RV Navigator

Your RV Navigators want to wish all of our listeners a very merry Christmas and a prosperous new year. For your favorite RVer, we’ve included some gift suggestions in case your still shopping. This month has been a busy one for us, as we travel to Churchill, Manitoba to see the polar bears in their nature environment. This was not an RV trip as we traveled by plane 1300 miles North to Hudson Bay, home to the Polar bears. Viewing is done in tundra rovers. These are large bus like vehicle that are designed for rough terrain with huge wheels and special suspension/engine. We were luck to get within feet of the bears for some great photos. This was a 6 day adventure so we were back home in IL before we knew it ready to head back to FL for a couple of weeks. Now after TG we are once again back up north ready too enjoy the holiday season in snow.

We’ve been on the road 85 days for the round trip to Alaska, but finally we returned home without incident. The final leg of the trip allowed us to visit Jasper and Banff for 6 days before making the final push to Chicago. This month we had a final exit interview with Chris and Jean from an earlier episode as they share their impressions of the trip.

We’ve ended up back in Dawson Creek where we started the RV caravan 63 days ago. After a brief introduction by your RV Navigators, we invite fellow caravaners to join in the debriefing. This is the same group that shared their hopes for the trip 2 months ago. See what they think about this buck list destination in this months episode. **The episode webpage will be slow in appearing this month due to some technical issues with the web site, sorry.

At this midpoint in our Alaska caravan, we draw on the experiences of our fellow travelers to broaden the Alaska perspective. We are joined in interviews with Chris & Jean and Kevin and Jennifer to gain their insights into Alaska caravanning. As one of our guest commented, we’ve all ODed on beauty. Alaska is lived up to expectations with many stunning experiences for all in our group.

Alaska 25 is this months adventure. We begin our 2 month long caravan to the 50th state. After driving over 2000 miles we are at the beginning of the Alaska highway that is the gateway to Alaska. The podcast will change a bit for the next couple of months as we try to give listeners a picture of the Alaska experience. This is a bucket list trip for many so we are encompassing as many viewpoints as we can to give a accurate picture of the sight and sounds of Alaska. Joins us and our companions as we describe this travel adventure

As we plan for our upcoming 3 month long motorhome trip to Alaska and back, we thought that it might be helpful to share some of our planning ideas. We have done several extended trips over the years, so the planning has become second nature, but many listeners may be contemplating such a trip, so here are some of our tips and tricks for making the trip go smoothly. We will be taking you with us as we travel the 10,000 miles r/t to Alaska. Martha will be blogging daily as we make the journey. Her blog can be found at mytripjournal.com/wiseman63. You can also look back at all of our recent trips both RV, ocean and lan

Ending our April cruise in Maui (Hawaii), we headed home to Chicago for the duration of the spring. We did take a short flight to Orlando to close on our new (to us) house at the Great Outdoors (TGO) that will be our winter home starting in 2026. This house has a nice RV port which will give our aging MH a covered parking space during the off months. We chat about many RVing topics as our attention turns to RVing in the summer. Cooling your RV and fridge topics as well as the latest tech issues are discussed in this episode.

This month finds us sail the warm waters of the South Pacific around Tahiti. We share our many impressions of this area and compare it to our next destination, Hawaii. Many assume that Tahiti and Hawaii are similar destinations but in fact they are significantly different. Hear our impressions and suggestions for Polynesian travel. Of course RVing is always on our minds, so we share new websites, articles and topic of interest from the RVing world.. Project Kuiper (Amazon) is about to launch a competitor to Starlink thus offering world wide internet via portable satellite receivers. Tune in for our take on these interesting topics.

We never intended to buy a house in FL, but this month we ended up with a new home for the motorhome at our RV resort in Titusville, FL. We explain the decision and details in this month’s episode as move ahead on buying this new abode in FL. The sale is not final until mid-May, so we headed North to Chicago just in time to leave on our next adventure, a cruise in Tahiti and Hawaii. The weather being what it is, the MH needed to be winterized while it sits in the cold in Chicago., We’ll not be taking it to its new home until November (2025) due to our upcoming Alaska adventure which starts in July.

Just another month stuck in FL -LOL. Your RV Navigators have had several interesting RV projects in the works from getting new RV insurance to looking a new hot skin devices for RVs to speculating about the staff cuts at National Parks. What does the new T-Mobile Starlink direct to cell service mean for the average cell user? These an many other topics are covered in this months episode. Join us and then make a comment.

Lots of RV activity for us this month. As with many of you, we had to hunker down early in the month due to extensive cold and snow in many parts of the country - including FL. Titusville was spared frozen precipitation, but it was cold. Our nearly annual trip to the Tampa RV Super show was a management disaster, but a display success. We explain this in full on the podcast. We managed to buy a few things at the vendor area, including a new Starlink Gen3 antenna (is it a dish, antenna or table?). I waited 3 days for it to be delivered from Starlink. Set-up was very easy and I had it working within minutes. We customized the installation as we explain in the episode. Beyond this we headed to Sebring FL for a refurbishment of 2 of our fogged windows. The end of the month brought us to Jetty park to watch others cruise from Port Canaveral. This campground has a great view of the ships entering and leaving on the weekly cruises to all parts of the caribbean.

After a busy fall, we spent the month at our home base near Chicago. As you know we don't enjoy the cold, so after the Christmas holidays we once again headed south for most of the winter. We rang in the New Year in our motorhome in FL with a NYE ball drop party from 7-9 pm - it is after all midnight somewhere! January will find us at the Tampa RV Supershow. If you have a chance to attend, it is one of the best RV shows in the country. However this year has brought some major changes so well if that is true going forward. In this episode we share some ideas about cruising (our second love) as well as the latest about the new MH sales ban in CA as well as a Thor large EV motorhome which may answer the question about alternatives. Our experience has taught us some must have items as well as essential techniques for a successful RV trip. We shared these tips and open a bottle of the bubbly during this annual party episode. Have a happy new year as you travel in your RV to all parts of the country.

This month finds us at sea for the entire month. Sail the med and ending in Fort Lauderdale, we skip the long transatlantic flight for 9 days of sailing the open ocean. If have the time, it is very relaxing trip. We want to wish al our listeners a great holiday season as we look forward to the new year. We’ve attached some RV gift lists for your consideration. We wonder if the almost total band on new MH sales in CA will take effect in 2025. CA pllus 5 other states have put strick pollution standards in place that will prohibit most motorized RVs from being sold in those states. Obviously RV dealers will be out of business if they cannot sell their products legally.

Finally back on the road in the RV, we travel to FL on a round about itinerary that included stops in Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina and Georgia before our final stop in Titusville, FL. September is a great weather month in these northerly states so we took advantage of fall (before the colors) to slowly drive south. A major stop along the way was in Gaffney. Not a tourist stop but an important MH stop for this is the home of Freightliner - the maker of our chassis. We found the important of letting the pros work on the MH as they performed our annual check-up and found several major problems - and solved them before they became issues. Expensive, yes, but worth it if it keeps from being stranded on the side of the road. We are getting ready for our Alaska adventure next summer so reliability of our Rig is very much on our mind. With a 12 year old MH, we never know what will go wrong, so we try to do as much preventative maintenance as possible. Florida proved to be its usual hot an humid with a hurricane thrown in for good measure. Our area was not impacted by the storm so we are feeling lucky this year. This months episode features a new cooking segment done by the copilot. She shares some ideas for maximizing the kitchen space in an RV.

“According to Nielsen's recent podcast analysis, the number of Americans listening to podcasts has increased by 45% in the last five years alone - more than doubling in the past decade to reach 183m people.” https://content.nielsen.com/PodcastingToday Your RV Navigators are waiting for the money to come knocking, but even though we have been podcasting for 18 continuous years, alas we have not been offered the big bucks mentioned in the article above. We continue because we love our listeners and enjoy the feedback, but we make no money. We remain non-commercial and ad free.

This month's big project was upgrading our battery bank to lithium batteries. We added about 1000 amps of battery power to our rig in the conversion process. After a couple of days for the install, we headed to annual Indiana Dunes mid summer trip. New this month is the Starlink mini as a standalone unit.

As most of our listeners know, we’ve traveled most of the US (and Canada) in our RV. We have been to New England, NE Canada on several RV trips. Always enjoyable. Our current adventure is via cruise ship with an itinerary from NYC north through the St. Lawrence to Quebec. Approaching this itinerary from the water side proved to be a different experience. After this topic, we discuss several RV issues including new happenings with Starlink, and a follow up on the Tesla pickup for RV towing.

It is officially summer and the camping season has begun - but we'll let the family RVers have first dibs on the campgrounds. We'll be home for most of the summer. On our way home at the beginning of the month, we stopped to get our sofa recovered. The original factory fabric had peeled over the past few months, so we had it replaced - now it looks like new. But of course the real question is why did it peel. Cheap fabric from the factory. We learned that the key word is Ultra Leather when looking for quality long lasting fabric. The dri e This month we share many RV topics of interest as well as what's new with Starlink and other on the road internet services. How about a softstart that installs externally? What's new at Loves?

On the road this month on a 2400 mile trip north over 2 weeks. We visited some bucket list and out of the way destinations such as Crater of Diamonds State Park and Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Arkansas. These plus a couple of old favorite camping spots kept us busy for the month. Of course, the month started with a 5 night family cruise (with 22 participants) cruise aboard the Independence of the Seas sailing from Miami. We had a great time even though the ship was at capacity (4500) and packed with under 1440 under 18 year olds. This reminded us that different ships have very different vibes, so cruisers should choose their ship carefully. We drove back to our Florida headquarters (TGO), prepared the MH for the trip home and left on a longer than normal trip north. We spent time at Gulf State park as well as the aforementioned buck list stops. This month we share ideas about internet on the road as well as a couple of products that you may find useful.

Another month of cruising. This time we are sailing up the coast of Brasil to do a full transit of the Amazon. This river is huge and worth the week we spent traveling to Manaus and back out to the Caribbean. The Amazon is a complete eco system unto itself with Manaus as the hub. A city of 2.5 million at the end of 1500 miles of river made viable by tax incentives for businesses to manufacture in the city. Our 27 day cruise started in Rio and ended in Miami after a few additional stops in the Caribbean. This cruise was on a small ship with luxury amenities. How does this compare to the many mass market cruises and what are the options if you are not seeking a family cruise. This topic and many more are on our agenda this episode. We’ve added a transcript feature to the podcast, With this you can search our commentary for topics of interest.