RV LIFE Podcast

RVing New Brunswick, Wheel Weighing, Miss Daisy & Premium Rentals – RV LIFE #163

• RV LIFE • Episode 163

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From New Brunswick camping and lobster to wheel position weighing, Smoky Mountain RV rentals, and premium national park trips, this episode helps RVers plan smarter, travel safer, and understand what every pound really means.

  • Discover New Brunswick camping options, from off-grid dark sky stays to full-hookup resorts, glamping, lobster, and horse camping.
  • Learn why wheel position weighing reveals safety issues a basic truck stop scale may miss. 
  • Hear how Miss Daisy became a Smoky Mountains RV rental business built around setup, checklists, and real-world lessons. 
  • Understand why premium RV rentals are growing near western national parks and who is driving that demand.

John talks with Salma Burney of the New Brunswick Campground Owners Association about camping options, history, lobster, off-grid stays, and why the exchange rate may make Canada especially appealing for American RVers.

Then Jim and Rene sit down with Trey Selman from the RV Safety & Education Foundation to explain wheel position weighing, weight distribution, tire safety, water weight, and why every item you pack matters.

Rose and Glynn talk with RV Entrepreneur Bob Ashcraft about turning "Miss Daisy" into a Smoky Mountains RV rental business and writing a book to help new campers avoid expensive lessons.

Bob wraps up with Becky Goodell, CEO of Blacksford RV Rentals, on premium RV rental growth near western national parks and why more travelers want the RV experience without buying first.

Get Complete Show Notes & Full Transcript
https://podcast.rvlife.com/rvlife163/

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Plans Change When Travel Gets Real

SPEAKER_10

We are a dark sky location, and we are the only place you can go camping with your horses.

SPEAKER_04

And there's a huge increase, just surging demand for experiential travel.

SPEAKER_09

This trailer was 7,000 pounds. He had a poor ranger wanting to tow my RV. Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01

Proper loading, which means proper weight distribution, is important.

SPEAKER_07

RV life. RV life.

RENE

RV life.

SPEAKER_07

RV Life.

RENE

You know, every RV trip starts with a plan. But the longer you do this, the more you realize that planning is only part of the story.

JIM

As we like to say, that's the current plan, right? Sometimes the real value is knowing where to go, what not to pack, and how to stay safe getting there.

RENE

Welcome back to the RV Life Podcast. I'm Renee.

JIM

And I'm Jim. With today's episode, we're covering a lot of ground, from camping in New Brunswick, Canada, to one of the most overlooked safety issues in RV.

RENE

John starts us off north of the border with Selma Bernie from the New Brunswick Campground Owners Association. They talk camping, history, lobster, off-grid stays, and why this might be a really good time for Americans to visit Canada.

JIM

Then we sit down with Trey Selman from the RV Safety and Education Foundation to talk about wheel position weighing. And yes, this is one of those topics that sounds technical until you realize how it affects your tires, your suspension, your tow vehicle, and everything you bring along.

RENE

Then Rose and Glenn talk with Bob Ashcraft about how he and his wife Trudy turned their RV, Miss Daisy, into a rental business in the Smoky Mountains, and how those real-world lessons turned into their book.

JIM

And Bob wraps things up with Becky Goodell from Blaxford RV rentals, where premium RV rentals are growing fast, especially around the West's big national park destinations.

RENE

So let's get started with a trip to New Brunswick, where the camping comes with history, dark skies, and apparently a lot of lobster.

JIM

Mmm, lobsta. John takes us to New Brunswick, Canada with Salma Burney, who runs Off-Grid Adventure and also serves as president of the New Brunswick Campground Owners Association.

RENE

They talk about the province's camping options from full hookup campgrounds to off-grid stays, glamping, drive-in movie campgrounds, and even camping with your own horse. And for us American travelers, there's another reason to pay attention right now: the exchange rate. Here's John with Selma Bernie.

SPEAKER_07

Hey

New Brunswick Camping With Dark Skies

SPEAKER_07

everybody, and thank you so much for joining us on this segment of the RV Life Podcast, our destination segment. My name is John DePetro, and today we are traveling north of the border. Everybody's heading south, but we're heading north, and we are heading up into Canada to see our friends in the friendly province of New Brunswick. And we want to welcome Selma Bernie with us. And uh Selma, you run a campground up there and you're involved with the uh provincial, I shouldn't say the provincial, but pro the parks in the province that are privately owned, right?

SPEAKER_10

Yes, we run, I'm the president of the New Brunswick Campground Owners Association, which is part of the federal one for Canada, which is the R the R V DA.

SPEAKER_07

Okay, which in the United States is the RV Dealers Association. But nevertheless. So you know what? We get between French and English, we get a few letters mixed up here and there. But the reality is we all love camping and we all love RVing. And a lot of people, you know, when they think of Canada, they think of Quebec, or further on the West Coast, they think of British Columbia, or in July, they think of Calgary with the stampede. But New Brunswick is really a special place. And for those that aren't familiar with its geography, tell us where New Brunswick is and you know, distances from major metropolitan areas.

SPEAKER_10

Sure. So I'll start with hopefully everyone knows where the state of Maine is. So from the state.

SPEAKER_07

Up in the top right-hand corner. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10

That's right. So the state of Maine borders New Brunswick. And an interesting fact is as soon as you go past the border of Maine, you're now in a new time zone. Because here in Canada, we have the Atlantic time zone, which is New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Prince Edward Island. And then we have another time zone for Newfoundland, which is 30 minutes more. So in fact, Canada has two extra time zones past the state of Maine.

SPEAKER_07

Okay. So we leave Maine, we get to New Brunswick. History really abounds. I I want to talk about three things today. History, food, and where do we stay? So let's let's let's we don't really have to get too detailed into history, but uh I've been there a few times, and like the city of St. John is uh an amazingly uh fascinating historical location.

SPEAKER_10

It is, and we are actually Canada's only bilingual province, the official, so that means anybody who works for the government has to say hello, bonjour. So Canada um so English and French. It is the largest of the three maritime provinces, and the maritime provinces are New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, and is home to the world's longest covered bridge.

SPEAKER_07

And I'm also told that it is home to the world's longest lobster roll. Is that true?

SPEAKER_10

Yes. There is the Shediak Lobster Festival.

SPEAKER_07

We segued into food pretty quickly, didn't we?

SPEAKER_10

Yes, we did. Are you hungry?

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, I will be by the time we're done this on this. Um, you know, so is it primarily British history or is it French history, or is it a combo of both?

SPEAKER_10

There's a combo because, well, there's there's the native Indians, the Mi'kmaq people, the Walla Walla Stockwick, uh and I'm sorry if I'm saying that wrong. There's the Acadian French that are on the on the East Coast, and there is the British, because New Brunswick is one of those that was part of the Dominion. So they were they joined the Dominion in Canada in 1867. So that was New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia that started Canada.

SPEAKER_07

Okay. So we've done our history lesson. We're going to go back to food in just a minute. But as far as cities are concerned, I I bring up St. John because many Americans have been there because of cruise ships. It's become a major cruise ship port in the summertime at least. And I know that we would always, on the times that we've been there, I think two or three times, we'd always encounter campers, RVers around there. Talk a little bit about the RV opportunities and camping opportunities there because in and start with your own park, because you told me before that you have something very that tell us the unique feature of your park.

SPEAKER_10

Well, my park is called Off-Grid Adventure. We're a back-to-nature campground. And what makes us unique is we're totally off the grid. So when you come here, you're not going to be plugging in your camper, you're not going to be plugging in the water line, but you will experience a place where there is um there's lots of quietness, lots of trees. We are a dark sky location, and we are the only place you can go camping with your horses. So if you own horses, you can you can trailer your horse, you can actually open the horses up into one of our paddocks. We have an indoor and an outdoor

Off Grid Stays Glamping And Horses

SPEAKER_10

arena for the horse and you to enjoy obstacle trails. So we are unique in that respect.

SPEAKER_07

Okay. So you don't rent, you don't have trail rides or anything like that for somebody who likes horses but doesn't have their own horse with them.

SPEAKER_10

No, we don't rent our horses. Just just imagine you're getting on this 1,500-pound animal. They don't know you, and you don't know them, and you're getting on their back. Yeah. And you're like, oh, and and if you're scared, a horse can sense a human's heartbeat.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_10

And they can sense that you're in you have anxiety, you're nervous, and they're gonna be like, okay, we're gonna take this person for a ride.

SPEAKER_07

For a ride.

SPEAKER_10

And that's not fair.

SPEAKER_07

So not fair at all. Other attractions that people uh well before I go into that, campgrounds you can you can get your full hookups, but there are rustic ones as well for people that want to be uh closer to nature, right?

SPEAKER_10

Exactly. There we have all sorts. We have um we have things called glamping sites, but those are for people who just want to go and stay in a dome. That's what they call a glamping. But for RVers, there are wonderful campsites. Um the unique one, we have two in New Brunswick that actually have a drive-in theater. So you can park there at the campground, and then on the weekends they have the the movie drive-in movies.

SPEAKER_07

Wild. Wow, that's that's pretty wild. As far as the camping season is concerned, for someone who might not make it in 2026, what it when does the season start and when is that pretty much the end based on weather?

SPEAKER_10

Well, you know, a lot of people think it's always May to October, but you can come in April. April is a great time. So the shoulder seasons, April, October, November is great. If you're a hunter, hunting season is start, I believe is in November here. So you can also do a little bit of hunting and RV camping at the same time. I mean, I guess the time that most people don't want to go camping is December, January, and February. You can. Technically, at my place, you can, because we actually have places for people to do year-round camping. Uh, but generally it would be April to, I would say, end of October. Yeah.

Exchange Rate And Where To Book

SPEAKER_07

One topic that is very pertinent this time of year, this because of the the economic situation that we're in right now, is that it's very, very advantageous for Americans to come to Canada. Talk about a little bit about the exchange rate and what a dollar, what a US dollar will buy in Canada.

SPEAKER_10

Well, let's just see what the exchange rate is today. So we are talking on June 17th. So one US dollar equals a dollar forty-one Canadian.

SPEAKER_06

Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_10

Almost one and a half.

SPEAKER_06

One and a half. Yep.

SPEAKER_10

So you're getting a great deal. You're not paying taxes. I mean, you can get the tax back when you do uh come across.

SPEAKER_07

But so it's certainly an advantage for Americans to go to Canada right now economically. As far as a website is concerned where people want to find out more about camping opportunities in New Brunswick, where should they be sent?

SPEAKER_10

They can go to my campground association. It's called nbcampgrounds.com.com, not C A, right? That one's dot com, yes. And if you're looking for events or places to see and things to do, then you want to go to the Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick's website, which is T-Inb.com.com. Yes.

SPEAKER_07

Selma Bernie, we want to thank you so much for spending time with us in this international podcast. And I know that we are looking forward to heading north of the border, and hopefully many of our listeners will do the same and come up and have a great time in New Brunswick.

SPEAKER_10

We love to see you and love to show you our beautiful province.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you so much. Thank you. Is the RV Life Podcast. Stay with us.

RENE

I love how New Brunswick has everything from dark sky off-grid camping to full hookup resorts and camping with your horse. Now there's a neat niche for you.

JIM

Yeah, I'm still thinking about the lobster.

RENE

Fair enough. But pay attention. This next conversation is one every RVer should hear, even if it's not quite as tasty.

JIM

Right. We're talking with Trey Selman from the RV Safety and Education Foundation about wheel position weighing. A cat scale can tell you a lot, but it won't tell you what weight is on each individual wheel.

RENE

And that's more important than RVers realize, especially if you've ever said, we don't really have that much stuff in here. Famous last words. Here's our conversation with Trey Selman.

Wheel Position Weighing Explained

RENE

Welcome, Trey. It's so nice to have you here.

SPEAKER_01

Nice to be here. Thank you very much for your invitation.

JIM

You're very welcome. I'm excited about this too. We've been to CAT scales in the past in our previous fifth wheels. We've also had specific wheel weighing done, which we're going to talk about. But let's start with the basics here. What exactly is wheel position weighing and how is it different from just pulling onto the scale at the truck stop?

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's measuring weight, so in that way it's the same. But it's just more detailed information. So you're able to get what's happening on each end of the axle as opposed to the bigger pieces. So platform scales, we love them. That would be a cat scale or a truck stop scale. And you can get some information, you can get overall information, or maybe even the axles. But RVs are unique vehicles, and so we like to see these individual weights, which you can get each axle and weight.

JIM

So we'll get into those details about how that RVs are special. But for any listeners who might not have been to like a smart way from escape's or other device uh place where this is done, you're putting a scale under each wheel. So you're not only measuring the weight of the axles individually, but also, like you said, each end of the axle, right? That's correct.

RENE

You know, so you have this total weight that you get from a cat scale. Let's say that, you know, you're a new RVer and that's the best you could do at the time because that's all you know about. So which is what we did. That's how we started. But why is that weight, that that number that you get, why is that not really enough to determine whether or not your RV is safe or overweight?

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's a good. I mean, it there's nothing wrong with it at all. I mean, it's good to get an overall weight. It's very easy to get, it's inexpensive, and it's very prolific. Uh, those scales are thousands of CAT scales across the country. So we strongly suggest that people use that tool to get that information. It's just that it's not so much that it's not enough. It's just understanding that RVs are a little bit different vehicles and they have unique characteristics, and it helps to understand your RV and to check for some extra safety items to get more detailed information.

RENE

So how is it different in the sense that, you know, motorhome might those numbers might apply differently to a motorhome than say a trailer and tow vehicle?

SPEAKER_01

They don't necessarily, I'm not sure I understand the question. They don't apply differently. They're going to, I mean, you're going to get, you know, axle end weights. On an RV in general, whether it's a motorhome or it's a travel trailer or a fifth wheel, we we're houses on wheels and we're not just big empty boxes. And so with a big empty box, when you're moving stuff from one place to another, you can easily distribute the weight so that it's even across the axles or fairly even across the axles. In an RV, it's a living unit. And so a lot of the stuff in the RV is already bolted down, like all the power equipment, all the appliances, water tanks, and they're bolted down and they can't move. And then on top of that, we stick all our stuff in there, right? And in all kinds of different ways. And you could just overload some of those pieces of equipment, whether the axles or the brakes or the wheels or the tires. And we want to check that out and make sure that those things are not being overloaded. Those components are not being overloaded.

RENE

Okay. And I think I think I'm getting it now. And I know that, like, for example, when Jim put a workstation in our previous fifth wheel, I was very concerned about having all that extra weight on one side. But then you went and you took out the bunks in the other part of the fifth wheel, and I felt like it kind of evened it out because you redistributed the weight.

JIM

I also removed a couch with storage space under it, which I always had stuff under there. So I, you know, in my head, I, you know, I didn't do the actual weights, which we should have done maybe before and after. But, you know, I did take out some weight and put some weight back in. So these are all things, you know, people need to consider. But I wonder, you know, what's the most common big surprise RV owners tend to experience when they do get these individual wheel position weights? Is there anything that happens a lot that people don't usually aware

Overweight Shock And Real Failures

JIM

of?

SPEAKER_01

Well, people aren't aware of weight in general because most RVers, and it's not true for everyone, but most RVers drive passenger cars and we don't think about weight at all. So they're just not even understanding that. And sometimes it's out of sight, out of mind. I don't even want to know, you know, that's that's the mindset. But then when they do find out that they're overloading their vehicle, it's sometimes a shock. And then of course, then it becomes a different kind of conversation. You know, then it's then it's uh dealing with with that with that shock and what do I do? And, you know, how can I how can we help? And we try to do those things as well. If it's pretty bad, then you know you don't have too many options. You need to get get rid of some stuff or do something like that. If it's other ways to manage it, there are certain ways that can be managed. And we try to give those those helps and tips to help do that.

JIM

So how important are the numbers, the the specs from the manufacturer? Like if you're 100 pounds over versus, you know, like 600 pounds over. Is there any leeway in those or are they pretty strict?

SPEAKER_01

Uh they're pretty strict. I mean, they're they're they're the the weight ratings of the vehicle are pretty strict. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to have uh component failure, you know, when you get two ounces over the weight rating, right? But and certainly the more you're over, the more likely you will have some problems. So I mean that's that's some somewhat common sense with regards to that. But yeah, they're pretty strict about that. And and it's gonna, you know, it's just gonna wear your components out faster and puts you at a higher risk for whether it's component failure, life and safety, any of those kinds of issues can come up.

JIM

So you just hinted at that and might have just answered the question. You mentioned the problems and component failure. What are say the the the you know worst, you know, best and worst case scenario from being overloaded? Is it, you know, sway, it's you know, components failing, like springs and things, or is it, you know, axles falling off? What's like the simple thing that might happen? Tire wear or or falling apart. Am I on the right track here?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's all of those things. Any of those, any of those issues. I mean, we're just talking about uh we're talking about the vehicle's capability to be able to carry weight and move weight around the country. And so uh part of the part of those ratings are about how much can be loaded on the vehicle. And so those weight-bearing components, when they're overloaded, then they're at risk at uh failing sooner, you know? And uh if that's uh has to do with the ability for the vehicle to move, like in towing, so we're talking about the engine, the transmission, drivetrain, those components. We're talking about stressing them so that they're overheating. And so that's another type of failure that can happen with excessive weight.

RENE

Well, I'll tell you, Tree, we've had our share of failure when it comes to being overloaded. And in our early days, all it took was two tire blowouts on the same side within it was about within a year of each other, when I realized we need to get weighed. We need to do like a real weighing, which is what RVS EF does. But when we did, we did find out we were a little bit overweight. We were we were pushing our our limits. And it was interesting that being overweight, though, resulted in the blowouts on the same side. Um and I I can't recall, it was so long ago, but I can't recall if we were overweight on that side or not. Not sure. Not sure.

JIM

But it taught us A, get a TPMS and B, let's go to Wade. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01

It's good knowledge to have. I mean, we like I said earlier, we strongly suggest getting a cat scale weight or a platform scale weight at a truck stop because they're just so easy to get and they're inexpensive to do. Uh very simple. And it gives you an idea. You know, it gives you that overall weight and you can see what's going on. And then when you get a chance, then hook up with us. You can see on our website where our teams are across the country and get that more detailed information that can help you maybe deal and adjust, make some adjustments, whatever those adjustments might be. You know, different ways.

JIM

Yeah, and you talk about adjustments that you can identify from measuring like side to side and you know, each individual wheel. As RVers, we don't have much control over where those holding tanks are in our rigs. And, you know, at eight pounds a gallon, those can carry a lot of weight and often people don't even think about it. I presume it's important to at least know where those things are so you know how to load. But considering that, what are some common loading mistakes you see that create dangerous weight imbalances?

Tongue Weight Sway And Loading Mistakes

JIM

Is it front to back? Is it side to side? Can putting too much weight in back take weight off the tongue versus uh vice versa?

SPEAKER_01

Um yeah, when it comes to towing, it's important to make sure that you the most important thing that is to make sure that you have on travel trailers. You're loaded to where you have at least a 10% tongue weight. That means we're 10% of the weight of the trailer is loaded onto that tow vehicle. And that helps to mitigate sway. And so that's a really important thing. It helps reduce the opportunity for sway. Another thing that can help with sway is is uh uh is speed, but that's a whole nother topic of uh of subjects. Probably some of the other mistakes that RVers make, and I don't know if it's just a mistake, it's it's just not being aware that every item has weight. That's the biggest thing to try to confuse because Will, uh I don't, you know, it's one of those things where you say, I don't know, if I had a dime for every time someone told me, you know, I'd be rich. When the RVers say, I don't have anything in here, you know, and we see that they're overloaded. And I've I've heard that statement over and over again, and then they open up their basement and it's full to the top. And the problem is all of those individual components are not big in and of themselves, but they all add up to weight. And so we need to understand that every single item has weight and that can that can affect our our vehicles.

RENE

So are you telling me that my t-shirt collection has an impact on the overall weight?

SPEAKER_01

That's what I'm saying. But at least it's not a rock collection or a bowling ball collection. So we all have too much left.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Well, well, I mean, it's not just understanding that that we we have concessions of our beers that we have to make, you know, and there there is a limit to what our vehicles can do.

RENE

Yeah. And in our our previous rig, I had a jewelry making workshop where uh tools like hammers and bench blocks and things like that were part of the workshop area. And it was really, really tough because I knew that that kind of stuff was obviously adding weight. Now we have a travel trailer. And I noticed as soon as we got the travel trailer that we could feel sway and getting blown around a lot more with this RV than with our fifth wheel. So would you say that being overloaded has more of an impact on travel trailers than fifth wheels? I think I caught that earlier, but I want to be clear.

SPEAKER_01

It's proper weight distribution has a greater effect on travel trailers than fifth wheels. Okay. But just because that that connection point is on the bumper or the back of the vehicle, it's more susceptible to trailer sway. And so proper loading, which means proper weight distribution, and that's more front to back, is important with fifth wheels because the connection point is more up toward the neutral point of the vehicle or or over the rear axle, you know. Then that that that in and of itself helps to mitigate sway, and we don't really have as much of an issue with that. So it's that weight distribution that matters more.

RENE

What about something like a truck camper or a sprinter van?

SPEAKER_01

They also have issues with regards to weight, but that's mostly carrying weight, you know, just as any of those weight-bearing components, it's going to be overloading those weight-bearing components and component failure. And tires, you mentioned tire, tire failure. Our number one thing that we work with is tires. We work with tire manufacturers and do a lot. And that's probably the number one safety component that we're most concerned about. So we look at the tires and make sure proper inflation pressure is part of the equation.

JIM

And I would guess that prevention is the key thing here because you want to know this stuff before you start noticing tire wear, which might be the first indicator that people have that something's wrong because one of the tires on one of the axles is, you know, looking more worn on a certain way. So I think doing the uh the specific wheel weight measurements is a good prevention measure.

SPEAKER_01

I would agree, yes. Um, we think it's a uh, you know, even before I worked for the foundation, the very first thing that we did was weigh the vehicle, and the first place we went was from Texas to Kentucky to get weighed by the foundation in wheel position weighing.

JIM

So you you mentioned right away, um, is that a good practice? Like when someone gets an RV before they even load it, like they've bought a new RV, perhaps go get that weighed to see where your weight distribution is so you know how to load it properly.

SPEAKER_01

Well, to the degree that you can on a platform scale, right? But at least you know where it is. And it's a cheap, inexpensive thing to do. Uh so it's $15 to go to a CAT scale to get to get an overall weight and maybe some pieces of information. On a motor ohm, you can sometimes separate the axles out, like front and rear axles. Travel trailers or fifth wheels, it's kind of hard on a platform scale to separate out the axles. And that's where that more detailed information can come in, wheel position weighing.

RENE

I'll tell you, it was a real eye-opener when we had ours done. And um we got ours done at Escape's Rainbow Zand uh the first time. And now I understand that Escape's only has that Smartway program in uh one location now, and in the one in Texas, I'm pretty sure. But tell me where can RVers get this done if they're not in Texas? Does

Tanks Tires And Where To Get Weighed

RENE

RVSDF attend shows and things like that?

SPEAKER_01

Uh yes, you could go to our website. We have a schedule there uh that shows our annual schedule where our teams travel to weigh RVs. We're doing it at more less at shows, more at rallies because that's where people are bringing their loaded RVs, right? You don't necessarily bring your loaded RV to an RV show, right? I mean there are some, you know, but even then some of them, you know, not not that much. It's harder to do at a show. But at a rally, we can do it before or after sometimes when people are arriving there and they're loaded up. That's when that's the safety concern. I mean, you know, how is it loaded and how is that affecting the components?

RENE

So should uh somebody come with full tanks when they want to get weight?

SPEAKER_01

We strongly suggest that you, as far as as far as your tanks go, your holding tanks, that you have them, that you have them low uh filled how you normally travel. So some people normally travel with full tanks, some people travel with a quarter of a tank, because that's one way to manage weight. As Jim mentioned earlier, water is 8.3 pounds per gallon, and you have a hundred-gallon tank, that's 800 pounds of stuff that you can't carry. So, you know, that that limits some of your things that you can carry. So it's certainly an easy way to uh manage your weight.

RENE

You know, it's it's funny, the water thing, Jim and I would constantly go back and forth with each other about that. Should we travel with full tanks? Shouldn't we? What about this? What about that with when it came to holding tanks? And when we discovered we were slightly overweight, we compromised and said, okay, no more traveling with full water tanks, uh fresh water anyways, if we could help it. What are your thoughts on that argument? It's a it's a popular one in the RV community about traveling with full tanks. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, one of the things that we try to understand and and communicate is that not all RVers do things the same way. And so it depends on how you're going to live in the RV, how you're going to travel and what your limitations are. I mean, if you need to carry more stuff, especially full timers, unless you have a custom RV, you probably need to think about how to manage that water weight, you know, because you're going to need to carry more stuff. If you're just going out for the weekend or doing something, you know, on short trips, you know, one week a year, a couple of weeks a year, then you're probably not carrying as much stuff as a full timer, right? Or someone that's traveling in it a different way. So it really depends on how you're traveling and then manage things that way. And then what's important to you? Some people are very much concerned about the quality of their water and they're not sure what it's going to be when they get out, you know, in the rest of the world. So, you know, they they'll want to carry full water. But as you travel, especially if you get out there and start traveling quite a bit, you'll find out how you travel, and then you can make adjustments to how you travel. We normally only, my personal thing is that we only normally travel with about a quarter of a tank fresh water, as we did in our fifth wheel, because we were full-time. We are full timers. Now I'm I've moved over to the other side of RVing world, and I'm a motorhome owner, and uh we have we have a lot more weight capacity. So I'm not really sure what we're gonna do with regards to that. But we've got a certain habit of traveling with less than full fresh water.

JIM

So every RV is different, right? But it comes back to knowledge and knowing your specs. And listeners, I highly encourage you to check out RV SEF to find out where you can get some individual wheel weight weighing done. Trey, can't thank you enough for joining us. Thank you so much. Happy to, thank you. Now that conversation makes you want to open every cabinet and ask, do we really need this?

RENE

The answer it's probably no, but also probably I'm gonna keep it anyways.

JIM

Until the scale says otherwise.

RENE

Oh yeah. Trey did such a good job explaining why weight isn't just about the total number, it's about where that weight is sitting, how it affects your tires, and whether your RV is really loaded the way you think it is.

JIM

And now we're going from RV weight to RV rentals. Rose and Glenn talk with Bob Ashcraft about how he and his wife Trudy took their camper, Miss Daisy, and turned it into a Smoky Mountains rental business.

RENE

This is a fun one. Bob doesn't sugarcoat that learning curve. There are checklists, renters, propane lessons, awnings, tire surprises, and what he calls the stupid tax.

JIM

Every RVer has paid a little of that.

RENE

We sure have. Here, Rose and Glenn with Bob Ashcraft.

Turning Miss Daisy Into Rentals

SPEAKER_03

Hi, Bob. Welcome to the RV Entrepreneur segment. Thank you so much for coming on today.

SPEAKER_09

Well, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we are looking forward to this conversation with you because we're going to chat about how you and your wife, Trudy, took your first camper, I believe you call it Miss Daisy, and you turned it into a successful RV rental business in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. And then also how you used your real-world experience to write a book on making RV camping less stressful, something I know we could all use. So we're super excited to dive in, especially about how you built these multiple income streams. So looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_09

Well, I appreciate it. Uh yeah, we started Miss Daisy um oh back in 2017, and it um we kind of got into it by accident, to be quite honest with you. We we uh we loved camping. Uh, we used to camp in a tent, and um, it gave me an opportunity to get back into camping. I used to camp with my grandparents. So we bought Miss Daisy, long story short, uh, we started camping again, and I started watching some guy on the YouTube, I think. He was talking about renting his RV, and I thought, well, that's kind of intriguing. That's kind of different. How do you do that? And one thing led to another, and I did some research and I got online and ended up contacting one of those RV rental sites online, and you know, one thing led to another, and all of a sudden we found out that we were we were renting our camper out, and uh basically my goal was always to have a part-time income, ready to retire in you know, five or ten years at that point, and I was hoping to make some part-time money.

SPEAKER_12

That's a great way to dive into it, but you know, when I listen to this, it's it's scary for me to think about renting out my RV to someone else to drive somewhere. So that that leads me to this question is you know, why did you choose the setup vacation rental model instead of peer-to-peer RV rentals?

SPEAKER_09

Uh, well, honestly, at that point we didn't know any different. Uh just to be real honest with you. We uh we started renting it out. It was a travel trailer. It's kind of funny. The first guy that, or one of the very first people that came, had a a uh a little Ford Ranger, and this trailer was 7,000 pounds. He had a Ford Ranger, wanting to want to tow my RV. And uh we're like, yeah, that's not gonna happen. Uh he had a bumper ball uh and and no seven-pin adapter or anything. So yeah, you you learn kind of quick, but uh to get back to your question, we um we just didn't really know any different. I was just trying to make a little bit of side income and I thought this is kind of neat, and uh that's how we ended up starting that way.

Stationary Resort Units Save Weekends

SPEAKER_09

Uh we eventually ended up selling those and moving into uh what we have now in outdoor resorts at Gatlinburg. We have three units up there, and they're permanently stationed. Um life is a lot different up there. Uh I have a cleaner that cleans them, I have a maintenance man that helps me run them. I don't have to go there. I'm about 90 miles from Gatlinburg where I live, and um, it's a lot different, but it it provides its own challenges, believe it or not. So we've we've learned a lot both ways. I've learned a ton renting out people picking them up, me delivering them, and then also I learned a ton up there with them in Gatlinburg. One quick example, la what I've learned last summer, we had someone in Gatlinburg, uh, she calls me up, she'd open the door and smelled the rotten egg smell. And you all know what that is, propane, right? And apparently they had left the stove, one of the eyes on, and it filled, and they went to Gatlinburg for the day, and and it filled the camper with uh propane. So I first thing I told them, of course, was do not enter the camper whatsoever. Called my maintenance guy right away, and we figured out real quickly it was just a stove eye, and luckily nothing bad happened. So you learn both ways. I learned the the challenges of people picking them up and me delivering to people, and I also learned that there's new challenges when they're stationary, the peer-to-peer.

SPEAKER_12

Would you say that those new challenges are easier to manage than dropping them off?

SPEAKER_09

I oh, for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_12

That's what I thought.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, for sure. I've got like I said, I've got three units up there now. I've got two park models and I've got a fifth wheel up there. And yeah, there's challenges, but but uh I have my weekends back, and I won't lie to you. I'm kinda little uh, you know, I'm a little uh a little selfish, you might say, that we have our weekends back where I'm not delivering campers and picking up campers anymore or trying to teach people, which I didn't mind. I do a lot of training at work, so I'm very good at teaching people and training people, but uh it's nice to have our weekends back and we can go camping ourselves.

SPEAKER_03

So what surprised you most about running RV vacation rentals?

SPEAKER_09

I guess what I thought people might know, which they didn't, and I don't know why I would have thought they would know that, because I didn't know anything when I first bought my RV. But uh I'm sure we all have a huge learning curve we went through, right? Uh so I guess I I just expected people would know what they're doing, and obviously I learned pretty quickly that they didn't, uh or for the most part they didn't. Some people were very good, but a lot of people wanted to, you know, like my example again with the guy that comes with a pickup truck with a Ford Ranger pickup truck, wanting to pull a 7,000 pound RV, you know. So they did know what I thought they might know, I guess.

SPEAKER_03

So how did you overcome that? Did you have to teach them a lot or what did you

Checklists That Prevent Renter Chaos

SPEAKER_03

do?

SPEAKER_09

Well, like I said, I'm I'm a trainer at work. I've been in training for in the nuclear power field for 35, 40 years. Um, so I've done very good at gotten very decent at training, at least very good in my opinion, and I developed checklists. And what I ended up doing was uh using these checklists, and I would I would hand new guests a checklist, especially when they were picking them up for me or I was delivering them, you know, and I would say, here's your checklist, here's how you set up an RV step by step, here's how you break one back down when you want to leave, etc. And uh at that point it was kind of funny. Um I had I don't know how many people would ask me, you know, or tell me, man, these things are fantastic. Why don't you write a book? And I'm like, Yeah, okay, sure, sure, but we'll get to that later. But I I guess to answer your question, I would use I would use checklists a lot. You know, Excel's pr Excel is awesome. And I could print those out and hand them to people, and they loved it. So that that that helped me a lot.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I was gonna ask if they followed it or did the people just kind of try and do their own thing because you know, checklists are great, but only if you act upon them.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, I I think, or at least I want to say that most of them followed them and used them. They seem to be very helpful. So but people are people, you know that.

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_12

Yes, people are people, and that's a brilliant way to to solve that problem. Would you say the overhead? Because I imagine that there's more overhead in a vacation rental versus a peer-to-peer rental, uh, it's worth having that extra overhead, isn't it?

SPEAKER_09

Oh yeah, oh yeah. There's a lot more, like you said, there's a lot more overhead up there in Gatlinburg in the resort, but uh, I'm not dealing with trying to teach people the ins and outs. Uh, you know, uh that way it's I can just make a quick phone call to my maintenance guy up there, and he goes over there and you know, he takes care of things, so it's a lot it's a lot better. It it it's kind of funny. Uh one example is we had we had one of the first summers I had four guys rent my camper and they were here to it at a show in in Knoxville. And uh I get the very first night they had it, they called me and said, Hey, we can't get any we can't get any hot water. Well, they had four guys standing trying to take a 20-minute shower, you know, and a six-gallon hot water tank, that's not gonna work real well. So you you you deal with those kind of phone calls all the time. So the stress level went down a lot in Gatlinburg.

SPEAKER_12

Yeah, it sounds like you've traded the overhead of time for the financial overhead, which is easy to overcome. I don't know about easy, but yeah, it's easier, right? Well, making money is easy compared to trying to make more time. This is true. This is true. So, how important is the the resort experience for your guests? I went through, I know I'm not letting you answer, but I did go through a lot of your views on Airbnb.

SPEAKER_09

Right.

SPEAKER_12

And uh they are they're raving reviews. So it's clear that their experience is important to you.

SPEAKER_09

Right. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I think the biggest thing, Triti, and I try to make sure is we keep the units as clean as possible. You know, I mean, we don't like to go to a hotel or something that's dirty, and I don't think anybody else does, right? So we try to keep them as absolutely clean as possible. Our cleaner up there does a fantastic job, and we, of course, we go up there and check things, and we go up there and make changes ourselves. But uh, so that's one of the biggest things, I think, is we try to we try to make sure that it stays nice and clean. All three units do. We uh we're right there in the Smoky Mountains, which is huge, right? So and the resort itself has two big pools or one huge pool and then one that what they call adult pool. They've got Hutt Putt course there that's no charge for that. They have tennis courts. So it's it's a little older resort, but it's still kept well, maintained very well, and and uh people are people love it there, they seem to love it a lot. Uh you can't imagine the bear activity here, although maybe you can, you can't a lot. But uh uh we get we've got videos of bears behind one of our campers all the time because one of our campers packs right up to the mountain. So we and we're literally across from the the national park, right there on 321. So we get bears in there. Last Memorial Day, it's funny. They have what they call Big Boy, and he is a big bear. He decided he was gonna join the golf cart parade. Uh they have a golf cart parade every memorial day, and big boy decided he wanted to be part of it. And you can't you can't make this stuff up. So to get back to your question, the resort I think is is very huge, and but we try to maintain our units as clean and and and comfortable. We try to make them as relaxing so the people literally they get out, they go, they uh open the door, and they go in. Um thing I like to say is there's no arguments, there's no fighting over 45 minutes trying to back a camper into the the into the campsite, you know. Uh no no fights over the backing the camper because the camper's already there, it's set up, ready to go. There's there's no there's no worry about any of that.

SPEAKER_12

This is a turnkey solution.

SPEAKER_09

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_03

From what I hear, the the guest would love to just come out there and relax. What do the guests really want from this RV vacation experience?

SPEAKER_09

Again, I think they just I think they want uh the ability to just to show up and open the door and go in. Uh it's it's like a hotel, but it's not a hotel, though. You know, you've got you've got a little house. Um it's not a cabin. So there in Gatlinburg, there's thousands of cabins. Um, you know, but of course they're they're ex their expense is a lot higher. So to get a three, four, five bedroom cabin there. We we don't charge that kind of level, uh so they still get the full amenities of an RV, which you guys are very familiar with. We provide everything for them, so I think it's I think it gives them the ability just to walk in and and uh open the door, relax.

SPEAKER_03

Yep. A more affordable experience too. Right.

SPEAKER_12

Well, if I could talk about the business model of this all day long, because I have a thousand questions, but I think it's also very important if we sort of segue into your time writing a book and then working on another

Writing The Book From Hard Lessons

SPEAKER_12

one.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you wrote a book called Make Your RV Camping Trip Memorable, not miserable, which focuses on the real world lessons and like the mistakes, right? We all make, and um, then also how to make it simpler and and less stressful. So why did you start publishing this?

SPEAKER_09

Well, again, it kind of goes back to I I'd always had these guests say, Hey, why don't you write a book you're Checklists are great. I'm like, yeah, okay, right. Um, but uh Trudy and I sat got to thinking, you know, well, I I we do really have a lot of stories, and we we we s we had jotted down a lot of the stories and and a lot of the things that happened, and um we started thinking, well, maybe I really can write a book. Um I I write procedures at work. I'm very good at writing procedures, very good at writing at work. Um, so I'm very used to writing, it didn't bother me whatsoever. So I started just tinkering with it all back in COVID or maybe even quite a little bit before COVID, and I would jot down these notes and I would write make all these notes and start and start on um so I incorporated uh the all the stories and all the things that had happened to us and some of our guests, and then I incorporated my checklist and I I made a book. Uh it the book is more more for introductory people or someone new to Arvine, but I I I think anybody will get a good kick out of it. Uh you you'll get a laugh with some of the mistakes that uh I've made, guests have made.

SPEAKER_03

Well, speaking of all these mistakes, I want to quit, very briefly jump back to the business that you have with the rentals and mistakes that you lessons or mistakes that you have made, and and what did you learn from those? Give me like one or two little mistakes and then how you how you check it out.

SPEAKER_09

Well, my my first Miss Daisy, uh uh I was talking to you guys earlier. Uh I had a guest was gonna take it from Knoxville to down Austin to Austin, Texas. And I actually decided I better check the tires because I've never really crawled on the ground and looked at the tires. And I got sick to my stomach when I looked at the inside of the tires, and uh they were bald. I had steel belts showing. And I was getting ready to let them take that to Austin, Texas. Come to find out my axle was bent, and I had never really checked those tires. I I, you know, I had a rental business, and you know, just a more stupid tax on my part. Um, I just I didn't pay attention. You talked about my second book. I have a whole chapter in my second book, which I call the COVID chat the COVID chapter, the COVID camper. We'd bought a camper right after COVID, and uh they told me it was built during COVID. And uh one of the times I took it the fifth or sixth time I'd taken it back to a dealer, I was upset. I walked back out, I disconnected. This is a fifth wheel, disconnected it, shut the tailgate. You see the problem already? Shut the tailgate, pulled forward, and slammed the the kingpin ran into the tailgate because I was upset. More stupid tax. So I I I've and that story is in I've got a whole chapter in the second book about the COVID, the COVID camper, and you just can't even imagine all the stuff. You maybe you can. You guys talk to RV people all the time, but uh it was new to me. We we had the la the last trip when I with that COVID camper, $20,000 in repairs, and yes, $20,000 in repairs. I looked at Triti and said, I don't care what this costs us, we're trading this camper. It cost us a pretty penny. We were quite upside down, as you can imagine.

SPEAKER_12

Bob, I could I could listen to the uh the stupid tax stories all day long, and we'll definitely put you know where to find your your rentals and where to find your book in the show notes. But I I want to ask, is there any advice that you have for aspiring RV entrepreneurs who are trying to create an idea and turn it into a real business?

Advice For New RV Entrepreneurs

SPEAKER_09

Don't be afraid to start. Uh, like I said, we we are we we didn't mean to start this. We really didn't. Uh we kind of start I I don't know how everybody else feels about it. We kind of started by accident. We we never thought we were gonna buy an RV and rent it out. Um so to get back to your question, don't be afraid to start. Um we've enjoyed it. We've had a lot of laughs, we've made a lot of mistakes, but we've had a lot of laughs. Uh we've had a lot of fun with friends, family. So get out there, try something. Don't be afraid to. It's great advice.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_09

We hear that a lot.

SPEAKER_03

We do, we do. And you know, you make the mistakes, but you learn and you move on. You just have to do that quickly and keep moving forward. So, what is the best way for the listeners to find you?

SPEAKER_09

We've actually started a YouTube channel um at Miss Daisy's RV Life and uh Miss Daisy's Tennessee Rentals.com. There you can find uh our three units on there. We rent through Airbnb and VRBO, and of course I have a link to my books on there or my book right there um on there as well. So that's probably the best way to find us right now. The the YouTube channel's new. Um we're kind of excited about it. It's like, yeah, we'll we'll see how this goes. I've had a we've had fun with it, so we'll see how it goes.

SPEAKER_12

It's gonna it's new to us, so you know, somebody that I was listening to today told me just just start.

SPEAKER_09

Well, that's kind of uh uh a good friend of mine down here in Tennessee. He basically says that he said the same thing. He said, You you know, you your stories, you know, people like will like it. So I thought, well, we'll try. We'll try it. Because we camp, we camp about every other weekend with our friends. I'm still working a full-time job, so hopefully for about another year. So uh I work a full-time job, but we're trying to make this uh every other weekend camping at least. So I'd love to be able to do what you guys did and go travel around the country for a couple years, and that's my goal. Maybe in a year or two I can do some of that.

SPEAKER_03

I hope you do. Thank you so much, Bob, for joining us today and kind of giving us some more insight into what you've been doing. It's been fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on today.

SPEAKER_12

Yes, thank you, Bob.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. It's quite an honor.

RENE

I really appreciate Bob's honesty. It's easy to talk about success after the fact, but the mistakes are where the real lessons are learned.

JIM

And that stupid tact is painfully accurate. We've all had that moment where one small overnight turns into one very expensive lesson.

RENE

And that's also why his rental model is interesting. Guests get the camping experience without the towing, the setup, or backing into a site after a long travel day.

JIM

Which leads nicely into Bob's industry conversation with Becky Goodell from Blaxford RV Rentals.

RENE

Blacksford focuses on premium RV rentals near major Western destinations like Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Zion Bright, and other national park routes.

JIM

Becky explains why demand is growing, who's renting, and how more people want the RV experience without jumping straight into ownership.

RENE

Here's Bob with Becky Goodell.

Premium RV Rentals Boom Out West

BOB

All right, today we are with Becky Goodell, CEO of Blacksford RV Rentals in Las Vegas and other cities. Becky, glad to have you join us again. It's been a while since we talked, but uh what's going on with Blacksford and what's going on with RV rentals in general?

SPEAKER_04

Well, Blaxford, in case the world doesn't know this, we are a premium RV rental company in with premium service, and our business has tripled in the last three years. We started out in Bowsen, Montana. We're one of the top, if not the top, rental company there for Glacier Bowes, Glacier Yellowstone, Grand Teton. We expanded to Vegas three years ago, and that demand has steadily increased, actually tripled in three years. And we opened Phoenix a year and a half ago. And then last month we opened Seattle, which has been doing fabulously. I think people see us, you know, our income, our customers tend to be the top 25% of the income threshold. And they like the feeling that as opposed to a peer-to-peer rental or a big box store RV rental company, we have backup RVs, we have premium service, we're there 24-7 on your trip. We help you in every way we can. And that reputation is driving a lot of our demand, as are our locations near these great bucket list

Las Vegas As A National Parks Gateway

SPEAKER_04

national parks.

BOB

You know, there's been a lot of talk about Las Vegas and RV rentals lately. Why is it so attractive to RV renters and RVs in general? But what's the popularity besides gambling? But you know, the city's done a great job coming back and you know, a lot of families go out there. We know that. What what do they do when they when they pick up their RV? Where do they go?

SPEAKER_04

Well, you picked a good time to talk to me, Bob, because I'm actually in an RV right now in Zion National Park. And two days ago we were in Vegas. We're taking my sister and niece on a she just finished high school on a trip, and she wanted to do the national park. So I I speak from from both knowledge and recent experience. What in terms of RVing to Vegas, there is some demand for that. We the EDC, it's a big music festival at the Motor Speedway, which allows camping and RRVs have generators and unlimited mileage and so forth. There's some increase in that, people coming to Vegas to RV. But almost all of our demand is for people going to see Utah's Mighty Five, the Grand Canyon. Zion is two hours away. There's a state park called Valley of Fire, about an hour from Vegas, and it's like a small Bryce or Zion. It's beautiful. You've got Red Rock Canyon. Death Valley is about an hour and a half away from Vegas. You've got Joshua Tree, three or four hours. So, but a lot of people, Zion in the last five years, has become the second most visited national park in the U.S. after Great Smoky Mountain. It's kind of surprising. And I thought, why? Why is that? Well, one of the things is that the town of Springdale, Utah, which is where we're staying, just is just outside the park. It's spectacular. It's got great restaurants and shops and campgrounds and hotels. And it's a it's a great place to, you're not suffering with, you know, hot dog stands and and you know, bad. It's lovely and safe. And you're literally at the doorstep of the park. So I think Zion, Zion's popularity has driven a lot of that. Then you're two hours from Bryce when you're in Zion. So there's a lot of the Vegas, maybe Valley Fire State Park, Zion, Bryce, and return. Increase, there's an increase in number of days as well in our RV rentals. We're averaging seven nights for rentals from Vegas. You know, it can go down if it's, you know, weekends and things like that, but that's generally what our RV rental length is. But so Vegas is back in terms of popularity. When I was in Vegas, you're hearing people are coming back for conventions. There are a lot of families, couples, and it has done a good job of marketing itself as more than just gambling and shows and restaurants. It's a gateway to natural beauty. And often the the flights are not that much to get to Vegas. So people fly, they do a couple days in Vegas, and lo and behold, they also want to see national

Who Rents And Why Demand Surges

SPEAKER_04

parks.

BOB

So given your clientele, what types of vehicles are you renting and are you increasing the size of your fleet based on the demand?

SPEAKER_04

We have over the years. We have about 25 vehicles, all drivable. They're late model, 25, 20, 24, 25, 26 models. They're all drivable, B's and C's. So we have, you know, camper vans, Winnebago Solos PXs, we have Winnebago Echoes, we have Nexus class C's that are 25 and 29 feet. We have Winnebago views. We have a variety of vehicles, and there's demand for all of it from Vegas.

BOB

It's it's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. How about the demographics of the people that are renting? Because we know that more families are going out to to Vegas. Are you seeing more of that? Are you seeing any single women? Are you seeing just couples? What do you what does that look like?

SPEAKER_04

In terms of our demand, I would say 50 to 60 percent of it, 50% is families. It's mom and dad with two kids, or a single parent with two kids or three kids. We can do four kids in RPs. And then the other half for the most part are active empty nesters. They, you know, their parent kids just went off to college, or their kids have been off to college and they're married and they they want to go have fun while they still have the energy and ability and they have spending money. We do get some dinks, you know, they're they're 30, they haven't had kids yet, they're young professionals, they're making good money, and they want to have an adventure maybe before they have kids. But ours, you know, our income, our our customers tend to be fairly well, well healed. They're not price sensitive about gas for the most part. And they're this year, they're we're seeing in the last two months just 30, 40% increase in demand across all markets. We think it's driven by uncertainty with international events. There's, you know, hantavirus in Ebola. People don't want to risk maybe going on a cruise or going to a safari in Africa. And so they're like, you know what, let's just stay home. We Blaxford does not have a lot of non-US, maybe 5% of our customers are coming from outside the U.S., but we're mostly domestic. And the American economy is doing really well for the most part.

BOB

It it is. And I think you know, timing of the America 250 celebrations is great also. I mean, you've got, you know, you've got the Olympics, you've got the uh soccer tournaments that are going crazy. You've got uh travel to all these, you know, you've got Route 66 with its 100th anniversary. I mean, there are a lot of good reasons to stay in the United States right now, rent an RV and have some fun.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah. And there, you know, you look at all these trends in the travel industry, not just the RV travel industry, and there's a huge increase, just surging demand for experiential travel. People want to have experiences. They're on their phones, they're on their computer all day, they're streaming, and they want more real, substantive, tangible experiences. And I think this has driven a lot of demand for RV trips, RV renters. I don't know how many of these convert into buyers, but there's the pandemic, you know, there's a proliferation of RVing during the pandemic, as we all know. That's come back down to pre-pandemic levels in terms of RV sales, I believe, but it left a lot of people RV curious. They all of a sudden, everyone knew someone who owned an RV and was doing RV trips, and they were they're fun. And so the RV rental business allows people to try out the RV and have an RV trip without making a purchase decision and responsibility.

BOB

And I think the industry is responding too with their marketing and with their branding and their advertising. They're they've done a great job of bringing a lot of new people into it and a lot of younger people. No question about the younger people also. Yeah. All right, our guest today has been Becky Goodell, CEO of Blacksford RV Rentals, and I hope we see you expanding elsewhere in the country, Becky. And uh, I'm gonna check back in with you maybe within the next year and see how well you're doing, but any immediate expansion plans?

SPEAKER_04

We have a couple new markets on the horizon. I don't want to say there's a little internal debate. We're gonna stay mostly in the West. So it could be Denver, it could be Salt Lake, it could be the Bay Area, it could be Southern California. Uh, stand by and you'll see.

BOB

All right. Becky, thank you very much. Always a pleasure to get get caught up with you.

Wrap Up Safety Reminders And Sharing

JIM

What a great trip we took today. We started in New Brunswick, went deep into RV weight safety, heard how one camper became a Smoky Mountains rental business, and finished with a growing demand for premium RV rentals out west.

RENE

So the common thread I heard here is that RVing works best when you understand what kind of experience you're really looking for. Maybe that's off-grid camping in Canada, or maybe it's a fully set up rental in the Smokies. It could be a premium rig near national park.

JIM

And no matter what kind of RV trip you're planning, the safety basics still matter. Weight, tires, loading, and knowing what your rig can actually handle are not optional.

RENE

As always, you can find more RV tips, trip planning tools, campground information, and RV safe navigation at RVlife.com.

JIM

Check the episodes page at podcast.rvlife.com for complete show notes. And if you enjoyed this one, share it with another RVer, especially the one in the passenger seat who's always saying, Don't worry, there's room for that one more thing.

RENE

Haha, that person definitely needs this episode. Yeah, that person.

JIM

Happy travels, folks. And if your next road trip includes another cast iron skid or a trip to the rock shop, please remember, we need to understand that every single item has weight.

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