How-to - The Dog Is Driving

Winterizing our 2019 Travato 59K

This is a write-up of what I did to winterize our Travato. I'm explicitly talking about our specific rig, a 2019 Winnebago Travato 59K class B van. I may have left something out, or I may have screwed up something — but hopefully this helps someone, at the very least it'll

Dogs

Pet Loss on the Road

If you're reading this, you are likely an animal lover and have either experienced pet loss before or know that it's an unavoidable consequence of sharing our lives with these wonderful beings. Before full-time RV life, Tommi and I both had experienced the death of a pet, so this unfortunately

Dogs

Keeping Track of Traveling Pets: Whistle 3 Review

Why a GPS tracker?Lily is a good girl, but when she sees critters that we've labeled "chippies" (chipmunks, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, etc.) she draws the line and crosses into... naughty dog territory. Irresistible!The longest we've lost Lily was for about 10 minutes in the woods while in

Modifications, Improvements & Upgrades

How to "Ikea Hack" Your Dog's Crate

Anyone who travels in an RV with a pet crate knows how much valuable floor space they can occupy. In this post we'll cover how we "Ikea hacked" our dog kennel to make it a useful part of our living space. Our dog Lily Goodgirl is named that for a

How-to

Fulltime RV Repairs with Dogs

Since becoming fulltime RVers in 2016, we've had several instances where we've needed to leave our motorhome at a service shop for either a few hours, or a few days. Some of these were for planned maintenance, while others were unexpected repairs. Having dogs doesn't make this scenario any easier,

How-to

How Our Blind Dog Navigated RV Life

This is a story of how our previous dog Stimpy, a runt-of-the-litter chihuahua mix rescue, adjusted to life as a blind dog, how he remained an active adventure dog, moved to an RV, and spent his retirement days traveling with us around the country. How we found out Stimpy was

How-to

Flexible standing desk in an RV

Here’s how I set up a modular standing desk for Ane in our RV. It also doubles as a laptop stand when sitting (for neck relief), and stows in a small space. Before this, Ane was working long days seated at our dinette. The dinette has regular chairs (not

How-to

Fulltime RVer healthcare in 2019

The coming new year brings new healthcare legislation with it, the biggest change being that the ACA individual mandate a.k.a. non-insured tax penalty is going away. Because of this, we're making some radical changes in our health insurance for 2019. One of the biggest frustrations for us about

Dogs

The Kibble Conundrum

When you have medium to large dogs, keeping your RV stocked with enough — but not too much — pet food can be harder than you think. Not enough, and you're running out to a local store only to find they don't carry your pet's "normal" food. Too much, and

Dogs

Adopting a Dog While Full-time RVing

We can't imagine RVing without dogs. They make life so great, and let's face it, one of the main reasons we wanted to full-time RV was so that our dogs could go on awesome adventures with us! This month, we're celebrating the first adoptiversary of Mushy (formerly Marshmallow), who was

Dogs

How-to: Teach your dog to wait at the RV door

Arriving at a new campsite is exciting. It’s likely even more exciting for your dog. But dashing out of the motorhome or tow vehicle door to smell all the new things is not only impolite toward your new neighbors, it can be very dangerous — what if you had to

Boondocking

Rodents of Usually Small Size

We’ve had more experiences with rodents since becoming fulltime RVers than we ever had in a sticks and bricks home. It’s kind of inevitable. Meet an RVer who boondocks and says they’ve never had a mouse problem and I’ll tell you they’re either lying or

Dogs

Getting your pets RV ready

We are guardians of two amazing rescue dogs, Stimpy and Lily. Stimpy is an 11-ish year old blind chihuahua mix with an adorable overbite and a grumpy old man attitude. Lily is a 3.5 year old mama dog who is a big lover and considers Stimpy her grumpy puppy.

Mapping

Avoiding the CA Grapevine

Being fairly new to this whole driving a 31,000 lbs beastly bus thing, and being fairly new to the controls of our specific 31,000 lbs beast, we wanted to avoid the long steep climbs and downhills of "The Grapevine", a section of I-5 to the north