RV Navigator

It is officially summer and the camping season has begun - but we'll let the family RVers have first dibs on the campgrounds. We'll be home for most of the summer. On our way home at the beginning of the month, we stopped to get our sofa recovered. The original factory fabric had peeled over the past few months, so we had it replaced - now it looks like new. But of course the real question is why...

On the road this month on a 2400 mile trip north over 2 weeks. We visited some bucket list and out of the way destinations such as Crater of Diamonds State Park and Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Arkansas. These plus a couple of old favorite camping spots kept us busy for the month. Of course, the month started with a 5 night family cruise (with 22 participants) cruise aboard the Independence of th...

As February ended, we headed to Rio in Brazil to begin a cruise that will take us in and out of the Amazon before ending in Miami. Early in February we headed to one of our favorite boondocking spots, Jetty Park near Cocoa Beach in FL. This park offers a nice Atlantic ocean beach, a prime spot to watch rocket launches and the cruise ships enter the port. Our new towed was taken on it maiden voyage...

Back to RVing! We spent the entire month in our RV doing what the podcast is about - RVing! The highlight was the Tampa RV Super Show held each January at the Florida State Fairgrounds. In our opinion this is the best RV show in the country with hundreds of rigs on display along with hundreds of vendors for specialized RV products. The weather in FL has been variable with lots of cool interspersed...

The year ends with 123123 and our annual New Years Eve podcast with bubbly. Having just returned home from an extended trip to Southeast Asia, we are still struggling with a 12 hour jet lag. The year in review shows that we did alot of travel outside the US so the RV travel was limited. We will be heading to FL for our annual snowbird experience in a week or so. Join us at the Tampa RV Supershow s...

Greetings from Southeast Asia. After an unusual beginning of our trip, we landed in Singapore after 26 hrs of travel and 12 time zones. We began the land portion of the trip by adding two new countries to our growing list of visited countries. After traveling to Thailand, we made our way to Laos and Cambodia ending in Vietnam after almost 3 weeks. Returning to Singapore we picked up our 4 week cru...

Wd did enjoy the good weather of the Southlands as the temps headed down at home. Flying home was a shock to the system as the weather was quite cold for the season. We do share lots of RV topics this month including the possibility of an EV RV pulled by a Tesla tracker. Also what’s new with Starlink and T-Mobile for RVers, new AI features of Bing, the new iPhone 15 as a camera and much more are o...

On the road once again as we make our way to our winter home in Florida. But why drive directly for 3 days? Rather make it a leisurely trip of 3 weeks, do a bit of family visiting, sight seeing, and enjoy the camping. The eastern US is known for trees, so our campsites didn’t offer much of a view for our satellite TV, so we had to rely on streaming. Hear about our experiences and what option we ha...

Greetings from the open seas of the North Atlantic as we cruise from Bergen, Norway to NYC over 28 days. Wildlife is always unpredictable, but during the recording of the podcast we spotted a whale outside of our cabin window. It was a WOW moment and indicative of our travels this month. All three countries that we visited had an abundance of fjords with picturesque little towns at the end. Of the...

No camping this month, but we’ll be “on the road” for the next 9 months as begin our adventures with a cruise from Bergen, Norway to NYC for 28 days. July was fairly quiet as we celebrated the 4th at home enjoying great summer weather for most of July. The Chicago area has not been plagued with the weather extremes experienced by much of the country. We took the opportunity to get out doors but ju...

Our brief camping trip to the Indiana Dunes was a big success. Perfect weather, nice campground, RV working perfectly all came together to make a great experience this year. The beach in this park is very nice plus of course the water is fresh - and fairly warm at this time of year. We stayed for 3 nights. Even though I made the reservation on January 3, this was the longest midweek reservation av...

Another episode from the home base in Chicago as the copilot recovers from knee replacement surgery. Todays episode is based around an interview with the founder of CarGenerator.com. This product produces 110 volt power from your car for use in home or RV. It is an easy hookup, light weight, and powerful enough to keep either your house or RV operational in case of power failure or you're boondock...

Due to Marthas ongoing knee problems, we scheduled an operation to replace her knee months ago. Finally on April 11 the surgery was completed very successfully. Successful does not mean pain free or nothing to do after the surgery. We have spent time in pain mitigation and PT as she works to make the new knee strong and ready for the many adventures to follow. It will take a couple of months, but...

Your RV Navigators have just returned from a 63 day travel adventure to Africa and are a bit jet lagged after the long journey home. The trip included a 3 week Safari in South Africa and a 33 day cruise of South Africa ending with a trip up the west coast of the African continent. This portion of the trip gave us the chance to visit several less touristic countries that we had never visited before...

This month we continued the South African safari. We stayed in several tented camps along our route. Every national park has it animal specialties, so visiting several gives visitors a broad perspective on animal viewing and habitats. We did of course manage to see the big 5 (lion, leopard, rhino, cape buffalo, and elephants) plus hundreds of other type of animals and birds. Tented camps are outpo...

It has been many years since we last visited South Africa (at the very southern most tip of Africa). In 2006, we drove a rental RV in South Africa for about 6 weeks. We of course cooked our meals and drove the RV to all of the attractions. This time we are on tour with meals, transportation, and sightseeing included. I remember having lunch in Kruger NP while watching elephants eating grass on the...

The New Year (2023) finds at home in Chicago awaiting our next travel adventure which begins in mid January. After some adventures at home with our furnace and the cold weather, we'll be off to Africa for a 2 month safari & cruise in the warm Southern Hemisphere. The safari will cover Africas big 5 plus lots of interesting birds. Our accommodations say "tented camp" so we are expecting almost prim...

Winter has greeted us as we return to our suburban Chicago base in time for the holidays. Seasons greetings in this episode extend to our expanded list of gift suggestions for you or your RV friends. We chat about the direction that our podcast has taken over the years. Is it still the RV Navigator or has the focus changed as our lives have changed (mainly due to the pandemic)? Although we share o...

Another month on the road as we travel North in Finland and over Lapland ending our land trip in Bergen, Norway. From there we head to GB to meet our cruise ship in Southampton. This episode was made while on board the Sky Princess as we travel to Fort Lauderdale. Why mix gas and water, you ask. One RVer did make this nube mistake.

Note that in the podcast we make a reference to this is episode 209. It should be 210.Take off on our next trip happened mid month as we flew to Riga, Latvia for the beginning of our tour of the Baltics and Scandinavia over the next couple of weeks. We have been surprised at our lack of knowledge of this area plus the many tourist attractions that make a visit worthwhile. Riga has turn out to be v...

Just after the last episode, we moved from Italy to France to join our river cruise in Bordeaux. This involved a short flight across the 2 countries landing in Paris and a bus trip south to meet the ship. The weather was very hot as expected in Summer, but the AC was was subpar in most locations. Sailing the rivers of the Bordeaux region of France, means learning about wine. This is the heart of t...

On the road again in Italy and France as we traverse the wine making regions of these countries. Follow our adventures outside of the RV as travel with a small group through the Alps. Weather has been hot but sunny for great photos. RVs in Europe are much different than those in the US but we've seen a lot of family's enjoying the outdoor experience.

With our email back in operation, we have received several questions and comments from listeners. Thanks!! New email is at rvnavigator@mac.com. As you might expect, we headed to the Indiana Dunes for our annual beach RV trip. I feel strongly that the motorhome needs to be exercised regularly to keep it in good working order. Therefore when we are not doing a major trip we do spaced out small trips...

After joking last month about the possibility of having to quarantine, it happened to us. We were escorted off of our cruise and into a hotel for a 10 day quarantine due to positive covid tests. Neither of us were sick, but the policy is that a positive test requires a quarantine period off of the ship. So we spent the first 10 days of May ensconced behind the door of a hotel in Brussels. The hote...

This months finds your RVNavigators sailing on both the oceans (Atlantic) and Rivers of Europe. We had ventured across the Atlantic in order to attend the famous Tulip festival in Amsterdam. In this episode we compare ocean to river cruising as well as large vs small cruising. Of course there is the usual Ring news and comments on RV topics.