Live Interview with Heath & Alyssa

Join Jim Hoffman, VP of Wholesale Warranties, in an exciting interview with RV entrepreneurs Heath and Alyssa Padgett.

Ten years ago, our RV community partners, Heath and Alyssa, packed up their lives and began their RV lifestyle journey with a 50-state road trip. After falling in love with the nomad life, they started a business on the road.

In this livestream, we’ll reflect on what we learned in 2023 and look ahead to the new year. We will discuss RVing abroad, RV Inspiration and DIY renovation and décor, and upcoming plans for 2024!

If you can’t make the live interview, you don’t have to miss out! The recording will be available on our Facebook page and the official Wholesale Warranties YouTube channel.

IMPORTANT LINKS!

Heath & Alyssa: https://heathandalyssa.com/

RV Inspiration: https://rvinspiration.com/

Renovated RVs for Sale: https://renovatedrvsforsale.com/

Brit Stops: https://www.britstops.com/

A Beginner’s Guide to Living in an RV by Alyssa Padgett: https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Living-Everything-Full-Time-ebook/dp/B0778WS6X4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1510252074&sr=8-9&keywords=living+in+an+rv&linkCode=sl1&tag=alyssapacom0b-20&linkId=cbfbe4358de7291d2b82ac55673f0dbe

RVing Across America by Alyssa Padgett: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09ZB41S9W?&linkCode=sl1&tag=alyssapacom0b-20&linkId=d03cc6b5463cb229dae73485d34acade&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

Go. And I believe we are transmitting. I’m just waiting for confirmation. Not yet. Okay, so small talk. Play charades. We are good. Okay, all. Hi, everybody. Happy new year ish. We’re technically still in the month of January. thank you for joining. My name is Jim Hoffman. I’m vice president here at

Wholesale Warranties. Today, I have the awesome pleasure to sit down with Heath and Alyssa from heathandalyssa.com, an RV Inspiration. We’Re here to just kind of kick off 2024. Talk about 2023 a little bit, go through some travels. But first and foremost, let’s start off Heath and Alyssa. How are you guys doing?

We are doing great. I still say happy new year, too, although it’s now like a month in. Feel like February is the cut off. Yeah, I mean, technically, we still got a day in, so I think. Yeah, exactly. so today, kind of hoping to discuss a little bit of our lessons

Learned in 2023, RV Inspiration, which is with you guys, our recent adventures that you guys have done. It sounds like you guys have done some pretty interesting travel what’s in store for you for 2024? And I believe, if I’m not mistaken you guys have been, I think, married about ten years.

It’s been about ten years since your honeymoon trip. Of all 50 states. Does that track so far? That tracks. It’s shocking, but it’s true. So that’s quite a bit to unpack. but kind of starting it off. for those of you that don’t know, if you don’t know, Heath and Alyssa they’ve been

Traveling full time. And guys, actually, I’ll probably pass it over to you to give a better introduction of yourselves. But for all of our followers, I said it earlier, and I’ll say it again, heathandalyssa.com. but if you guys could kind of just do a quick introduction on who you are and what you’re

Doing and maybe what you’ve been up to. Is that you elbowing me to give the introduction go. For sure. so, yeah, ten years ago, they’ll start there and go blaze through it quickly. But we got married and hit the road in an RV in 2014, which is kind of.

It was the catalyst for us being in the whole RV space. And we’ve been having this conversation recently where we’ve been talking about pivotal moments in our lives and decisions that you don’t realize at the time that are really impactful and life changing. And for us, that was buying this old 20 now

30 year old rv back in 2014 and deciding to go on this cross country road trip, because that was not only a catalyst for us living this unconventional life for the past decade, but also a catalyst in our careers and our work and our business and what we do today.

And so we did this road trip around the country on our honeymoon. We did all 50 states in a year. we did 49 of them in an RV. Flew to Hawaii. We did. One day we’ll rent an RV in Hawaii. Just to say we have. I need to check this.

It’s a vanity metric that nobody cares about except for us. and then over the last nine years, since then, we’ve built a handful of different businesses in the rv space. Alyssa has published two books, Beginner’s Guide to living in an RV, and RVing Across America. we hosted a conference for five

Years called the RV Entrepreneur Summit. and then most recently, we bought RV Inspiration, which is a blog focused on helping turn your RV into your home. And we have a website also where you can sell renovated rvs as well, called renovatedrvsforsale.com. So that’s kind of like the high level,

30,000 foot view of stuff. And we have two kids. We have two kids. Yeah, I think they’re worth mentioning. Maybe they travel with us. They do. I was going to bring them up because a lot of our affiliates, either their kids are grown or they’ve gone on to college or they’re older.

But your guys’children are relatively young, actually very young to. And Ford. Yeah. Eli just turned two while we were in Portugal. I think that’s been like it’s been an evolving conversation because I think we did things in reverse. There’s more and more people who are. Hitting, what do we do? Backward retirement,

Living in RV. Most people do that later on in their career, and we’re like, 23. That seems like a good call. and this was, like, before a lot of peak van life and COVID boom and all those things. So when we pitched our friends on this idea, it was still very much like

A weird thing in 2014. and so we had this life for a handful of years where it was very easy to integrate work life balance where we didn’t really have any. We just worked all day. And then when we were done and we were burned out, we’d go on a hike.

So it was really easy and fluid. And then we had kids, and everyone’s like, when you have kids, everything’s going to change. And we’re like, no, it’s not. We’re going to be able to figure this out. and then everything changed, but we figured it out. So the last five years have been

A recalibration, I guess, of figuring out how do these different things blend and come together. but it’s all about what you value, right? Like we said, we value travel. So these kids are going to travel whether they want to or not, because they got us as parents. And so Ellie’s been traveling

Since she was four weeks old. And Eli, we just counted up yesterday, has been to eleven countries in his first two years. And so they travel well. They get easier and easier every month, I think. Yeah, they do. I wouldn’t say we figured it out, but we are figuring it out

Actively. Like, maybe we’ll. Kids change fast. Yeah. We’re almost out of diapers, though, so things are really about to get easy. Things are about to get very entertaining. I can speak as somebody who has children who are a little bit younger than that. We’re out of the toilet potty training phase.

But there’s another phase right around the corner, and I just enjoy every moment because it’s awesome. And Alyssa, you mentioned Portugal. We’ll get there in a minute. But something that you kind of know doing it backwards, I can see where you were going with that. Right? Typically, people work and then they retire,

And then all of a sudden they kind of get an rv and go. And before rv became incredibly popular, everybody knows during COVID that if you didn’t have an rv, you wanted one, and if you wanted one, you were going to try to go out and get one. But even before all that,

You guys kind of took the idea and blazed your own trail to say, you know what? Not only are we going to do this, but if and when kids are in the future, we’re going to continue to do it and figure it out. And so I myself, as a parent,

But also as someone who enjoys the outdoors, I think you guys are amazing and trailblazing at what you’re doing, because I know it cannot be easy, especially with younger ones. but not only what I respect the most is not only have you been successful with it, but you’re also showing and

Educating those that want to know more about it on how to do know. And I can say from our side here at wholesale warranties, having you as a partner to us, that’s one of the things that just that we love about you guys so much is that not only are you

Running businesses and what have you, while you’re on the road, you’re also raising a family, and you’re also willing to, for lack of better term, kind of share that secret sauce with anybody who’s looking at that lifestyle, because I do think, especially over the last probably two or three years,

Like post peak of COVID that work life balance has never been more important. Or maybe some people are just now starting to understand truly what that means. and you guys kind of give a little bit of a template on if this is the path you want to take. Here’s how we did it.

So kudos to you guys on that. switching over. So you mentioned Portugal. When was that trip? So we kind of planned out a wild European adventure. But if you’re American like we are, you can only be in Europe for 90 days without needing a visa. And so we found a school program

Called Boundless Life where we could have the kids be in school. And it was about like an 86 day thing. but we wanted to be in Europe a little bit longer, so we found out that you could be in the UK and not need a visa because

It’s not a part of the same union of Europe and everything complicated. Don’t need to know the details, but we went over to the UK early and we rented a motorhome over there and did a big two week trip around England and Wales and everything. And then we hopped down to

Portugal for more of the real life kids in school type of travel. Yeah. But to layer on that, if anybody is interested in UK, was on our bucket list for a long time to really explore the country. So we went to England and Wales, and we still need to go to

Northern Ireland and Scotland and the rest of Ireland. But we went over there. My friend Joel owns Harvest Hosts, and he bought a company called Brit Stops, which is like Harvest Hosts, but in the UK, instead of having all these huge wineries, which they do also have, you park at pubs.

And so we basically pub hopped. We went to. It was kind of like the ideal, quintessential what you picture in your mind of England, of pubs and beer and fish and chips. But it was like that every night for two weeks. And we just camped in the parking lot. Yeah,

We did over 30 pubs, so we did a lot of fun stuff. But I think that’s an interesting thing. If you ever think about traveling around kind of like small town UK I don’t know how many people want to do that. When we talk to people about wanting to go abroad,

The most common answer we hear specifically for camping abroad is New Zealand. And then the second one we hear is the UK, mostly Scotland and England. And so that was something that we’d wanted to do for a really long time and finally got to make that happen a few months

Ago. It was awesome. I mean, I think one of the things we’ve realized, I don’t know how you are with kids, it’s like we love cities are cool, but most of the cities we go to feel the same. that’s just kind of our frame on. It’s like, oh, that was cool.

But it was kind of a city. We found the parks, we went to some cool restaurants, there were some cool buildings. It’s a city. We get a lot of energy from finding the beautiful sites and I think that’s probably from so many years of rv travel in the US.

And so to get to some of these smaller towns where it’s like one of the pubs we went to was built in 1406 and there was still like original beams and stuff that were actually before 1406. And I was like, wow, this is old enough for Christopher Columbus’s great great grandparents to have

Had a pint here. And it’s like beautiful settings. There’s like 2000 people who live in this village and there was just some really cool places that we got to go and experience like that that you would have never been able to really do had you not rented an rv or a

Vehicle to go to some of these smaller towns. and there’s a lot of beautiful sites in Wales. the roads are a whole other beast, I think. you’ll need like warranties on top of warranties for these types of. My dad it was the first time I’ve really had to pay a substantial amount insurance

From a rental perspective. We took my parents two different rvs. my dad hit a couple vehicles. but I recommend it. Okay, I recommend it because I’m going to unpack a lot of this stuff real quick. okay. first and foremost, I think anyone who is watching or will watch this in the future

Understands, but moreover, looks for the journey in between the cities, right? Like, I look at our family travel and yeah, city is a city is a city. But what’s in between those, right? Where’s the historic things? Or where’s the things that a lot of people don’t get to see?

So I think you’re spot on there. And then ironically, us here at wholesale, we’ve been getting a few. Usually we used to try to flag them, but we’ve been getting, like, international calls for warranties and we’re like, no, we don’t offer them, but we don’t offer them in the UK.

Can you maybe just a quick explanation of just what was that process like? You could be one of the very first individuals that I’ve spoken to who’s gone abroad, rent an rv and driven around. Obviously it comes with a few hiccups not for you, but for your dad, possibly. but what was that?

Can you walk us through that experience? Yeah, I think we’ve rented rv now in. We’Ve rented an rv from in Europe and then crossed different countries into multiple countries, but we’ve rented rvs on four different continents. And the process is all very similar as far as you get a lot

Of information beforehand on the website or in onboarding emails, as far as this is the rv you’re getting, this is everything that’s included. And then when you go to pick up the rv, it’s usually an hour or two of just orientation of here’s how the rv works and everything.

We’ve only had to do one of them, not in English, which has been nice. I was in Japan. we did it all through translators. but they’ll walk you through how all the tanks work and how to add water and all the different systems and things. And a lot of instances we’ve taken, like,

Little test drives of it, like, if it’s a manual rv, which is really common in Europe specifically. And so we’ll go through all of that, sign all the paperwork, and then they’re really. Okay, bye. We’ll see you in two weeks or whenever you come back. here’s the number to call

If anything bad happens. We hope you don’t call. Our favorite rental company, though, in Europe, we booked through them twice now. They’re called Anywhere Campers. and they do one way rentals anywhere in Europe. So they will fly out, they’ll drive out in your rvs, deliver them to wherever you want to go,

And then they’ll fly out and pick them up. And it’s like everything included. And we’ve done that now twice because if you have like a month, you’re trying to do like a really cool road trip across Europe or something like that, if you don’t want to have to do a loop,

Because then basically you don’t get to cover near as much ground. and so the one ways have been really cool because we’ve been able to basically just optimize. Our short 30 days in my chair just broke, but I got it off to back. That’s the beauty of going live.

Kids running in it is what it to. we’ll have to put that website in the comments along with the, the sister brand to Harvest Hosts for the UK. Because I do know that Harvest Host is obviously incredibly popular here in the States and so having something abroad is

Just one more reason to go. Right now. I know that when we’ve traveled abroad and we’ve rented a car, the cars are like this big. so are the rvs. For those that don’t know, is it still class A, B, C or do A’s not even exist and people are. You can’t,

You can’t touch those. For obvious reasons. A’s do exist. They’re rare. Whenever we see them, they are almost always plated for the Netherlands in southern Europe, which is primarily where we’ve rv’d, you don’t see them often. But we ended one of our trips on the coast of Brava in Spain and

We were in this huge campground, probably the biggest campground we’ve ever. 500 sites. Yeah, hundreds of rv sites. but we saw this one section, I guess, where the campsites were bigger and it was a bunch of these class a’s that would probably be probably about 30ft. I don’t think they’d be

Any longer than that. It’d be way too hard to navigate the roads. But they were all from more of the northern countries. But Netherlands does have really relaxed laws on buying and registering a vehicle if you’re not a citizen. Because we’ve looked at buying an rv in Europe and everything

Says go to Amsterdam to buy an rv if you’re a citizen of a different country because they can set you up with the legal registration and everything. Most of the motorhomes that you see to buy or rent in Europe are like a standard class b plus. Small fee where it’s like 23 foot,

It looks like Winnebago view or something like that. where it’s like 23ft. and then you call the campground and they say, do you have a big rv or a small one? And you don’t want to make the mistake of what I’ve done, which is where I say we have a small one.

And then you show up and they’re like, that’s huge. A lot of people have just like regular vans and stuff. Or like a minivan. Like you see like minivan rental. Like Volkswagen pop up tent. Yeah, that house, pop up tents or, like, you sleep in a converted bed on the inside and everything.

But I will say that most people don’t think about going to Europe just because public transit is so easily and readily accessible in Europe. Most people don’t think of renting a motorhome or think that would be really stressful when you go to Europe. that’s actually not been the. We’ve done both,

Especially with young kids. I’m going to make sure this isn’t my kids nanny. Call me. we’re good. I don’t want to ignore a call for kids, but we’ve done both scenarios where we’ve done, like, hotel or Airbnb hops with kids and you’ve got your luggage. And the reason we’ve opted

For rving so much is one, I think we’re creatures of habits. We’re like, how are we going to explore these new, like, we’ve done rving for so long? That’s not intimidating. Let’s go. But also, some of our favorite memories that we’ve had traveling Europe have come from these really interesting national parks or

Beautiful sites or small towns that you can only get, like, one year. We were renting an rv in northern Italy, and so we started in Venice with our friends. We were caravanning, and, like, a couple days in, we’re driving through these switchbacks and the italian dolomites, just, like, incredible views,

And we get to the top of this mountain. It’s all very terrifying. It’s my first time driving a manual, but then we get up to the top and we see this crazy looking gondola with all of these different caves and caverns that were carved out during the great

War. And we were like, oh, my gosh. We pull over and it was just, like, really cool experiences that even if you were planning a trip in Europe, you’d be like, are we going to stay in this area and this Airbnb in this city? And we’re going to go to and from.

But it doesn’t leave a lot of room for spontaneity or for you to stumble upon things you wouldn’t have found otherwise if you’re just in those areas. So that’s been one of the reasons we continue to use rving abroad as, like, a method of travel that we like a lot. Yeah,

I couldn’t agree more. Before we started the live, I think I was sharing with you guys that me and my family recently traveled. And in some of the cities that we went to, we got a guide right. But some of our best days are actually the best day that we

Had was when we missed our train and we just frolicked for the day by ourselves. No guide, no nothing, because there was another train till the next day. I agree with you on the, you might miss out on something if you’re just going from a to b to c.

With like, a designed itinerary, for lack of better term. What would you guys suggest? Because obviously you’ve traveled international, you’ve gone to a bunch of different countries, rented rvs over there. If someone was listening and was like, you know what, this summer, I think that’s a good idea. What would be, like,

The one or two things that you guys like, the best piece of advice or recommendation or tough lessons to learn. I also do want to hear more about what your dad hit exactly and how it happened, how many times it happened. We can save that for later, too, as like a teaser,

Like a part two. But I’m also really interested in that because I’m like, that would really suck to get an accent abroad. But if someone was like, you know what, this summer, 2024, let’s do it, partner. Let’s head abroad and travel. What would you guys suggest? Or what would you guys advise

On something to that effect? I would say the best, worst, worst place you could go, if you’re talking summer, 2024, would be France. Best place. Because hands down, wait why France, their Olympics, right? The Olympics is why you should not go. Because I’m sure France is going to be insane for all

Of July and August. We’ve already gotten a couple of emails from people saying, like, yeah, I’m running a camper and I’m going to go to the Olympics and then hop around the country. So I’m sure it’s already the most tourist visited country in the world and it’s going to

Be ten x this summer, but it is the most camping friendly country we’ve ever visited. We thought New Zealand was super camper friendly, and they are. They’re going to have, like, camper van parking spots in your grocery store parking lot, which is next level. But France is very open to

Campers and has all the resources for campers, most places you go. So like a big gas station or what you might call a truck stop in the States is called an air in France. And you can dump your tanks there, you can fill up your water there, you can fill up your

Propane there. You can fill up your propane yourself. You don’t have to go find someone that has the right kind of license to fill up your propane for you. So that’s a big, nice thing, but it’s very camper friendly, and there’s so many different places to explore in France. It’s a big country.

It’s like the size of Texas which is where we are at the moment. So there’s plenty of things to explore. But that’s what we did. Not this most recent fall, but the year before when Eli was just learning to walk and we were exploring all over. But they’ve got the coast,

And they’ve got the mountains, and they’ve got just the best wine you’ll ever have in your life. Not an understatement. Go to the champagne region and your camper. You can camp at any of these champagne houses, and you’ll love that. You can give your advice, but that’s. Where I would go to France.

Even though you said, don’t go to. France, it’s going to be busy this year. It’s just going to be busy this year. Just walk away. The memory, the advice for another time, but just maybe not July. I think you just pick a place that you’re interested in going.

Like our first year, we did, but. Some countries, you can’t rb there. So don’t just pick a place you’re interested in. if you can, you have flexibility in your schedule. I would say wait till fall. just because it’s shoulder season and flights are way cheaper, rv rentals are way cheaper,

And it’ll just be way. More simple to get around. I know not everyone has, like, the, a lot of people take trips in the summer, right? If you don’t have that flexibility, but if you do, that would be my advice. we’ve done several of ours over there in the fall,

And it’s easier to be agile because you can call up a campground and whatever, but it’s actually really simple. And if it were me, I would look into a company, like, anywhere. Campers they’ve never paid us for endorsement. They should, because we talk about them a lot,

But we do talk about them a lot. They’ll just handle all the logistics for you. So it’s like they will find the biggest grocery store parking lot area near you to bring you that motorhome. They’ll train you up, make sure you feel really good about it. we’ve had multiple things happen

Because that would be my biggest fear. It’s like, I’m going to Europe, I’m going to rent an rv from some random company and then I’m going to get stuck on the side of the road when something happens. and so there’s been a couple of scenarios where we’ve had issues

Come up on these 30 day trips. and they’ve always been able to liaison with us, take care of us. so I just think that would probably be my biggest piece of advice is try to go on shoulder season and find a company, like Anywhere Campers. That’s really reputable. There’s a lot of rental

Companies over in Europe. There’s like indie campers, which is more of like Cruise America vibe. They’re huge. so you might get a good experience. You might not get a good experience. It just totally depends. Haven’t heard many good experiences. So I would say find a reputable company so that we feel, like,

Trusted. No matter what happens, we’re going to be taken care of on this trip. Yeah. And if anyone from anywhere campers is listening, I want to try to circle something up with clip and be like. Guys, we’d like to come back. I’ve already said I’m putting it in the comments.

I’m all in on some exciting new development. So we’ll kind of switch gears pun intended, a little bit, especially because manual transmissions in Europe. So we’ll switch gears and rv inspiration. So what’s new and exciting over there? So we bought the RV Inspiration website about a year ago from a

Friend who she was in our town in Colorado for the RV Entrepreneur summit. And we had her and her husband over for dinner. And she knew that we had sold business before. And she was asking just us for some advice because she was thinking about selling hers. And after she left dinner that

Night, Heath was like, I think I want to buy her business. I think that would be a really good fit for us. And the whole premise of the blog that she built is how to renovate your rv and just make it beautiful. Which ten years ago, right now,

We were buying a really old rv and renovating it and making it into our very first home as a couple. And so it’s kind of been a dream job for me to just get to sit around and write all these articles about these beautiful rvs because now that rv is so popular,

There’s professional renovators out there and rv flippers and people doing just incredible things with only 150 space that make them look so high end and so luxurious. Yeah. And I think the stats are kind of interesting around. I don’t know the exact number. I don’t know if anybody knows

The exact number of how many people renovate their rvs after they buy them or do some element of a renovation. Like you might tear out a dinette booth or you might replace a Jackknife couch or whatever, but a lot of people do some type of modification and so to be

Able to kind of pull together a lot of smart people and resources on how they’ve been able to do those renovations. And then there’s this whole community of actual professional renovators who do this as their business, and they’re flipping rvs or they’renovating them for clients, or they’re doing a mixture of those things.

So that was kind of a space that we knew, like we had seen people do. But now that we’ve gotten into this business it’s been really interesting to see. So there’s a Facebook group we have it’s just called rv renovations. There’s over 100,000 people in there. We had over 2 million people use

The site in 2023 to help plan their renovations. so it’s been cool to be able to see that be a continued resource for people who are looking to make their rv feel like their home. Yeah. And I think that’s going to be such a focus for so many current

And future rv owners because we had this huge surge, right, in 20, where everybody went out and got them. and then in 21, you saw a lot of upgrading or switching of them. Right. And so I think as, now as the market is starting to stabilize a little bit,

You also had some that were, for lack of better term, they were kind of rushed through production, especially in that late 2020 beginning of 21, where they just pushed them through as quick as they could. There’s going to be a handful of owners that look up one day and be like, well,

We have to renovate this because the wallpaper is coming off or whatever the scenario is going to be. but I think that now that the market has kind of settled down a little bit, I think the renovation piece is going to be huge because how are you going to. Well, one,

People like to differentiate theirs versus the status quo. And then two, if you are utilizing it, change isn’t necessarily a bad thing. so that’s really exciting. So it’s been about a year, you said? Yeah, we bought it just before Christmas. I think it’s been like last year. A year and a month.

A year and a month. Nice. and what about your own rv? Have you done any renovations to your own rv recently? There are those who can do and there are those who can teach fair from the wisdom of others. When we renovated rv in 2024, it was mostly paint.

And then we replaced in 2014. 2014? What did I. You did? But I wasn’t going to hold it against you. But Heath, granny just got a trailer that she wants to fix up and make into a really cute little home. And so we’re talking about in March, we’ll be stateside for a little

Bit and going and helping her physically do some of the work on hers. I’m feeling probably overconfident based on my real life experience renovating rvs. But, guys, I’ve seen so many pictures of beautiful rvs, and Granny and I have sat down like, we know what paint colors she wants and what she wants

Where and everything. so I’ve got delusions of grandeur, but it is going to be beautiful. We haven’t been in a space long enough in the states to really dive in and do our own rv renovation. And we don’t even have an rv right now in the States, so we’ve mostly been moving

Around internationally with a base in Colorado. but I think you have been itching to do a renovation since we bought this site. I have. Give me a screwdriver or power drill. Is Granny going to permit pictures and videos and befores and afters? I think she will because we plan

To help buy some of this stuff. Granny would be excited. We’re buying. Her approval is what I’m hearing. That’s how I hear it. I just hope that we’ll be able to see. Yeah, Granny’s rv is a write off. No, there you go. This is a business expense. what about family trips?

You mentioned March, so we’re coming. Know before we know it, we’re going to blink and we’re going to be kind of in a summer surge getting ready. Obviously, France is going to be super busy with the Olympics, but know that doesn’t mean that travel plans are done.

What do you guys have coming up? So we’re planning to spend the summer in Colorado. at the moment, that’s kind of like our summer part of the summer. And then we’ll do Europe and we kind of realize how we always plan our year in the rv space. We’d have an anchor point,

If you will, like, oh, we’d always want to see the leaves in the northeast. So that’s our anchor point for this year. And then we kind of plan everything around that. And sometimes those are, like, real hard anchor points, and sometimes they’re softer. And a friend has our anchor

Point this year is Taylor Swift in Vienna. love or hate? we’re swifties. And Alyssa’s bummed she didn’t get to go to the US, and our friends had extra tickets, and I was like, I will buy them. Alyssa will be very excited. and so that’s our anchor point, is we’re going there and

Then the rest August. And so we’re trying to plan around the aforementioned visa restrictions, how we can be in Europe and go to the concert and then put the kids in school in Spain in the fall. And so we’re probably going to hop around Ireland and Scotland, which have different visa

Restrictions. And August. In August and in July. But the more we look at that, the more we realize if we really want to go all the places we want to go, getting an rv is the best option. If you really want to get out into the Scottish Highlands and

Go see all the lakes and all the islands and all the national parks, you need a vehicle of some kind, because you’re not getting out into this beautiful wilderness by train. Except the Harry Potter train, which, obviously, Harry Potter and Taylor Swift. So that’s why I’m planning my summer. I mean,

My wife and daughter had the opportunity and were fortunate enough to see T. Swift. we just usually call her Tay Tay in the house. Just depends on the mood and the vibe. but I think that’s going to be amazing. I mean, I don’t know very many people who can say that they saw

T. Swift internationally. Right? So I know a bunch of people who are able to say that they saw T. Swift when she was in the states. And part two. Heath, when we talk about your dad’s accent, I also want to talk on your take on the T. Swift-Kelce thing because I

Know there’s a lot of traction with it, to be honest. I thought Travis, Kelce’s brother, stole the show at the last game when I think it was in Buffalo. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. I was just like, wow, that is a great way to introduce yourself to your brother’s girlfriend.

But be that at the bed. We’ll do that in part two, because that sounds great. That could be hours. We could be here for hours. let’s see. Back in 22. Heath, I have a thing that says that you got to ride in Tuscany. Yeah, so we did a bike trip across

Tuscany in 2022. So I think, like, the last. Our last kind of. I think you said we. No part of my body was involved in biking 1000 miles across Italy. Yeah, basically, there’s a emotional support. That’s what I was there for. There’s something called bike packing, where basically,

You just pack all your clothes and food and gear onto bikes and then camp wherever you want to go do that. we camped along the trip, but we had, like, a support van that carried the tent and stuff. And so, yeah, it was like a 300 mile trip across Tuscany.

So that’s another alternative. If you don’t want rv, you could just bike across country, which you still. Needed an rv for. Yeah, but I think that’s also that kind of go off topic a little bit. But when you guys are traveling abroad and you’renting rvs abroad, is there options to rent

Bikes with the rv, or could you find those at local campgrounds? Because I do know a lot of our demographic, a lot of our policyholders often ask about bike racks, bikes, things along those lines, because they travel with. Right. And now, granted, your trip was epic, and I don’t know many that could

Do that. I, like Alyssa, would be there for emotional support for anybody who needs it if they want to do something like that. However, that is not me. but just out of curiosity, for those looking to maybe do their first international rv trip, are bikes accessible there? And kind of, I don’t know,

Just any information you guys might have with that. A lot of rental companies, you could just throw a bike on there, too, anywhere. Campers provides the bikes and a bike rack and a garage that fits the bikes. Every rental comes with them through that company. But other companies, you can add it on.

Yeah. then also we had come across several campgrounds in Europe that you can do bike rentals, like the one in Florence. I want to say they had bike rentals, or maybe we used our bikes, but they I haven’t seen bike rentals as often because I think a lot of

People just bring their own. Yeah. There’s actually also a really cool company called bike flights. I didn’t know about this, but I bought my bike over there and shipped it back to the US. So if you’re, like, an avid cyclist which I don’t consider myself in that category,

But if you wanted to take your bike with you because you were going to stay over there for six months or a year, this company, you could just buy a bike, a flight for your bike, and they’ll deliver it, like door to door. and it’s actually pretty turnkey insured and everything.

It’s pretty cool. Dang. Okay, that’s great. And Alyssa, I love that you started that with anywhere campers provided it. I was kind of hoping you would go anywhere campers.com. Hey, I’m a big fan. If you’re going to rent something, I want everything all inclusive. Don’t make me pay an extra

$20 to have a grill. Just throw that sucker in there. And that’s why we chose anywhere campers to begin with. Because you don’t want to feel nickeled and dimed when you’re, like, checking out. Jim, go ahead and do us a favor. Cut up every time we say anywhere campers so we

Can just send them. We will. I’ll work on that for you. I mean, I couldn’t agree with you more or less. For our own travel. Right. We have small kids, too, so when we travel somewhere, we don’t want to have to be like, oh, let me look at the pick list

Menu of items that I would like to have added on. I’d rather just have everything kind of taken care of. And I would imagine, too, most who are traveling or who are thinking of that would want something similar. Right? I mean, the really rolled up your sleeves and we’re going

To rent an rv and not plan or not do anything. I think those individuals are out there. I think the vast majority are more like, okay, let’s get all of our eggs in the same basket so we’re comfortable while we’re doing it. Right. That’s one of the big perks of

Rv travel in the States. You’re traveling in your rv and you have all the widgets and all the necessities for the most part, that you’re going to need. So I agree with you in the essence, where if anywhere camper provides it, that’s a good thing. all right, with all your guys’traveling,

All your do it yourself experiences, what would be the one key? And I know we talked about France, and I know we talked about travel times. Is there anything about rving abroad or full time that you would recommend, especially for those? Because a lot of our viewers and demographic are thinking of

Getting into the rv space. They haven’t quite committed, so they’re doing some research. Just out of curiosity, what advice would you give to those individuals who are just looking to get into that rv lifestyle. Just in general? Yeah. I think in the states, and probably just because it’s

What I’m looking at all the, like, when I see a before photo of an rv, it can be really hard to picture your life, especially, like, your full time life in this space that’s maybe uninspiring or outdated or doesn’t feel like it could be a home or doesn’t feel like it has all

Of the things that you might want in a house, like the kind of oven you might want or the sink or whatever little thing it is that you want as your little luxury in your tiny homes. Making those renovations goes so far into turning a space from just being like a temporary

Camping trailer to being an actual home where you could spend weeks, months, years, however long it is that you’re wanting to be mobile. And I saw this one renovation, and she shows the before and after of the factory built couch with the cup holders in it and it reclines and all that stuff.

But it’s maybe a little clunky or dated or not your style. And to be able to just grab a couch on Amazon for $200 because they’re, like, insanely cheap. Whenever you buy furniture on Amazon, it. Kind of blows my mind. but it fits a new style. And then you can add paint or

Wallpaper or swap out your countertops or whatever it is, however diy you want to get, but it completely transforms the space. And it can go from being this really drab, beige, brown, boring factory feeling place to then, oh, this is our home. This is our kids area. This is the bunk room.

This is our master bedroom. That’s so cozy. and it’s really cool to see how many different ways people have then transformed their rvs. So if you’re looking at full time and if you’re looking at rving in the states, it is a little bit of work, it is a little bit of money,

But if it’s going to make your trailer into a home, it’s worth it to think of a couple renovations that you can do yourself to then completely transform your space to make it feel comfortable and beautiful. I would agree with that. We had not really entertained the idea of being full time rvs.

We just wanted to go on a big road trip before we originally got on the road. And the thing that actually convinced us we could do this was seeing an online renovated rv. And it looked really nice and it was like we could all of a sudden see ourself in that space.

It was hard to picture before when it was so dated and was like, that looks like my grandma’s literal rv, but not like a place for 20 year olds or 30 year olds or families. Yeah, right. That’s a good point. That’s awesome. so obviously people can find you at heathandalyssa.com.

What’s the best way to look for you guys? Especially what you just pointed out, Heath, was that you were inspired by a video. Right? So is there other places to find you guys besides just heathandalyssa.com? Yeah, if you want to just look at pretty rvs all the time, whenever your heart desires.

Instagram at RV Inspiration is a great one. We post all the rvs that are for sale on our website and then just all the pretty rvs that we find on the Internet there. so that’s a really great spot to save inspiration for your own remodel. and then rvinspiration.com as well.

We’re going to share all the how to’s on everything that you could imagine doing with your rv interiors, from painting to wiring your own light fixtures. That’s a great place for that. But if you’re looking more at international rving, our blog Heath & Alyssa, or our YouTube channel,

We’ve shared a lot of videos across twelve countries, four continents of wild rving adventures, most of which with a baby of some sort in tow. Well, awesome, guys, I can’t thank you enough. I hope. in version two, we cover the T. Swift, Travis Kelce thing along with Heath’s dad’s driving capabilities.

But again, guys, really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jim. This was fun. Bye, guys. Bye.