LIVE FEED MAY 6, 2020- Van or Class C? Q and A!

king we might be over modulating it looked like we were you're gonna have to move i'll move this and see if we can get you how's that i can come uh yeah go a little more hi everyone hi everyone i hope you can hear us if we can get some feedback on the sound i don't usually do uh oh you're right in the you're not gonna be seen because you're gonna be in the um thing that goes up i didn't think about that i'm not gonna be seen by us they can see me all right because on theirs it's on the side uh-huh right okay uh i think you're all you're in pretty good yeah hi can everybody see both of us we're trying to social distance as best we can here or just on the phone and how about the sound this is the first time i think i've done two of us on no i've done it before but we're using our lav mics because there's a bit of a breeze how's the sound and uh i'm sorry the phone's so far away to get to it and i can't see any of it hi everyone glad you're here uh we are having as you can see we have a guest today carolyn from caroline's rv life and we are going to have the knock down drag out by the sensory put him up put him up all right hold on the kc let's do that again she'll do a thumbnail out of that doesn't folks doesn't casey do make amazing thumbnails i hired her to do a million things and then learn taught herself how to make thumbnails and they are amazing they are amazing we have a lot of fun with this the trolls the trolls could have a lot of fun with this how do we sound suan okay uh good so we're today we're gonna discuss class a or i get a class a class c versus a van and we'll give our pros and cons i mean they both pros and cons uh things i love about my van things i don't like about my van the same about the class c and we'll just get try and give you a balanced view from the two of us of what we think about them you can see um carolyn's uh class c behind us i'll turn the camera up real quick you can see my van is right here so we're there is uh my van my van's right there oh let me show you the whole where we're at we're in one of the most beautiful places anywhere look at this beautiful place we're at i can't tell you where i'm sworn to secrecy it's life and death if i don't if i ever tell you where i'm at it's true it's life and death death or dismemberment are waiting whichever is more painful if i ever disclose this location and so there's the van and we're sitting here here's uh carolyn now i got that about right it looks about right where it was okay so we'll do announcements you know we have to do announcements uh i think you're in good mm-hmm i can go over a little more i looks like all right all right announcements that's all the same every time and i say every time i'm not going to take very long i take forever um it's all howa i don't have any announcements for me um emergency fund uh if you're in financial distress from the emergency fund go to efund at email if you need money for from the emergency fund and we're doing it just for the whole uh pandemic thing we're going through now go to uh efund at homes and wheels alliance and if you want to donate we're putting a lot of money out right now so if you want to donate to the efon please do and you to do that you go to howa dot rallyup.com okay the virtual caravans are going and going great virtual caravans because we're not gathering you how do you meet people and so you go to meetup.com caravans slash vince and you and join us on one of the caravans we are awarding uh a slightly used donated batteries and solar kits and excuse me i got a got a frog and i got a lab mic on so there's no getting away from it uh oh oh let me go back i forgot something uh we're we've started teaching classes in flask in fact carolyn taught our first class last saturday on boondocking really really good class the fact that uh i've said often that i think i'm really really good at finding boondocking spots but carolyn's better and she's a great teacher and that's a great class you have that on your website i do uh so you can go see the class on her website uh well it's on how the one i did on saturday is how i have one that i did at the rtr which is an extended version on my website so a 45-minute version is on homes and wheels alliance.org and um and you can go to carolin's site for a longer version more in-depth uh at carolinezarlife.com is that right caroline's rvlife.tv to go directly to my youtube channel oh oh how about that that was smart yeah okay but you always have been very very smart uh so uh next saturday we have we're going to have a we're planning on doing weekly classes and uh we do them live so you can ask questions you'll ask your questions on the chat through zoom and we'll try to answer as many as we can we can only get through so many because there's a lot of we limit it to a hundred people in the zoom meeting it's a webinar it's what zoom calls a webinar and uh so you have to go and and sign up and we'll have a waiting list going because more will sign up than can make it um and where do you sign up for the classes meet up same thing same thing yeah right suanne it's meet up correct yes meetup.com caravans events uh meet is that correct yes meetup.com slash caravan slash events also have we're donating we're giving away we're donating uh two complete solar kits and also uh two 12 volt batteries we've ended up with excess we haven't given the way so we're going to take you can apply to get them and they have to come to perhaps to get them you got to go to prompt nevada by may 31st to pick these all up and that uh you go to get that at homes and wheels alliance dot org slash 12 v one two v homes on wheels alliance dot org slash one two three uh we have a sweepstakes going for a really nice uh we roll trailer and also uh two electric bikes folding electric bikes um and uh we the we roll trailer is fantastic and there is no purchase necessary this is a sweepstakes it is not a raffle with a raffle you have to make a purchase and some states the raffles are illegal and uh so this is a sweepstakes no purchase is necessary you can get a ticket and send it in and not have any uh but if you want to buy more tickets and have more of a chance then you do have to buy your more uh tickets and you get the tickets and watch the sweepstakes which will be a week from today we're going to do the uh a live feed a week from today yet in pahrump and you go to hawa how a dot rally up dot com and then you can buy your sweepstakes today's the last day oh tomorrow's the last day sorry tomorrow is the last day to buy to enter the sweepstakes either free or by buying more tickets and what am i leaving out i'm leaving something out that's good okay i think we're done how fast was that 10 minutes i can't do it less than 10 minutes i talk too much did you ever notice that i talked too much never she's very nice isn't she okay today we're talking about um uh carolyn and i are talking about the choice between an rv and a van and specifically because i'm in a van we're going to talk about vans because you're in a classy we're going to talk about class c but i think we can expand these things to say class a's or or all rvs versus all cars vans and like suvs you could be in you could substitute suv in this oh you shouldn't shoot that let me introduce myself right right it messed up here and is suanne is is is sadie in the background really really distracting people okay okay all right oh so uh carolyn uh this is your first it's first your time on my live and most i think most of my uh my uh viewers know who you are but let's go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us who you are hi everyone my name is carolyn and carolyn and uh my channel is carolyn's rv life and four years ago april 1st i decided to uh well no i decided before that but i made it official and the rat race of the san francisco bay area and moved into a class crv and i had a marketing consulting practice back then and i just took it remote as long as i had an internet signal i could work and bought what i afford which was a lemon and but my soul my sole purpose my goal was to live closer to nature i wanted to live on public lands be in national forests you know travel was kind of secondary i really just wanted to live out in nature and be able to walk my dog without seeing people and so the first couple of years i spent in a lot of solitude and exploring a lot of different areas of the country and a lot of tourists and now i'm just kind of settling in and kind of just enjoying really just this being life and made some friends and i'm enjoying more camping with friends and things like that now so yeah i guess that's a nutshell of my experience and this is sadie she's brand new [Laughter] okay so what i thought we would do we're going to take our questions mostly but i thought we would just start out with uh carolyn uh so about four years ago you had to choose and go you're gonna go full time and you chose a class c uh why did you choose a class c and uh here it is four and a half years later what do you think was that a good choice um i originally i don't know that living in a van well actually i was following a girl a young lady living in a van so i i learned about this lifestyle on youtube like a lot of you do only back then there were not that many people there was like van girl and nomadic fanatic and pippi peterson uh and those were the three i watched and i guess uh for going from an apartment i i really wanted a lot of comforts at home i wanted a stove i wanted a refrigerator i wanted a bathroom shower is not really that important to me i can sponge bath just fine sponge baby just fine but i really wanted all the comforts of home and i'll talk more about this probably later but one of the reasons i really wanted the space and the and the like a an rv versus a van is because i spend so much time inside because i'm still working and that means you know if i'm working 10 12 14 hours a day and a van just didn't seem like it would make me happy i would feel claustrophobic being in a van you know so i like the windows i like the class i like the the room i like being able to get up and walk around i like the amenities but i also wanted something small enough to be able to go wherever i wanted to go so i've always been torn there's a part of me that would love i wish i was a van person but i'm not and getting something small enough to be able to go as many remote places as possible was extremely important to me so i wanted i went with a 29 foot class c the first time i downsized a year and a half later to a 24 foot and i love the 24 foot i i actually i'm even cleaning out now i even have more storage than i need now if i didn't have a dog i might be able to go smaller but the reason i went with a class c instead of a class a or a trailer i don't like something that you can pull for the sheer fact that i'm a woman alone and having a pod that's disconnected from a vehicle that i would be trapped in should something happen and you know not much has happened i've had a few kind of scary ish situations where i've had to leave but nothing like life-threatening but the idea of being stuck in a pod in the middle of a remote forest and being surrounded by crazies and being stuck is just something that sticks to in my mind so i like that i can go from cab to living space and vice versa you know without having to exit the vehicle and that was one of my main reasons for not going with a pull trailer and then i chose a class c over a class a because it looks more like a van it i did a little bit of reading and it seemed like they were easier to work on because it's just a ford e450 v10 chassis it's easier to get to things and so i thought maintenance and repairs would be easier and i thought it would be easier um it's built on a van classy so i thought it would be sturdier and i think maybe the reading that i did than a class a because it's actually a cargo van chassis and that just seemed more durable to me for the roads that i want to travel on so in a nutshell that's that's my reasoning very very good i've been doing it longer of course so i have a longer history my first vehicle i was forced into it because of the divorce and i had to keep working i worked at a job for six years after i bought i bought my first van and moved into it i worked in a town so i had to have a vehicle that had some stealth i was going to live in town for the long time and so i had to have stealth that was a major part of my initial decision i was absolutely broke i had 1500 in my total and i found my old beat up uh box fan for fifteen hundred dollars and i gave him the last penny i had in the world everything else was going to the lawyers um and to the xy and my kids and uh so there was just no choice i was gonna get into a van so i was into a box fan and uh of course i as i told this story many times initially i hated living in a van i felt like a failure and a loser but i soon fell in love with it and um very very deeply in love with it and have never regretted it and now plan to do it forever and i would say you'd say the exact same thing wouldn't you uh there's i can't there are days i have i've had a lot rough last couple days you can see i'm kind of bruised up and i got you know just rock stuck in my dually long story but two in a row and you know and i have not been feeling like a hundred percent myself and so i've had some moments the last couple of days where i'm like screw this i just you know i'm i'm gonna buy a piece of land and then i'm like and then what i'm i'd be bored in three days so definitely going back to my old life into a traditional sticks and bricks life absolutely out of the question i can't even imagine it it would be prison it would be deaf uh i think if i ever do anything uh other than rv life it would be like homesteading or something like that but yeah um i'm ready to get i i'm not i don't wanna say i'm not ready to give up yet because that sounds like i'm i'm thinking about it seriously but i as it's ups and downs that's yeah it has its ups and downs for sure so every day is not rosy every day is not easy and it seems that when stuff goes wrong it goes wrong in clumps and it can really wear you down but for the most part i love my life i i've just this yeah so the one thing we both tell you is we love it and wouldn't go back there are days when it has its uh downsides and problems just like life but that's why life always works wherever you are those are gonna you will have those days and i would say i have many you probably would say you had less of those days now than you did before i have i'm i'm where i want to be now right i think in a lot of ways physically emotionally psychologically i mean so there's just yeah yeah you know i don't i don't have to sit in a cubicle and look out the window and wish i was somewhere else i don't do actually yeah i've never i don't do that at all anymore um i never wish i was somewhere else because if i do i just get up and go right so yeah uh so i lived in that box van for six years and that was a big thing it was cheaper you can get into a van a whole lot cheaper than you can in rv that was a major part of my decision you can you can be in towns a much easier in a van than an rv and uh and then from a van i moved into a four-wheel drive pickup because i was in alaska this whole time and it's also insula it was very easily like it was very easy for me to insulate my box fan and be able to live in it in anchorage alaska when it was 30 below i could insulate it warm enough and heat it and be able to not only survive but thrive through an aladdin winter for one year i lived in a in a travel trailer uh in anchorage alaska the most miserable experience of my life i couldn't add any extra insulation i couldn't i tried really hard it was i most miserable experience in my whole life i would never ever do that again um so that was a big part of it uh you can adapt to the weather i think better in a van because you can add on extra insulation and then once i was done working and i retired i moved into a four wheel drive pickup and so i lived in a four-wheel drive pickup for three years it was much smaller than i was a box fan 12 foot by eight foot box from that to a pickup it had a 7 foot bed and a super cab and that was all the room i had to this day i regret moving out of that box in that that four wheel drive pickup in fact i am planning now and actively engaged in mental process of getting myself back into a four-wheel drive pickup so as much as i love living in a van i really want four-wheel drive and so from there i i did tow a cargo trailer about five six years i told a cargo trailer that i converted much more comfortable but i it was such a pain in the butt uh i put it in storage every summer i wasn't gonna drag that thing around it went in storage every summer and uh in the winter i accumulated too much stuff it was over full i i set up this huge elaborate outside camp and then i hated breaking camp i hated traveling anywhere so i found myself stuck in one place with a cargo trailer i got rid of it now it's just the van and my next step will be definitely be either a toyota tacoma which i don't think i can never fit inside a toyota tacoma it'll probably be a chevy chevy uh one ton truck with a camper shell not even a camper camper show so um in all of that i've never ever wished i was in an rv because i love the simplicity of what i'm doing um all of it comes down to this let's this is we'll have a little bit of a philosophical discussion i should have warned you this was coming it just popped in my little p brain uh to me it always comes down to this and i've said this many many times on videos freedom versus comfort yep and so i've got more freedom i can go many more places than you can it costs me probably half as much to operate it so i can drive more on the same amount of money so i've got a great deal more freedom but i don't no comparison in comfort right so for each person it always comes down to this comfort versus freedom and where you fall on that scale no right or wrong answer right there can't be a right or wrong answer that's a good point uh it's always comfort versus freedom and i think i'm ready now to give up more comfort to get more freedom in fact my ideal is a four-door jeep if i could i if i could i'd live in a four-door jeep and that's the ultimate in freedom or my friend suanne who lives in a prius because she gets 50 miles to the gallon and she can jump in that thing and drive across the country for a tenth of the price that i'm paying in gas so that's more freedom than i have except i can go a whole lot more places that she can go and i have more comfort than she has so it's all a trade-off there's no right or wrong one of my best friends is right now switching from a van to a mini car and you know she's decided that the the she doesn't need the comfort of the van she's going for the freedom of a car she'll get 37 miles to gown so uh your thoughts on that i think that's absolutely on point i think that that's a decision heart to heart come to jesus moment that everybody who is thinking about this lifestyle needs to uh think about i think once i think you told me this when i first started um nobody ever stays in the vehicle they started out in uh you either upsize or you downsize or you change vehicles all together and it's interesting because most of the nomads that i know i haven't met one person well yeah maybe i've met a couple of viewers who have upsized but mostly people downsize and uh i i that's that's definitely it for me and i had to weigh that freedom versus how much comfort how comfortable i want to be and that's something that you everybody has to determine for themselves i will say though that i'm not as limited in my rv as i thought i would be uh you know yeah i i've got some damage to my rig trying to go yeah trying to go i've been there seeing that you have trying to go places that you know that rvs don't normally go and that's okay i'm okay with that you know but um so i i but i i think when i first started out i thought that there would be my i thought that my boondocking spots my beautiful amazing boondocking spots with solitude i thought would be a lot harder to find than they are this spot right here for example one of my favorite spots i come here every year there's never anybody up here and it's not an easy road to come up an rv like mine can get up here i actually even think i first found it with matilda so even with my 29 foot for 29 foot rv and i will say as far as the comfort thing i think if i were retired if i wasn't working if i could just travel and hike and sit outside in the sun and read a book and you know cook my meals outside because i had the time because i wasn't working so much i definitely think uh something smaller maybe a demand would be more realistic and that's another thing to consider is is are you going to be working are you going to be working remotely how much time realistically are you going to be spending inside and again because i'm spending so much time inside i don't want to feel like i'm cooped up in a van with all the windows around me i still get the feeling that i'm living rv life even though i'm stuck inside so comfort the the comfort is really important to me the amenities uh because i eat mostly whole foods and mostly plant-based diet i really like having a refrigerator and a freezer i really like being able to cook on a stove in the oven in the winter so those things right now are still pretty important to me and that's all part of what makes me comfortable in life having some of the comforts of life yeah there's no there is never a wrong answer i need this much comfort that's there's never a wrong answer to that it's your answer and no one can possibly judge you and say yes or no to that and you know one of the things over the years i've emphasized how much i want to vance so i can go more places but i want to really back up what carolyn said people will write me and say well bob should i even bother with an rv go anywhere in an rv and what carolyn said is we've been together we've camped quite a bit together over the last four years or so and uh remember the one camp we went to and we had to we spent a couple hours filling in a goalie so you could get through it the van went right but uh we had to fill it we got rocks we filled it in with rocks because we got through it because i was dragging on the bottom right and you still did damage and i still that that's right that was the first damage to this rv it was out by blythe and taglios we went up there and he always lets me lead he's always like do you think you can make that i'm like oh yeah no problem you know and it's true i might be a little braver with bob with me because i know that i have somebody to pull me out and the longer i'm on the road i i realize the more i'm like yeah i don't think i need to push it i think i'm fine right here i've been stuck six seven eight times i've done damage i've been there done that you know it's it's although i did just ruin my step by running over a rock but so i'm not completely healed of all that so it's it is surprising and now you're in the 24 foot class c and so that's even better than the 29 yeah way better way better and so the smaller the rv the less restricted you are uh so i don't want to over emphasize that too much that and she carol is absolutely right you can go plenty of places to love boondocking in an rv and i don't want to i want to make sure i say that and don't i mislead people sometimes i want to go pretty far where even a drive van can't take me yeah so that's just a different story yeah but there's another thing i want to emphasize here and that is in the face of the rv if you're thinking about an rv yes you can boondock you can find gorgeous places and you can be alone absolutely but one of the things that i think you really have to consider is the overall cost of operating an rv versus operating a van so what i suggest to people is if you're in a van or a car suv you need a minimum of a three thousand dollar uh emergency fund but don't come out here unless you have that unless you just if it's that or live under the bridge in a cardboard box then yes come out here that's that's a better choice than a cardboard box um but if at all possible why because three thousand dollars will buy you a nice pretty nice brand new mini now brand new it'll be in early 2000's it'll have a hundred thousand miles on it but it'll be a good running minivan you can just throw the van out walk away and start over with a whole new van but when people ask me about rvs i say to double that don't don't buy an rv without double that because the operating costs of an rv are so much higher so now i've never owned an rv so maybe i'm wrong so what are what are your thoughts on the on an emergency fund and the operating costs of an rv you're absolutely right and i recommend always five thousand dollars and that's because in my first year in my lemon anybody who's watched me i named her matilda she was a lemon she was a piece she was oh man i don't i still had ptsd thinking about everything i went through with that stupid rig but uh within a couple months of owning it the transmission blew out so just to give you kind of a uh what could happen scenario transmission and it was old and rusted so i had the transmission work done i had some other things done while it was in there that needed to be done that was three thousand dollars let's say this didn't happen to me and that situation but in a later on let's say the next day your refrigerator goes that's another thousand dollars then let's say you need uh tires or brakes i can't get front or or back brakes done for under 800 so um what's it cost on yours to get brakes done couple hundred yeah three three four hundred probably it's never costed me under eight hundred dollars to get my front or my rear brakes done so you've got in a van you have only your mechanical the running of the van the vehicle maintenance in an rv you've got house and vehicle maintenance and especially when you're living like i do and taking the rv places that maybe it wasn't quite meant to go my refrigerator in this rv coming back from alaska i literally rattled it to death by driving the dalton highway up to the arctic ocean when it broke and i got it taken out they showed me the cooling system literally got shaken off of the refrigerator and bent in half and that's from all the shaking of driving on that road so it it it depends too i mean if you're one of those people who's super diligent about maintenance and you're just going to be driving it on the highway rv park to rv park your maintenance costs might not be quite as much as mine although you know stuff happens these things you say it all the time these things are built like crap they are although i will say my winnebago is way better than my jamboree my first one was a jamboree but this is an itasca uh spirit made by winnebago and this thing is way better than my first one and it's 2005 because i know some of you might be wondering and uh but yeah so you're driving your house on very rough remote places if in fact you do want to live like me and so yeah stuff breaks stuff breaks i don't worry about body damage i don't care about aesthetics i'm not out here to look pretty you know i don't really care that's that's that stuff is the vanity and the ego is what i left behind in my old life so it really is just about making sure everything runs well and it's kind of hard living on the rv so five thousand dollars at a minimum is what i would recommend and you have to always be prepared stuff breaks and some and it doesn't it never seems at least in my case and some other people it never seems to be just one thing it never seems to be just one thing so you can't say yeah okay well i've got a three thousand dollar emergency budget so the you know the most would ever cost me to replace one thing is three thousand dollars so i'm safe you just never know when three things are gonna go out at once right yeah so you really have to factor that in the operating cost of an rv uh is very much higher and you need a bigger emergency fund and you just got to be ready psychologically for what's going to happen okay i think you've seen me i think he's witnessed some of my breakdown like not not not mechanical breakdowns but breakdowns both uh you can tell stories there are stories we're going to tell i think some i'd really love to tell but i better not okay so we're going to answer some questions anything else we should cover before we go on that was it for pros and cons right did we do pros and cons uh well let's do that but that's good that's a good point uh i'll go because uh pros and cons well i don't have the comfort to say i'll go because it's my channel damn it yeah that's good enough uh of course i don't have the comfort that an rv has although you know what i don't miss it there i don't think there's there's nothing in the rv that i miss i would honestly say that hot water having running hot water is something i do miss i would never use the shower i would never use the toilet i uh yeah there's almost nothing in an rv that i miss and the ability and the plus of being able to go so much more places so much cheaper to me there's it's not even a debate i mean there's not even a question in my mind there are no there are no pros that i'm missing out on uh cons of course i don't have as much cover i don't have as much room um pros i got stealth i can go more places just to me all their it's all lopsided no they're no con well they're a lot of con they're cause living in a van but there's none that i would gain back by living in an rv so what are your pros and cons so i think first my pros would be space and i saw a question earlier uh somebody wanted to know if nomads care uh have a storage unit somewhere i don't i didn't want anything holding me down i so everything i own literally everything i own is in this rv and so that was important to me i didn't want to have storage and i do have a couple boxes of things that although i just cleaned out like yearbooks and wedding pictures and threw them all away i don't need anymore but there are still you know that's something for you to consider do you number one do you want to have a storage space and if you don't want to have a storage space do you need room to be able to carry i think every most people have sentimental stuff they want to keep that they don't want to throw away uh i know some people get rid of everything but some people don't so that's a consideration space uh the the uh pros uh the stove the oven the refrigerator the freezer i can go out and buy supplies i can buy groceries i can buy produce i can buy everything i need and come out here for two weeks with my refrigerator and my freezer and not have to move uh so the holding tanks that's another thing i've got 50 40 42 gallon fresh water tank and i've got i don't know more than that combined gray water i think 30 and 20 or 25 something like that or 40 but by gray water i always run out of water before i need to dump my tanks so with my um for what did i just say 42 gallons of fresh water again and this is conserving really conserving no showers and no extra water but i can go two weeks on 42 gallons of water and so that's a con for me that uh i can i can just go out for two weeks i'm sorry that's a pro that i can go out and sit for two weeks um the other pro is that uh i do have an air conditioner although it doesn't work but it works but my onboard generator doesn't work so if you have a class c with a working on board generator you can run your air conditioning while you're boondocking but because uh my generator doesn't work i can't but i also have heat i have a furnace i have heat that all runs on my solar i'd never have to plug in unless it gets into the teens at night then i have to go to an rv park and plug in so that i can turn on my tank heaters and uh let me see pros i like to be able to cook uh it's oh big huge one and i talk about this a lot because there's a lot big misconception that leaving my dog in my rv on a hot day is the same as leaving it in a van uh it was about 95 degrees outside the other day and what was i doing oh laundry and i was taking cd with me in and out and at one point she just got a little too excited and i put her in the rv and somebody gave me a dirty look i i had all the windows down and i had my fantastic fans on and it was 82 degrees in my rig even though it was like 95 degrees outside so an rv because it's all fiberglass it's not all metal if you have pets and you think like in hot weather you might need to leave them in there just to go grocery shopping an rv something that's built out of fiberglass is going to be a much better option for you with pets so that's another pro and again just having the space i like having the space being able to look out the windows when i work the cons like bob said they they usually cost more to get into and then they cost more to maintain and stealth i have you know let me see how do i say this i've been able to stealth camp i'm pretty good at going in san francisco bay area and finding places to stealth camp i mean of course you can see me i'm not very stealthy but unlike a van you can park a van just about anywhere and nobody's going to bother you although the solar on the roof is kind of a dead giveaway so i don't know that vans these days are as stealthy as you think they are the i mean i know i know cops probably know neighbors who who don't like this sort of thing in their neighborhood are probably the high top in the and the solar panels are dead giveaways so how stealthy really is that in san francisco i notice when i see these you know and so even in a class c rv i am able to find places to camp to camp overnight when i'm in more metropolitan areas so while stealth is a con i've been able to get by and another con um just yeah it's a it's a lot to maintain and it does some not with this rig this rig's been really good but with the first rig it was like i'd get one thing fixed and something else would break i'd get that fixed and something else would break and i'd get that fixed and there's just a lot more systems to maintain and manage and so it's just it's more work i think i think that's probably the biggest con is it's more work and more money yeah yeah i agree yep 15 minutes left okay well i don't feel that this question will be on it but i just discovered i think we should answer it uh if you're gonna buy an rv uh and and i think we both kind of agree most of them are not made very well they're really poorly made which kind do in your experience has been well made is there some you'd recommend i know you recommend lazydays yes so i'll say that i don't know anything about them and i've only had two rvs like i said and you also told me one of the reasons i went with a winnebago when i was shopping was because bob had told me winnebago and lazydays i also learned a lot from bob when i was starting out so and i still learn a lot from bob so winnebago for sure and can i say one more thing about that when you're when you're shopping for an rv don't fall into the same trap that i fell into i bought a 93 with low mileage bad bad bad bad bad it had like three owners they drove it once a year up to the lake so uh rvs cars need to be driven so that everything stays oiled everything stays greased everything keeps moving if if you buy something super old and it hasn't been driven in years things seize up things rust things break things crack that's not a good thing so getting an older vehicle with lower mileage it might be dirt cheap but that may not be a plan to probably put a lot of money into it right so i'll just throw out mine i do recommend winnebago i think winnebago is the sweet spot uh it's not super expensive but it's pretty darn well made and you would you would testify to that this rv is a palace compared to my jamboree it was i mean it's ten years newer but you can tell you can just tell inside how much better it's built you can feel it you can you know it's got a good acoustics to it it's it's insulated very well i don't know how many of you saw my blanket video i had to hang blankets on the windows for all the drafts and matilda i don't have to do that in this rv and for the most part and the ford uh e450 is better i had a 350 before and it's i've had fewer problems with that so overall definitely yes yeah so that's what i recommend winnebago brand names uh lazy days is superior to all others and also born free um born free is not i'm still in business the best of my knowledge but born free is a superior class as a superior are all class c's i don't know that but but born free is superior uh because they will all cost more a little more because they are a little better uh lazy days and born free will usually cost quite a bit more because they have such a an outstanding reputation so those are what i recommend for um for rvs if you're out looking for an rv you get what you pay for i firmly believe you get what you pay for yep so okay we better answer some questions okay uh carolyn's uh dorothy north says carolyn's videos had me convinced data class c on account of my space needs because i have four cats you know and that's something i'm hearing a lot people with lots of cats even frogs for cats we'll keep reading uh and two dogs i read it earlier but then i saw a few of bob's videos on the subject you got four cats two dogs probably would be much easier to drive a van which it is can four cats and two dogs live in a van with me i'm thinking to make shells for the cats um size of the dogs is all important that's a good point two small dogs you might be okay yeah i hadn't thought of that two big dogs four cats no no way no i'm sorry i wish i could i wish i could say yeah but two big dogs uh four cats no no no you know a 19 20 24 foot rv you would be a much better yeah no you'll be eating hair for breakfast for one thing hair balls oh yeah i had my last dog was homer and he was a big dog uh and i never regretted having one big mug but i had thought about what if i had two great big dogs and no i just it would be very very difficult and four cats yeah the honest answer is it'll be very hard penelope which vehicle is cheaper to live and travel in an rv or a van obviously i think a van i believe that within the next years or so there will be quite a few people without extra money who will have to hit the road because of the economy thank you both well my answer is that a uh a minivan is going to be about the cheapest thing that you can be the best balance of comfort and freedom and cost minivan wins to my mind and a van would be a a second and your thoughts same thing yeah we're talking about cost just you're broke and this is what you got to do we covered that yeah definitely you're broke get a van yeah there's another way to look at it uh and and i hear from people all the time they've got they found a 1500 rv they found a 3 000 rv what what's your advice to them i bought an 8 000 rv and dumped thousand dollars into it yep in a year and a half or was it ten i don't remember now ten thousand ten to fifteen thousand dollars in a year and a half so and then you walked away and then i walked away gave it away well didn't give it well maybe the trade-in was 800 i think was it 800 that's where 800. i had just put like 3 000 into it with brakes and tires and they would only give me 800 for the trade had a brand new transmission yeah don't run run for the hills don't buy cheap rv's you know i say that and i have a friend who bought a 3 000 rv and has lived in it for the last 10 years and it's been trouble-free okay so so if you are looking at a cheap rv get there are mobile rv inspection companies i think you can find them on things list and some of the rv traders take first take it to a mechanic to make sure it's mechanically good but you also need to get it checked by an rv person look for leaks look to see you know that all the systems are running correctly i mean if if you have the deal of a lifetime and you really think it was it was taken care of that's the key if you know the owner if you know who of the owner and you know that it was taken care of that's a totally different story but still if it's too if it sounds too good to be true but you're still tempted just do everything you can to get it inspected to before you take a leap otherwise you're gonna end up sta if you're broke you're going to end up stranded somewhere on the side of the road you're going to end up homeless you can't buy a decent uh full-size van for three grand you're gonna have lots of problems if you do you can buy a really nice three thousand dollar minivan i know it we do it for homes and wheels alliance all the time you can take it to a mechanic he'll have it checked out and he'll say this is in great shape you'll be happy with this and um and that is by far the best bang for your buck you're not getting the comfort and i'm not even a full-size van but man if that's all you've got don't throw away what little money you have yep uh jelts on the road says can either of you explain the difference between the different rv classes where did fifth wheels fall carolyn have you ever thought of downsizing to a van we know why bob wouldn't want to live in an rv what are your reasons to not want a van i think we kind of covered that but i'll um you have i have a video explaining the different classes of rv and you must also so do i i've got a whole playlist called if you're thinking about rv life start here and it goes through all the different class a class b schoolies buses everything so it's a playlist if you're thinking about rv start there and i think i've pretty much already answered this question but if you want to go deeper then go ahead and check out the playlist on my channel and check out some of bob's videos we'd have to show you a picture of all the different types i mean just trying to explain it to you is a waste of time so really we've gotta both have videos on it go check them out um and you answered already uh why what are your reasons to not want to live in a van yeah i covered that you covered that pretty well kathy stevens i have multiple animals i have to have a class c just for additional room yeah we kind of covered that too you you have a lot of animals you might have to have a a bigger rig uh roy lemur it sure is nice to have a shower and toilet and most of the comforts of home uh i don't miss them at all if i had i go home to my mom's every summer i have never taken a shower in her shower uh i never had i've never once now i do use your toilet i do use a running hot water but i've never used a shower i don't miss a shower at all the comfort of a shower is amazing but i can live without the comfort i have a shower i never use it but i do that's another reason i couldn't live in a van i am not a fan i like my toilet don't just put it that way i like my toilet and i use it regularly okay so he says it sure is nice to have a shower and toilet and most of the comfort is a home but a white van with some ladders on the roof can park virtually anywhere and is unlikely to be hassled i would say it depends on your intended usage yeah roy we agree 100 it's uh comfort versus freedom whichever one is important to you susan connor i currently have a sprinter van uh great fan but i'm wondering now what we are in this crisis if having a class c might be the better way to go would like your thoughts as to which might be the better option for the uncertain future you have any thoughts on that i do i uh so i've thought a lot about this i've i've actually joked on my channel that i might become a prepper i you know i actually think that this if crap hits the fan and things get crazy bad i actually think the most more remote you can go the stealthier you can go the less you can live with the better so if you're thinking about that if you're thinking in prepper terms apocalypse or whatever i actually think the simplest sorry about my puppy i think the simplest way i mean even if it's a backpack in a tent but i think the simplest way you can live in case of an emergency think about that what if gas starts getting rationed what if water starts getting rationed these are all the things that i have been thinking about lately and i wouldn't be able to maintain all my systems what would i do about propane so i think you're better off in a sprinter van or any van or a car should stuff hit the fan yeah i think i agree too for one thing sprinter is getting just always 22 miles to the gallon uh yes nothing beats a sprinter for miles per gallon uh 22 miles to the gallon versus 8 for an rv or 12 to 15 for a van yeah to my mind that's a compelling reason with an uncertain future uh that's a compelling reason being able to go into more remote places that's a compelling reason the extra room that you get in a sprinter over a van uh my even my standard chevy van you have a lot more room in this printer than i do of course the really long ones get a lot of room but even with the square sides you just have more room uh no i think if if your prepping is in your mind i don't know that you can beat a sprinter or a transit or a ram promaster that's i think that'd be one of my very first choices yep sounds like we're pretty much an agreement on that uh guy martin my guess is is the extra room worth the extra fuel usage it might be and for you it is the answer is simply yes i can afford it too you know i still work i still make money i'm not living on a fixed income i and i'm i'm young enough and i'm resourceful enough to know that no matter what happens i can pay for it that so i think that's an important consideration knowing you know i mean i always thought that if my current career fails i can i can always bartend or wait tables i've done that before so i've got backups to my backups so uh your budget is a big consideration i think on that one and there's learning potential something to consider here too is how easily you can tow an economy car with an rv and you never have and you probably never will but uh you could tow a jeep very easily you could tow a jeep or a prius with it with your van with a rig no problem i could too but it would be a problem and so maybe that's the best of all possible worlds i bet your gas mileage wouldn't go down hardly at all that's what i've heard that it really doesn't no and so you could have the prius to get your 50 miles to gallon or you could have your jeep or your uh samurai those are the big popular things i'm gonna have to go take care of that okay so you can uh so actually that's something really to give some thought to to to getting your class c and to either an economy car if you might want to travel more uh a toyota prius you have to put on on a trailer or or a uh uh suzuki samurai and then you get your total freedom in the backcountry so it's not in that sense uh a classy a class c might give you a really really good balance that you you can do it with a with a fan but i think it looks more sense with a uh an rv uh my guess is the extra room worth the extra fuel usage if comfort's most important to you then yes it is if it's comfort's not important to you then no it's not uh you each make we each make that decision for ourselves maximalist minibus hi maximalist minibus you know him i love the name her her oh it's a girl uh why are the operating costs of minorities so much higher i think for all the reasons we've already talked about repairs you got more to maintain and a bigger heavier vehicle so i think that's part of the reason like my brake jobs cost more it's a big heavy-duty vehicle i buy heavy-duty tires and then you've got all the internal house so you're maintaining a house and a vehicle but uh yeah i don't know a lot of my viewers think that i get ripped off every time i pay 800 for a break job or i recently had a fuel pump replaced that cost 800 or 900 a lot of people think i get ripped off because of a woman i shop around i don't think i get ripped off but i don't know if you know a mechanic or if you're able to get better deals than i do then it wouldn't cost you as much but apparently i'm pretty gullible i don't know let me give you an example of what really what you're saying take a half ton pickup ford chevy whatever uh and and do a brake job and look at the parts on the half-ton pickup and then do the same brake job on a border chevy the same brand and look at the parts that are in a one ton the parts are massively bigger and heavier that's it's a bigger heavier stouter more expensive piece of gear so and now you're in a 450 which is even a step above that and so no it's going to cost more to do any regular maintenance yeah on on a rv than uh any van and if you have a half ton van it'll be drastically more so a one ton van they should be about the same but they'll be more more expensive than a uh i meant to say a one-ton ban should be about the same as an e3 e350 uh either as a van or an rv should be about same but um and a lot of it is specialized so there are a million e350s on the road but an rv with its specialized chassis there aren't a million of them so they're going to cost more all the way around uh they're just more and of course you're getting you get eight miles to the gallon yep you're getting eight miles to the gallon i on my my 2015 uh gmc savannah i have a computer and it keeps track of every mile i've driven they do them automatically i didn't do this and i have averaged 14.9 every mile the van's been driven and i've hit 20. i have at times actually gotten 20 miles to gallon uh that was everything was perfect but i've averaged 15 and so no it's just going to cost a lot more to operate bigger heavier vehicle uh annie kerr how many five annie caravallo i have a question for carolyn when she is taking them do you travel north and south with the sun and if yes how far do you go and what are your costs stay what was the first you travel north and south with the sun great and gold um i do well okay sort of that's kind of half true i spend the winters in the south in the southwest mostly i might do southeast next year but mostly because that's really the only place you can go to escape the cold but when you're talking about escaping heat and we talked about this on the webinar it's more about elevation than it is north or south you can have 100 degrees in montana but if you go to 7 000 feet you're gonna drop 21 degrees for every uh for every thousand feet you climb you lose three degrees it's going to be three degrees cooler so i really plan my summers on avoiding anything above 90 degrees but i'm mostly looking at elevation where can i go in the mountains to get up and that's you know where i'm at right now i had to escape the heat in the desert and so i'm pretty high up and uh yeah what was the rest of the question so that's the it's about chasing chasing the sun or the heat how far do you go and what are your costs my costs are gas at eight you know i'll let you do the math at eight miles to the gallon and i go i go just as far as i wanna go i mean i don't know the nice thing about this lifestyle is i can say this summer i want to go to montana and i can take two months to get there if i want to you know find a nice spot stay there for two weeks and when i went to alaska i got hit with taxes and something else happened right as i was about to start my trip so it depleted my bank account a little bit so i didn't get to i took i don't know three weeks to get to alaska because i had to travel according to my budget so that's always something that you can do if you're out of money you can just sit in one spot until your paycheck comes and then you can move again that's kind of how a lot of people do it okay uh which is better on resale value and i don't think i know the answer to this which is better on resale value a converted van or a class c in general i'm not sure i know the answer to that uh well you could probably get back mostly you do some body damage but if a normal person normal person uh didn't do body damage you could probably sell it for what you got into it don't you think you'll hold value value and hold up i don't know how many more miles have you put on since then twenty thousand about fifty fifty thousand in a year and a half two two uh well that that would definitely drop the value okay 40 000 i'm at 97 i'm at about 90. so about 40 000 yeah um yeah i don't know you know i will you know what i so what i'm noticing from my viewers i'm hearing i paid 14 000 for this it's a 2005 class c i paid 14 000 in new mexico and i'm hearing a lot of people say how the heck did you do that i'm not seeing anything that cheap what i'm seeing is that this lifestyle is becoming more popular so the price of everything is going up so yeah right i might be able to get 14 15 000 maybe even more out of this because the supply um is lower than the demand and the same with converted vans as this lifestyle becomes more popular i think that they're gonna they're gonna increase in value which of course you know vehicles don't usually do right a good a good full-size van is outrageously expensive you could use one and uh so yeah i think the van is actually maybe holding value or even gaining if you if you do the build you do a nice build reasonably inexpensive do it yourself yeah you might could actually gain and go up in value yeah i wouldn't be surprised and not very long i have a friend who's selling a van right now and uh she's not getting all her money back but i think she's getting most of her money back and uh she had to put quite a bit of money and more in the van than she thought she would have to just don't do trade-in uh is it easier to boondock in a client in a van or class c does a van ever feel like a home or feel just like camping that's a good question all right um so is it easier to boondock we'll break it down into two is it easier to boondock into the banner class c we answered that yeah uh it's easier to go more places um oh i would say in a van but uh you'll be more comfortable once you get there i didn't think about it that way and but we did talk about that i didn't think about the boondocking i was thinking about the getting there but yeah i'm like i said 42 gallon of water on board uh black tank gray tank never get full i never have to worry about that and i've got a refrigerator so i can keep all my food and everything for two weeks so in that respect of boondocking i i think i'm i'm i don't know how a van person would can you stay two weeks in one spot without moving yeah yeah so well i don't use much water yeah so you're you need all that water but you just need pepsi i just need pepsi uh and you don't need vegetables so no never touched the things unless they're in a can [Laughter] or the lattice on your big mac yeah uh does it now here there's a question i'll answer does a van ever feel like home or feel just like camping i like that question it is a good question my my man feels like home um and um it almost seems pejorative meaning uh negative well just going camping yeah it feels like i'm going camping i mean that's how i would respond yeah i get to go and i've when i was a campground host i was counting on house for four years and i'd have people tell me that all the time how much they wish they could do what i was doing i get you get to go camping all the time that's what i love to do so i don't think of it as a negative that i it feels like going camping to me that feels like really good yeah i i i go to my mom's in about a month i'll be at my mom's and i'll spend most of summer in and out of my mom's house i despise the feeling of a home i despise the feeling of living in a building yeah uh so uh and i guess that didn't happen overnight although i think it kind of did um it yeah it doesn't feel like going camping to me it feels like the best life i could possibly have living in a van can i say something about that real quick i know i'll make it quick because i know that we're over but it's interesting that this question came and i love it so much because i've recently been thinking you kind of articulated it in a way that i wasn't able to articulate but i'm having regrets about my class c for that very reason you were i couldn't put my finger on it i don't feel like i'm camping i feel like i'm in a home and it's not that much different than my sticks and bricks except that it moves and i can go to different places and things like that but i have so many of the amenities at home and that's it exactly that's what i'm missing so that might be something we're thinking about i'm missing the feeling of being camping and uh so i like that question it's a really good thought-provoking question for a lot of people also to consider do you want to feel like you're at home out here or do you want to feel like you're camping do you want to take an apartment and that might be another way to look at this whole question you're still living in an apartment it's just on wheels and you're taking it around with you yeah exactly i didn't want that i do not want that right right and i'm kind of regretting having that to be honest with you i'm kind of regretting that i can't be more like i want i want to live in a van i want to want to live in a van so yeah but i lived in a camper van for i traveled in a camper van in new zealand for eight or nine days and i was just like yeah i can't wait to get back to my rv this is too small so one of the things i've said uh for a very long time is i come out here to connect to nature and i know you came out here to connect to nature and if you take an apartment around a home or an apartment has the exact opposite purpose the purpose of a home or apartment is to get you as far away from nature as you possibly can hard walls hard windows hard seals everywhere nature's out there yes i'm in here and i hate that maybe that's why i hate living in a house so much i want to be connected to nature you know what when it gets cold i can feel the cold coming in my van when the wind blows well you can too yeah enough yeah uh my van shakes yeah oh yeah i remember when i left anchorage in my box truck in the winter almost every day i had ravens clickety clacking around on my roof and i don't know why i painted it white so maybe they liked the white maybe it was warmer i don't know i love the sound of ra raven's clickety clacking on my roof i love the sound of the rain beating on my own you get that i get all that too and the birds yeah yeah yeah uh and the chipmunks on my screen i live in a van because i want to connect to nature look around us well you can't see us right now you just see your class c but i spun around earlier we're one of the most beautiful places i've ever been this is what i want and i don't want to be in a home that i put on wheels and drag around every with me yeah i hate to feel that yeah uh but maybe you'll love it and that's not a judgment i hate it you love it go for it um okay that's a good place to end it it is a good place to end i thought that was a good point yeah we better stop we've gone we're a little over now all right well carolyn thank you no more now we're hugging no no spiritual hug social distancing hug uh thank you for having me thank you this is always fun yeah we uh i think we um offset each other really well and uh in a very positive way too we spend a lot of time together out here and so i i spend a lot of time in your rig sitting in your rig with you and talking because that's a good reason to have a class c because your people your friends want to go sit inside with you and your class c they don't want to come inside the side bike band it's true if you want to entertain if you're a social person it's a huge advantage being in a class or disadvantage depends on right depending on how you look at it oh sure i'd invite you in but there's just no room it's a mess yeah yeah so it's a plus and a minus yeah everything is everything is a plus and minus a trade-off you set your priorities and you make sure you get them yep and remember you can always change your mind later nothing no that's nothing is permanent nothing except tattoos and even those aren't permanent but nothing's permanent yep okay folks thanks so much for uh watching i'm i hope you got something out of this some different thoughts uh if you did like us on youtube subscribe to the channel hit that thumbs up button and we'll talk to you on the next video oh too late i'll turn on the bubbles bubbles oh bubbles are my thing how do you get bubbles you want to dance no we could kind of pretend to dance no uh that a youtube thing it is yeah this is a youtube thing see i got bubbles going how the heck did i not see that on you there you go yeah they're there there's always one bye i'll dance to the bubbles [Laughter] okay see y'all later yeah girl my first uh my first live feed i turned around bubbles accidentally they wanted to do it i want it's a little button right there look at that i don't have all those oh you mada you must

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 108,491

Keywords: live, living, car, van, RV, Full-time, nomad, gypsy, camper, camp, boondock, travel, snowbird, caravan, tiny, house, tribe, RTR, adventure

Id: jjxnTWkB6pk

Length: 66min 54sec (4014 seconds)

Published: Wed May 06 2020