About Us
First, we wanted to welcome you to our website. Our goal here is to be THE source for all your RVing information. While our goal is to showcase living full time in an RV, we are open to all RVers, whether you are a “weekend warrior”, or just like to hit a local campground for the weekend, or are considering doing what we did: Downsizing and transitioning to living full time in an RV.
Who We are:
T
he Early years (before we met)
Tracey is the youngest of 3 children and is originally from Whitehorse, in the Yukon. Her father got into gold mining in Northern BC when she was younger, so she spent a lot of time in an RV growing up as her parents moved from northern BC in the summer to mine, and then to southern BC in the fall to spend the winter (and for Tracey to go to school)
She has a love of photography and travel. So much so that she took a travel tourism course in college in Kelowna, BC.
Rob is the oldest of 3 children. In the mid 80’s he moved to BC with family after graduating high school and has lived in BC ever since. Shortly after moving to BC, he went to college to take a business management and marketing program.
It was during this time, when we were both in school, that we were introduced by a close mutual friend. We dated, moved in together, and eventually got married. A few years later we had our son.
After, having our son and moving around for a few years chasing jobs, Rob went back to school again. This time to take courses in the technology field, which ultimately let him to get a job at an online marketing firm in Kelowna. After a few years working there he moved on and started his own online marketing firm, which he has successfully operated for almost 15 years. He really enjoys his job and the best part is, all he needs is his computer, internet and a mobile phone. That means he can do his job from anywhere, which is ideally suited to our current “RV Lifestyle”
It was during this time when we decided that living a “traditional” life with the house with a picket fence, 2 cars in the driveway and kids in the backyard playing wasn’t necessarily what we wanted in life.
In short we didn’t want to spend our lives working to pay off a home. We didn’t want to work to live. We wanted to travel and enjoy life. That lead us to the idea of going mobile.
At first, we thought we would build ourselves a tiny house. We really enjoyed watching different tiny house programs on TV and thought it would be fun to do – downsize and live smaller. They were just beginning to grow in popularity and it seemed like a good way to both own a home and enjoy life and travel at the same time.
Our Timeline
After our son graduated from high school, we sold a bunch of our possessions put everything we didn’t sell into storage and moved into our 1969 Scamper for the summer. This was initially our first step towards our plans for building our own Tiny House. This is because we moved to Tracey’s father’s property. He has about an acre, so we felt we had more than enough room to begin construction of our new tiny home. The Scamper was too small for the 3 of us (it is a 19 foot trailer) but, luckily, Tracey’s dad owned a motorhome that he let us use. So our son stayed in the motorhome, while we lived in the Scamper. At this point we weren’t much more than glorified campers. But we did have high speed internet, so we were good! :)
We soon realized that building our own tiny house probably wouldn’t work. We just didn’t have enough construction experience. So we decided to focus on finding the ideal RV to live and travel with.
We also decided that we couldn’t winter in either the Scamper with it’s 2 inch thick walls) or the motorhome, so we decided to rent a condo in Kelowna BC with our son. We moved in there in the fall.
In the spring our son decided he wanted to make some “real money” so he moved to Alberta to work. The oil patch was booming and we had different friends who thought they could help him get a job. We decided to follow him out there in the summer, and bring the rest of his stuff from storage. So we loaded up our Scamper and headed to Alberta for the summer. We spent most of the summer in Red Deer, where our son ended up, but we also took time touring and visiting friends and family.
After helping our son find a place to live and settle, we came back to BC in fall. We were still living in the Scamper so knew we couldn’t spend a winter there. We made plans to spend the winter in a motel in Kelowna. Shortly after, our son decided to move back to BC as he wasn’t able to find a good well paying job in the oil and gas industry as it was starting to slow down. He moved into the motel with us for a couple months until he found a roommate and a place of his own to move in to.
Through all this time we were always on the hunt for a better RV we could move into and spend more time in. Ideally we wanted to be able to live year round.
In the spring we found what we thought was the perfect fifth wheel at a great price. So we bought it and moved into it. We were only living in it for a couple months before we took our new toy on the road. Our first big trip was from the North Okanagan to Mount Robson near Jasper for a family wedding. We then spent a few days touring the Clearwater area before coming back to the North Okanagan where we spent the summer.
In the fall of 2015 we moved into a hotel room for the winter again.
In spring 2016 we had our fifth wheel set up in an RV spot behind a motel in Kelowna. We spent the summer here. It was like our own private RV park. We had full services, satellite TV and internet. While we were here we started planning our first trip to the United States. We discussed where we’d like to go and settled on Nevada as we have a friend who owns a house down there.
So October of 2016 we headed south for our first major trip. Our goal was to spend the winter in Las Vegas at the KOA campground at Sam’s Town Casino
In April of 2017 we started our drive back to Canada. We drove north through Utah, Idaho and Montana, crossing the border into Alberta, We came this way rather than a more direct route home so we could spend week with a good friend who moved from BC to a small town called Bow Island in southern Alberta a few years before. After that we headed to Banff for a few nights.
We were chased out of Banff by a snowstorm so headed back to the North Okanagan where we lived in our fifth wheel in an RV park for the spring, summer and fall of 2017.
Rob had a retina detach on September long weekend, dashing our plans of heading south for the winter again, so instead we parked the rig and got a motel room in Vernon BC for the winter.
Even before we started our RV adventures we always wanted to take a road trip. so in Mid February of 2018 we packed up our car and headed south, to Yuma AZ for 2 months.
We came back in the spring of 2018 to our fifth wheel and realized that after spending the past 6 summers in an RV of some kind we decided we wanted a summer break so rented a condo up at the Silver Star Mountain Resort near Vernon BC.
We started looking at motorhomes that summer because our plan was to take a trip north in 2019, through northern BC and the Yukon and didn’t want to pull a fifth wheel all the way up there. Plus, we were finding that the fifth wheel was just too small, what with Rob working full time while also living in our RV. It made for some pretty cramped days, especially if the weather wasn’t nice outside
We found the ideal motorhome (the other RV showing on our home page) and moved into it, back at Tracey’s fathers property for the winter to live, but also help him out more as he just turned 92.
Which leads us to now.
2019 started where 2018 had left off – We were still out at Tracey’s father’s property for a few more months.
It was also in 2019, at the coldest part of the year in early January, where our water supply line froze and that led to our water tank also freezing and splitting! That wasn’t much fun – middle of winter and now no water inside our motorhome. But we did some research and found a replacement tank and were able to replace the split tank a little later. Once the cold snap broke, our water started flowing again and we were back at it!
Around Easter we arranged to move back into the city and had found a great full time spot in an RV park. A few months later luck would appear to be on our side. Our son decided to move back to Kelowna as well, and soon after he moved back he borrowed our fifth wheel, as it was in storage, and moved into it right next door to us in the same RV park. This is where the luck came in as we were able to secure that spot next door to us for him.
We spent the summer getting our spot set up the way we like it. The picture shows how it was shortly after we moved in. What it doesn’t show you is how our patio ended up. You see, we have a couple screens that attach to our awning. They are meant for shade and privacy. They helped us expand our usable space by more than doubling the space we live in. We had it set up very nicely with comfortable patio furniture, lighting and even a TV and soundbar!
We stayed here through the spring, summer and fall, and into winter. Luckily, winter 2019/2020 was warmer and there was less snow than the previous winter (2018/2019).
2020 started out cold but clear. There was no snow on the ground, but that changed a few days into the year.
But that didn’t slow us down. After spending over a year in the motorhome we determined it was time to start doing some renovations! Nothing too major to start. We removed the folding couch and replaced it with 2 comfortable chairs. We also removed the dinette.
Eventually we decided to purchase a reclining loveseat and placed it where the dinette was, and mounted our flat screen TV opposite of it. It’s still like this today. We also added an electic fireplace we had in storage for heat and ambiance.
Things were moving along nicely, then Covid-19 hit and our world, like most, got turned upside down somewhat.
Our first concern was money, as with most people. Rob is self employed, so we were concerned about losing his income. But he was able to work with his clients to help them through the lockdown, and we all came out the other side still intact and in business.
But also because of Covid, our first real “long term” trip we had planned obviously fell through. We wanted to take the motorhome out on the road and do an Alberta tour, since that province is right next door and we both have lots of friends and family throughout the province. Instead, we stayed home.
We did manage to take a small mini-vacation by travelling to a different campground – one of our favorites in the area – and that was great as it helped us experience what it might feel like during one of our longer road trips we have planned for the next few years.
We haven’t given up on the Alberta trip we were planning. Now we’re hoping to take that trip in 2021, combined with travelling to the Yukon as Tracey has roots there. But only time will tell if we get there.
In fall of 2020, watching the long term forecasts for a longer, colder, and snowier winter than normal we decided, after much discussion, to put the motorhome in storage and rent a condo for the winter. We still have some renos to complete in the motorhome, but we did start.
Here’s hoping 2021 starts off better than 2020!
Little did we know that Covid would have such a huge impact on everyone’s lives. And we were impacted just as much.
While we were able to get out camping a few times throughout the year, we didn’t really go far.
In the fall of 2021 we took a short trip from our home in Kelowna down south to Penticton and spent some time in a couple RV parks there.
I even got a chance to try out my homemade Kayak rack:
Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to us at the time – this would be the last trip we took with our Motorhome for some time.
2022 started out cold. By now we had been in a rental condo for some time but were itching to hit the road again once it warmed up.
However fate had different plans for us as family obligations kept us tied to the Okanagan Valley for yet another year. We had planned on taking a longer road trip – starting our “never ending summer tour” (more on this to come in 2023).
We did manage to take a small trip to Alberta in August and visited with family.
Because 2022 was such a bad year for us personally we were determined to make 2023 better. So we planned a trip to northern Canada.
Our plan was to leave earlier in the year, however we were unable to leave until July. We had to get 1/2 our windshield replaced before we could make the trip and the glass didn’t come until later in June.
But while we were waiting for the windshield we did make some upgrades to the motorhome.
We got a couple Lithium batteries, along with solar panels and a charge controller. We paired this with an inverter, so that we could go off the grid easier. These came in handy on our trip as there were a few places along the way we parked where we didn’t have power.
Finally, we took off from Vernon BC headed north. We headed towards Dawson Creek with plans of taking the Alaska Highway on to Whitehorse.
We left Dawson Creek in the middle of July and made it to Liard Hot springs a couple days later. The next day we went on to Watson Lake and toured the Signpost forest. A few days later we make it to Whitehorse where we spent about a week longer than we planned because we both caught “something” – likely strep throat – causing us to stay in the campground while we recovered.
When we did recover enough we continued on, taking a few days to drive to Dawson City where we spent a few weeks, before heading back to southern Canada in early September.
But we didn’t head back to the Okanagan. Well, we did, but only for a short time. We decided to continue south and keep our “endless summer tour” going. We planned on heading to Laughlin Nevada.
We crossed the border into the US on October 17 and spent our first night in the US in Spokane Washington. From there we headed through Idaho and into Montana, before turning south. 6 days after crossing into the US we landed in Laughlin.
We spent a couple weeks in Laughlin before crossing the river to find another RV park where we spent a few months.
We started 2024 in Bullhead City in an RV park there and while it was hard to leave this view we decided to head to California for a short trip. We booked ourselves into an RV park outside of Palm Springs for the month of February before heading on to Yuma Arizona. We spent a couple months in Yuma before turning our sites north again.
We were back in Canada in late March and spent a cool couple of nights in Penticton where we discussed what was next. It turns out, we both wanted to head to the Yukon again so that is what we did.
By May Long Weekend we were already back in Quesnel BC where we met up with some friends who travelled with us. We travelled together up the Dease Lake Highway AKA Highway 37, or the Stewart-Cassiar highway.
We ended up in a small town called Atlin in northern BC just before Canada Day and we spent a good part of our summer enjoying the peace and serenity of this once thriving gold mining town.
While we were in Atlin we took a side trip (just drove, didn’t take the motorhome) to Skagway Alaska – another former gold mining town. Skagway now relies primarily on tourism and there were 3 cruise ships docked when we were there.
We left Atlin in late August and went into Whitehorse for a few days to restock and prepare for our trip back south. By early September we were back in Quesnel. We had arranged to do some house sitting in Kamloops for the winter so from November to the end of February we did that.
Now, you may be asking “What’s in Atlin? Why spend our summer there?” Well, this was the view from our camping spot:
The Future
Our future plans are to continue travelling as much as we can. We would still like to head north, but don’t think that will happen this year. We also plan on heading East to see more of our great country. And when we can, we’ll also head south again, perhaps for another winter. We’d also like to spend a summer (and maybe even a winter) on Vancouver Island.
But who knows? You see, that’s the best part about living this lifestyle. We aren’t tied to a specific place. And with the portability of Rob’s job, home is the next place that has internet and an RV plug outlet we can plug into.