Some Great Traveling Blogs

I don't know how I would have found out so much about the nomadic travelling life before the days of the internet. The obvious answer is by doing it of course, which I hope to gradually start doing over the next few years. In the meantime, it's fun and informativew to live the travelling life vicariously by following the blogs of others.

There is a slowly growing collection of blogs on my blogroll. I won't describe 'em all, but here are a few that I really enjoy. The best ones, in my opinion, put you almost inside the head of the blogger, so that you get an idea what their life is really like. The Traveler, whose name I can't remember now, and am not sure if I ever knew her real name, has a great blog all about living in her VW Westfalia, called Falia Photography Freedom Journal. There is much info and so many stories here, it'll take you many hours of happy reading to acquaint yourself with her lifestyle, which began when she lost her job and decided that owning a house wasn't for her. Westy's are such great little vans. I was convinced that her name is Laura, but perhaps that's because I'm getting her confused with Laura of Laura's 78 Westy fame, which is also a fun blog to follow.

Just the other evening I came across a brilliant travelogue authored by Randy. It's called Mobile Kodgers, and if you're thinking that by kodgers, he's referring to doddery old men, then you owe it to yourself to read his blog and discover the important distinction between codgers and kodgers. I'll let you make the discovery, but Randy's online travel journal is full of discovery, interesting characters and places, and Randy's philosophizing and musing on all that he encounters.

I was thrilled to discover Chuck Woodbury on the internet. Years ago I subscribed to a newspaper called "Out West" that was written by Chuck as he travelled the backroads of the west in his RV. He wrote about the places and interesting characters he met along the way, and this publication was my first significant taste of the travelling life. I think that Chuck probably sowed the seeds of what will become my travelling lifestyle in the next few years. Out West is no longer published, but Chuck is now the editor of RVTravel.com which publishes online every week.

There are so many other great travel blogs out there. I'll add 'em to the blogroll as I find them, and hope you'll tip me off when you find good 'uns.

Don't Buy Those FRS Radios - Try These For Better Communication

You see them in Radio Shack, sporting goods, camping and outdoor stores, and generally all over the place - attractively priced walkie talkies, often sold in blister packs in pairs at quite affordable prices and promising ranges as high as 35 miles between two small walkie talkies. If you've questioned that and thought that you'd be happy with just a quarter of that range, you're right to question, but think again, as you're not even going to get a quarter of that quoted 35 miles range - not even close. 1/4 to 1/2 mile between two handheld FRS radios is probably a lot closer to reality, depending on the terrain - perhaps even less.

FCC rules governing FRS radios limit them to 1/2 watt output power max and state that the antenna must be permanently fixed to the radio, meaning that you cannot attach a longer and more efficient whip antenna (or outdoor mounted base station antenna). The antennas on these radios are always short, very inefficient, and combined with the low output power of 1/2 watt, ensure that you're not going to be able to communicate very far.

There is another radio service that, like FRS, doesn't require that you have a license, yet allows output power of up to 2 watts with the ability to use any kind of antenna you wish. The service is called MURS (Multi-Use Radio Service) and you'll get much better range from a couple of MURS radios than from the cheaper FRS radios.

The MURS service was introduced by the FCC in the fall of 2000 and a comprehensive FAQ can be found here. For a few years after MURS was introduced, a number of manufacturers offered radios (both handheld and base station) that covered all 5 of the available channels but most of these went out of production and today, to my knowledge, the only MURS radio that is currently available is a handheld made by Dakota Alert - the DK-M538-HT, which has all 5 MURS channels. If you're wondering why a radio service that offers greater range than the FRS service hardly caught on and has so few radios available to buy, the only reason I can think of (which quite a lot of others seem to be thinking also) is that firstly, it is quite costly for a manufacturer to get a model of radio type-approved by the FCC so that it can be legally sold in the US. Many of these manufacturers are already selling lots of the cheaper and widely available FRS radios, so there is not much incentive for them to invest in a new line of radios. The fact that MURS radios will give much more satisfactory performance than FRS radios is not really important to makers, as consumers don't know any different. They see these attractive walkie-talkies in plastic bubble packs in stores that claim to give anything up to 35 miles range (completely unrealistic claims) for not much money and buy them. Makers keep getting the sales, so why should they invest the money to bring a better product to market? As for why the companies that were selling MURS radios for a few years stopped selling them, all I can think is that the public wasn't well-informed. Mr Average Joe Camper/Hiker goes to his local sporting goods or outdoor recreational store, sees a well-built quality MURS handheld radio selling for $100, then sees a blister pack with two FRS radios that claim to give a 14 mile range - and they are only $50 for the pair. SOLD! Joe goes home, tries out his new cheap FRS radios, realizes that they don't work that well, and figures that this is all he can expect from a handheld radio.

My friend Antoinette lives just a mile from me. We used to spend quite a lot of time talking on the phone, and despite my continued nags to her to limit our phone conversations to the times when her cellphone gave her free minutes at night, she just didn't seem to be able to control herself, and received bills in excess of $100 every month. I bought a couple of MURS radios for us, and instantly, her cell bills went down to the minimum for her plan of around $50 instead. On top of that, we find that the radios allow us to keep in more constant contact. If one of us wants to say something to the other, we just push the button and talk - no need to make a phone call. On top of that, the radios I bought were used ones from eBay for which I paid about $50 each (plus another $15 for a new rechargeable battery and about $30 for a longer and more efficient antenna), so you can see that they paid for themselves quite quickly.

These radios have all kinds of uses to RV'ers for keeping in touch in and around camp - even between vehicles when driving, which is why I'm including this post in my RV blog. Even though the options if you want to buy a new MURS radio are very limited, there a number of old business band radios that can be easily programmed for the MURS channels.

Here are the radios I bought - a couple of Kenwood TK2100's, complete with their inefficient "stubby" antennas. The front of the radios had the name of their owners (a retail establishment) engraved on them. You can see that the reseller from whom I bought them has filed the engraving off the front:

Here's a view of one of the radios, showing, from left to right, the antenna connector, the 2 position channel selector, and the volume control:I got these from a seller on eBay who buys up job lots of old radios and resells them. There is now a newer version of the Kenwood TK2100 available if you want to buy new and spend more money, but these radios are very rugged and all I can tell you is that the 2 that I bought about 6 months ago have worked perfectly - and they have been used for around 8 hours a day every day. They have little nicks and abrasions (they were probably hanging off the belt of a security guard or loss prevention guy for a few years) so they're not as pretty as a new one, but c'mon - it's a radio, not a darned fashion accessory and besides, you won't feel as bad when you drop it for the first time if it already has nicks and scratches on it! Do a search on eBay for Kenwood TK2100 and you should get plenty of results. The radios I bought came with drop-in chargers that plug into the 120V AC supply. The charger is powered by a wall-wart, which has an output of 12V DC, so it looks like it might be possible to power the charger from the 12V DC supply in an RV. When I finally hit the road in a camper, I'll report back on this.

On receiving the radios, I did 2 things to get them ready for regular service. Firstly, I bought 2 new aftermarket rechargeable batteries from a seller on eBay who was in Hong Kong. The batteries were $15 each including shipping, and have worked fine for the last 6 months. The radios come with batteries, but considering the kind of use these radios get, the batteries will probably be well past their prime by the time you get them, so I think it's advisable to get new batteries.

The second thing I did was to replace the included short antennas with longer and more efficient antennas which make a big difference to the kind of range you can achieve. Pryme make whip antennas for the 144MHz amateur band, and they work fine on the nearby MURS channels also. Here are the radios with "his n' hers" antennas. Both antennas do exactly the same thing, except one is slimmer:

A closer view:

The antenna is available here:

http://www.prymestore.com/shop/catalog/amateur-products/rd-98-thin-whip-gain-antenna-with-bnc-connector.-2m--440mhz-2157.html (for the slimmer antenna)

This is the slimmer whip pictured on the lower radio in the above picture. I wasn't able to find the thicker one on the Pryme site, so it looks like they don't make it any more. No worries - they are both identical in operation anyway. The antenna has a BNC connector, so to attach it to the radio you will need an SMA female to BNC female adapter:

http://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-010219

Ant and I have base station antennas mounted outside our apartments, which gives us even better range communicating back to base when one of us is out and about - try doing that with FRS radios!

That's about it. The radios work great, have saved Antoinette and I lots of money over cell phones, and are more fun to use. In some areas, MURS enthusiasts gather on the lower channels (MURS channel 3 tends to be popular for this use). If you're wanting to use MURS more like a CB radio to communicate with people other than those in your immediate group like these guys, you should consider a radio that covers all 5 MURS channels, as the Kenwood TK2100's I just described can only operate on MURS channels 4 and 5.

Composting Toilets For Effective Boondocking

Boondocking is what RV'ers call it when they camp with no sewer, water or electric hookups - when they are operating "off the grid". I've thought a lot about boondocking, because it's the way I'm going to be able to afford to do the RV thing full-time. If I have to start paying for campsites all the time, it'll be back to an apartment before the pocketbook gets too slim.

When boondocking, you need to be able to generate your own electricity, fill up the freshwater tanks from time to time, and dump your greywater and blackwater. For the uninitiated (and I was just a few weeks ago), greywater is the water from your galley sink and shower, and blackwater is the waste from your toilet (a mix of #1, #2, water used to flush, and toilet paper). The other main power source in a campber van or RV is propane used for the stove and water heater, as well as perhaps a heater to keep warm in the cold weather.

Let's tackle these one by one. There are three main ways to generate electricity. The first is by using the alternator in the engine to charge the house battery. This is OK if you're driving a lot, but not so good if you're boondocking. Not sure that I'd want to put all those extra hours on my engine by running it for hours while parked. The second is by using a gas-powered generator. The Roadtrek I'm planning on buying comes with an on-board generator. I believe many RV's do (still new at this.) Downsides to using a generator are the noise and the expense. I understand that this can be quite an expensive way to make electricity. The third, and to me the most attractive, is using solar panels mounted on the roof to charge the house batteries. The main downside is the inital expense to buy and install the system. After that though, it's completely quiet and free. Don't think about operating an a/c unit from a solar system though, unless you have 500 watts or more of panels with a small a/c unit , and even then, you'll have to limit your hours of operation. If, like me, you have or are planning to get a conversion van or camper van, you won't have room for much more than 200 watts of panels, so running an a/c is out of the question unless you're hooked up to shore power. When boondocking, if you shun the a/c, and stay away from other high-consumption devices like desktop computers (laptops are OK) and power tools, you should be be able to find a way to make 200 watts of panels work. Bear in mind that this is all theory for me at this point - I'll report back on this when I'm in the field and living the dream!

Getting freshwater is up to your own ingenuity - perhaps you can find an errant faucet somewhere? For some reason, I remember the location of a faucet outside a business on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. I used to see homeless folk using it to drink and bathe early in the morning. If I were boondocking in Hollywood, I'd sidle up to this faucet early in the day to fill up the freshwater tank. Perhaps you can fill up plastic jugs from restaurant bathrooms, ask friends in the area - use your ingenuity!

Dumping greywater is a topic that opinions differ on. Some feel that it's OK to dump it on the ground if you're in a sparsely populated area and it will soak into the ground. Others think that even greywater can harbor dangerous bacteria, germs etc and should be disposed of in a dump tank. I'll give you my opinion once I've been on the road for a while, but I don't think this is going to be a significant problem for me.

This leaves us with the issue of dumping the blackwater. Obviously, you can't just go pumping this stuff out wherever you want. Many RV'ers use dump stations, which occasionally are free, or may be included as a service when using a campground. There is often a fee for dumping your blackwater though. If you're on a short trip, you can pump it out into your own toilet when you get home, or if still on the road, talk a gas station attendant into letting you do the same with their public restroom (perhaps). This isn't always too convenient if you're boondocking though. To my mind, getting rid of my poo and pee is the main issue that stands in the way of happy boondocking.

Which brings me to composting toilets. I'd previously thought of these as being somewhat undesirable. I figured they were probably a bit on the smelly side and just didn't like the idea of my poop hanging around in the area for a long time. The reading I've been doing over the last few days informs me that much of the smell of sewage comes from the urine. Nature's Head make a composting toilet designed for boats and RV's that separates the urine from the solids and stores it in a separate container that can be easily dumped into a regular toilet when necessary. This is brilliant for two reasons. Firstly, most other composting toilets don't separate urine from solids, and consume much more electricity, as they make use of a permanently-on heater for evaporating the urine. The heater in one such unit is 120 watts, which is a significant amount to come from a battery continuously. Secondly, the urine makes up much of the volume and weight in your blackwater tank. By separating this into a detachable container, you can easily dump it when necessary. The tray that holds the mixture of peat moss and decomposing poop doesn't need to be dumped very often. In fact, the longer you leave it, the more the poop composts and becomes less noxious. When you do dump the tray, it isn't even necessary to clean it out, as anything left over will only aid in the decomposition process. I'll leave you to read all about it on their website.

I'm sure that to begin with, I'll most likely be using the regular toilet and blackwater tank in my rig, but I'll be doing a lot of research into composting toilets with a view to installing one. It's a shame that companies like Roadtrek and Pleasure-Way don't put these kinds of toilets in their conversion vans.

I Want A Roadtrek!

I've come to the conclusion that I want one of these for my traveling adventures:

I normally don't take photos from other people's sites, being very aware of copyright issues, but I don't think Roadtrek are going to mind me creating a little bit of extra publicity for their brilliant conversion vans. The 190P is built on either a Dodge or Chevy van chassis. It's just 19 feet long but has a galley, toilet and shower, 2 beds at the back and a smaller one at the front, as well as a lot of storage space both inside and out:

The beds at the back can also convert into one big bed. Talk about luxury in a van:I can't justify buying one of these new (they're close to US$100,000), but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find a 15 year-old one with reasonable miles for somewhere in the region of $15,000, which is a price I can justify.

Before I start waxing lyrically and getting all excited about the Roadtrek, let's backtrack a little, in case you're thinking you too want to experience the excitement and freedom of living in a van or small RV, but don't have 15 grand to spend on a vehicle. Before we go any further, the following has become very apparent to me:

It is possible to live the traveling RV lifestyle on almost any budget with almost any level of savings (including no savings).

If you don't have much money, you can make up for it by buying something older and working on it yourself. How about buying an old van and doing your own conversion, like this fellow. If you don't feel your skills are up to it, you could always have a go anyway and be prepared to live with something a bit less than perfect, or you could even not bother about custom fitting the van. Some people put a small futon in the back of a van and then cobble together plastic crates and other bits of furniture, with a camping propane stove and a chemical toilet to make themselves completely self-contained. There are many ways to do it. The usual rule of life applies - the less money you have, the more creativity you'll need, and the greater the degree of satisfaction you'll experience :-) There are lots of ideas on how to do your own van conversions on this cool site.

On the other hand, if you have oodles of money, you can buy something that looks like The Rolling Stones' tour Bus and live in that. It's all up to you:

This is a Newell Coach. You and I probably don't have enough money to buy it.

I started out by thinking that I might do my own van conversion but I do want to live in something that looks reasonably nice and makes maximum use of the small available space. I decided that if I'm going to do this full-time, then I want a van that offers me a certain minimum degree of creature comfort, meaning that the walls will have to be insulated, and there will have to be a kitchen as well as a shower. When I found out that Roadtreks offered me everything I wanted and used ones in good condition were affordable on my budget, my problems were solved.

Roadtrek are a Canadian company that perform the van customizations, starting with either a Dodge, Chevy, or Mercedes chassis, depending on the model. The floor is lowered, and roof cut off and replaced with a fiberglass top to increase headroom, The walls and roof are insulated and the whole van fitted out with custom cabinetry. The cabinets are made of plywood as opposed to particle board, so they last. Roadtreks are made well, so a used model that has been cared for represents a good bet.

Not sure of my timing yet, but I'm thinking about trying to get something in March or April of next year. That gives me plenty of time to work on thinning down my collection of "stuff" here in the apartment and lots of time for reading up about my upcoming adventure. At least when I begin to hit the road I'll be well-informed. Gotta love the internet!

The Genesis Of An Idea (or How Did This All Get Started?)

Sometime in the 1980's or 1990's I subscribed for a year or two to a really cool newspaper called Out West. It was produced by a gentleman named Chuck Woodbury who traveled around the back-country areas of the western states in his RV and wrote about the places and people he met. Being English, I have a strong regard for what the English might call mild eccentrics. On the west coast of the US, we just think of these people as having the strength of personality and singularity of purpose to do their own thing. I loved reading "Out West" and was impressed by the fact that Chuck wrote, edited and produced the whole thing (as well as managing the subscriptions) from his RV as he traveled around. Brilliant!

I had a high regard for the newspaper and the many characters featured in it, but at that point hadn't started thinking about an RV life for me.

Besides, weren't RV's for old dodderers? It seemed odd that in America, the older people get, the larger the vehicles they drive. Little old ladies weave

nervously down the road in extra-wide boats with huge fins and big bench seats, barely able to peer over the steering wheel. By the time extreme old age creeps in, the average driver has graduated to driving a gigantic house on wheels - you know, the kind that is reduced to a pile of kindling by the side of the road after a few gusts of wind and the resulting gentle collision. RV's made no sense to me and besides, being under the age of 97, I was far too young to drive one. I was living in Los Angeles and working as a radio DJ, record store DJ, voice-over guy and commercial producer. I was living the life, and trundling around the boonies in an RV was just not my cup of tea.

But that was then and this is now. I loved working as a DJ, getting to see many famous musicians actors and celebrities, going to film screenings in Hollywood and seeing the insides of voice-over studios as part of my work. It was heady and lots of fun. For the first 10 years or so, it was exciting. Then very slowly, it turned into something that I still enjoyed very much, but didn't pump the adrenaline anymore. Then the industry started changing and many of us started to see the writing on the wall. The economy went south and the expected happened; I was laid off. By the time it happened, I was prepared and almost looking forward to it. I'd had tons of fun working in a media industry in LA but was intrigued to know what else life might hold.

My former life as a DJ

Many people who knew me said that I should think about getting back into radio, others that I should look for more voice-over work. I'm also fairly web-savvy and literate with a keyboard so figured that perhaps I could do website maintenance, online customer service, or something similar. I had ideas, but what I wasn't prepared for was the fact that for the first time in my life, I felt no real motivation to work. Criminy! What did this mean? Was I a listless, inept wastrel, incapable of contributing to society anymore? Anytime I told a friend, colleague or family member that I didn't feel like working anymore, I felt slightly guilty. What made it worse was that I was quite happy for the time being just getting up every day, drinking coffee, reading about all sorts of things on the internet, and indulging my hobby of ham radio (both building and operating radios).

"What are you doing" people would ask, and my answer was often "nothing much". Now, this sounds like a contemptible waste of time but the truth was that I wasn't actually doing nothing. I was getting up when I wanted to, drinking coffee and wandering about in my pajamas, and often building or operating radios like this one:or this one:

(which impressed a columnist in a national ham radio magazine so much that he featured it!) The point is that I was doing exactly what I wanted to do. I know it would have sounded a lot more exciting had I been able to say that I was spending my days sky-diving, river-rafting and hiking the Marin headlands, but I was having a good time just being a homebody. Add to that a lot of time spent with my friend Antoinette, watching movies, eating food and talking about music (she's also a DJ) and you can see that I was spending most of my time "just chillin" (as the young 'uns say) and thoroughly enjoying it.

Since my late 20's, I've been saving and investing regularly (more on that in later blogs if anyone is interested). I was driven to save by the fear of ending up old, unable to work, and forced to exist on a tiny income. The truth is probably that what social security wouldn't cover, various other social programs would, but I didn't want to take that chance, so I saved. I also spent quite a lot of time doing math on scrap bits of paper and trying to figure out how much I would have by the time I hit 60 or 65, and then attempting to calculate if that was enough. I like figures, so I spent a lot of time doing simple sums and trying to figure it all out.

I'm not loaded. When I was laid off it was apparent to me that I didn't have enough to retire and needed to work for at least a few more years. I had already moved to a smaller and cheaper apartment and wouldn't have enough money to maintain this new, cheaper lifestyle in the future without working. I then moved to an even smaller and cheaper apartment and discovered that I was just as happy. Wow! Revelation!

At this point I had a life that I realized I could afford to fund indefinitely with my savings and investments. Problem was that I was getting a bit bored and needed something to hold my interest. With my DJ career, I had a mission and now I had none. There was no point in being able to afford not to work if I was bored.

I thought about building or buying a Tiny House. I was also quite inspired by a couple of visits to England where I stayed with my brother and his wife on their boat:

Slowly I began to realize that if I lived in an RV, I could live relatively affordably while being able to travel wherever I wanted throughout North America. This realization didn't come swiftly; it has taken me a while to get from the point where I thought it was a really neat idea, to being convinced that I could actually do it. I'm now at the point where I'm living in a rented room in a nice old house in Oakland and looking to buy a small RV next year and start going away for short trips to acclimatize to life on the road. If during this period I decide that I don't want to go ahead with the plans to full-time RVing, then I can continue part-timing or even sell the rig. At worst, I'll probably only lose a few thousand, but at least I'll know that I explored that idea.