Bonus Episode! Boondocking With Brad: Getting Classy

segment that we're doing throughout the podcast. Throughout the season, we'll have five episodes of these, and really what the main goal is is to help you find the right RV for you, to help you dive into the essentials that you don't even realize that we're not included in the r V um. It's about hooking up for the first time. It's about boon docking for the first time and going back to the basics like minimizing your life.

So what the goal is of Boondocking with Brad is to really help you dive into seeing if this is right for you, to give you the tools and the necessities to find out how to do this in order right Because not everybody grew up going to places with r V, whether that be a pop up, a Class A, Class C, Class B, whatever it is. You know, families just don't always have those opportunities. But that doesn't mean that you can't do it yourself. So my goal is

to help you start your education process on this. It won't be a complete three sixty circle, but stick with me because I really want to help you find these essentials. We're going to take you on a big journey so you don't make the same mistakes that we've done. What was the biggest stake that we probably made, Mad Well, that's hard for me to answer because I feel like I'm pretty oblivious when it comes to most r V things. Stillbably was that the incident in Santa Fe. What was that? Oh? Yeah,

that was in the dump tank. The dump tank. Yeah, okay, so I was really going I was trying to lead in for the size to the RV. But but yeah, we'll we'll get into that. Um, but you're gonna have to stay tuned for a future episode of Boondocking and Brad to talk about that incident. Um, the biggest mistake we probably made was finding the right r V for us.

We got a Class C, which is great, and there's a lot of great um portions of a Class C, like the slideouts um where they're positioned um like ours is in the back in the bed, but it would have been better to have one in the front room so you have more living space. Right. So there's different classes of r vs which are gonna go over first, and then there's different slide out options for all of these. So I'm gonna start telling you with the Class A

these are the big rigs. You know, those are the ones that people use for tour buses to travel around the country full time for their bands or you know anything like that. So, uh, these are the big big rigs. There's gas and there's diesel versions, and it's always better to get a diesel pusher when you get a Class A UM just because the fuel and the engine maintenance

and everything like that. It's a much better run r V. When you're talking about over thirty ft r vs Class B conversion bands, you would think that that would just go down, but actually that's the conversion fans, right. So those are your van life campers, you know, the ones that are trying to stay off the grid. They have the generators and they're A C s that way. They can just live off the land and do a lot of boon docking. Um. They're a beautiful way to view

the country and visit the country. For Matt, night didn't make sense because we have Matt, myself and Finn, so three of us living in that full time would be a little more than intense. That would be a nightmare. Yeah, but there are the Class B conversion vans like the buses, those would also be technically Class b's and yes, but there would have been way too much build out in time and effort, and seeing how we lived in Chicago, we didn't have enough space to actually build out our

own conversion fans. So we had to go with something that made more sense for us. And what we thought that would be a Class C. And Class c's are gonna be mostly under thirty foot. Um. There the trucks that have the built in campers and basically you're looking at that overhead piece over the drivers and passenger seats. You're gonna have that extra bunk. Um. These are great for like long family road trips and then coming back like a month long or things like that. Those are

really what Class C s were built out for. It really wasn't made for full time living, but it can definitely happen. I mean, we've been making it work for over a year now, and you know we've ran into our own issues there and that's mostly of for us where the slideouts have been placed. Like I was saying, our slideout is in our bedroom, which is in the back, so it means we have a very slim path to walk up and down in and so we always run into each other and like we're trying to like when

guests are over, Oh my gosh, how complicated. Forget it. I know, it's like human tetras. It really is, like we're like, okay, so you know, when you're sitting there, make sure that your legs are over the side so we can still walk through. Now, if our slide out was in the living room, we would have that extra space and it would be so much easier to travel

with multiple people. But it really works for a little family, you know, the two of us in finn it's like that perfect size um for for us and what we're doing. It's just if that slide out was different, it would be beautiful and be perfect perfection. Now, going into some other types of r VS, when we're talking about ones that are not with a built in motor. UM. We have a lot of different pull behind options. There's the fifth wheels, there's toy hollers, travel tailers, pop ups, and

trunk campers. UM. Now, some of these you can live in full time. Some of them you would never want to. It would be horrendous. The fifth wheel options, those ones are normally with a big like thirty plus foot living spaces behind and basically a fifth wheel is installed into your truck and there's a big hinge basically and you drive your truck into it and it picks it up. But you're talking about the whole bed of your truck

is taken up by this. So if you wanted to try to like you know, do an event or you know, packing your truck as well, you're not going to because this where this hooks up. It doesn't hook up on your tailgate like the rest of UM pull behind stew There's toy haulers, which are actually an amazing UM one to have because what that basically means is the whole back will actually drop like am a ramp, so you can actually bring in your a t V S, you

can bring in your motorcycles. You can sometimes even fit a whole car in there if you're like a car collector or things like that. So there's the toy haulers can really fit in a lot of extra space and a lot of times when you pull down that back door, um, your bed actually pulls up to the ceiling or an extra couch or things like that, so there's like hidden It's like it's a really fascinating build for a trailer.

So if you're an outdoorsman and you want to do more with your life outside of like you know, with a t V s or motorcycles or dune buggies. Um, if you're a car collector, then that's probably more of your style. And when you go down from toy hollers, you kind of go into these travel trailers. Um. These travel trailers are ones that you're gonna find that are like twenty ft maybe um you can go a little

bit longer, but they're gonna go on your normal hitch. Um, So those are gonna be your normal truck hitches, UM that are gonna be pulling it. And when you pull those, you definitely want to get more. Um, You're gonna want to get more equipment, like a sway bar in a load bar, which basically that will help you from jack knifing your trailers or like when you're driving from it

tipping and things like that. When we were pulling behind a regular trailer behind our V this year, we had one of those, and it made it feel like it was part of the r V and I never felt unsafe pulling that trailer across the country. The next one is actually really great for weekend trips. Pop up campers. Your family had a pop up camper, didn't they. Yeah, I think we used that a lot whenever we would go camping. It's a family like a pop up type thing,

which is fine. Yeah, it's a lot of work. You have to like literally pop it up, pull it out, and all this stuff. Could you imagine living on the road full time and a pop up Absolutely not no, right, But it's perfect for your quick weekend maybe a week but like you don't really want to like live in it or anything like that. And because like every time you take it down the road, you have to put it back down because otherwise it acts like a kite world.

Just like you'll definitely mess that thing up real quick if you don't. Another beutiful addition to UM the r V world was truck campers. These truck campers basically your truck, you back up into it, you drop it on your truck, hook it up, and then you can drive away with your camper. These are great again for weekend trips. I've seen people use these as like conversion van styles where they're living on the road with them. UM, kudos of them.

But I could not do that because we're talking about a ten by ten by ten space and a tend by ten by ten space. I mean, you have to love and be in the perfect climates all year around, like right now where it's a little bit colder for us. Um, it would be miserable to sleep in that. I couldn't. I wouldn't because I would hear Matt like yelling at me and all these kind of things. But I'm crazy

now in OV. Yeah. So basically, you know, there's all these different kinds and it's really about finding the right one for you. If you're a weekend warrior, you know, definitely truck campers, pop ups, travel trailers, and even some toy hollers. Um. But when you're living in at RV full time, you kind of want to find the right hookups in the right place for you. UM. For us, Class C was really great because we can get into

a lot of national parks and around them. We've only run into like two where we're three ft two big to like drive the RV through that specific national park. Um, So we could actually almost get around the country easy with our Class C, Class B s or just like any kind of van. It's like a sprinter van that's converted or a bus. So most places you're gonna be really able to get around that country. Class A we're gonna definitely want to pull behind a car because you're

not going to be able to get everywhere. You can't go into the cities with these things. You know, it's not gonna be easy. Um, So when you're driving, you have to find out your skill of driving to find out really what's right for you. These aren't the easiest conversations to have. But if you have questions about finding the right RV for you and you want more answers, you can find us at park Landia Pod on Instagram or on Twitter at park Landia Pod and our Facebook

group park Landia Rangers. There's many different ways to get ahold of us, and I would love to have those conversations with you and help you find what's right for you. You've been listening to park Landia, a show about national parks. Parkland is a production of My Heart Radio, created by Matt Carouac, Brad Krouac, and Christopher has The otis produced and edited by Mike John's. Our executive producer is Christopher

hasiotis our researcher. It's Jess lynch Field Especial Things. Goes out to Gabrielle Collins, Crystal Waters and the rest of the Parklandia crew. And Hey listeners. If you're enjoying the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people like you find our show. You can keep up with us on social media as well. Check out our photos from our travels on Instagram at Parklandia pod and join in on the conversation and our Facebook group Parklandia Rangers.

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