not sure how it's going out there it doesn't sound very good at the moment
he says it's not popping on it's probably not so good
hello and welcome back to the channel I am super
excited about this video because this video is going to be part one of a two-part series on
RV mods hacks products upgrades that we are enjoying in RV and we know that you're going to
want to do the same so stay tuned so in four plus years of RV life we have found a lot of different
either products or hacks or mods that we have made that really just make RV living so much easier
so we're going to talk about those in this video and we have so many that we
want to share we're going to make this a two-part series so if you are seeing this
make sure that you go look for part two which will drop next week but let's go ahead and get started
so one of the first mods or upgrades that I want to talk about is something that we
did just recently and that is put in kind of a security camera setup now we did this for two
reasons number one we travel with our big fluffy dog and we want to be able to just periodically
check on him inside of the rig make sure that he's okay that he's not barking which he's not a barker
but we just always want to be respectful of our neighbors around us and make sure
so we have a Rio link camera that we just recently got and it is mounted right up here now what I
love about this particular camera is this camera you control with the app both of the really
cameras that we have are super easy to connect and they work off of whatever wireless network
you have so we have a travel data put a link below on that and if you haven't seen our video on RV
internet you can check that out up here but it connects to our wireless router our travel data
so that we can access that app with our phone see what's going on we can actually tell this where
we want it to look so if we want to look towards where his crate is if we want to look towards the
back of the RV if we want to look towards where the kids bunks are we can choose to kind of pan
and view with this particular camera anywhere we want in the rig so this camera on the inside
and I'll show you the one on the outside so the other camera that we have from real link is
mounted right here so this one is near the door we can kind of see what's going on around the
door if somebody were to come knock on the door we can see it right here what I love about both
of these cameras from Rio link is they're battery operated but they're also solar operated so they
each come with a solar panel that is available for charging so you don't have to worry about
these cameras sucking any undue power or whatever you can charge them via solar and then this one is
on a magnetic mount so when we're ready to leave on those travel days we just grab it and bring
it inside and when we're set up at a campsite we can just put it back up and it's ready to go so
these cameras from rio link which we will put a link in the description below are available on
amazon and we are thrilled with this particular upgrade to our rig one last thing I always like
about these types of surveillance systems is just something to indicate that we have it so
just a little bit more deterrent unfortunately for any potential bad actors which we haven't really
run into any of those but it's always nice to just have that sense of security
now the next upgrade I want to talk about is something that pretty much every single RV owner
ends up doing at some point some people sooner than others and that is an upgrade to the RV
mattress now we tried to get by with just a mattress topper on amazon that kind of got us by
but it just still was not comfortable so we upgraded our mattress and actually what
this mattress is is this is a 12 inch memory foam mattress from Amazon and it was very inexpensive
it's a queen size and I will put a link in the description below to this exact mattress
but very inexpensive for what it is it comes very compact you just set it out and you let it expand
this one's the 12 inch model and in retrospect it's probably a little high so the 10 inch
probably would have gotten us by just as well but we love it and we actually feel like that this
mattress is probably more comfortable than the mattress that is inside of the home base that we
have so we're considering upgrading the mattress in our home base to this same mattress as well
so one thing about RV life that you get used to really fast is that
there's nothing that's the same as living in a sticks and bricks house and one of
those things is outlet space it seems like that outlet space is always at a premium especially
because we work remotely and everybody has things they need to charge whether it's
a laptop or a tablet or a phone everybody is needing some sort of power source
so a very inexpensive mod that you can do that we did is by purchasing one of these types of
power blocks now this is great because it has usb outlets and then this actually has six outlets
so there's plenty of outlets for everybody to charge their everything plus a couple of usbs that
are in there so this type of block is definitely something that you want to put on your list for a
quick easy cheap RV mod and we'll put a link in the description below for that on Amazon
so this is an absolute must have RV gadget and that is a RV specific GPS now this is the Garmin
770 and there is a little bit newer version of this that is out now since we bought ours
because we bought this a couple of years ago so the link in the description below will be
for the updated model of this but we still use this every single trip out we have found this
has been helpful for avoiding things like one-lane roads roads that are not rated for
heavier vehicles bridges that are not rated for heavier vehicles you actually program in your
specific RV information so you can program in your length your height and this will help to keep you
out of some precarious situations now I'll put a link in the description below for this too this is
a super handy little mount that we have so this just clips in to this and then this is kind of
like weighted so you can set it wherever you need to set it as a driver you can see it very easily
without having to kind of you know peer over the steering wheel to try to find it so this
particular amount for this specific Garmin GPS has also been a lifesaver and link will be below
so here is a product that I kind of wish i would have discovered living RV life a
little bit sooner but that is some sort of kind of soft-sided cooler now why soft-sided might you ask
I'm glad you asked let me tell you when you are living in an RV and you are low on space being
able to have something that has some bend and some give to it is key to be able to shove it in
wherever you need to shove it in and if you have something that's hard sided with no give
it's just not going to be as feasible to try to make best use of the space that you have
so this particular soft sided cooler we just got in from bouge RV and I
am very impressed with this and super glad that we upgraded because this is what we have been using
now this is a Coleman and it served its purpose but because it doesn't have a lot of insulation
like our stuff ice packs whatever I mean that fast and it would be melted and we didn't just
have that whole cooling for the rest of the day like we needed to one of the reasons that I love
having something like this for RV life is because we are not in our RV that often when we travel
once that we get to a destination we are out and about and exploring and here's a tip a lot
of places that you go that are more remote there's not a panera on every corner and so if you don't
pack some food if you don't pack some drinks with you um you're gonna be pretty much starving by the
time that you get back to your rig so I always like packing drinks packing food packing snacks
one it just gets expensive eating out with a family of four the other thing is is you
just don't know how accessible that's going to be so this particular one that I am loving as well
is actually waterproof and so the inside this is like amazing waterproof totally thick insulation
so I am so stoked to be able to start using this soft sided cooler instead for our day trips versus
this other one that we're using this one is on Amazon and so I will put the link in the
description below for this particular type of cooler um from what I have seen I don't
own a yeti but from what I've seen this would be very comparable to the yeti style coolers
now this is an absolute must have if you are rving at all and that is a surge protector
now we actually keep our RV when we are at our home base camp so this is plugged in right now
to a 50 amp outlet at our home base and we have it even using the surge protector here
so when you go to first plug this in before that you even connect your RV
there's a couple of lights that will come on basically
what you need to know is if it's green and blue you're good to go go ahead and plug in your RV
if it's red that indicates a problem now let me tell you a little story here we were finishing
up a video about hooking up RVs and if you want to see that video you can check that out up here
but if we were putting some finishing touches on this video we were walking around the campground
looking at different electrical pedestals to be able to just get some footage and we found
pedestal after pedestal that was actually like melted and had burn marks in it and this is the
exact reason why that you use a surge protector is to protect the electronic components in your RV to
protect this very expensive cord from any problems that might happen at that pedestal at campgrounds
and after seeing all the problems at this particular campground we were thankful that we had
this so we'll put a link in the description below for this one from progressive industries on Amazon
we love it it has totally prevented us from having any problems and it's done its job so we're very
thankful to have it and highly recommend that any rver get a surge protector to protect their rig
so the next RV mod product that we wanted to talk about is actually one that we just recently got
and we're super excited about so you're gonna get a little bit of a bonus here because we're gonna
actually show you how to use these in regards of how to put them on but these RV snap pads
are a great way to just help keep your RV level but also in those scenarios when you are parked in
areas that you don't have a cement pad you don't have a gravel type of site these are going to
keep you from sinking in the mud and we've had our fair share of sinking in the mud at campsites and
for us it makes the RV off level and then if you're in a rainstorm and the RV's not level that
is water intrusion potentially in the slide areas so this solves a huge problem so
we're gonna get these installed and what I love about these snap pads it's a one and done deal
once these are installed you don't ever have to worry about it again so this is a two-person job
but this isn't something that you're going to be able to do just by yourself so you do need
a helper so I'm going to go inside the rig and manually lower the levelers you are supposed to
do this one jack foot at a time so I'm going to go inside manually lower those the other thing
that is recommended is to take some dish soap and run some dish soap kind of along this top part for
lubrication because what's going to happen is is that Jackfoot's going to kind of come down
and it's going to want to slide over this lip and just so that it slides over this lip
nice and easy because this is kind of a rubber you just want something that's a
little bit slicker like some dish soap where once that it hits this it'll just slide in
and then it'll catch underneath here nicely so run a nice little bead of dish soap on this
first one and then i'm gonna run in and start uh lowering the levelers and ben's gonna be out here
showing you those coming down do you think you put enough on you it needs more no I'm kidding
lower down I have not ever tried using the manual settings on the levelers before
so this is gonna be something new that I've not tried yet so we'll see how this works
I think I might have figured it out maybe stop okay
let's see right let's say about there okay go ahead
not sure how it's going out there it doesn't sound very good at the moment
he says it's not popping on it's probably not so good okay go ahead
okay we're in okay down all right that there's a snap pad
okay so this is a mod that we installed early on and we absolutely love it this is a bike rack that
mounts to the ladder on your RV so whether you have a class a like we do or a fifth wheel or
a travel trailer if you do have a ladder on your rig you can attach it right to the existing ladder
and so the nice thing about this particular one we'll put a link in the description below um with
the details on this one is it's easy to mount and then two it has a little pin here you can you can
put in and out so when you're not using it you can actually put the arms out of the way and lock it
in place or when you need to use it you pull the arms in and then you lock it so I want to know if
these are any sorts of mods upgrades tips tricks that you already knew about if this was something
that you learned new and what sort of mods and upgrades that you have done that have made RV
life much easier now next week we've got part two coming so make sure you hit that subscribe button
so that when that video comes out you just get that notification from youtube that that video is
live and ready for you and then don't forget to check out the videos over here
for more just tips and tricks for RV life and then check out some videos over here for some travel
tips some campground reviews just fun places to be able to go see and explore with your
family thanks for watching and until next time we will see you on the road