Nope! Wrong. My Response to the Bob Wells/CBS Sunday Morning Nomad Interview

[Music] hey everybody its Robin with creativity RV and today I'm going to talk to you about something that got me a little fired up a few weeks ago and that is the interview that Bob Wells did on CBS Sunday morning about nomadic life now bob was great love Bob and you guys know that he's the one that encouraged me to go out on YouTube I actually interviewed him for my blog prior to me being on YouTube and I got to know him really well on his story really well and I watched that video and I'm going to show you some clips of it here in a minute and tell you why I think it was just wrong wrong wrong wrong for people that are looking at full time RV travelers or nomads or whatever you want to call yourselves if you're looking at those people are you want to be one of those people or you are one of those people some of the messaging that gets out there I find a little bit troubling so I watched that interview and some of it has some good points but it just didn't wrap it up and explain this life in the way that I think it should be explained at least for the vast majority of us that are on the road now you guys know that I wrote a book called be a nomad change our life the ultimate guide to living full-time and a van or RV I live on the road myself full-time and I've also been working on a book for the last two years that is just interviews with nomads so I have been interviewing all kinds of nomads young old single couple every kind of race and orientation and rig and style of camping you can imagine and so I feel like I have a really wide perspective on who's out there on the road so let me tell you first of all some stats about people on the road and then tell you why I think that that show and some of the other things I've been seen in the media are really missing the boat and I feel like I kind of have to be a voice for the I don't know average nomad that's out here because people are not seeing us and if they don't see us then all they can rely on is the other things they see in the media or maybe on a street corner so let me tell you what I'm talking about here let's look at some clips from the actual video in the beginning of the video they interview a great family who lives in a school II and they said something right in the beginning that I was like yes this is going to be a great interview because they said living in a school II was a choice not a consequence I thought great they're going to explain that not everybody on the road has to be on the road that for a lot of us it's a positive choice and then they went to Bob who looked great and said great stuff and did a great job but this is the way that they framed Bob they said that he was the archetypal loser who lives in a van down by the river and then the guy that was actually the host of the episode tried to stay overnight in a van and he said the first thing he wanted was a shower and that what people wanted to know was where you poop and that van life was not for him and it's not for everybody but do you see the way that they were framing it in juxtaposition to Bob they showed a bunch of gorgeous like Instagram people the hell-like music studios and their fans you know the gorgeous ones with the floppy hats and like the solar lanterns outside and everything was perfect and it was like there was the beautiful Instagram people and there was the guy in the van down by the river and you guys they completely totally 100% missed the boat and this is where they were wrong according to the RV I a which is the RV industry association there are a million people living full-time in their RVs that is self-reported so I think there's a whole bunch more I mean nobody's ever asked me if I live full-time in an RV and the fastest-growing segment of people choosing to live full-time on the road are middle-aged women so you can look up those stats go talk to any dealer who's selling rvs and they'll say they're shocked at how many people come in that are women I go out into beautiful national forest areas like this and the vast majority of people I see are women like I said people only know what they're exposed to so people that don't about this life and I was one of them think that people that live in RVs are either retirees you know with a bunch of money or aren't working or they are people that have to live in an RV because they have a substance abuse problem or a mental illness and you know you see these pictures of urban blight where you know there's rows of RVs parked on streets that don't move or in Walmart parking lots and because this is what people see they think that that's all of us and I'm here to tell you that's not all of us according to the CEO of outdoorsy who is just on Bloomberg RV travellers contribute a hundred and thirty billion dollars into local communities every year and let me tell you how that happens I'm out here in this little pocket of national forests in Oregon I'm near some cities I'm near some towns so what happens is I travel through these little towns I get gas I get groceries I dump my tanks maybe I go spend five dollars at a little Historical Museum where they're locals are not coming in to support that local museum or gift shop or restaurant as much as these travelers are a lot of these small communities competing with big box communities are relying on the RV traveler so I come through I spin my money I come and I camp in these beautiful places I pay taxes I have an employee I pick up after myself and I am not the only one there's a million of us out here and sometimes I find that we're fighting against this stigma that we all have some problem out here for example in that CBS this morning interview they wrapped it up literally they finished the entire tone of the video by saying it's a story of desperation and that Bob is chipping away at the model of America that exists today here's what really bugs me about the mischaracterization of people that live on the road it's not that our lives were crushed somehow and we have to choose to live a smaller life in an RV for me my life is bigger and broader and way more fulfilling than it ever was when I was in a house and that is thanks to technology in large part because I'm working like I am with you right now you guys know that you know I'm a writer and a blogger and a youtuber and a painter and I can do that all from the road thanks to the Internet this is something that we didn't have ten years ago public lands like the ones that were behind me were always available for camping we weren't able to go through these communities and help contribute to them financially and stay in touch with each other and stay safe until just the last few years and so to me this is a very exciting time to be on the road and I look at my RV as another housing option it doesn't have to be forever and it might be because I love it that much and I literally look at all the places I can go and I get sad because I'm 50 and I might have another 40 years I hope that I can go out and see things or if I love a place then I want to go back every year but then I don't get to see other things and those are the stresses that I have I mean think about this think about your neighbor you know you see her in the hallway of your apartment building and you guys hit the elevator about the same time and you see her luck in her door and she's got a bagel in her hand and you know her briefcase or whatever and she's trying to make a phone call or do something with the kids or you know whatever it is and you guys wave at each other and that's it then imagine that you come out of your door one day and your neighbor is coming out of her door and she's got her bagel in her hand but when you look in the door she's packing up to go and you ask her what she's doing and she says oh I'm leaving to live in an RV and you think oh god if she couldn't afford her apartment she lost her job and when you talk to her you find out she still got the same job she just works remotely now and she's not giving up her house because she can't afford it she's choosing an RV as an alternate type of housing because she can and that's where they got it wrong and look I know I'm gonna get a lot of comments from people out there that say nomadic people don't want to work they're lazy they don't contribute they live off society you're a bum you guys can think that if you want to I'm here to tell you that there are a million of us who are regular members of a society and look the full-time community is full of all kinds of people with all kinds of lives and problems just like any other community so yes are there people in crisis there are are they're introverts yes are there extroverts yes are there people who struggle to get by yes other entrepreneurs definitely for me and for a lot of us living on the road expands our options and it allows us to live a more fulfilling rich life than we would have had we just stated an apartment and watch TV at night and watch the world go by that's what I wanted to let you guys know respect for all the people that were in that interview including Bob wells Bob I love you and I just wanted to give my two cents on the topic because I feel like my demographic of nomads out there is not being represented and that's what I wanted to say [Music]

Channel: Creativity RV

Views: 373,508

Rating: 4.8394918 out of 5

Keywords: cbs this morning, bob wells, full time rv living, how to live in an rv, rv life, van dwellers, campervans, urban blythe, broke rv, homeless, nomad, digital nomad, solo female rv, cheap rv living, rv bob, rv bob cbs interview, cbs sunday interview, cbs bob, rvia, housing options, affordable housing, full time trAVEL, national forest, small town economies

Id: 5PJl9fU33W8

Length: 10min 12sec (612 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 19 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/lennyflank]

A couple years ago, right after my book came out, I was contacted by someone from CNN's website who wanted to do a story of "people who live in Walmart lots" and wanted to interview me. Within seconds, it became apparent that I was not really the story they wanted. I'm a middle-aged fairly well-off dude who van-dwells because it is the most flexible and most interesting way to see the country. They were looking for a poor down-and-out pitiable victim of the housing crisis. They never ran any story.

A short time after that, I was contacted by a TV production company who wanted to talk about doing a series. I told them that my van-life simply isn't that exciting. I get up, I wash up in the sink, I go sightsee someplace, I go home to the van, I cook dinner, I read in bed, I go to sleep, and once a month or so I move to a different city. No conflict, no drama, no excitement--it's actually pretty dull and boring, unless they planned to create some TV drama artificially by setting up conflicts with the neighbors or cops or whoever. I told them it might be interesting as straight-up "travel" show, but even then, I wasn't all that excited to have a film crew following me around everywhere and setting my schedule and destinations for me. They never responded back to me.

I do of course understand that we voluntarily dwellers are completely outside most people's experience, and so they often have trouble understanding that we live this way by choice because they never see anything like it in their lives. But it sure doesn't strike me as being THAT hard to grasp ...... Heck, there have been wanderers on wheels ever since there have been wheels.

I am not a homeless person. I don't need any help, and I don't need any pity. I could have a sticks-and-bricks home tomorrow afternoon if I wanted one--I simply do not want one, and I am entirely happy the way I am. All I need is a safe place where I can park at night, and then move on.