Hi! I'm Joni, Creator and Road Guide here at TheGalavan. Before we get to the video,
I'd like to invite nomadic women whether you're a full-time, part-time, or still dreaming,
to join in on my new Nomadic Women's Virtual Happy Hour Thursdays at 5 PM Pacific organized
through the Gal Adventurers group on Facebook - you can find the link in the description below.
The happy hour is a place for women to build community, ask questions,
share experiences, and dive into the topic of the day. I do hope you'll join us!
Now on to the video! This video is a van tour along with great information about
different ways to make money on the road and advice for getting started.
Kathy is the host of the Solo Women RV podcast and I encourage you to check it out. You'll find
the interview she did with me on episode 58. Kathy found a rare rear-entry class B van that
works for her and her priorities on the road and she was kind enough to let me tour it.
This van features a full wet bath in the back, a small galley kitchen, a permanent bed, and a
side dinette so that she can have sleeping space and workspace without converting between the two.
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Hi, I'm Kathy Belge and I'm a writer and a podcast host. My blog and podcast are the Solo Women RV Podcast and so my purpose is
to encourage women to get out and live the lives of their dreams! And so this is my van... it is a
2000 American Cruiser built on a 99 Dodge. It's a Class B. It's unique because of the rear door entry
and I think they only made this particular model for two years that's what I've been told anyway.
I haven't confirmed that but from my American Cruiser Facebook group that's what I've been
told and so you don't see a lot of these out on the road. Whenever I see one it's always exciting!
Come on in I'll show you around. Uh so this is a Class B and I wanted a Class B as opposed to
a self-build out just because I wanted some of the amenities that come with a Class B. I'm not
super handy. I didn't want to build anything out myself so that's kind of what I was looking for
to get on the road. This is my first rig. So I love it has a full kitchen it's got a two burner stove.
I've got a nice fridge here, a microwave that I hardly ever use.
Um sink... I have 30 gallons of water under here for um you know drinking and whatever.
So one of the things that is weird about this RV is that the black and the gray is one tank so
that does limit you a little bit in in getting off grid for a long time but there's ways around that
to capture your gray water and stuff with a with a bucket. So and one of the reasons why I love the
rear entry and the layout of this van is because I can have my bed and my dinette both up and I
use both I use the couch. I'm a writer so I love having my dinette where I can just sit with my
with my laptop and work here. So that's one of the main features of this layout.
That's I why I really liked this van. It has quite a large bathroom for a class B and
um for me um the person I bought it from loved it because they loved it to shower and whatnot
I I did shower a lot in here during COVID but I don't shower now that much. But the feature
that I love - it's got it's got a great little spot in here where I can tuck my folding bike fits in
there perfectly and I can throw some other stuff in here to store but it's a nice-sized bathroom.
And I did want a full bath uh feature it is a wet bath but I wanted a bath when I originally
bought this RV. Now I'm thinking maybe that's not so important to me but at the time it was.
Uh the other thing that this van also for the size has quite a bit of storage.
It's a 20-foot van but I've got all these cupboards up here for my clothing
this side is where I keep my dishes and my food and the cat treats.
I also got quite a bit of storage under here. I keep... down here I keep my folding kayak
and um all of my podcast equipment is under there and then that and then also under there's an out
there's an outside access where I can get to like the hoses an electrical hookup and all that kind
of stuff on the outside. Um I have not upgraded the curtains. That's on my list. These are the original
curtains but I definitely want to upgrade those and and get them a little bit prettier just...
iI's I'm not super handy so I've been trying to find somebody to help me do that. The back
cushions come off it becomes almost like a single bed um or it can and this becomes a
bed as well so if I have company they can sleep here or we can make it into one big large bed.
I used to travel with an 80 pound Alaskan Malamute
but now I've downsized to to an Adventure Kitty this is this is Tucker and I've had her
about she's just about a year old so she's been traveling with me um since last July.
So a lot of people ask me about traveling with a cat and how I trained her to use a harness. I did
pick her up at nine weeks old and the first thing I did was put her in harness. I picked her up in
the van and put her in the van and um so right now um there's other harnesses that she's gotten out
of. This one she's gotten out of a couple times, but not too often. I have a leash that I walk her on
or I just use like a regular dog small dog tie out and she wanders around outside and then
I also have a little backpack for her. So this is her little safe space whenever she wants to
you know have like her little hideout this is her little hideout and I also can take
her hiking. She doesn't like to go on too long hikes. She's not like a dog. She doesn't like
to hike she likes to walk around and I get to follow her as opposed to her coming on a hike.
Um and then she'll hang out in this backpack maybe like 30 minutes at a time before she
starts getting really antsy on a hike. She's usually happier to stay
at home. But when things start to stress her out, this is where she goes. This is a little
safe spot and I keep it on the driver's seat when we're parked or I leave it right here.
Does she travel in it when you're driving or... She's loose when I drive um she will climb in there
sometimes to sleep but actually, honestly she rides a lot right here on my on the back of my shoulders
sitting up here. Yeah and you can see she's purring right now. This is her little happy spot.
So but yeah, traveling with a cat has been actually so much easier than traveling with a dog.
I can leave her for longer periods of time um and and you know I do have... Oh! One of the
things I do have is um for traveling with that is this Waggle. It's a pet uh monitor. It
monitors the temperature inside the van and sends me alerts if it gets too hot.
Um and one of the I mean I can leave it a little bit hotter with a cat than you can for a dog so...
Um but this is essential I think for anyone or something similar to this for anyone traveling
with a pet so that you can be aware of what the temperature is inside your van when when your uh
when you're traveling. I mean there's other brands this is just the one that I happen to have.
So traveling with a cat I had to figure out where to put the litter box. I know a lot of
people make things like underneath but I just decided since I travel solo just to put it
underneath the front seat. That gives me easy access to scoop it out when it's when I need
when it's time to do that and to clean it and whatnot and so that works well. And there's this
there's a ton of storage as I mentioned. Um up above the cab, there's where I keep all my books
and computers and whatnot. Up here is my bedding and toiletries some more book processing stuff
and then in here I just got a WeBoost installed and I'm finding that's helping me out to get
connected in places like this out here whereas I wasn't able to get connected before. It does have
a generator so I can use that. The only times I ever really need to use a generator is for the
microwave or the air conditioner. Another unique thing about this RV is that it has a house air
conditioner so it runs off a 20 amp. You don't need a 30 amp. It also will run off the generator.
I have a huge closet also where I get to store all my clothes and my hiking gear is all in here. Nice!
I do stay a lot of times in campgrounds or you know 50 percent of the time probably in
campgrounds because I like to take advantage of the power hookups since I don't have a really
strong solar system yet but what I do have is I have a small Jackery actually it's the smallest
Jackery that they make I think it's a 160 and I can charge my phones and my watch with that
my little MiFi devices and I can get maybe one or probably two charges of my laptop out of that
before it needs to be recharged. And I have two little solar panels that I use the Jackery at and
I think at what I would like to do eventually is upgrade probably to the 500 so that I can
charge my laptop a few more times on the days when we're not getting sun.
So I bought this rig in 2018 and traveled around like a month or so at a time. I was still working
my full-time job and that but after traveling around a little bit I quit my job in 2020. I'm
not 100% full-time but I'm about 60 to 80 percent full time depending on the year. I do own a house
still and I rent that out and actually some of that income helps me to stay on the road longer.
I actually use a website called Furnished Finder and it caters to traveling medical
professionals. So I rent from like usually three to six months at a time. Uh and so right now I
have a six month uh tenant in there. Um last year I had two three-month tenants. So it just
depends on what people's schedules are for traveling and that works out really well for
me because I don't it's not like an Airbnb where you have to turn it over all the time.
Um but it's not a full-time rental so I can go back to my home when I want to do that.
Um and also I I travel... one of the things I do to make a living on the road is I sell
books on Amazon and so my front seat becomes a place where I store the books that I'm getting
ready to ship out. So I'm a writer. I'm a freelance writer. I've written two books.
I was a professional writer for 10 years and um when I decided to hit the road I
decided like everybody does, I think, start a blog and I named my van Squeaky uh it's
it's an older van it has a lot of noises and creaks and so Squeaky was the name I came up
with. So originally I called my blog "Travels with Squeaky" because it was kind of about my journey.
Um but then at some point I decided I wanted to focus more on all the things that I was kind of
looking for when I was getting started as a solo women woman. I noticed there's a lot of solo woman
um YouTube channels but I didn't hear a lot of podcasts and I I'm more of a podcast person. I
like to listen when I'm driving and so it just one day just kind of occurred to me hey you can
do it! You know, um so every year I do like to challenge myself to learn something new
and I decided in, I guess it was 20 2021 that I was going to teach myself how to podcast and
I learned how and just kind of decided, you know, I was going to do it whether it was perfect or not.
I started out calling it "Travels with Squeaky - a Podcast for Solo Women" but then eventually I
decided I wanted it to be a little more searchable and findable so I changed it to "The Solo Women
RV Podcast" and what I do is I uh interview women who are out on the road solo whether
um you know whether they're camping, whether they're RVing, whether in their van full time.
Uum people who just go out. Like I interviewed one woman who went on her like after she went
on her very first solo camping trip so it's basically to share stories and inspire women.
And also then I also have people come out and talk about um different topics that women are
interested in. I recently did one on, you know, hiking safety. Um I had a woman who is uh
she does Forest Therapy so talking about the healing benefits of the forest. We also talk, you
know, towing safety. This all the kinds of things that people are concerned about um before they
get started RVing. I'm in a lot of the groups on Facebook and so I kind of pay attention to what
people are asking questions about a lot and try to find experts to speak on those topics.
So I've been doing the podcast... I just had my year anniversary of doing the podcast. I love doing it;
it's a lot of fun and I would eventually like to try to monetize it. I haven't done that yet but
um that's my goal for coming up for the 2023 definitely to try to get some sponsors and um
build my audience a little bit more and uh uh and and see if I can make it a more of a thing that
brings me income because I just love doing it and it does take a lot of time you know to line up the
interviews conduct the interviews do the research and then the editing and everything afterwards. So
um yeah so that's the podcast and and the blog and so the blog um has a little bit some of the
same information like the stories and stuff aren't on the blog but um some of the information is the
same information and then other different kinds of information is also on the blog um and that's I've
been basing that more on the kinds of things that I notice solo women are searching for when they're
looking for information about getting it's I feel like it's primarily geared towards people just
getting started, newer people because that was what I was looking for when I was getting started but I
definitely feel like the stories anyone can relate to them. I've, you know, I talked to... I interviewed
somebody, you know, her seven after seven years on the road ,you know, her story so um and then I
also talked to people are just getting started. I like I want it to I think my primary audience is
people getting started but I want it to appeal to anyone who's just interested in the topic.
Start out um whatever your comfort zone is, you know, if you if your comfort zone is to rent an
RV and take it to a local state park 30 miles from your house like do that I I just want people to
take like whatever their next step is to get ready or like, you know, borrow a tent from a friend and
and, you know, just go off to a local campground or go backpacking whatever it is um just take... I think
sometimes people get intimidated that "oh I need to learn how to tow a big 30-foot um Airstream"... if
somebody was sitting at home like thinking about this and wanting to do this my advice is is do
it! Like I said, you don't have to you don't have to quit your job and go all in you can go out on
weekends go out when you have free time. Take your vacations. Do it in a way that it that works for
you now and and work up to it. That's what I do. I'm not I'm not 100% full-time on the road but I
have just been trying to make my life work around so that I can be out here as much as I want to be.
I really appreciate Kathy sharing her unusual RV with us - she certainly found a good one!
How Kathy is making money on the road is very typical of lots of Nomads - renting out her home,
selling things online, and creating content so I hope you found that useful. Be fert [laugh] be sure to
check out her podcast at the link below. If you liked this video please share it and if you'd
like to see more van and rig tours, van life tips, and other information to help women get on the
road, hit subscribe and ring that notification bell so you don't miss any upcoming videos.
I appreciate your thoughtful comments and if you're a woman who would like to dive deeper
into conversation join our Facebook group, Gal Adventures. And join our Nomadic Women's Virtual
Happy Hour Thursdays at 5 PM Pacific! This is Joni with TheGalavan. Enjoy your journey!
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