaker 1:So we're happy with that. Yes, great planning.
Speaker 2:It was good planning before. I think before we knew what a hashtag was, we had hashtag RV life. So that's worked out well. And it is a big, you know, especially in this world now where a bad review, a bad social media post or a bad article can really hurt some people, right, and we're always cognizant of that and we're trying to always be transparent and always be forthright and say you know what You're right. That's a weird way to to perform that function. Let's do better, or, you know, whatever the case may be, but the community is forefront, we, you know, I I think this is something I don't talk a lot about, but I think it's really important.
Speaker 2:When we you mentioned earlier our campground site, you know one of the things that drives me bananas if I go and look at a product on amazon, right, I want to buy a headphones or something, and I see others. There's five ones to five one-star reviews. I better go check those out, right, something's wrong with these things. One star the ship, the shipment was a day late and you're like, really, you're giving a one star because ups was was frozen out of of their hub because of a winter storm, you know. And with the campground site. We don't really allow that kind of stuff. You're allowed to say bad things about a campground that's terrible, but you're not going to give it a ding for something stupid like that, and you actually have to have been there and stayed there in order to leave a review. And likewise, we don't let the owners pop on and go oh my God, this is the greatest campground I've ever seen in my life. Right, we've got tools that prevent that and some validation.
Speaker 2:That occurs, like you said from the beginning real RVers leaving real reviews. And if you want to improve the reviews at your campground number one, do a better job, clean it up, treat the customers right and then get people to tell you about it. Those averages will skew right out of there. And so that's all part of that whole community picture. We have the same values on our forums. You can't just get on the forum and bash a vendor mindlessly, unless it's true. And if it's true, then you need to have some common courtesies and explain your situation, and you'd be amazed how often a vendor will see it and go oh, you know what? We didn't realize this was happening. We'd love to help you out and make it right. Right, it's all part of the community it's start to finish top to bottom is trying to make sure that everything we touch is good for the community.
Speaker 1:Right and I just want to add some specifics. First of all, rv Life has this podcast and our partner podcast is the RV Entrepreneur. So those people who are entrepreneurs looking to become an entrepreneur just want to listen in on what it's like to be an entrepreneur, I highly recommend checking out the RV Entrepreneur. They have amazing hosts there's three hosts now and incredible guests on the podcast. So I recommend that as well. As as far as community people, there's the forums, people who want social media. On Instagram and Facebook there's RV Life pages. There's groups. There's Trip Wizard pages, there's groups. So you just type in RV Life and you can find a lot of the community type aspects, as well as a lot of times the RV life show team event team will be attending events. Can we talk about RV life having their own event? I didn't ask this before their own event.
Speaker 2:I didn't ask this before. Yeah, well, we, we are. So we've, you know, we've, we've. We've got a little tradition going now and, uh, we've got a couple of a couple of new things. We'll start with the new things first, and that is obviously the stuff. Patty's going. She's got all kinds of irons in the fire there um more than I can keep up with, but we've got our rally team our show team is now going to be doing some special things on their own, some appearances and some little events and ultimately a rally.
Speaker 2:We hope to have more information on that soon. We're in the midst of planning that now that we're really excited about and they're a great presence out in the field. And then, of course, every September at the Hershey RV Show, rv Life holds its own Hershey After Party and we'll be releasing those details again here in the next month or so or two-ish. What month is this? April, may, june, yeah, a month or two-ish, and we'll be in our fourth year. It's a great event, it's fun, it's relaxing, it's exciting, it's interesting, and so patty will have more information on that in the coming weeks.
Speaker 2:But, uh, yeah, lots of a lot of things going and, of course, dawn, our campground director of campground success, uh, and partnerships. She's attending as, as we mentioned earlier, patty's done a few. Dawn attends campground owner shows all over the country, a whole lot of them. Those are usually set in the spring and fall, and so she's in kind of in full show swing right now, but connecting with those campground owners, making them aware of our site and where excuse me, where our reach is. You know, those campgrounds that appear on our campground site also appear in TripWizard. They also appear in the mobile app. They also appear. Some of our featured campgrounds appear on our blogs and our websites and our forums, and so it's a big deal.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, and there's so much going on. People can go to the RV Life sites and find out some of it. I will be posting RV Life updates. I'll be posting about events. I'll be posting when the Hershey event is ready on RV Life podcast on Instagram and Facebook. So all the updates will be there.
Speaker 1:If people want one location to go to, as far as the Hershey show it's called America's Largest RV Show. I know people are starting to plan their trips. Right now it is in Hershey, pa I suggest getting your campground reservations, also for our after party, which I don't know if we want to release the date, but it'll be during that week of the hershey rd show. It has sold out every year sooner and sooner. So the year before last it sold out the first day of when the hershey show started. Yeah, it sold out actually before the show started. So this year I think sellout is going to be quick and it is just April. But I'm going to say once we've released that if people are interested in going to that event, they need to get on board with that. I get really excited.
Speaker 1:Again, it's about community. Rv Life is so about people coming together, sharing ideas, helping each other, supporting each other, and that's what probably was the biggest connection for me to RV Life, because that's their mission. How can we be of help? How can we support each other, you know, so people can get out and go RVing, stuff happens, you know, it's great to have the community that RV Life provides Really excited about that. Okay, I have a question, another question for you, but before I do that, do you have any other things that you'd like to add here that I might have missed? Anything else, are we coming?
Speaker 2:No, you know, the only thing that I didn't really talk about and I often don't talk about it because it's when people hear this broadcast and they're going to be one thinking, wow, gee, that sounds like some pretty amazing you know, trip planning and navigation software. I hate to think what that thing might cost me, right? And well, I'm going to tell you. It's a shocking and staggering at least the time of this recording $65 a year, a year, yes, a year, and it's okay to have multiple tools in your arsenal. As I always say, I'm driving a 40-foot living room down the freeway. The more tools I can have in my arsenal the better, and at $65, if you used it once to plan one trip, it's paid for itself, but it's really an incredible value.
Speaker 2:We rarely go up. We will go up, you know, occasionally, a few bucks, here and there every couple of years, and the nice part is, when you do sign up, you are locked into that price forever, which essentially, as I always say, it's $65 is one good night camping, or maybe two lousy ones. Now, having said that, I spend a lot of time at Corps of Engineers parks, which are 20 bucks a night, so it's three nights. But you know if, if I can pay $65 and have an entire year of the trip planner and the navigation coming soon, the maintenance and mileage tracking and those types of things, I mean it's, it's an unbelievable value.
Speaker 2:I've I've said this before I've done RV shows and RV shows and you're busy, you're talking to customers nonstop, right. And then at the Tampa show particularly, we finally hit a lull after it seemed like hours of talking about this product and the guy across from me was selling hitches or something with fifth wheels, I think, and comes over and says you guys need to raise your price, because he'd been hearing us pitching this whole thing, telling people about it, and then they would ask how much it costs. We'd tell them and he finally had heard this for three hours and came over and said dude, you got to raise your price. That thing sounds like it does way more than $65 worth. And I said you're right, it does. So we raise it when we need to, but not just because we can.
Speaker 1:So we raise it when we need to, but not just because we can. Right, and I love that my price is locked in. I think I'm locked in at $39,. If I'm not mistaken, a year yeah, going back five, six years.
Speaker 2:And then Patty, that's a great, some great scale or some great perspective. So at $39, it's now $65. It was $39 eight years ago when we really rolled it out. And so in eight years it's gone up $26. Right, and we've added the navigation and the CarPlay and the Android and all these other tools and it's barely gone up.
Speaker 1:Right, so worth it. And not only that. There's a link in the show notes first time buyers for 25% off, seven day free trial and then 25% off. I talk to people all the time you just can't beat it, you can't be without it. But it's now time for the question of the week, and it's brought to you by CoolRV.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask you this question, put you on the spot and then give you a minute to think about it while I talk about people keeping their RV cooler as we get into the summer months. So, patrick, what is on your bucket list? Either people you want to meet, places you want to go, an experience you want to have. So, while you're thinking about that, I'm going to talk a little bit about Cool RV, and this is somebody who was traveling in, I believe, a fifth wheel. They were using Google Maps. Actually, each of the people had a different map system One had Google, one had Apple. Each of the people had a different map system One had Google, one had Apple and they went through an underpass that knocked off their air conditioner Really expensive mistake, and he now spouts RV life trip planning GPS. It is on their website because it would have saved him from knocking his air conditioner off. Now, because he knocked his air conditioner off, he actually created or invented an incredible product.
Speaker 1:Because RVing is about not sweating in the heat, coolrv came up with a game changer in RV air conditioning upgrades. With cooler air, more airflow and whisper quiet operation, you'll stay comfortable without the noise, whether you're off-grid or at a campsite. Enjoy the chill without the roar. Upgrade your ride with CoolRV where comfort meets the road. You can visit CoolRV and that's K-O-L-L-R-Vcom today, or go to the link in the show notes. Okay, patrick, you're up to come up with something. I see.
Speaker 2:Well, I had to run through it quite a bit.
Speaker 1:I saw it over. I saw a lot of thinking.
Speaker 2:You could.
Speaker 2:You could hear the the rust forming and the gears turning and you know I think I found myself on the fence. So I really love the beach. I would love to. I haven't. I haven't actually taken. We took the RV to the beach, but it was more like parking a parking lot and walk the dogs down to the beach right. I'd literally like to camp right at not necessarily on the sand, but at the beach. You know one of these nice resorts in Destin or somewhere where you're just right up against the beach. So I'd really like to do that. But I have to say I wouldn't mind going back to Yellowstone again. I'm really 50-50 on this. We did Yellowstone. It was our second trip and it was almost 10 years ago now and knowing what I know now, I would really feel like I'd like to do that again. You know we tossed around the idea of Crater Lake and Niagara and things like that and they're interesting and I think someday we wouldn't mind doing that. But the beach slash Yellowstone, as I have to say, is probably on my list.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're saying the beach which is in Destin, florida or Yellowstone?
Speaker 2:Or somewhere. It doesn't have to be Destin.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, you mentioned Destin, so Destin Florida is a beautiful area I passed through there once.
Speaker 1:Yellowstone is a place I am planning on going in the late spring or summer because Open Road Resort has Red Rock RV Resort, which is 30 minutes from the Western entrance, so you might want to consider them An incredible resort up there, so that's something to think about. Okay, so a lot of great information. Thank you for that. Let's talk about this week's feature campground, and I chose this campground. It's in Donna, texas, because you're in Texas. Do you know where Donna Texas is?
Speaker 2:I think I believe I do.
Speaker 1:yes, I wouldn't want anybody to follow me there, but I do think I could get within 10 miles. Okay, so it's way south Texas. I had to look it up myself. This is a Thousand Trails campground. It's called Victoria Palms RV Resort and, as I said, it's in Don and Texas. It is a 55 plus, so I will admit on the show you and I qualify.
Speaker 2:Right in our wheelhouse.
Speaker 1:Right in our wheelhouse. I don't often admit that, but that's the truth. I qualify to be there Again. You don't need to be a member, but you do need to be 55. This resort is nestled in the tropical Grand Rio Valley of Southern Texas and it features a tropical pool, outdoor spa, full restaurant and so much more. It has a solid 8.6 rating on the RV Life Campgrounds review site with 79 reviews. It has 1,122 sites and what's really nice, when people go to campgroundsrvlifecom I love this they go to campgroundsrvlifecom, I love this. They go to campgroundsrvlifecom and they could just search Victoria Palms RV Resort and on that site they could then see all the photos of this place, the tips on it, full list of amenities about this property and all of the reviews that the RVers who have stayed there have put up there. So I could see all the reviews. What I love is I do not have to come off of the RV Life site to book. I can book right there and there's a great big red book now button. Such a great feature.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for those campgrounds that really buy into the process and make themselves a featured campground, they get that book now button, which is really handy. It keeps people from you know attention getting diverted and kind of like squirrel and they go somewhere else and they forget the book. Another feature that I use I have to be. No matter where I am, I have to have internet, and so there's this little chart we have on those pages that shows you know, internet, starlink, at&t, verizon, t-mobile, shows the strength and availability of all of those features. So if you're planning and you need to have connectivity, it's a great tool.
Speaker 1:And the way that you guys get that information. So I go into a campground, I set up my Starlink and I do a test on my phone. I go onto the RV Life app, do a test and that's where that information then comes from. I also can check my T-Mobile. I have T-Mobile, so that is great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just like we prompt for your feedback on how your route was, when we see that you're at a campground, you know we prompt for that speed test and it just helps. We've gotten now tens and tens of thousands of these speed tests that really help people see what the internet is like and you know what, Honestly, it helps the campgrounds too, because maybe they don't realize their internet is garbage and they can look and see their reviews and go, wow, I didn't know it was this bad and it's a good prompt for them to fix it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And RV Life Campgrounds is part of the RV Life suite of products, as we've been talking about, and it is, as we've said I have got to emphasize it again the most comprehensive source of RV parks, campgrounds, resorts, as well as city, state, national parks, corps of Engineers and so much more. And, like you said, if people pull into a park, it's not on the RV Life site. Just tell somebody in the office to get on the person in the campground. The RVer can also add it to the RV Life review site. So that's great and all people have to do is visit campgroundseverylifecom and I'm going to reiterate if you're not already a member, there's a link in the show notes for 25% off, and that is everything we have been talking about. There are no extras on that. So, patrick, as we said, people can reach out, they can ask you questions by going to social media. What's the best place if they have questions for people to go?
Speaker 2:You know, I think, just real easy. Just if they grab an email they can go to, they can email support at rvlifecom. That's they're going to be able to answer all the questions about the product and they can redirect something that perhaps isn't product-related. That's the best repository for all of us, because we sort of all connect to that one way or another. It keeps us from having to forward email to this person. No, it's that person. No, it's that person. When it's in that spot, we all know whoever's supposed to pick that up can grab it. That's the best way to get started.
Speaker 2:If you have specific questions, obviously we've got two YouTube channels that help support the product itself. We've got an RV Life Pro YouTube channel, an RV Life Trip Wizard YouTube channel. They're pretty much the same content. It's just sometimes people search for one thing or another, but a lot of great support videos, how to get started and that type of thing. Pretty much the same content. It's just sometimes people search for one thing or another, but a lot of great support videos, how to get started and that type of thing.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and I forgot to mention that they are short, to the point videos. I'm not the tech person. I have, when I'm doing things like that, the attention span of a net, and so I'd like that they are short and to the point. It covers a topic. Usually it covers a topic. Anybody have want to see updates or have other questions that aren't specifically related can reach out to me on RV Life Podcast on Instagram or Facebook. I answer every message. If you do message me and I don't respond, please send me a private message. I might've missed it. But thank, thank you, patrick, so much for being on and sharing such a wealth of information, and I know that as soon as we get off the phone, before this is even posted, you're going to say oh, by the way, there's another update.
Speaker 1:So I know and I'll just keep adding it to the social media channels. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thanks, patty, it's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1:And I want to thank you, my listeners, and remind you life's a journey. Live each day to the fullest, without regrets. I'm Patty Hunt and you have been listening to the RV Life Podcast.