Life on the Road & Dreamtime

from: http://www.newlifeontheroad.com/changing-our-lifestyle-has-changed-everything/

Since we started on our journey of living the simple lifestyle everything has changed. Including my way of thinking and my way of looking at life! It’s really weird but I have not gotten anything ready for Christmas day and I am not even worried about it?

Changing Our Way of Life Has Meant My Mindset Has Changed Maybe as I am getting older my way of thinking is changing? Or Maybe our lifestyle change has given me a different outlook on life? Not sure what is going on with my mindset. But I am liking my new outlook on life.

Maybe it’s because we got rid off so much stuff that I don’t want to buy more to fill up the space in our motorhome – the limited space we don’t have! Or could it be because we have realised that our boys don’t need all the extra “Stuff” to be happy?

Our Boys Imagination
Our boys have always had the most amazing imagination. They prefer to be outside playing instead of inside playing. If you give them empty boxes, rolls of sticky tape and a pair of scissors they make the most amazing inventions. The same with scraps of wood and nails (plus a hammer!).

Within no time they have turned pieces of wood into a space ship, sword, fort or even a castle. Maybe I should get a big empty box, rolls of paper, sticky tape and scraps of wood for their presents for Christmas?

New Simple Lifestyle Our lifestyle is now so simple. We get up and have brekky. Beds are made. Dishes are washed. Washing is put in the machine (every 2nd Day) Bus is swept out.

Zachary making a Catapult – which worked! He was told not to use this when his brothers where around Then it’s either outside to play or down to the pool for a swim. Life is Simple Life is different to what we used to have!

What Would I Do Differently? I would have loved to change our lifestyle years ago. I would have loved to have more investments under our belt before deciding that this was our way of living What I Want For My Boys……

I want them to be happy I want them to live a life of experiences instead of wasting time/money I want them to live with Dreaming Bigger. I want them to chase their dreams no matter what they may be. What Do YOU want for 2012? Cheers Lisa
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Rv Living in Style

Not everyone is on an extreme budget in their RV lifestyle. Some camp and live in their RV for adventure, for the luxury of having their comfortable with all their possessions anywhere they wish to wander.

Check out these Geeky Explorers:
http://geekyexplorers.com/?tag=rv-living-costs

I will say this upfront – we’re not exactly budget travelers.

We like eating out, as we think that tells you a lot about the place. Everyone eats, but many areas eat differently and we like to explore that.

We like drinking local if at all possible, and we will bypass coors light & boone’s farm every time – so we spend money on good alcohol.

We like driving around places, which adds up our gas costs.

We don’t live on ramen (although we do keep it handy cause it’s occasionally quite yummy!), so our grocery costs are high for two people.
That being said, we wanted to do posts on our monthly costs for two reasons.

One, it’s for us to keep track of what we are spending, how we are doing compared to what we budgeted and gives us an idea of what we personally need to make to sustain fulltime living the way we want (and still be able to save for retirement.)

Two, it’s for people curious about the costs of living in an RV. We found many sites that were helpful when listing expenses, even if we knew that particular budget wouldn’t work for us. (There are people out there impressively living on the cheap! Again, not us…)

I will say this upfront – we’re not exactly budget travelers. We like eating out, as we think that tells you a lot about the place. Everyone eats, but many areas eat differently and we like to explore that. We like drinking local if at all possible, and we will bypass coors light & boone’s farm every time – so we spend money on good alcohol.

We like driving around places, which adds up our gas costs. We don’t live on ramen (although we do keep it handy cause it’s occasionally quite yummy!), so our grocery costs are high for two people.

That being said, we wanted to do posts on our monthly costs for two reasons.

One, it’s for us to keep track of what we are spending, how we are doing compared to what we budgeted and gives us an idea of what we personally need to make to sustain fulltime living the way we want (and still be able to save for retirement.)

Two, it’s for people curious about the costs of living in an RV. We found many sites that were helpful when listing expenses, even if we knew that particular budget wouldn’t work for us. (There are people out there impressively living on the cheap! Again, not us…)

Read their full budget for November:
http://geekyexplorers.com/?tag=rv-living-costs

Living and Exploring Out of a Van

Many people are living out of vans, motorhomes and even cars to combat the economy. Many are having a blast doing it .
Here's an excerpt from a great website about a guy from Vancouver BC enjoying a van dwelling lifestyle:
http://www.vanliving.net/VL/van/advice.htm

Throughout the first several months of vanliving, a thought keeps coming to me how easy the transition from apartment living to living in a van has occurred. Considering that I have not spent a single day in any RV prior to April 1 2009, when I slept for the first time in a converted van, the only explanation I can think of is that many years of dreaming and planning materialized into a smooth move from an apartment into a van. Thus, the first advice to anyone considering vanliving is to wait.

Often we want something, but with time our plans change. You do not want to spend a very considerable amount of money and then find out you don't really enjoy living in a van all that much. It would be a good idea to rent a class B RV (a van-based recreational vehicle) for a week or two, and pretend you live there, doing things exactly the way you would do them if you had no other place to call home.

It may cost a pretty penny to rent an RV, but considering a small fortune you may end up wasting, this would be money well spent. And you may discover what features you really like in your RV, and what items you can live without.

Vandwellers Website

I found this awesome resource for people wanting or needing to live in their van (or their car). There is so much information on this site, it is mindblowing. So glad I found it and i'm sure you will enjoy it if you have any interest in living like a gypsy. Here is a short excerpt from the website:
To explore this website, please go here: http://vandwellers.org/mycampervan/reasoning.htm

There are many reasons why I want to live in a camper van.

The main reason is financial. I pay rent, which while affordable, is just dead money. It is going down the drain. Now that I've paid for this van it is all mine, no more to pay. Recently I got diagnosed with a pretty bad illness so that's going to really eat up a lot of my income just treating it.

I have a serious life threatening illness which eats up a lot of my income, so I don't have much money to live on. When I first brought the campervan, the industry I was working in was being privatised so my financial future was not secure. I tend to have very sensitive hearing, so neighbors who make noise keep me up at night. I need to sleep well away from people. I don't mind living in a small space. They can be cosy and easy to heat or cool. I like the idea of not being dependent on a huge infrastructure for electricity and water. I like photography, so having a van will allow me to get out and travel to take photographs. I also grew up moving around a lot so I don't have any place to really call a home. A camper van is my own space, to do with as I wish. I can have a cat in a van. I like cats. My land lord does not.

How to Save For Travel

from:http://www.smallworldpursuits.com/5-ways-to-help-you-save-to-travel-or-volunteer-abroad?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallWorldPursuits+%28Small+World+Pursuits%29

There are tons of ways to help you start saving to travel. So many in fact that when we start reading about all of them it seems as though we forget about doing any of them. So for me, I started with 5 different savings techniques and then built upon that. These were my five.

Create A Budget:
When I was first getting serious about saving, I sat down and calculated all of my expenses (rent, bills, food, etc) and made note of my take home pay per month. I decided that I would keep $100 per month for any and all “extra” activities and or items, and that EVERYTHING else would go into my savings. I was strict about this and it made me start taking my lunch to work and making my own coffee as well as cooking at home more frequently and then eating leftovers.

Get A Roommate/HouseMate:
This was by far the second best thing that I did to help save money! At the time, I lived in only a one-bedroom apartment but got creative, and we turned the living area into loft style extra living space for my new housemate. I traveled a lot for work so I was rarely home anyway. Getting a housemate instantly put an additional $400 in my savings each month! This adds up quickly – trust me!

Put All Extra Money In Your Savings Pot: Anytime I would get a bonus, raise, commission check, or earn any type of extra money it would all go directly into my savings. I didn’t “need” the money before to survive so I went against my urges to spend it on something I didn’t need. And, let me just say that using the money to do a safari in The Serengeti tops any new “thing” I could have spent it on back home!

Sell The Things You Do Not Need:
Go through your home or apartment and start getting rid of stuff you do not need or things you will have to get rid of anyway once you start traveling. I did this several different ways. I sold stuff to friends, posted flyers at my apartment, put notes on facebook, and sold things on craigslist. There are tons of ways to sell stuff it’s just the getting started part that’s sometimes difficult. For me, I started with electronics. For some reason, I had a silly amount of gadgets that had accumulated over the years that I either did not use or did not need. Once I started selling off the first items it all got easier from there.

Drink and Eat At Home:
I know this seems so cliché and is on everyone’s “how to save list” but by far this can be one of the most expensive monthly item for anyone who loves to socialize. Which I do. Cooking in and sharing a bottle of wine, a beer, or cocktails at home before venturing out will save anyone’s pocket book. I couldn’t always do this of course, but I tried whenever I could. As you can see from saving tip number one, I had only had $100 of extra cash a month to work with.

These are just 5 ways to get started, but a way to get going nonetheless. And, when you start thinking about how hard it is and start faltering, instantly remind yourself about the amazing time you will have salsa dancing in the streets of Colombia, sleeping under the stars in Africa, sipping wine in Italy, or lounging at the beach in Fiji. This always helped me!

Camping Tips for Camper Vans

from: http://www.carlosprivateadventures.com/conversion-van-camping-tips/

Conversion forerunner camping doesn’t impart you the luxury of life in an RV, nor the discomfort of sleeping in a tent. It can ensue tough to securely reheat a van on night, nevertheless it’s inferior compared to an RV, and you can chance chairs they cannot. We tired extra than 25 nights sleeping in our conversion van last year.

Life Into A Conversion Van Make your van into something that’s useable for you, in particular rider it’s going to ensue your residence for days before weeks on a calculate. Representing my wife and I, this meant having space to move around.

We took absent the two average seats which, I convinced Ana, would live clear armchairs for the living room. Next we had enough seat for dressing or cooking. The bench-seat in backside folds outdated interested in a comfortable bed, accordingly we were all obstinate representing camping.

When traveling, you need a system of organization to keep your space inner recesses the van habitable. After our first prolonged outing, we noticed the many equipment we never worn. We got added useful later than that. We’re also talented to keep the space unbolt, in the face of carrying many possessions, by via forced luggage compartment tubs you can purchase about wherever. They stack thriving, and if you need further space by night, you can place them by the roof. They’re rainproof with the lids snapped on.

Heating A Conversion Van Camping in a van can be freezing at times, as it was for us in the deserts of Arizona last iciness. We ongoing the van and cranked awake the heater after in a although, excluding only representing brief

. The danger of carbon monoxide poisoning is emphatically excessively enormous to donate the car running while you are sleeping. We and cooked to heat positive the van. Our propane camp heater burned fantastically spotless. Any epoch it was aloof, it was time to cook feast, breakfast, before tea. This heated positive the van nicely.

Yet again, for the reason that of carbon monoxide, I wouldn’t suggest ever sleeping with a propane burner going. At rest, on occasion a quick warm-up is all you need more willingly than you crawl underneath the blankets for the night.

The skeleton in the cupboard to heating a conversion van when camping is to give up. Enjoy meal calculate warm-ups, excluding except you have electric clout, I don’t identify of a safe feature to heat a van all darkness. Instead, you can fervor yourselves. Wear out warmhearted clothing. Be sold for more blankets than you ponder you’ll need.

Warm up a thermos bottle chock-full of spicy auburn apiece darkness, hence it will be waitng for you in the morning. You get to enthusiastic the van when you make it, and warm cheery yourselves drinking it for breakfast.

Advantages Of Conversion Van Camping

Traveling and camping in a conversion van costs less than in an RV. The early expense is a lot with a reduction of proviso you procure old, as we did, and the cost of forceful it is substantialy less.

We averaged 18 miles per gallon by our last cross-country outing. The majority recreational vehicles are lucky to get semi of that, and they’re vastly classy to maintain. Compared with tent camping, a van is much extra comfortable. Unchanging rider you backpack, you are perhaps up for grabs to drive a number of kind of car to where you get.

Amid a van, you can extend inside proviso it starts to rain. If you’re backpacking a long feature as of home, you can save resting on motels on the drive to and from the trailhead. Camping can be present further comfortable in an RV, except not in every one of habits.

It’s careful, on behalf of example, to park somewhere. We’ve taken naps in parking lots, and nobody was the wiser, thanks to decorated windows, curtains, and the inconspicuousness of a van.

By the side of a emancipated camp in Florida we got the finest smudge, proceeding a bank overlooking Lake Talquin, since our van was small sufficient to able-bodied there, not like on the whole of the RVs.

It’s vast to live bright to drive wherever. In the conversion van, camping wherever we are when it gets bleak is no glitch. To finish, approximately better RVs drag a car roughly since the cumbersome assemble a detailed ago isn’t practical representing daily forceful. Our coversion van is a subsequent inland With our crucial vehicle for shopping or free to work. With the purpose of’s flexibilty.

The Ultimate On The Road Family: From Alaska To Argentina

You will want to read all about this incredible family of 7! They are presently on an adventure: driving in their veggie powered truck from Alaska to Argentina.,, 5 children in tow!

I suggest subscribing to their website so you can follow along this epic adventure.

from: http://www.discovershareinspire.com/2011/11/6-months-on-the-road-what-it-cost...

It was April 26, 2011 when we left Homer, Alaska to begin our Epic Expedition – a road trip from Alaska to Argentina. It’s been just about six months on the road. So how is it going? How much has it cost us and how far have we driven?

Here’s the breakdown:
Total Miles Driven – 17,253

Meetups: in Gilbert, Arizona Camping in Southeastern Arizona Bisbee, Arizona Tombstone, Arizona Crossed the Mexico Border – Douglas, AZ/Agua Priete Camped in Northern Mexico Chihuahua, Mexico Durango, Mexico Our truck breaks down somewhere in Mexico Chapala, Mexico Ajijic, Mexico Jocotepec, Mexico Isla Mezcala, Mexico Orphanage in Chapala, Mexico Homer, Alaska

Read all about their adventures and watch their videos on their website here: http://www.discovershareinspire.com/2011/11/6-months-on-the-road-what-it-cost...