There are five big things you absolutely need to know before you take that plunge into full-time
RV life or even part-time RV life or else that dream of RV travel could turn into the biggest
nightmare of your life now some of these things you might not want to hear but we are going to be
brutally honest about both the pros and the cons and why if we had just known these five things
RV life would have been much different for us when we first got started now the first thing
has to do with a way to minimize unexpected costs when we first got started RVing one of the things
that I had experienced was a family member who had to have their RV towed due to a mechanical
breakdown and that particular family member shared with me just how expensive the toe bill was for
an 8mile toe in his particular area one of the things that I've done early on is make sure that
we have roadside assistance on our insurance policies because I don't want to be stuck on
the hook for an expensive toe bill so when we got our RV I made sure we had roadside assistance on
our insurance policy figured we're good in the event that we ever would need to be towed well
couple years in we're rving we're down in Arizona and we have a breakdown the RV overheats it it's
going to require repair we need to get towed to the nearest service facility we made the phone
calls secured a tow company that could take us to the nearest service facility which they did
and thankfully it was only about 5 miles down the road from where that we broke down so we pay the
toe bill I submit it to our insurance company so we can get reimbursed because we've got roadside
assistance we should be able to be good on this thing well this is where I found out a very hard
lesson and that is your insurance policy Towing coverage for your roadside assistance has a max
an out of pocket that they're going to cover for towing and when it comes to an RV it is not cheap
and that Max goes just like that and we were left on the hook for a portion of that toe bill that
I was not expecting because I didn't realize that that was actually going to even be a thing so the
first thing that I wish I would have known is to dig into Insurance coverages make sure that
you've got the coverage you need and purchasing additional insurance for roadside assistance if
you ever need to be towed now I did that the second time that we ever had to get towed was
very easy I picked up the phone I called our roadside assistants they sent the tow truck
they told us that particular time about 30 m to the nearest facility zero Bill we're able to get
repaired and back on the road now the next thing is about learning new skills and how things in an
RV actually work now here's the deal it's not really rocket science lesson learned the hard
way again man I think learning through the School of Hard KN is just ouro or something but our very
first trip out in our first RV not this one but our first one we had a slide in the bedroom that
was having problems now it wouldn't come in it wouldn't come out but worse it was SL fighting
out on us on like a travel day like that's scary right so we were mooching at a family member's
house smalltown Ohio we called an rvtech that was able to come out and replace a bolt that
had broken in the slide mechanism and thankfully it only cost us a few hundred because we're in
smalltown Ohio labor rates aren't that expensive now fast forward just few months later same thing
same RV happens again well this time we're not in smalltown Ohio no no no much different scenario
much different remote location that we have to call a tech and it cost us a pretty penny
to have another tech come out and repair the same thing but now here's the problem that kept
happening because of something we did and that in our ignorance we were adding too much weight
to that slide out cuz we had modified the bed to a king-sized bed so we had used a very heavy OSP
plywood for that bed platform modification just to try to give it support and didn't know anything
about the fact that extra weight can cause other issues fast forward a couple of years now we've
gotten some knowledge we've gotten to know our RV Ben has gone through the home study course through
the National RV Training Academy now we're in this RV we're just outside of Washington DC and we have
an issue with our bedroom slide so I'm trying to set things up the slide won't go in or out I'm
moving the switch back and for because we' had an issue with this particular switch not always
wanting to work that bedroom slide is sometimes finicky yeah I can't get it to come out can't get
it to come out you just have to kind toggle it back and forth oh I've been toggling well it's
just not working right now all right I feel like this is turning into a small disaster Ben just
decided to try to pull these out and now we just have wires I pray to God this works me too are
you sure yes I'm sure you don't get shocked long story short Ben is able to troubleshoot it we're
able to get the slide to come in and out just like we need to that particular Campground couple weeks
later now the slide won't come in period it's got to be something simple but it's like just tracing
out where that is again getting to know your RV we were able to manually bring that slide in we were
able to diagnose troubleshoot the exact problem order the parts that we needed and make the repair
our okay so the key is on now so let's go ahead that's connected up so now let's give it a good
test oh my gosh we're going to be able to sleep now let me tell you why that this saved us
hundreds if potentially not thousands of dollars we had just been in New York City the week prior
and there was an RV in the campground stuck there because the slides would not come in and Not only
was that an issue with the slides not coming in but the bigger issue was they had to stay
in that Campground and pay for more nights at a campground that was $150 a night because of a tech
availability big big problems nightmare stuff that can happen if you don't have just a little bit of
knowledge which that's why thing number two is having those basic maintenance skills getting
to know your RV and taking that course from the National RV training academy or better yet head
down there in person and really get to know your RV in a Hands-On way so something more on that
as it relates to being able to make repairs on your own that I'm going to share about that's
super important in just a few minutes but before we jump into the rest of the video I do want to
take a quick minute to share about today's sponsor and that is RV mattress.com now one
of the upgrades we made a few years ago was our Aurora Lux hybrid mattress from RV mattress.com
and it really has been great having a mattress that helps us get the r that we need now their
mattresses come rolled up in a box and wrapped in plastic so the shipping process is not only super
simple it's really easy to get through the door of an RV V another thing we realized is when we
were in our RV we were sleeping much better than when we were staying at the glamper Hideaway so
we went through Brooklyn bedding.com to upgrade the mattresses at The Hideaway to Brooklyn beding
mattresses as well so we get the same sleep we we're in or out of the RV and when we're hosting
our guests we know they're getting a restful night's sleep as well so if you're a part-time
rver you can get the same quality of rest in and out of the RV now one of the things we love about
RV mattress is they have a Factory in Arizona so not only is shipping free it's fast and their
mattresses come with a 10-year warranty so a huge thank you to RV mattress by Brooklyn bding for
sponsoring you can visit RV mattress.com slgr and save 25% off with the Cod grateful and throughout
this month of November there's going to be some really big deals some of the biggest of the Year
up to 30% off now the next thing that I wish I knew has to do with preparing for a travel day
here's a really funny rookie story and you know they say like confessions good for the soul but
bad for the reputation hopefully this confessional isn't super damaging to our reputation but when
we bought our first RV we were as green as green could be when it came to knowing anything about
RVs their operation all of it so we had been looking for a while we found a used RV within
our budget and as a side note if you've been watching you know we believe in paying cash for
any vehicle purchases so found one that could pay cash for we picked this RV up in July and now our
kids had been attending a sports camp that week so Ben and I thought it would be a fun surprise after
we picked up the RV to then drive the RV to the sports camp where they were at and pick them up in
the RV but you know how it is purchasing a vehicle and then you do all of the things you go down the
DMV you get your temp tag well it makes one hungry so we were hungry and we didn't want to get hangry
so we grabbed something to eat for lunch and we thought this is the the perfect time to test out
the dinette so we decided to test out the dinette it worked great we had lunch in the dinette we
got up we came to the front of the RV and away we went in that very first Corner Ben took out
of the parking lot while everything that had been sitting in the dinette drinks food and everything
slid right off and all onto the floor and so there was a very big learning curve and a lesson learned
read at that moment about something called a packdown process so we now know before that
you take off every everything needs to be secured so we've learned put it away I use the anti-skid
Shelf paper on our countertops for things like our coffee pot or anything that isn't going to be put
into a cup or super uber secured so we don't have any more moments that are reminiscent of the movie
RV now the next thing has to do with some steps that literally everyone can take to be prepared
now remember how I was telling you about that slide out issue that we had well one of the first
things we did when we realized there was an issue was we went back to the fact that we knew that
the switch sometimes was working and sometimes it was not and so what we actually did was we tried
replacing that switch for the bedroom slide before we moved on to try to troubleshoot anything else
now how did we replace the switch because we had a spare one with us why did we have a spare one with
us well we learned after our first year on the road that if something fails especially if this
is something that's maybe a smaller something like a little switch when you go to purchase
a replacement especially if that part is super inexpensive well it's just a good idea to get a
spare to have along with you as well so we also researched some of the most common parts that
fail on an RV and we've learned to have a few spare parts with us now one common thing that
we saw over and over is that people say a water pump is a thing that fails a lot so we carry an
extra one we carry extra fuses we actually carry some extra wiring this came in super handy when
we were boondocking in Oshkosh this summer because one of the families that was traveling with us had
an issue where there was some wiring hanging down underneath of their slide they didn't realize this
was there put the slide in and actually damaged and broke some of that wiring because we had some
spare wiring it worked out great we were able to get him the wiring he needed to be able to make
that repair right then and there this was super important because you have to realize this is a
situation where it is super inconvenient to have to head into town try to get supplies when you are
in a location to just enjoy why you're there and to have fun so now Co we feel like was a double
edged sword for travel it was really good in a lot of ways campgrounds were really really empty
but it was bad in other ways because so many things were closed so it's closed like so many
other things right now which is a huge bummer and especially even national parks and not being able
to visit those types of places and this is where travel buddies we learned the True Value of having
travel buddies so we had another family that we traveled with for a good couple of months in those
early days of coid and this was kind of accidental like this wasn't planned because like Co wasn't
planned right it just happened and then we were like well where are you going to be where are you
going to be and we ended up being able to just be together and that made all of the difference in
being able to just really like Thrive as a travel family during that particular time because I had
somebody to go for a walk with every day versus so many people fell isolated our kids had buddies
to be able to play with at the campground every day versus people that felt so isolated and this
is where we really like all of the sudden had this mindset shift of how valuable community
on the road truly is and if I had known that when we first started I would have pursued it from day
one if I had known that there were other families that were out there that we could have connected
with now all of this being said everything that I told you in this video is actually completely
useless because there's still one huge thing that you absolutely must know before you even consider
getting started with RV life if you really want to be successful with this lifestyle and we talk
all about that in this video right up here do you want to let you know we have these limited
edition shirts experiences over things till November 12th that info will be right up here
if we don't see you out on the road or around the campground we'll see you in the next video