Hello, Story Chasers. This is Amber again and today I'm coming to you from the desert in
Arizona. It's that time of the year where we start all traveling down to the Southwest to
get out of the cold from up North. And it was definitely cold in the last couple of
videos I was in when I was up in the Pacific Northwest. So when you first start RVing,
you might not know exactly what you need to stock in your RV and some of those essential items. So,
today I'm going to talk to you about my top 10 RV essentials, or what I think are RV essentials
to have that just make my life a little bit easier when I'm traveling in my van full time.
And stay tuned, because I'm going to also share with you an amazing discount that Jackery is
giving to all of you. Sneak peek, one of my items is a Jackery, they're going to give
you a discount during the holidays on a couple of their different packages for their power stations
and also their solar panel. So stay tuned for that. All right, let's get started.
So, the first item I'm going to share with you today is my Jackery solar panel
power station system. These are my actual solar panels. Each of these are a hundred watts,
a piece. So, here we actually have the Jackery power station and ooh, its a little bit heavy
holding it like this for me, but we're going to get through this. So, it's a thousand watts
Pure sine inverter, you have three different AC outlets here. You have a USB-C. I use this
to power my GoPro when I'm doing night lapses outside. You have a quick charge, two quick
charge USBs plus the 12 volt outlet for your solar panel. And you hit the display button there, and
you can see how much it charges, which right now is 94%. We're going to go plug this in and I'll
show you how this works. So, in order to plug this in, you have these cords on each solar panel, and
it has a little adapter here for you to plug into the Jackery and you just plug it in like this,
super simple, it's all plugged in. And now if we hit the display,
should tell us in a second, how much energy we're getting from the panels.
Now, depending on the direction of the sun, it depends on how much solar you're bringing in. So
right now it's about 114 watts. So in comparison, we have the 500 watt on the left and the 1000
watt on the right. So you can see that obviously the 500 is a little bit smaller than the 1000,
but not by that much. And they're both very doable
to put in your van. One of the reasons why I love the Jackery so much is that I can
power a lot of my devices at night. So, I'm not bringing in sun to my actual solar panel. So,
I can use the power station to charge up all of my equipment at night. And I have a lot of equipment,
camera equipment, computers, things like that. And so it allows me to charge all those up at
night. Plus I can also charge my Rad electric bike battery off of the power station as well.
And then of course, the other thing that I told you earlier, which was powering up the GoPro at
night when I want to do night lapses. So, it has a lot of different multiple functions. I'm
going to provide the discount below. They have a discount going on for the Black Friday specials,
and then also some Christmas specials after Black Friday. But I'll put all of that down
in the description in the pen comment below. The second item that I really like and consider
part of my RV essential gear is my Weber Go. It's a grill. I don't actually have an oven inside of
my van. And I miss having that oven. So, this acts a little bit like that. Because I like to
grill meats and vegetables and various things like that. So, it's just another way to cook
instead of using the stove top. In a van, you have to have very minimalist products, something
small that can fit into the back. So, I decided on the Weber Go. So, this is the Weber Go.
And I decided on the gas grill rather than the charcoal. It's a lot easier. And I have this
hose that actually connects to my propane tank over here. And what's nice about it is, it's very
compact. You've got your grill surface. There's nothing fancy about it. It's got the lid to make
sure all the meats are cooked inside properly. And then you have these legs that it actually sits on,
but then watch this. So, when you want to put it in storage, these legs actually will pull up
and over just like that. Okay. And then this one, this way comes up like this, and
now it's super compact and easy to move around. Also, if you click the link in the description box
below it has my top RV essentials already in one area for you. So, you can find all of these items
very quickly. All right, let's move on to the next one, which is my sand-free mat. I absolutely love
this mat. So it's quite interesting. If you look at the material on it, it's somehow the sand goes
through this meshy area and this is like a double, I think almost triple layer right there. And
the sand goes right through, it doesn't stay on top. So it stays clean except for maybe
just a little bit of dust for if you step on it or something. But otherwise it stays very clean.
And the other thing that I love about it is, there's a little bit of a wind today.
And even when it's like super windy, this thing just doesn't move for some reason. I don't know
why, but it just doesn't. And it's not like it's really heavy. This is one of my favorite items.
I've gone through so many different mats since I've started RVing three and a half years ago.
And that by far is my top mat. It just holds up. It's made very well, no sand,
easy to clean, easy to store. It rolls up really nice. Just slide into back of the van.
Let's go onto the next item, which is my tripod chair. All right. So this is my tripod chair.
It's very minimalist. It's easy to carry, it folds up really nice. You literally just
put it down and it's folded up. It's got a little strap so you can carry
on your shoulder if you wanted to, but yeah, and you just sit your bum right down in there
and it's nice and easy and compact. It's really great when you have those campfires that you
want to go to. If you're hanging around in a crowd, during non-COVID times, of course,
and walk with that rather than a big bulky chair. I use it as a secondary chair too, for if I have
guests over, people can sit on it instead of carrying two big chairs around with me.
Let me get to the next one. So the next item is, I know it's not fun, but it's a surge protector,
this is from Progressive Industries. What I love about it, is that it keeps all my electronics safe
in my van. And so what this is used for is when you go to a campground, or any place that you're
going to plug in to shore power to your van. So, you're plugging into, for me, it's 30 amp, or they
do have 50 amp ones as well. You plug this into AC outlet on the wall, or at your campground and then
you plug your plug from your van, or your RV into this. It gives you all kinds of codes here to let
you know that the power that's coming in is safe. There's no surge. It also tells you if there's an
under or over voltage, which is really nice. You definitely don't want that to happen,
because you don't want all of your electronics to be fried, if there's a surge of power
from the campground electricity. And a lot of times, those aren't like
super reliable. They're always having issues with them. So, this is an absolute must. If you're
going to plug in at shore power. This is an older model. The one that I'm linking to is a newer one.
It's not as big. And it also has a nice cover that goes over this area. So, it protects from rain.
I actually use a bag to put over this. I just cut a hole in it. And I use that for rain protection,
but I'm just not going to buy another one because this works perfectly. Even though it's a little
bit bigger. In my opinion, this is a must have if you're going to keep your van and your RV safe.
One of the other top RV essentials that I think is a must have is my tire pressure monitoring system.
So, this is actually from TireMinder, it monitors my tires. It does exactly what it says it's going
to do. It tells me what the temperature is of the tires. It tells me what the PSI of the tires are.
So, that way I can monitor it while I'm driving and make sure that my tires
aren't ready to have a blowout or they're getting overheated. So, those are things that
you have to be aware of when you're driving as much as we do in van life, RV life.
I actually did a video on this. When I talked about tire safety, which I'll link right up here,
that goes into more detail about how to actually set this up on your van, or your RV. And
it's a great little system, very small and compact. I just put it right on my dash
and monitor my tires as I go. It's very, very simple. And it just has these,
depending on how many tires you have, I have four, it just screws right onto your valve stem.
I haven't had any issues with air leaking out from those being on there. It's worked really well for
me. I love it. And it's definitely a must have. All right, that's all for the outdoor items.
Now, let's go inside to see what we have indoors. So, the next item is this guy right here. This
is my Travel Berkey. I think this is a must have for me because I drink a ton of water.
And what this does is it filters your water so that you have good clean water
in your van and not have to buy a bunch of bottled water and things like that. It actually says that
it can filter river water. I don't typically go places where I have to filter river water,
but supposedly it can do that. But what I love is that it has two carbon filters up here.
I also have the bottom filters. So, there's four filters altogether. And these actually filter
out fluoride and different types of components that don't filter through the carbon filter.
I love that because I can actually take water from my freshwater tank, put it inside here. And as you
know, freshwater tanks, they're not always so fresh. I don't know why they call them fresh,
because they're not really fresh. I just take the water directly from the faucet, open this lid up,
take my hose from my kitchen sink and fill it up like this. It's super easy and you have
nice clean drinking water. And these filters last forever, it seems like.
All right, my next must have in RV life and van life is, you're going to be taking a lot
of pictures. Now, whether you have a YouTube channel or not, you want to get some of those
good pictures and selfies, right? So, I love this gimbal by DJI. It's an Osmo Mobile 3. It's just
amazing. And I use my phone a lot more these days for filming footage. So, I'll show you how this
works really quick. It's a gimbal. Gimbals make your footage nice and smooth. And it also acts as
a tripod and a selfie stick. Right, so I'm going to turn it on. This little button here. You'll see
it do its thing. There you go. And then I just flip it like that. So, if I want horizontal,
and now I can be recording you guys. You'd be surprised at how much I use this thing versus
the big camera that you're seeing here. This is the one that I normally film on, but I've been
using my phone a lot more and more these days. It's an actual iPhone 11, and it takes amazing
footage. Just doesn't have the great audio quality that having this external microphone does. So,
it does have its limitations. So, if you want something that's nice and compact, this is a
great thing. And here's the tripod function of it. You just put it down like that. It also has some
follow-me features on it and a bunch of different functions that really help you get that shot that
you're looking for. And again, it's not super complex. It's really easy to use, and this tripod
actually comes off. So, you can have just this handle if you want to. And then I'll show you how
this folds up without that. I'm going to turn it off right now, so it goes back into no-power mode.
I'll take the phone off and you just flip it around and that's it. It's super easy. You can
put it in your purse. You can actually put it in your back pocket as well. It can hang on to
the back pocket and it's easy to travel with. Okay, one of my other favorite things on my top
RV essential in the van is a magnetic mount for my dash, so that I can put my phone on it very
easily, every time I get into the driver's seat and I can look at my Google Maps. I
can pull up anything that I want on there, but it's nice and easy. So, let me show you this.
This is how easy it works. So, the back of the phone has these little plates on it that you
just stick on and you just literally stick your phone up to it and it can move around and swivel
any which way you want. You can reposition this if you want it higher or lower.
It's just amazing. So, and it's a must. Look, it just ... You throw it on there and it's
done. You don't have to put it inside of the holder. Ooh, I feel like my face is flushed.
It's a little hot outside here and I'm trying to do this all nice and quick before the wind
picks up. It's another part of van life. All right. So, what I love about it is that
it's just super easy. It's not complicated. You don't have to put like on this gimbal,
it has these holders, a lot of the mounts that they have for your dash, or your window for your
phone has these little slots that you have to put your phone into. And this one doesn't, you just
literally throw it up there and it stays. I've been on BLM land, washboard roads, rocky roads,
back and forth to Alaska, to Baja Mexico, and no issues whatsoever. It has not fallen down. So,
I think it's a must. All right. So my next item and one of my very,
very favorites is my instant pot. I absolutely love this thing. This is kind of a two for one.
I have also the pot-in-pots, which are absolutely amazing to cook in. And this is a 3 quart instant
pot. It's nice and compact for van life. Just simple. It has rice, porridge, steam, yogurt,
you can actually make yogurt in here. Saute function, slow cook, beans, chile, meats, stew,
soups and braais. I typically just pressure cook, or saute most of the time, or sometimes I even use
the steam function. If I'm doing poached eggs, yes, you can do poached eggs on here. Isn't that
amazing? So, I cook oatmeal in there, steel-cut oats, regular oats. I steam broccoli, poached
eggs, rice, chili, soups, meats, anything pretty much that you can think of I do in there.
The great thing is that it doesn't use a ton of power and that's important in an RV and a van,
because you're always constantly concerned about your power, especially if you're
boondocking. With the instant pot, it gets up to pressure. That's when it uses most of its power,
is when it gets up to pressure, but it's still pretty minimal. And then once it gets up to
pressure, it's hardly using any energy whatsoever and it's just cooking inside that pressure time.
So, if I'm cooking steel-cut oats, those take about five minutes. I put pressure cook,
five minutes, it gets up to pressure and then it counts down that timer of five minutes.
And during that time, that's when it uses very little energy whatsoever. And the pot-in-pots
are really great because you can cook several meals in one. So, a lot of times I'll put in
the bottom here, I'll do rice down here and I'll put fish and vegetables up here. And it
cooks all at the same time inside of the instant pot. And you've got a meal all in one pot. And
so just as a reminder, I have all of those products linked down below in the description
box. So, it's nice and easy for you to go check them out if you're interested in them.
That was fast and furious and ooh, I think I'm flushed from trying to stay out of the heat.
And the wind, it's supposed to be windy in like five minutes, I think. So I was trying to hurry,
but I hope you guys understand this is what happens when we're traveling around
and we have to deal with the weather and the environment. You just get it done. So I'm just
getting it done today with my top 10 RV and van essentials. Make sure you click the links below
for the discounts to the Jackery batteries. Thank you Jackery for supplying the solar panels
and the power station and make sure you click those links for the discount to the Jackery. Not
only for the Black Friday, but also after Black Friday during Christmas, first part of December,
you can see all of the links below. They talk about the different requirements for that. So,
you can buy it on Amazon, or directly through the link to Jackery and get that discount.
Today I'm going to talk to you about my top 10, no.
And I'm also going to show you, that's not what I'm supposed to be saying.
Let's do that again. Okay. So, today I'm going to talk to you about my top 10. And
then of course, what was the other thing I was saying? Thank you Jackery for supplying the solar
power. Nope. All right, guys. Thank you so much. And we will see you in the next video. Bye.