Category Archives: RV Information

Word From Canada re Our Book

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I just received an email from Rae Crothers my co author of Full-Time RVing in Canada. She has told me that she has just done an interview with the Vancouver Sun Newspaper, and is scheduled to do two radio interviews. Then next Thursday she is going to be interviewed by Global TV. This is all in lead up to the Early Bird RV show that happens in Abbotsford British Columbia next weekend Feb 3 to 6.

So this morning I volunteered to fly up to B.C. and help her if she needed my help. I am waiting to see what she says.

Full-Time RVing in Canada
Full-Time RVing in Canada

To see what all the excitement is about just visit our book  WEBSITE

Full-Time RVing in Canada is Now Available For Sale

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Full-Time RVing in Canada Cover

Full-Time RVing in Canada

The Full-Time RVing in Canada site has gone live.

Full-Time RVing in Canada is now available for sale. This comprehensive guide shows you what you need to know to be a Canadian Full Timer. Health Care, Taxes, Voting and Province of Residency are some of the topics that are discussed. Then the rest of the book is devoted to the how to, where to, what type of rig, along with a lot of the technical information that you need to know.

There is a free download on the site that will give you an excerpt from the book along with the covers and table of contents.

To get your copy just visit Full-Time Rving in Canada now.

I Wish I Could Full Time RV Like You Are Doing.

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I wish I could do what you are doing. This is a statement that I hear regularly. Well I am the wrong person to be saying that to. As you may have read in my other posts, I am also a certified Life Success coach with Bob Proctors organization LifeSuccess. Every person that says that they would like to Full Time RV is perfectly capable of doing exactly what I am doing. It is their conditioning or Paradigms that keep them from doing it. From childhood most people have been taught that you have to work hard, buy a house, have 2.5 kids and retire at 65. I say bullshit. That is just stuff that is programmed into your head before you are 6 years old. There is no reason you cannot do things differently. An estimated one million people are already living the Full Time RV Life of their dreams, and I am one of them. I started out dead broke, basically thousands of dollars in debt and I managed it. Most people have at least some equity in a house or other property that they can use to start their RV lifestyle. You do not have to quit your job yet or even ever. All you are doing is moving into a new style of house. A house that has wheels, and from which the view out the windows can be changed whenever the mood to do so strikes you.

You can even keep you old house and rent it out so that you have an extra income to support your RV Lifestyle.

If you have a business or job that can be done over the internet, there are a number of options available today that allow you to have internet access almost anywhere. You can run you business or do your job from beside a beautiful fly fishing lake in Canada, or on a beach in Mexico.

As a Life Coach I try and show people that they are living in a prison that is based on their conditioning, beliefs and paradigms. You cannot escape from a prison if you do not know you are in one.

Peoples own beliefs are just one prison that people do not recognize. The other is what will my friends and relatives think. I went through this also, and you know what, the same people that told me I was crazy at the beginning are the ones that are now wishing they could Full Time RV just like I do. I did not let the prison of other peoples phobias hold me back.

I am now hearing the same things again about my sailing my boat around the world. But I know that within a few years these same people will be wishing that they could sail around the world just like I am doing. I know that for most of these people their paradigms will keep them in the “normal” lifestyle where they will retire at 65 and die at 66 and 1/2.

For people like me who coach we know the statistics say that only about 2% of the people will break out of their conditioning or paradigms. Well if I can help even one of my readers break out of the prison of their own mind, I will be very happy.

A New Full Time in an RV Website is on the Way

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As many of you know this blog is in support of my book website, www.fulltimeinanrv.com where I have my book for sale. The site has been doing excellent as far as hits and time on site are concerned, but my conversions have been dismal to say the least. I get about 25 % of all the searches for Full Time RV and I get an average time on site of close to 2 minutes. Many internet marketers would kill to get that type of figures.

But I am a writer and not a marketer so the number of sales that I have been getting are no where near in line with the number of visitors I am getting. So I have handed over the website to my son in law who has a lot more expertise in this area than I do.

It is sales that allow me to go on and provide the book and the material in this blog.

I have been told by a number of readers that my book material is excellent, about the only complaint I have had is that my grammar could be a bit better. Well that part is at the bottom of the list for me since I am more of a technical type person. I prefer to give good information, and worry about grammar second. But with that being said I will have others go over the book and ensure that how I say it is going to be as good as what I am saying.

I also hope to have print on demand books available soon. If you really want a printed copy of the book, a file will be forwarded to a print on demand facility near where you live, and you will get a printed book in the mail.

It is actually quite easy to buy the PDF from me  and then forward that to a print on demand facility of your own choosing to get the same results.

Keep an eye on the Full Time in an RV site, and you should be seeing big changes in the next couple of months.

I also hope to have an affiliate system set up on the new site, allowing you to sell my books at a handsome profit. You may be a much better marketer than I am, and have much better results.

Enjoy

Loving the Full Time RV Lifestyle

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As this thread about what kind of rig do I need continues, I will give you a bit of our own story. When we bought our rig, slide-outs where almost unheard of. So we ended up buying a standard 36 ft gas powered Class A motor home. There were diesel units available but we could not find anything that we liked the inside of. It’s true that the diesel may have more power, and get you to that next location quicker, it is not the diesel that makes your life more comfortable when you get there.

We bought our rig because of how it was laid out inside, and how it looked. We wanted to be comfortable. We wanted to be able to sit and look at the scenery from inside our rig without having to strain to look out a window. We wanted room for our stuff, especially my tools. And one really important thing was the fact that my wife and I like to sit in bed in the morning, have a cup or two of coffee, and plan our days. We call these times our directors meetings. Now the reason I bring this up is the fact that for us it is great to be able to sit in bed and look out a window at the scenery. In our rig we can do this. Especially when we were parked on the beaches in Mexico, we just loved this time of the day.

So if you are going to get into the Full Time RV Lifestyle then you will really want to think this through. Will the rig allow you to do things that you really like to do. As I said in other articles the RV is your new home, you have to look for a new home, not an RV when you are making your choice.

Salesmen will tell you all the features and benefits of a particular RV, don’t let yourself be pushed into an emotional buying decision. Put yourself in the same position you would be if you are buying a brick and mortar house. What would you be looking for, look for the same things in the RV.

Remember flash and polish does not a comfortable house make. It is amazing but you will find that if you ask the salesman to leave for an hour or so, and then just spend some time in the rig imagining yourself doing some of the things that you do everyday, you will quickly see if the particular RV that you are looking at will work for you. Give yourself time to get by the emotion, and think practical. You can reform an emotional attachment to the outcome once the decision has been made.

Many people have made emotional buying decisions in regard to RV’s since it was a totally new field to them. They would not have done the same thing with a house since they have been around houses all their life, they know what they are looking for. Just keep this in mind when you are looking for that perfect RV.

Our RV When We First Bought It

Our RV When We First Bought It

The picture on the right shows what our RV looked like on the day that we bought it. Today it would seem outdated, but it has been a very comfortable home for us for over 10 years. We bought this unit for only $30,000 so our home expenses have basically worked out to $3,000 per year. To me this is an extremely economical price for a comfortable home that I can take with me anywhere.

What Kind of RV do I Need to Full Time?

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Well we have taken a change in direction on the blogging front again. For the last while we have talked about the psychology of RV’ing, other peoples blogs, and also some more information about running a business on the road.

Now I am going to take the jump into what kind of rig do I need. I would guess that I am not going to do this justice even in a few articles, but here goes.

Many people ask, what kind of rig should I get to RV. Well the answer is the same as the answer to what kind of house do I need. Some people prefer a small rancher, others a three story with a double garage. In short the answer to the question is you should get the kind of rig that works for you. There may be some mitigating circumstances, such as if you already own a 3/4 or 1 ton pickup truck, in that case you may want to go for a trailer or fifth wheel. But if you are starting from scratch the best way to go is to ask yourself a number of leading questions. Such as how do I see myself living this RV lifestyle, what do I like to do, and what do I want to carry with me? Once you have the answers to these questions, you will start to get a bit of an idea of what will work for you.

Decisions

Decisions

As an example when my wife and I started full timing, we knew it would be to follow my job around. We also knew that we would be wanting to travel back to Vancouver frequently since our boat was there. We did not want to bring the RV back each time since we could stay  on our boat and we did not need to have the RV there. There was also the fact that  my company would still pay the pad rental during the times we left our unit parked at an RV park.

Decisions

Decisions

We already had a small car that could be towed 4 wheels down, and we saw this as our ideal commuter vehicle to get back and forth from the RV to the boat.

So in our case the best solution was a motor home that could tow our small car. With a fifth wheel being in distant second, since that would mean having to sell the car, and also commuting back to our boat in a large pick up truck.

This example shows you how we came to our decision. You will have to think through how it is you see your RV lifestyle becoming, and figure out your RV requirement needs accordingly.

As I continue on this article train I will discuss other factors that you will want to consider in your choice.

Stay tuned.

Other RV Blogs for information and entertainment.

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As I have mentioned in an earlier post, the main reason for my blog is to help you in the technical side of Full Time RV’ing. I hope to stay fairly true to this but there are times that the reader also needs real life stories and information from other view points.

In this are I have found that a lot of bloggers are very supportive of each other, and do not usually hesitate to mention other blogs.

This is my intention in this post. There are a number of sites that I follow my self, both for information, and inspiration for my own blogs.

One of the blogs I have mentioned before is RV Home Yet This bog is written from a feminine perspective, and on her blog site/website Jaimie also has some of her books for sale. Interestingly I just discovered that Jaimie has also just received her Personal Coaching certificate, which is something that I also have. Just from reading a few of her postings,  I find I identify with her quite closely.

Another Blog by a female Full Time RV’er is Travels with Miranda. It is written by a young Canadian Gal, who is traveling with 2 cats. I met Rae at our RV park a number of months ago, and she actually helped to edit my book “Full Time in an RV” . One my last posts talked about a brake incident that almost ended in tragedy for Rae.

A new blog that I have just been made aware of is Croft’s Mexico. I just found out about this blog from Rae’s blog. Interestingly the blogger in this case is someone I used to work with. His blog has a lot to do with RV travel in Mexico which is probably obvious.

Today Google alerts alerted me to another interesting blog called Frugal Retirement Living This website/blog deals with retirement living in RV’s, sailboats, other countries and overseas. It gives a lot of information on living an exciting but low cost retirement life.

Another similar site is the Frugal RV Travel Blog. This blog is also part of a website by Marianne Edwards. On her website she also sells a number of Frugal RV guides that she has written. Marianne also has a Travel Blog List where she list a large number of other blogs. As I mentioned earlier, bloggers support each other in this way.

Something I learned when I was taking my coaching training, is that you teach people not to be competitive, but to help each other. The most successful people are not the ones who compete for a piece of the pie, but work together to make a bigger pie. In our case it is getting more people interested in RV’ing and traveling instead of trying to get more of the current RV crowd to follow our blog.

We all have different information and different angles on the information. The more sides of a topic you see, the easier it will be to see the whole story. So go ahead, check out other blogs, I will not feel hurt. In fact I will be happy to see the light in your eyes as you start to understand this lifestyle that us bloggers already love.

Many of the blogs listed have RSS feeds. What an RSS feed does for you is tell you when a blog has been posted. This way you do not always have to go back to the blog site to check if there is anything new. Instead you will be sent a notice that you can receive in one of your Outlook folders, or Internet explorer. I prefer the Outlook folder method myself, since I have to check email each day anyhow, and the RSS feed folder is right there. The problem is though that not all types of RSS feeds are consistent and they inform you in different ways. To understand how they work, google RSS feeds for more information, it would be a bit too much to explain all the variations in this post.

RV Connections At a Friends or Relatives Home Continued

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In my last post I mentioned that you can have full RV hookups at a friends or relatives home installed. I only talked about the electrical and water connections in that post. In this post I will talk about sewer connections.

When you think of sewer you are probably thinking of the normal 3 or 4 inch sewer lines that you have to dig into the ground, and connect to the city sewer system or to a septic system. Well if it happens to be a very easy thing to do at the particular friends or relatives home where you are attempting to do this, there is nothing wrong with doing it this way. But in most cases you will be dealing with a paved driveway, or the fact that the sewer lines for the property are at the opposite sides of the house, and in that case you will have a problem.

So what to do in this situation? Well I am going to show you a solution that will make it as easy as running a water line. The solution involves something called a macerator pump.

Macerator pumps can be bought preassembled for RV use. The main problem is that most of the commercial units are one piece, and sometimes a bit to long to fit the sewer connections on a particular rig. In my case I built my own using a pump from a marine supply store, and a few fittings from a hardware store, and an RV store. The price came out to less than half of the commercial versions.

Home Made RV Macerator pump.

Home Made RV Macerator pump.

My home made macerator pump set up. This unit fits in the sewer compartment of my motor home, yet can be disconnected so that I can use a regular sewer hose instead.

The output of the pump can be connected to a regular 3/4 inch garden hose and pumped up to 150 feet. If you do not want to install any permanent connections, the garden hose can be inserted into any toilet. If you do this make sure the hose goes down around the bend in the toilet, and then stays put when you turn on the pump. The other easy way to go is to find the sewer clean out cap on the property, and insert the hose there.

But if you want to make a permanant connection that you can connect your pump to whenever you are parked you can cut into a sewer pipe inside the home and install a T fitting that has a 1 inch line off the side. From here you run 1 inch plastic line to where you want the RV connection to be. You can terminate the plastic line at your RV parking spot with a small adaptor that has a female garden hose fitting on the end. When you go to connect your RV you only need a short 3/4 inch garden hose to connect from the pump to this fitting. You can put together an appropriate length of hose with parts that you can find in any hardware store.

As with dumping at a sani dump, you want to dump your black water first and your grey water second in order to clean out the pump, garden hose, and the 1 inch sewer line.

In my book I give full instructions for building this pump set up, along with building it into your rig. There are pictures of the parts you will need, and some notes on wiring. I also talk a lot about how this pump will help you in boondocking situations.

Find my book at www.fulltimeinanrv.com

RV Hookups at a Friends or Families Home.

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In a previous post I alluded to the fact that one can add hookups at a friends or families home with not to much difficulty. In most cases if all you need is 15 amp power and water, most homes already have these installed outside. You may just have to run an extension cord or extra hose to get to the existing installation. You can also dump gray water by bucketing a few bucket fulls into a toilet or laundry room sink.

A set up like this is great if you are only staying at a friends, or relatives place for a few days or so and then moving on.

But in some cases you will want to do extended RV stays, or make regular returns to particular friends or family with your RV. Especially in such cases where you have to stay to help care for a loved one. In this case it may be a good idea to put in some hook ups. You may have to look into the legal side of this if you want to get really fancy, but there are ways around some of those things also.

If you are going to wire in an outlet for the RV it is prudent to get the proper permit, and have a certified electrician do this. You may not always be able to get a permit to install an outlet for an RV, in that case get a permit to put in an outlet for an Air compressor, a welder, a canning stove, or what have you. Some of these type of outlets will be 220 volt outlets, but if they are at least 30 amps, you can get the electrician to make you an adapter plug that will only supply 110 volts from the jack, but still have 30 amps available. 220 volt outlets are just 2 opposing 11o volt outlets, so the adapter that the electrician will make you will just leave one of the 110 volt circuits disconnected. You will not be able to inadvertently plug your RV plug into these 220 volt outlets since they are a different pin configuration. While the electrician is there, he should also be able to put in a cable vision, and possibly a telephone outlet for you.

Unless the water tap is a long ways away, it is usually not a great problem to run a water hose. But if this is a problem, it should be no real problem to get a permit to put in an extra tap. It is usually also a good idea to get a reputable plumbing company put in the water connection. The reason I mention permits, electricians and plumbers is the fact that you do not want to do anything to compromise your friends or relatives home insurance in case something did happen. You may have the skills to do these jobs yourself, but just for this reason, it is best to contract it out. In most cases it should not be a very expensive proposition.

The sewer connection I will leave for another post. As I mentioned in an earlier post there are ways to do this that do not involve digging in a large 3 or 4 inch sewer pipe. But more on that later.

I personally have put in hookups in two sites. One on a friends farm, and the other at a small restaurant on a beach in Mexico. It is not hard to do or get done. And when you are not there, your friends can use the hookups for their own RV or to have other RV’ing friends visit them.

Contact the Full Time RV Author

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Against my better judgment, I am putting this post up here. I am going to give you my cell phone number, and encourage you to call me with calls about Full Time RV’ing. I have lots of free incoming minutes, and if you use something like Skype or Vonage, the call should cost you very little also.

The reason I am doing this is that I would like to make my postings reflect genuine Full Time RV’ing questions, especially on the technical side of things. I have lots of material for posts, but I believe more people will be interested if I am doing posts on material that is relevant to them.

So here goes. My phone number is 604 454 4143. Since I still have a full time job, it is best to call me after 6 pm pacific or 9pm eastern time. You can also post questions at info@fulltimeinanrv.com or fulltimeinanrv@imanse.ca  if you prefer that to making a phone call. Any response from either email address will come from fulltimeinanrv@imanse.ca

If you do hit my voice mail, leave me a message, and I will either post an article or get back to you using Skype. The number in your call display will either be a very strange number, or local number to you.

So go ahead call, or send me your Full Timing questions. I look forward to hearing from you.

RV Forum with lots of Full Time RV Posts

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I have just come across one of the best RV forums that I have seen yet. This forum seems to be quite active, with a lot of people posting, and answering posts. This would be a great place to either share information, or look for information. The forum is called the RV-Dreams Forum

There seems to be a lot of information for the Full Time RV’er there. Posts from people who are living the RV lifestyle, and others that are curious about Full Time RV living.

This forum also allows commercial interests for those readers that have RV related blogs and websites. There is also a section for other websites and blogs.