RV LIFE Podcast

Real Winter RVing Worries And Wins - RV LIFE 152

• RV LIFE • Episode 154

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Winter RVing can be magical until it’s not. With this winter edition of the RV LIFE Podcast, we dig into the hidden and obvious challenges cold weather brings. Learn how to prevent road salt damage, frozen systems, power drain and water management. Hear practical, experience-based advice to help you prevent costly winter mistakes and stay comfortable in cold conditions.

Plus: Get a real-world look at building and marketing an app-based business on the road. And hear what's ahead for RVing as new audiences discover the lifestyle.

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SPEAKER_05:

There was one time we were in a field and some cows kind of wandered by while I was working on the app.

SPEAKER_11:

It's kind of like a silent blind thing that happened.

SPEAKER_02:

If anything's questionable, use the pump. It's a warning bell. RV Life. RV Life.

ROSE:

RV Life.

SPEAKER_02:

RV Life. RV Life.

ROSE:

RV Life Podcast.

JIM:

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the RV Life Podcast. I'm Jim.

RENE:

And I'm Renee.

JIM:

And you know, I think winter RVing is just so awesome. We get to head south, enjoy sunny weather while everyone is freezing up north.

RENE:

Whoa, that's not where we're going with this episode.

JIM:

Right, right, right. Okay. Real winter RVing can be awesome until you hit one surprise snowstorm and you come home with your RV wearing a heavy coat of road grime and nasty chemicals all over.

RENE:

Or you wake up to a frozen hose and realize you've got a 25-foot ice snake outside your door.

JIM:

Been there, done that. Today we're talking about winter worries, cold weather camping tips, and a smart way to keep your connections strong while on the road. Err, enough already. You're making me cold. Let's do this. If you're traveling this time of year, you already know winter brings a special kind of adventure. Sometimes it's the fun kind. Sometimes it's the kind where you are standing outside with a hairdryer trying to thaw something that really should never be frozen.

RENE:

So this episode is all about staying ahead of cold weather problems. We want you to enjoy winter Arvine. These are the kinds of problems that you can prevent and the ones that you can survive with a few smart habits and the right mindset.

JIM:

But it's not just about tolerable temperatures, though. Coming up, John talks with a certified RVTI technician, Ryan Hadley, about what road salt and chemicals can do to your rig and what to do to help prevent damage right after your drive through such winter conditions.

RENE:

And then you'll hear about our lifestyle segment with Dave Helgeson. He shares the winter camping lessons that only come from living them. Plus, we're going to talk about practical tips to keep water, heat, and power working when it's cold.

JIM:

Then for our RV entrepreneur segment, Rose and Glenn sit down with Alex Haldeman, the creator of the Oh Hi app. He breaks down what it really takes to build an app-based business on the road.

RENE:

And then Bob wraps things up with Monica Jiracki from RVIA talking about GoRvine's experiential events and a new RV 250 initiative tied to America's 250th anniversary.

JIM:

All right, let's kick off this trip with John.

RENE:

Winter travel tip number one is simple. If the roads look wet, it might not be water.

JIM:

Exactly, and not just ice either. Pre-treatment chemicals and road salt can do real damage underneath your RV. You may be surprised what can happen to wiring, piping, and components you never see until something stops working.

RENE:

Oh, but don't panic. John DiPietro talks with RVTI Tech Ryan Hadley from TRIC Mobile RV Repair about what winter roads do to your RV and how to protect your rig after the drive.

JIM:

Okay, here's John with everything you need to know before heading out for some serious winter RVing.

SPEAKER_06:

Hey everybody, my name is John DiPietro, and I want to welcome you to this special edition of the RV Life Podcast. You know, we talk about great RV destinations that people can travel to in their RV, and we certainly want to be able to do that for a long period of time. But sometimes when you travel during non-summer and spring and fall seasons, you are subject to some issues that may be coming prominent in your RV and you don't even know about. We're talking with Ryan Hadley. Ryan is a certified RVTI technician from Trick R V, T-R-I-C, R V service in Massachusetts. Ryan's been in the business for several years. Ryan's also a member of the prominent group of people that have won the 40 under 40 award from RV Pro Magazine. Ryan, what we want to talk about, first of all, we want to welcome you to the RV Life Podcast. Hi, John. How are you? Great. What we want to talk about, Ryan, is people that have driven or going to drive their RV from the northern climates down to either Florida or Texas or Georgia or Alabama during the winter and have to come through an area that has been impacted by a snowstorm. Talk a little bit about the chemicals, the the adverse impact that chemicals and salts and all the other stuff that they put on the roads have on an R V that's different than your family car.

SPEAKER_11:

So it's not only is it your your motorized RV, but also your travel trailer. There's there's there's cons to taking it out in the weather that we're having right now this time of year. So they pre-treat the roads before the storms with a chemical, and then during the storms, they dump a bunch of salt on it to keep the the roads from icing up and and stuff. And we all know that. And driving through that with your regular passenger car is horrible. You look at the frame and the body on your passenger car and it's like, oh my God. And you a dark car is turned white the next day when it dries up. Yeah. So you take your motorhome and you put that going down the road. There's not as much protection underneath a motorhome, and there's a lot more things underneath a camping trailer and a motorhome that can get affected by salt and the chemicals put down to treat the roads. You have exposed wiring, you have exposed piping, you have wiring that's covered in in sheathing and plastic and stuff, but it's it's also a good way to get salt and and the chemicals into that area, and then the wires after a while will corrode and break. And then you also have all your framing around the underneath that is exposed and that is not used to having salt and chemicals onto it. And and the metals can they're not protected as well as or they're not protected and they don't have an um undercarriage like your regular everyday passenger car does.

SPEAKER_06:

Let me stop you for one second, because you brought up a term just just as you were beginning. You said uh they pre-treat the roads. Now, I have seen these tank trucks come out and drop liquid on the roads, usually the day before or several hours before a storm. I'm told that whatever that chemical is is actually worse than salt. Have you heard the same thing? Yes, I have.

SPEAKER_11:

I don't know exactly what's in the chemical, but I've heard that it is worse than salt and that it it it's like an instant rust inhibitor.

SPEAKER_06:

Instant. Okay. So you may have driven through a city or a town or an interstate highway that was pretreated and don't even know it because the next day it's dried up, but it's still there residually underneath your unit. What are some things that people should be looking for to know if this is a problem? But more importantly, what are some of the things that people should be doing immediately to prevent that rust from getting started?

SPEAKER_11:

Well, as far as looking at it, like you you might not, like the day after, you're not gonna see damage starting to happen. It's it's kind of like a silent, blind thing that happens. You know, you're not gonna start to see the wires corrode and stuff like that. That'll happen over time. And it could happen quickly or it could happen um over a long period of time. One of the things to prevent this is wash the camper. After you've made a trip from the northeast area down south and you get to your destination or you get to an area where you know that there's no more pre-treat and the weather's warm and there's not gonna be anything on the road, it's a good idea to rinse the undercarriage of the motorhome as best you can. Now, that being said, you can't just drive into a regular everyday car wash, Ernie's car wash, and say, hey, wash my motorhome. You have to find a specific area. I know there's some truck washes that'll do undercarriage washes, but if you don't have that option, there is other options, homemade options that you can do. And I know you and I had talked about this before, John, and you said that you've used this. Yes, I have.

SPEAKER_06:

You take a sprinkler and you do you drive the vehicle over it or do you just take the sprinkler? What I've done is I have the I have the vehicle parked in the driveway, and I have the sprinkler up at one end, usually where the motor is, and then the hose goes all the way around to the back end, and I turn it on and then pull it back slowly so the water goes up into all those cracks and crevices. Um you know, and I've had very good luck with it. But the thing is, it's very easy to forget because if you've if you've cleaned your outside, and when you said rinse it down, you mean just hose it down or mean scrub the areas? Um not necessarily scrub it, but at least use a towel or some type of soft bristle brush.

SPEAKER_11:

On the frame itself, you're not gonna I mean you could take a soft bristle brush and and and go against the frame. That would definitely help it out even more. And then what you could do even more advanced is once you're done doing what you do as far as taking the sprinkler, you could hook your um your sprayer back up and go around to like the suspension area where it looks like, you know, there's crevices where salt and rust can salt and um sand can sit in there and cause rust.

SPEAKER_06:

In the wheel wells, right?

SPEAKER_11:

Yeah, in the wheel wells and like the leaf spring hangers and all the areas that once you get rust started, it's it's hard to stop it. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_06:

A lot of people a lot of times you don't think of this, but your leveling system, if you've got that that road salt and stone and sand up in it, that there's some corrosion issues there which would um make them inoperable, right?

SPEAKER_11:

Yeah, if you have if if your leveling system is exposed, which every leveling system is exposed, but if you have your pistons exposed to any harmful weather, whether it be salt or the chemicals or anything, those can start away start eating away at the piston over time. And what can happen is if you get little burrs and stuff on the on the cylinder for the leveling system, that can eat away at your seals and it can cause a chain reaction of damage that will happen over time.

SPEAKER_06:

And that's not if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to um to remedy, to replace those.

SPEAKER_11:

No, you're talking, you know, a a regular leveling, if it's a hydraulic leveling ram up and down, you're you're talking between anywhere between five hundred to eight hundred dollars plus to to repair that. So again, that's that's something that one when you're at your destination, you want to take a a good hose and and and spray down everything. You know, even if it doesn't look like there's anything on the area, it it can be hidden.

SPEAKER_06:

Cool. Well, we want to thank you so much. Any uh major tips to look for that I might be forgetting in this question questions to you?

SPEAKER_11:

No, just uh, you know, make sure that if you're going through bad weather, that once you get to your destination you really rinse the underneath of the motorhome real well. Even wash the outside. A good coat of wax on the outside will help per protect your body and your body panels and everything. And you know, along the frame, you can you can get your frame um you can get your frame painted and you can do like what they call an oil coating on your frame to help protect it. Yeah. As well as um, you know, you can even take a simple can of like WD forty, an oil-based lubricant, and just spray, spray as much as you can by hand and and and the salt and the um and the um and the chemicals and stuff won't won't be won't stick to the uh to the areas if they're covered with a uh with a liquid. Ryan, if any of our uh listeners have a specific question, can they reach you? Yes. Yes, you can reach me at um Ryan at trickmobile rvrepair.com and I'm T R I C R I C Mobile R Vrepair.com. And I'm also on Facebook at Trickmobile R V Repair, and my phone number is five.

SPEAKER_06:

Great. Ryan, we want to thank you so much and um let our audience know that traveling an R V traveling in an R V all year is certainly a benefit. And um there are certain precautions that you have to take if you're gonna go into areas where winter got there before you did. So with that being said, this is the RV Life Podcast. My name is John DePetro. Have a great day.

JIM:

Boy, I'm glad we head south for the winter. That was one of those conversations that makes you want to immediately go check your undercarriage.

RENE:

Seriously. And the reminder about leveling systems and those exposed pistons was huge. A little prevention now is a lot cheaper than repairs later.

JIM:

Up next, our lifestyle segment, and it's all about cold weather RVing.

RENE:

If you've ever wondered whether to use a heated hose or if dripping water is a smart idea, and what actually keeps pipes from freezing, this one is for you.

JIM:

Dave Helgeson has been RVing forever, and he's seen just about every winter mistake you can make.

RENE:

Including the kind where you think the forecast is just fog, and then you realize it's snowing.

JIM:

So we talk about boondocking in the cold and how weather affects more than just your hose. We're talking batteries, your furnace, plumbing, skirting, heaters, and the simple stuff that keeps winter camping fun instead of miserable.

RENE:

Here's our conversation with Dave.

JIM:

Dave, thanks for joining us again. It's so good to see you. You're welcome. Glad to be here. Hey, fantastic. So, you know, you've been RVing forever and you've been in the industry. And I think the last time we talked was for the RV entrepreneur about some pretty technical stuff and maintenance. But um, it's getting to be cold here where we are, and and everyone has great stories about freezing their butts off in their RV. I I could name quite a few. Maybe you could tell me a story that you know or experienced about winter in your RV.

SPEAKER_02:

I have a good one for you. So we have some friends, we almost camp every New Year's with them just to get out and catch up with each other. And luckily in Western Washington, it stays fairly moderate year-round. We do get some cold snaps, and we happen to have a cold snap. It's it was in the low 30s, expect to get above 32 the whole time. We went down to a local state park down by Olympia, and um it was cold, so luckily I was prepared. I we took the finance park with hookups and water and and things to do in the area. We still, even though it's cold, we get out and about. So while we were there, I don't carry a heat tape or a heated hose. So I went with water on board, figured when we run it down, we'll refill, do that, so I wouldn't have to deal with a frozen water hose. I do not have a four-season RV technically. So my fresh water tanks in the belly, but it's exposed. So I take a drop light and throw it up underneath there where the tank pickup is, and tip right there, use an incandescent ball because you need good cold weather. And just keeping that warm so the pump the pump could draw water. Then eventually we did drop down uh in our water level. I try to keep a lot of water in it because we all know water's hard to give heat and cold to. So the bigger volume of water the long it's it takes to freeze. So when it got down about a quarter tank or so, it's time to top it off and get a new f fresh batch of water, and that like it can fight against the freezing weather. But the hose bib in the campground had froze. Because why in Washington they don't typically wrap too many because that can get cold for extended periods. So the three-quarter inch line was exposed coming up the the back of the post and it came through. So I got my wife's hairdryer and extension cord, went to work, and you know, and got that flowing again, so we'd have water again. So we survived that, and it got colder than we expected. It was getting down to the teens, which is quite cold in Western Washington, those were so we had it, we had it, we always come out and sit around the campfire, go hiking or stuff. So our joke was you didn't have to come in your RVs until it's at least 25 degrees in the morning. So we let it warm up. Um and it was over a three-day weekend, as you recall, and come Monday. We got there on a Friday, as you recall. It was it was freezing fog the whole time. So no sun, gray, cloudy. We got some beautiful ice formations on on the RV, on the plants, and the fog froze on everything. But we're out there one morning, it's like what you put in the fire, the ashes coming down really bad. That's about time we realized it was snow. When we left, it was supposed to be dry for days, just foggy. Well, we hadn't bothered to check an updated weather report until we realized it's snowing on us, and we get on our phones and realize it's not gonna stop anytime soon. So we broke camp. And uh, my wife and I were we're just gonna head for the hills. But our friends thought, well, we'll dump while we're here. They don't have an easy spot to dump at home. And we weren't five to ten minutes away from when we left them the campground to dump. They called, our termination valves are frozen, we can't dump. So we didn't so yeah, that was our cold weather story of free. We didn't, you know, we went with enough clothes stuff. We didn't really freeze our butts off. He likes his campfire. We had big fire going, but maybe caught a little underprepared, didn't check the weather, didn't think it was gonna get to the teens, and had enough equipment with us to get through it.

JIM:

You know, you mentioned a few things there that kind of leads me to think some things you just can't avoid. Like if the park isn't prepared and that post isn't wrapped, you know, that's where the water starts. I mean, we've been RBN 18 years now, and before we left Colorado, rookie maneuver on our part. We left the hose out overnight. We didn't let any water drip, we didn't have any heat tape, and sure enough, we woke up to a frozen hose.

SPEAKER_02:

So it happens to all the best of us, and sometimes you can't avoid it. One other winter tip there is we got caught a winter or two ago. We went to a park that we camped to in the summer quite often, but we didn't think they shut their faucets off in the winter, except for one faucet, which was the winter supply. So I I didn't fill up the trailer tank. Oh, we'll get water when we get there. Well, we got pulled in, jacks down, got leveled up, went to hook the water up. It's like, well, this doesn't work. I checked the next side over, had to go find the winter supply, raise the jacks, hook back up. So lesson learned is make sure that the water.

RENE:

We've been there. We have been there. Yes, learned. That happened to us in Wyoming, and it was springtime, beautiful day out, and we showed up at a county fairgrounds and all the water was off. And my gosh, it didn't even occur to us that that would happen. We were there just a little bit early in the season, but we were able to get some at the main source.

JIM:

Yeah, there was one source still open and we hitched back up and whenever. So lesson learned, plan ahead, folks, and definitely. Plan the weather. Yeah.

RENE:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Watch the weather, make sure it's water available.

RENE:

Well, you know, some of the the biggest cold weather situations that we have have been when we were out boondocking. And we have made our share of blunders, but I'm sure you've had some doozies or you know of people who have had some doozies. And so I'm curious, what do you think is the number one thing that RVers tend to forget to do when they want to go out, go to the desert in the middle of winter? Um, and how does that differ like when people mess up at a full service campground with hookups?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Number one thing is they don't estimate how much power it's gonna take to run the furnace. So they don't have enough battery capacity, enough way to generate, because you know the RV furnace is power hungry and it can heat up your batteries really fast, your dry cap. So you need an alternative source of heat, like a catalytic safety heater or some other way to heat your rig, a diesel heater that holds a little less than the 12 volt department, because pretty soon your battery's flat and you're gonna be running the generator all day long, which that's one of my pet peeps in boondocking. I don't want to listen to a generator, I'm out there for the quiet. It is is is staying warm, keeping that furnace going, and either having sufficient battery power or a way to regenerate it. Because again, I we're in Wash State, you know, we get I think on the winter solstice, we get six hours of sunshine if you even see it. And the maximum sun angle is 16 degrees. So solar's out. Solar's out here in the winter. It's it's not gonna work for you. Lithium's been a big game changer. We switched to almost two years ago now, and man, those things are almost bulletproof when they're supplying power because it's not like you let acid batteries. Well, they might be 100%, maybe they're sulfated aways. You really don't know how kind of reserve you have. And the lithium, so you can really pound them. Last year we went winter camping. That was our first winter with them. I thought, well, I'm really gonna test them. I left the heat up, I was running the lights, you know, just a two or three-day camp out weekend, you'd be hard-pressed to deplete a couple lithium batteries on board. That's that's one thing's being prepared that way. Uh and newbies get this a lot. They they're nice and warm, but if their plumbing's not in a warm place, like under cabinet and stuff, they fail to open the cabinet doors or realize they push it, you're putting heat in other parts of the coach, and all of a sudden their water's not running, they're wondering why. Um bingo, that's our our current trailer, the pipes are in the floor right next to the heat dock. The floor dock's heat. But I, you know, hey, if power's available, I'm gonna plug in that electric heater, right? Well, one time it wasn't that cold, but our water quit flowing. It's like that's because I haven't been running the furnace, it's not getting that heat down. In the sandwich floor, and it's like turn the furnace on for a while and wait.

RENE:

Um, so opening opening cabinet doors, that'll help.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Newer RVs with slide-outs, a lot of times now the plumbing's been routed completely under the rig. But if you don't have a slide-off, some of the plumbing is still under the cabinets and runs full length under the cabinets, not just where it comes up to a sink. So if you can open, just crack cabinet doors and let that heat circulate back under, like in the bathroom, under the kitchen. That will, in really cold weather, that that cold air will seep in and start to freeze those pipes. By leaving the cabinet doors open and that air circulating, it's a big help. So it sounds like it's really knocking you.

JIM:

Yeah, it sounds like it's really important to know your rig, know where the plumbing is, know the battery capacity. And what you talked about, the boondocking, I can see how that could be easily overlooked for folks because an air conditioner requires AC power in most rigs. Yeah. And the furnace doesn't. If you just have your DC power, you can still run it. So you might easily confuse things and might not know how many battery amp hours you have in your battery. Regarding those lithiums, how do they do in cold weather? I know lead acid batteries can freeze.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I discharge, I wrote an article about that years back for you guys, but I discharge lead acid battery, can freeze, solid, and it'll blow it up. It'll completely waste the battery. Lithium's one thing that's kind of a I don't want to say a misnomer or a myth. People say, well, you can't use them in freezing weather. Oh, you can discharge them all day in freezing weather. It's putting the amps back in that can damage that. So you need to get one of the heaters on board. Nice thing about lithiums is you can build it, they don't off-gas, but they're charging. They can be in the interior of the RV under a couch or somewhere where they're staying nice and warm if you happen to be a winter camper. So that's another big advantage of it. But otherwise, yeah, if they get really cold. I mentioned last year we went camping on New Year's. I didn't purposely not try to charge them because it was a little bit below freezing, and mine do not have heaters in them. But again, I was I was we were three days camping. I ran them hard. They didn't need to be recharged. I didn't ever start the generator.

RENE:

That sounds lovely. We still have lead acid in ours, don't we? In the trailer, yes.

JIM:

But in our uh camper, we have a lithium and it's got a heater in it, so it's it's pretty good there. You can drain pretty much all the way.

RENE:

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Now, when it comes to boondocking, is there a good way to know if we picked a good campsite? Like someplace that won't like get, I don't know, uh that won't expose us to the worst weather if it hits us.

SPEAKER_02:

So several things. Again, we're in Western Washington, so we we're moderated by the ocean in the Puget Sound. So our our go-to places near large bodies of salt water that help moderate the temperature because they're unlikely to freeze and they'll soak up a lot of that cold air. If it's gonna be windy, as you said, you want shelter, decide where the prevailing winds are and see if you can get in behind something. And third, like if you're in the desert where you can get some benefit out of solar, you're gonna want to be exposed to both solar to charge your batteries back up and to heat the side of the rig. I mean, it's heat coming out the side of the rig, especially a lot of these rigs that now coming out are black-sided, which I'm really against. But if you're a winter camper, a black-sided RV, I bet you heats up pretty good. Makes sense. Makes sense.

JIM:

You know, we talked about RV systems and things that can freeze and batteries and such, but what are the systems that kind of what goes wrong the most? I mean, obviously water freezes and and batteries can be a problem. But what can we do, say, the night before a cold snap? Or what what's important to check? Because we talked about heat around the tape, uh heat tape around a hose, but that hose connects, and then there's the filter in most people. So, what are the most common systems that are that we need to pay attention to when it's cold?

SPEAKER_02:

Plumbing's obviously number one, as you mentioned. Below freezing weather is it's not plumbing's friend. The water's gonna start to freeze. No, on the hose situation, I'm a big advocate. Don't use it. Don't leave your hose out as you mentioned if it's heated. I I'm always and we dry camp a lot, so we're used to drying off our water tank. Then if your hose isn't out there to freeze, you don't have to worry about if it's a heated tape or something. What happens? The power goes out, somebody comes by, bumps your plug, you're frozen in the morning, and then you got a you know, got a 25-foot frozen snake. What do you do with that? Uh been there. Um there. So um that's the main thing. The water heater, you know, if you tend to leave it off at night, you're gonna want to leave it on. Uh either tankless or a tanked water heater, that uh the tankless, they're making advances, but the early tankless water heaters did not have freeze protection on board. So the newer ones, read your owner's manual. Most of them will come on about 38 and run for five minutes and shut off again. But you gotta remember, on a tankless water, you don't have a lot of water in there. Now, a small amount of water will freeze quickly, where on a six or 10-gallon tanked water heater takes a long time for that water to cool and get frozen. So I know the limitations of your water heater, especially tankless. Read your owner's manual, see what the limitations are on that. Um again, as we covered extra heat, especially if you're hooked up. Electric heaters, I'm a big fan of drop lights where things are susceptible to freezing. By baggage stores or something, there's not another insulation. Some people will put small, especially if you've got a basement model RV, they'll put small electric heaters in there. Some people will get these remote thermometers like you can watch your pets with, Bluetooth it to their phone. They'll sit there and watch what the temperatures are doing in their belly if there's plumbing down there to know if they're close to freezing or not. Um that's smart. Again, know your rig, learn how those cold spots are. One thing I don't people think a lot, it's the gas electric refrigerator. If you're equipped with a gas electric refrigerator, they will get cold enough to start gelling up and quit working. Western Washington, don't see it very often. I've never directly experienced it. Uh, but our friend bought a newer rig with an oracle fridge that had the winter package in it, which actually had a heating element that would come on to keep recooling warm so it would start to gel. Now, on that subject, it's if you're boondocking, obviously have an electric heater run the back of your refrigerator is problematic. So one thing you can do there is block up part of the venting so not as much cold air can rush in. If you are hooked up, again, I'm a big fan of sticking a drop light back there. Add a little more heat to the back, keep that circulation going to keep the cooling air from gelling. And 12-volt compressor fridge shouldn't be a problem. Absorbed refrigerant, it can start to be finicky in cold weather. So know that. The other thing is nice. I mentioned when I my personal experience is the holding tanks could freeze up. Back in the old time, old timers would just throw some rocks out down the toilet. It can be corrosive. So I really can tell people the old timers had had figured a lot of this out, but it's it's some of it's outdated. Is RV antifreeze down the gray tank and the black tank? It will keep it from freezing. It will it will still start to crystallize. A lot of people misunderstand. Annafreeze does it will freeze, but it doesn't expand. So adding RV antifreeze will keep that tux slushy. So when you get to the dump station, you can dump it, or if you're in an RV park where you're you're hooked up, then pull that and you can dump the tanks. So and now if you're a newer RV or if you're a cold weather camper, you can put tank heaters on to avoid that, and they make 12-volt heaters. So again, if you're boondock, you gotta have a big battery pack to run those tankless or tank heaters. Uh, again, that's a great spot to use RV antifreeze out of your precious power to heat the tanks. There's ways to do it. You you know, you need to know what the limitations are, what what you how your rig responds to those things and act accordingly.

JIM:

So some of those ways, some of those ways might be myths. So maybe you can help clear something up with me. One thing that people tend to do or or wanted their husbands to do is drip the water. So these stay hooked up, but the water drips. And I figure if you got your tanks open, you could end up with a frozen sewer hose in the morning. Or if you're you on don't have that open, you're gonna fill up your tank. So what about dripping the hose at night when it's cold? Drip the drip. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02:

It's not a myth. People do it in their homes still to this day. Moving water is unlikely to freeze unless it's super, super cold. You might get icicles starting to form. So moving water now that you you could cover the other part of that equation is if you leave their valve open, which you sure don't, you know, if you're dripping water faster than you think, your gray tank fills up the night, you're sleeping, you know where the gray water comes out. The valve's closed, it comes up through your toilet, or excuse me, up comes up to the toilet. Shower first. And if that plugs up or your stoppers in it comes up out of your sinks, so that's a bad thing to have happen. If you leave the valve open, now make sure your sewer line is maybe have a slinky that again, the water is constantly flowing. If you have a low spot that's forming a P trap, odds are that if it's cold up, that would freeze, and then same thing. You've now plugged the system, that water is backing up and you're gonna have a surprise in the morning. But it's it's true, running water will not freeze again. I would advocate this turn the city water off, pull your hose, and draw from your tank. The other thing is if you're you're always drawing from your tank, if there is a problem, you hear your pump running. Hey, I blew a line under my rig, you hear your pump running, you're gonna know what happened. If you're hooked to city water, you have no clue. Your neighbor knocks on your door and you got water pouring out of your rig. So I'm a big fan of if anything's questionable, use the pump. It it's a it's a warning bell. If it's not a faucet open, it's running, something's going on that you want to be aware of.

RENE:

I've never thought of it like that, Dave. That's really helpful. That is super helpful. You know, we left Colorado in November for the winter season, and it was getting really cold. We didn't get snow, but it was getting down into the high teens at night. And I noticed that neighbors who were staying in the park long term were getting ready for winter by putting skirting around. Now, one neighbor did, you know, the whole all the way around, covered the entire side and back of the RV with good insulation, foam board, all that stuff. The other neighbor took big chunks of insulation blocks. It looked like 12-inch thick foam. Yeah, and then just shoved them under her RV.

JIM:

Just stacked it up all under the RV. And we didn't without skirting.

RENE:

Yeah, without skirting. And we didn't get a chance to ask her, what are you doing there? So I'm wondering, does skirting help? And if so, like what what do you recommend?

SPEAKER_02:

The main goal of skirting is to keep the wind from sweeping out the heat that's leached out through through the bottom of your RV. Number one role. Now, the foam board, again, that could keep the the the wind out and provide some insulation. The foam block, if it wasn't taped together, then that air is still gonna circulate under there, probably not effective. Maybe moderately effective. You you want to stop the air movement is your first goal. Now that insulation, again, that's the second one. And it's super, you know, these guys that work in North Dakota in the oil fields, they'll they'll block them up and you know, put the foam bar, and then they'll put heat under there as well. Which maybe she didn't know, you know, right. Heat that space so they're they're one less spot, they're losing heat, especially if they're you know, have they're not paying for their power. This is push some heat out of there.

RENE:

Well, this park charged for power. Yeah, and that because that's when you start questioning okay. I saw another neighbor wrap their large propane tanks with reflections.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Does that do anything? There's some myth, some truth is some myth going on there. You know, if it's you're truly getting propane and not butane, but you know, butane will only vaporize at 32 degrees. And by chance you bought gas in Mexico somewhere way down south, there's a chance you got a butane mix. You got true propane, it's gonna vaporize. I don't have the number in front of me, but it's it's in the the negative numbers. Yeah, it's now right. So probably, but when you're when the propane gets really low, a little less pressure there, a little cold air added, it may not, especially if you're running your water heater, a couple furnaces, it may not be able to vaporize enough gas fast enough to do what he wants it to do. So reflect us probably wouldn't do it. But yeah, there's there's some truth to what he's doing, but if you just keep your tank full, not an issue.

RENE:

Well, that's good to meet.

SPEAKER_02:

Full volume there, full pressure.

RENE:

You had mentioned uh space heaters before. Do you have a preference for what you like?

SPEAKER_02:

I like the oil-filled heaters because we used to have a pet with us. Well, because you can touch them and it won't burn you. So if you drop bedding against it or paper towel on it, it's not going to combust it. So it's safe. It's safe around kids. We have a large house and I converted the basement years ago. When they have slumber parties when they're like seven and eight, you don't want kids in sleeping bags and a, you know, a forced air or an open grade heater. Oil-filled heater is safe. It's a soft heat, there's no fan, so it's radiated out. And again, I don't, I will never run on the full 1500-watt elements because RV wiring's just not dependable. I'll run it on the 600 or the 900, but I'll never run it quite open. But it's a soft heat, minimizes the fire danger much more than something that's blowing air, something stops that up. Now, mostly on the limit switches will kick out on a forced air. But you know, you have the old open grill ones where you see the red glow right there. Those are definitely a fire hazard if something falls onto them. Again, when we had the dog, he'd want to camp near it if it was cold. So the oil field he could lay right up against it almost. But if it were a forced air one, that's that's a problem.

JIM:

So we don't say the F-word in R R V. And uh, my best tip when it gets cold is to head south. Yeah, I I I totally agree.

RENE:

Well, Dave, that that's where we are this winter. And uh, we hope that at some point you might make it down here because we could talk with you all day. You have so much knowledge.

SPEAKER_02:

Envious, and one of these days we'll do it. All right, thank you, Dave. Thanks so much, Dave. You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

RENE:

I love how many simple but smart tips we just heard. Like using your onboard tank instead of staying on city water when things get iffy.

JIM:

And the reminder that you have to know your rig, where the plumbing runs, what heats what, and how fast your furnace heats up battery power. That's the difference between a cozy winter trip and a long cold night.

RENE:

Oh, and I'm still thinking about the frozen snake hose problem. That alone is enough motivation to plan better.

JIM:

Right, been there, done that. All right, we're shifting gears a bit now, but staying practical.

RENE:

Building something new on the road is a dream for a lot of RVers, but behind the scenes of any business is always more complicated than it looks.

JIM:

Rose and Glenn are talking with RV entrepreneur Alex Haldeman about how he built the Ohi app, a digital take on greeting cards and what it takes to go from an idea to the app store.

RENE:

They get into tools, costs, learning curves, and how he worked on development while traveling full-time. Oh, hi. Here's Rose and Glenn with Alex.

JIM:

See what I did there? Uh-huh.

ROSE:

Hello, Alex. Welcome back to the podcast.

SPEAKER_05:

Hi, glad to be back.

ROSE:

And I say welcome back because you and your wife Jackie were with us on the lifestyle segment back at the end of December, talking about how you guys retired early and your RVing and boating full-time journey, as well as your new venture, the OHI app. And so today you're back on talking about how to build an app, how you built it, and any tips and advice for the listeners wanting to give that a go as well. Let's get into it. Briefly describe for us what your app does.

SPEAKER_05:

So the OHI app is meant to be a digital evolution of the greeting card. Uh, we really try to take the essence of the greeting card and the emotion of the greeting card and make it something very easy to send from your phone and really from anywhere.

GLYNN:

I think it's a brilliant application. But diving into the app, did you have any experience building apps before you started this?

SPEAKER_05:

I had no app experience. I had done a little bit of web development uh and some of that translated over, but um it there was quite a bit of a learning curve in order to understand how to write the code for an app.

GLYNN:

Well, sure. Well, I mean, when you're talking HTML versus whatever code, was it done in Python or what code?

SPEAKER_05:

The app is done in something called Flutter. And we chose Flutter because we wanted the app to be available for both iOS and Android. And that platform uh allows you to write one version of the software and then it can be used for both iPhones and Androids. And that was really important to us. How much AI did you use and incorporate to write this? Good question. When I started the app, I tried AI and it wasn't really, it made a lot of mistakes. So I didn't use it very much at the beginning. And then at the end, I started using it mostly as like a sounding board or uh to help me understand like what are my options for uh if I wanted to accomplish a form. So I used it progressively more and more, and it's gotten really good, really good, surprisingly good.

GLYNN:

Yeah, in preparation for this podcast, I wanted to try myself because you see the ads everywhere. It's like, oh, build an app. And Claude's like, you know, there's never been a worse time to be a problem ad. So I decided for one of the companies I'm consulting for, I wanted to try using Google, Gemini, to build an app. And I was blown away at how how well it wrote. I mean, it made mistakes, it made a lot of mistakes. And then when you re-enter it, it says, Oh, my apologies. I made a mistake here. I sorry I missed that. And the functionality of the app is unbelievable. I don't think it's good enough to sell or to put on the market and generate revenue, but I'm blown away. So, what you've done here with that is, you know, I I really wanted to see what this was like.

SPEAKER_05:

I had a similar experience at the beginning. It was very uh shocking how well it does. And it'll get 80 or 90 percent there in what to me would take a really long time. So uh it it's I'm glad to hear you had a similar experience.

ROSE:

So you chose Flutter, but was there any other tools or any other platforms that you use to help you get going on this?

SPEAKER_05:

No, Flutter really accomplished everything we needed it to do. Uh, there are some additional tools that we employed, like backend. We we use a database back end because we wanted to be able to add new cards or uh really change whatever the content was in the app versus having everything statically in the app. And every time we'd want to add new cards, we'd have to do an app update. That just felt like it was going to be a little bit clunky. So a really robust backend or database was important to us.

ROSE:

Okay. And you did this all on your own, or did you outsource anything?

SPEAKER_05:

I did it all on my own, and and I'm I'm kind of stubborn, uh, just a little bit about me, but it it helped me um learn, which is a really important thing for me. I wanted this process to be something I took from start to finish just because I really was interested in learning how the process would work from beginning to end.

GLYNN:

Well, that way you can never be duped going forward. You understand A to Z. Absolutely. Yeah. So you you mentioned the uh the database and the back end. Who's hosting this for you?

SPEAKER_05:

Uh we're using uh a platform called Superbase. It's really, really good for app backend stuff. I'd recommend it. I have had a great experience using Superbase. Spell that.

GLYNN:

S-U-P-A-E-A-S-E-S. Okay. Like superbase, but superbase. Yeah, I got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. One thing we found, which I'm guessing is why they did that, is getting a trademarkable name is getting harder and harder every day. So you come up with these strange word combinations. And my guess is that's kind of how they landed there. But we had we had to do a little bit of that ourselves, trying to find a name that we could trademark for Ohio.

ROSE:

Is there any little steps that you did that you feel might help a listener who wanted to do this?

SPEAKER_05:

For me, the learning process was very much a start on YouTube, watch a bunch of videos, do tutorials. That was my method. I think between that and AI, it's amazing the resources that are available for someone who would want to learn something like this. So if it's something you're interested in, I I can't think of a better way or a better time to just dive in and start exploring because there is so much out there if it's of interest to you.

ROSE:

Yeah. And you just went on and were like, how to build an app, or were there certain things that you asked, you know, to bring up?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, at the beginning, I started with what platform should what what language should I use? I started there, landed on Flutter personally. Um, I mean, that's gonna be, I think that solution is gonna be different for every app. Um, but that was where I started was let's let's let's figure out what platform. We're going to use. And then it became okay, now how do I learn Flutter? I did a couple tutorials from start to finish just to learn the app process and submitting to the app store and getting approval. And there's there's a hundred different versions of, okay, now I have a new problem to solve in this process of zero to finished app, um, which I really enjoyed. If you're a problem solver, it's a it's a really fun process, frustrating at times, but um yeah, you just learn to solve uh a bunch of really small problems on the way to one big problem of a finished app that you can actually download and install on the app store.

GLYNN:

How much do you think, you know, we we start out, we all have this vision of an app.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah.

GLYNN:

And how many hurdles do you feel like you had to jump to actually get to that final version? And is it is it realistic to say that, oh, anybody can do this, or is it realistic to say that this is going to be a massive challenge and a lot of work?

SPEAKER_05:

For our app, I would guess there were probably a thousand small problems. And a lot of times there was a cascading problem set where you'd you'd think you had one one issue and then it would spider web into a bunch of other smaller issues. Like let's say um authorizations and logins, right? You'd you say your app wants an email and password login. So you start with what you think will be the problems to identify that, and then you realize, okay, now I have to figure out how to make sure they actually type in an email address and not just uh a random string of characters. Yeah, I would I would guess probably about a thousand small problems to get to where we are with a finished app. Uh some of them are quick and easy to solve, and some of them were they felt like banging your head against the wall trying to get to the answer on.

GLYNN:

A lot of rabbit holes. Yes, very much.

ROSE:

Do you feel like this has all been worth it? I mean, if you want to do an app like putting all this time in and everything, is it worth it?

SPEAKER_05:

Uh for me, it was worth it because the process was part of the outcome that I was looking for. One of the things I'll say is that I didn't expect is with AI, it's now easier than ever to launch an app. And there has been an absolute spike in apps. So you now have to compete with everybody else who's using AI and pushing out their apps. That's a challenge I didn't quite foresee when we started this. Um, I would say it's it's worth it for me because I've enjoyed the process. I think the gold rush of creating an app and pushing it out there and making a million dollars is harder than it's ever been.

GLYNN:

It's very diluted now. And I think you're right. The gold rush is is at the point now where there's there's a thousand people right next to you with pickaxes looking for the same thing.

ROSE:

Yeah, right. Yeah. If it's a passion, if it's a passion, like I remember you saying this was a passion project and you enjoy the process and want to learn and and want to see it through, it's definitely worth it.

SPEAKER_05:

Um I think so, yeah.

ROSE:

And then quickly going back to your platforms, like the tools, can you give us an idea how much you're spending? Like maybe listeners will like to know about that as well.

SPEAKER_05:

Sure. Yeah. We've we've really tried to keep our expenses low as we try to build some revenue. So we're we're spending about a hundred dollars a month on server backend, database expenses, and software licenses. And that that also includes uh an email marketing tool that we're using as well. So we're about$100 a month. There are a couple annual expenses that I'm not lumping in there in there with that hundred dollars a month. Like you have to pay$100 a year to have your Apple developer license to be able to put something on the App Store. So there are annual expenses I'm not including in there, but that's that's how much we're spending a month on back end and services.

ROSE:

Okay. Yeah, that gives us a good picture.

GLYNN:

It does, and that's really fair. Not much, right? No, not at all. Yeah. Did you have to build out the back-end server with with MySQL and Python, or was that a ready-made product?

SPEAKER_05:

Superbase made it very easy. Um, I did have some experience with MySQL and those database, that database experience I had translated, and so it it probably accelerated the learning part for me. But but something like Superbase, which is a database as a service, uh, was surprisingly easy compared to my past my uh MySQL experience.

GLYNN:

Was there um one particular technical hurdle that was uh overwhelming and sort of trumped all others?

SPEAKER_05:

One of the biggest challenges for us has been the bandwidth issues required to see all of the cards because our cards are really small videos. And so everybody, when they're looking at our app, is looking at lots and lots of very small videos. And that's pretty bandwidth intensive. So we've got to have a good solution to handle all the bandwidth because everybody wants to see 10 or 15 cards before they choose the one they want. So we need to have a good bandwidth solution. That's been probably one of our bigger challenges was making sure if we have a spike in users that that the bandwidth is available for people to look at all the cards they want to.

ROSE:

I can imagine that that would be the biggest.

GLYNN:

I would not have even thought of that. Yeah, I didn't either.

ROSE:

So you guys are full-time on the road. So what did development look like realistically while RVing? Like, could you just fang all this out?

SPEAKER_05:

Uh for us, uh I was working on the app in um little bits and pieces, no matter where we were. So sometimes I was working inside our RV on the laptop. There were times anytime I could, I would work outside when the weather was nice. We have a we have a few pictures I snapped so that I could remember it, but uh like great views sitting in my camping chair, working on my laptop. Those were great. Or there was one time we were in a field and some cows kind of wandered by while I was working on the app. Those memories are really fun to think about. It was a wide and varied uh array of working locations as we we worked on Ohi.

GLYNN:

Well, how many logistical challenges did you actually encounter? I'm talking internet, space, time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

We luckily we have Starlink, so internet was not a big issue for us. I think one of the biggest hurdles was when I first started the app, I was using a PC, and I was actually using a different platform called React Native. That's how I started. Um and I learned that it wasn't doing the things I we needed Ohi to do quite as well. It felt like I had to do a lot of workarounds to make it work. So we went back to the drawing board about six months into the app and started with Flutter, and then I learned I needed a Mac laptop in order to do a really good job of making the app for both iPhone and Android. So technically, that restart was a big hiccup that we didn't foresee. Um, and was it was a little frustrating to think like, oh, I've got to start all over again. But in the end, it was just another hiccup, a small challenge in the in the road to getting the app to the finish line.

ROSE:

Yeah, part of the process. That's right. So did any parts of your travel kind of inspire anything with the app, or did it make it really harder to focus?

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, um, I wouldn't say it made it harder. I think we have some really great ideas that we can hope to bring to the app that has been inspired by travel. We'd love to incorporate um some sort of national park connection because they're just so meaningful to us as you guys know as travelers, they just make such a mark on you that you'd love to think, how can I bring these wonderful places and feelings? And um, are there ways to incorporate that into the park? Are there ways we can support the national parks through the app? Or we're looking for things like that, that we we'd love to incorporate some pictures, we have some wonderful memories, but but it's also important we have to realize that the cards mean something to everybody else, not just us as travelers. So we have lots of ideas that we're kicking around. Um, but you know, travel has such an impact on you. I don't know how it doesn't influence the way you think about cards or the way people would use the app. So I don't I don't know that I could say there that it didn't hasn't had any impact. There's certainly influence it's had on us.

ROSE:

Definitely.

GLYNN:

I'm I am already visualizing the National Park series greeting card.

SPEAKER_05:

I would love, we would love to do that. Or postcards, the hello from Yosemite, or or you know, so those are all ideas we have caping around. Um, but we've got a hundred ideas we'd like to incorporate. So we've got it on the list. We'll see when we can get to it.

GLYNN:

What's the like the number one thing you learned building your first app on the road? Like the number one thing.

SPEAKER_05:

The number one thing is it always takes longer than I thought it would. And I knew that. Like I think I knew it was gonna take longer than I thought, but it took longer than longer than I thought, if that makes sense. Like even when I added a little bit of buffer on uh it was just a little bit longer. Things were there's there's just the learning curve and and challenges, and um yeah, that was that was probably the hardest thing for me to stomach to just be patient and work through the process. And and eventually we got there.

GLYNN:

A, it's good advice, and B, I that's what I thought you were going to say.

ROSE:

Right, all part of the process. Do you have any advice for the listeners? Anything else that maybe they want to build an app, especially while on the road? Any other tips or advice we didn't mention?

SPEAKER_05:

Sure. If if this is something that interests you, I would say do it. Even if it's not successful by whatever definition you have, um the process was such a good learning curve. And from what I've learned from a lot of other developers, is the first idea you might have or the first app you you try might not be the best one. So I think there's a if it's something you're thinking about doing, just do it. It's never been easier or more affordable to dip your toe in the water because you might make something really useful or wonderful or that might make the world a little bit better. So I'd say go for it.

GLYNN:

Go for it. Agreed. Yeah, agreed. Because you're gonna learn by doing. Absolutely. Alex, what's next for OHI other than the National Park Series greeting card?

SPEAKER_05:

Uh, we're always working to continue to add cards. That's a huge lift for us. We make we're we're adding cards for all the the occasions we can think of, and then the niches underneath the occasions. So we're really trying to fill the app with cards that are for everyone and and every occasion you might want. Uh, we've got a lot of feature ideas, like we mentioned, the national parks. We'd love to partner with the national parks. Uh, we'd love to add a birthday reminder system in there so you could put your birthdays in and and you'd be notified to, hey, don't forget to send a card to your cousin or whoever you might not remember their birthday. Um and then there's a hundred other, like I said, we've got a list, an active list of ideas that we would love to bring in. But those are the top top three I've been kicking around in my head.

ROSE:

I like that.

SPEAKER_05:

Me too.

ROSE:

So as we wrap up here, Alex, where can the listeners find your app?

SPEAKER_05:

Our app is available for Android and iPhone in the app store if you search OHIOHI. And uh you could also go to ohicards.com and there's a uh there's a link to download the app there.

ROSE:

Excellent.

GLYNN:

And for the listeners, it's worth just checking it out to see. You know, now that you sort of know the back end and what it took to design this, it's nice to see the finished product. Right.

SPEAKER_05:

Excellent. Thanks. Thanks. We we really enjoy hearing from people and how they're using it. So if you if you use the app or have a uh experience or an idea, we'd love to hear it. We really are just um trying to make something that's really useful for people um and and and makes it easier to stay in touch. Excellent.

GLYNN:

Beautiful. Alex, thank you very much for coming on the show today.

SPEAKER_05:

Thank you, Alex. It's my pleasure. I always enjoy talking to you guys. Thanks.

JIM:

A thousand small problems. You know, that's one of the most accurate descriptions of building anything from scratch that I've ever heard.

RENE:

And it's encouraging too. He's not pretending it was easy, but he's also not making it sound impossible.

JIM:

Also, if you're curious about the app, it's oh hi, oh, check the show notes for details or find it in the app stores.

RENE:

Up next, Bob takes us into what's happening across the industry. And it's a fun one because it's all about getting new people to step inside an RV for the first time.

JIM:

Go RVing has been putting RVs in place where people least expect them: festivals, fairs, tailgates, big events.

RENE:

And when someone walks into an RV for the first time and sees a kitchen, a bed, and a bathroom, that moment is pretty powerful.

JIM:

Bob's talking with Monica Juraki from the RVIA about experiential marketing, big numbers, dealer involvement, and what's coming with the RV 250, a campaign for America's 250th anniversary.

RENE:

Here's Bob with more fascinating RV industry news.

BOB:

All right, welcome back. My guest today is Monica Jurassic, the PR industry spokesperson at RVIA. And uh Monica, great to have you back. And uh you got a lot of things to talk about with respect to Go R V.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, thanks for having me, Bob. It's always great to chat with you. And yeah, I'd love to talk about some of what Go R Ving has been doing, particularly in the experiential marketing area this year.

BOB:

Yeah. And uh tell tell us what, you know, because sometimes we have a new audience, I think, a lot of new people coming into the RV, the new RV Life podcast. Talk about what the experiential events are and why they're different than some of the other things that you've done in the RV industry.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. So experiential events is something that Go RV has been doing for a number of years now. And basically the goal is to show have RVs show up someplace where people woke up that day and they did not expect to see an RV. Um, so we put RVs at air shows, at food festivals, state fairs, um, country concerts, I guess concerts in general. Um and then people come and they're able to tour them. And the amount of people who say, Oh my goodness, I didn't know that there was a bathroom in here or a kitchen or a bed. And we kind of think, well, what did you think were in these boxes rolling down the roads? But it's it's um really interesting and incredible uh when you get someone who has never been in an RV to walk through one and just be blown away by what they offer. So experiential events have been a backbone for about a decade now for Go RVing. And this year, and this is the first time we've done tailgating things, but this year we partnered um with colleges and we went to five different college tailgates. We had a really cool uh wrapped go-arving, wrapped RV. Yeah, it was it's really cool. It was looked like turf on the side of it. Um, which one of the cool things about that is it was also driving from all the different locations. So there was a truck that was wrapped too. It was wrapped orange. So even driving down the road, you just saw this cool Garving, wrapped RV. Um, but yeah, we we did five different stops at college tailgates to again just have people experience what an RV is, uh, many who never had before.

BOB:

Yeah. Now on the experiential ones, because of the way you frame them and the audience that you were getting, talk about the kinds of numbers, you know, because these numbers are substantial, especially when you look over the 10 years. You get you're getting to events with that are high profile events that have a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Um, there are so we through all of our experiential events, we've had over 75,000 people tour the RV, RVs. And then that doesn't count the people who are just walking through the booth or people who are just walking by the booth and seeing an RV for the first time. And because of the different events, it's hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people just this year alone that were exposed to RVing through this go RVing experiential marketing program that otherwise wouldn't have seen an RV, and a lot of these people not have seen the inside of an RV.

BOB:

I think one of the things that's surprising to our dealers about this is you partner with dealers in each of these locations, and they get an opportunity to bring a couple of units in, staff. If they don't want to staff them, you've got staff there. Uh, but they get the leads and it's it blows them away every time. You know, they always challenge us in terms of cooperating with something like that because they look it's so far outside the mainstream. Some of them have to take it, take a step back and say, we're not we're not going there to sell an RV. We don't, you know, that's that's not the province. Don't don't judge your participation by the number of sales you get. It's the exposure to the people and new people that you can bring into the Go R being database and the dealer on the local, he's seeing all local people. They've probably never been to his dealership.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, absolutely. Our dealer partners are so important to the success of the experiential marketing because that is exactly what what we do. We partner with dealers in wherever the events are are taking place, and they're able to bring in um, it's usually two RVs, and yeah, they get those leads first, the people who sign up. Um, we always have a giveaway of some sort, and so people sign up for the the giveaway, and that those dealers get that uh those leads first. Uh so yeah, they are instrumental in the success of the experiential marketing.

BOB:

How did it work on the ultimate tailgate tour? Was it a similar process? Or I mean you're going to college games to get 100,000 people, you know, for three or four hours all in one spot. How do you how do you handle that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so um it was a little bit different in that we didn't for the tailgate, the ultimate RV tail yet, we didn't partner with dealerships here because we had that wrapped RV. Um so we did go ahead and and get an RV and and wrap it. Um, but then um it went around and was in the tailgating events before all of these games. Um, and then we're culminating at the uh Big Ten fan fest that is happening, that happened in Indianapolis. Um so that's the the uh culmination of all of this. And at that, we also had uh RV Nation, which is where all the RV tailgating happens, and we partnered with manufacturers for this final event, and manufacturers were able to bring in new units in that tailgating area where you already have RVers. So this is a little bit different. Usually we're trying to reach non-RVers, but in this case, it was a good opportunity to add on and let manufacturers display new units in front of an RVing audience or those people who are tailgating out of their cars in the same parking lot and come see these new RVs. So this one was a little bit different. So we had two locations, one in RV Nation and then one inside the Big Ten Fan Fest, um, where there's lots of games and giveaways and and thousands and thousands of I think so over 75,000 people walking through and a lot of those coming into the Go RV. Booth to see the inside of the Sarby. We have a 360, those really cool 360 video um booths. And so the people then get that sent to them with a cool gowarding backdrop. Um and then obviously we get their uh information so we're able to follow up with them and and continue to tell them about the joys of the army lifestyle. Right.

BOB:

Get get the data. Get the data, get the data and get it into the database.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's that is pretty key marketing.

BOB:

Yeah, yeah, that is, you know, it's different because there you're talking in a lot of cases to a a pre-qualified prospect. They've they're already doing tailgating, whether they did in the car or their, you know, the back of their pickup truck or whatever, but there's an often lot of our vs, similar to NASCAR. I mean, there are a lot of RVs that go to these major events. And you know, I always encourage our dealers to get much more involved in that process because you're not gonna see that many people in three or four hours anywhere near. Uh we got a couple minutes left. Talk a little bit about the Go Rveing website, what they'll find there, and why it's important to consumers.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so one of the really cool things that's happening next year, and that we've got some stuff on the Go R Ving website, is uh America turns 250 next year. And uh there is literally no better way to see America, celebrate America than in an RV. And so we're doing something, we we're calling it RV 250. So, you know, 250, also RV 250 states. Um, so RV 250, and we have a passport that is coming out in January, and it's going to be available for pickup at participating dealerships. Um, we're gonna send them out to dealers who who let us know they they want to give them out. And for RVers out there who are going to take some RV 250 trips, we are encouraging them. First of all, you have this passport that you can put in pictures or draw things, little journal in it. But also if you send us go rving um pictures or videos that you take on these trips that we're then able to use to encourage more people to get out and go RVing, um, we're gonna be giving out some Garbing swag to the first 250 people who submit their uh information. And then we're also gonna have a grand prize of uh having your camping fees paid for the year for one person that we'll we'll select. But on the Garbing website on RV250, uh garbing.com slash RV250 are uh travel guides. So why don't you see there's one um for up in the Boston area going around?

BOB:

We distributed that to our dealers and to our consumers, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So there's that. There's one if you want to take, if you want to take six months, you want to start in January, you want to take six months and and see the whole country. We got a six-week one, we got a long weekend around the DC area, and then we've got we are just gonna continue to add to that. So we encourage people to either take some of these, be inspired by some of these trips or or take your own and share your um experience with Go R Ving, and maybe you'll see some of those photos or videos in some of our uh social media campaigns and maybe get some swag or or your camping fees paid.

BOB:

Well, you you know, there's no question that 2026 is going to be a great year for RVing. We're gonna we're gonna start coming back out of the we're you know, the the slowness that we've had the last couple of years. The market is good, the dealers have good inventory, but you've got the World Cup running all over the place. America 250, and you've got the 100th anniversary of Route 66. Tanky pick, but hop in the RV and go. That's that's the point. Absolutely. All right, I guess today has been Monica Drassi, PR industry spokesperson for RBIA. We could talk for hours, Monica, but I'm sure you got a lot of other things on your schedule today. I appreciate it very much uh stopping in and telling us what's going on with Go RV. Always appreciate you having me on, Bob. Thank you.

RENE:

You know, there was a time when I would have scoffed at RVs in certain places, but I kind of like the idea of RVs showing up where people aren't expecting them. It's introducing the lifestyle to new crowds.

JIM:

And that RV 250 passport idea. It's a cool nudge for people to plan trips and document them, especially with so much travel energy building in 2026. But enough already. That's a wrap for RV Life Podcast episode 152.

RENE:

Today's key lessons were about winter readiness, from the road chemicals you can't see to the power and plumbing issues you definitely can't.

JIM:

Plus, a new way to stay connected on the road, and what's getting more people to go RVing? Big thanks to our guests, Ryan Hadley, Dave Helgison, Alex Haldeman, and Monica Diracki. Connect and learn more on the episode page at podcast.rvlife.com.

RENE:

And as always, thanks to our whole host crew John, Bob, Rose, Glenn, and everybody behind the scenes who puts this show together.

JIM:

That's us. Oh, and you. If you've got some helpful tips or an interesting story to share, see how easy it is to connect with listeners at podcast.rvlife.com slash contact.

RENE:

Until next time, stay safe, stay warm, and remember Plan ahead.

SPEAKER_02:

Watch the weather, make sure it's water available.

SPEAKER_00:

RVing is more than just a hobby, it's a community. When you join RV Life, you're not just gaining access to a suite of tools. You're becoming part of a vibrant community of fellow RV enthusiasts. Share your experiences, learn from others, and make your RV journey even more memorable. Visit RVlife.com to become a part of our community and start making connections that last a lifetime.