Your Guide to RV Adventures with a Wander Filled Life – RVE #324

Want to live a Wander Filled Life? Check out USA RV Adventures by Grant & Bonnie Sinclair.

Learn how to create your own RV adventure with the authors of USA RV Adventures, Grant and Bonnie Sinclair. This couple of 40-something teachers has a passion for travel. In 2016, they purchased a travel trailer and started blogging, focusing on RV travel and visiting the national parks.

Jim discovers what it really means to have a “wander filled” life and he takes a deep dive into their travels, the blogging, and their book. We learn how they self published their first book. And, you’ll also find out why these content creators chose not to create a Youtube channel.

Your Guide to RV Adventures with a Wander Filled Life

with Grant and Bonnie Sinclair

Your Host: Jim Nelson

Learn More at Wander Filled Life:

https://wanderfilledlife.com/

USA RV Adventures Guide:

https://www.moon.com/titles/bonnie-sinclair/moon-usa-rv-adventures/9781640497092/

Connect with Grant & Bonnie:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wanderfilledlife

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wanderfilledlife/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/wanderfilledlife/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ourwander-filledlifellc/

Listen to The RV Entrepreneur Episode #324

Listen and subscribe to The RV Entrepreneur on Spotify or in your favorite podcast app. Or, read the full episode transcript below. Leave a comment, or contact us with any questions.

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The RV Entrepreneur #324 Full Episode Transcript:

Your Guide to RV Adventures with a Grand and Bonnie Sinclair from Our Wander Filled Life

BONNIE: We really just want to help other people do the same thing. You know, just encourage people to get out there showing them how to get out there, where to go. You know, just how to make that easier and possible.

RV LIFE: Welcome to the RV Entrepreneur podcast. The weekly show for nomads where campers, RV ers and entrepreneurs looking to earn a living or build a business while enjoying the RV lifestyle. This week’s host is Jim Nelson. Let’s settle in and enjoy the RV entrepreneur podcast brought to you by RV life.

JIM: Hello. Hello, Jim at live work dream here again, your host for another episode of the RV entrepreneur. And while my guests are still teaching full time, they are putting some serious entrepreneurial effort into the work they’re doing at wander filled Life.com wander filled life. Wonderful, wonderful. See what they did there? Pretty clever. Grant and Bonnie Sinclair have taken their wonderful RV lifestyle and turned it into a passion project, likely to fuel their continued travels long after retirement. We discuss website monetization, newsletters and how important authenticity matters when working with brands. They talk about what it really means to have a wonder filled life, and we take a deep dive into the blogging they’re doing about all their RV adventures. Finally, with so many content creators out there only focusing on video, we have a good discussion about the value of the written word and importance of having a website. Spoiler alert you’ll find wonder filled life on all the socials, but you won’t find a YouTube channel for Grant and Bonnie. Speaking of adventures, we talk all about their book USA RV adventures, which includes 25 epic routes for RV seeking adventures around the country. So let’s dive in and learn more about blogging, publishing, and more! Right after this short message about how you can make the most of your next RV adventure.

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JIM: Grant. Bonnie, thank you guys so much for joining me. It’s a pleasure to have you. You’ve got lots of information to share about what you’re doing and I’d love to get into that.

GRANT: Thanks so much for having us on, Jim. We’re really excited to be on the podcast.

BONNIE: Yes. Thank you.

JIM: You are so welcome. And thank you for joining me. This is the hour. Technically, it’s the RV Life Entrepreneur podcast. So I’ve got two questions I ask all my guests. It’s kind of a lightning round, just kind of a quick get to know you kind of thing. When were you to first say, introduced to the RV life and how does that differ now?

BONNIE: Well, we first bought our camper in 2016, so that was our first step into the RV life ourselves. We had both camped, some going up. My dad had campers a little bit growing up here and there, so I had a little bit of experience with it. But you know, we went from tent camping to RV camping and just never looked back. We’ve enjoyed it. And, um, we love getting out on the road as much as we can and exploring and, you know, just kind of living life in the camper.

JIM: That’s what it’s all about. Hey, Grant, I understand you both are still full time teachers, but the stuff you’re doing is very entrepreneurial. You’ve got a wonderful website creating lots of content. What does being an entrepreneur mean to either of you?

GRANT: Honestly, it means taking our passion and putting out good content and trying to make some money from it so that we can keep rolling the I mean, honestly, our goal with the blog is always been to pay for our travels, and so that’s the main goal as it’s matured, as we’ve, you know, added on the book, we’re we’re definitely looking at how are we going to add different revenue channels for retirement so that, you know, we can retire in style and not just rely on her pension initially and then mine coming along later.

JIM: Fantastic. Let’s talk about those travels. You guys have obviously visited a lot of national parks. You’ve now written an RV adventures guide with 25 epic routes in there, and I do want to get into all that. But since you are still doing this kind of in your free time and you’re still teachers, you might have already kind of addressed it a bit. But why are you doing what you’re doing with wonder filled life content? What’s the why?

BONNIE: We really just want to help other people do the same thing. And that’s I guess the teacher in us is, you know, helping, you know, just encourage people to get out there showing them how to get out there, where to go, how to make that easier and possible.

GRANT: We have so many friends that say to us, we want to travel. We want to go experience the things that you do. We just don’t know how to get started. And that’s one of the major impetuses for us.

JIM: And it always comes down to having a purpose. I mean, people do things for the money, but if you’re not doing it for a reason that you love, you’ll never make the money you really want to, or at least won’t enjoy it. But let’s talk about the blog for a minute. You mentioned the blog you’ve been traveling and rv’ing quite a while, as you said, but when did you start deciding to blog about it like you do these travels and you realize there’s people that could benefit from your information? When did it kind of evolve into what you’re doing?

BONNIE: We actually kind of started the blog right around the same time we bought the RV, and we didn’t necessarily intend to jump into them both at the same time. The timing was just kind of right, and we actually a little bit bought the RV on a whim. You know, we had been talking about it and thinking about it, and we kind of pulled the trigger fairly quickly at one point. So I don’t it’s just kind of been together since 2016 hand in hand.

JIM: That’s how our, our, our journey kind of started. Like get the rig, start blogging about it. And then the business ideas came along. But in terms of business, you guys are content creators with so many content, quote unquote creators out there focusing on video, why did you guys choose to kind of focus on the blogging? And forgive me, but do you have a YouTube channel?

GRANT: We do not.

JIM: Why not tell me about that?

GRANT: Well, honestly, the reason why we chose to do blogging as opposed to a YouTube channel, vlogging, etc. honestly is because of personal preference. We enjoy reading our content rather than watching it when it comes to, um, consuming stuff about particular travels or stuff along those lines, it is very rare that we’re either one of us is hopping on YouTube. So because it’s not our wheelhouse personally, we decided that, you know what? We’re we’re going to focus on, you know, what we know and love and add in the fact that, you know, I spent nine years as a print journalist that added in that level of understanding and knowledge about, you know, getting in and the writing part of it. Now, of course, building the website that was completely foreign to us and we have struggled along, you know, that aspect the whole time.

JIM: I’m really happy to hear this because our background here has been in journalism. I stand by the blog, we’ve always been bloggers, and there has been talk over the years about, oh, blogging is dead. And looking at so many of these content creators, I’m surprised they don’t even have a website. I’ve been trying to reach out to some of them to get involved and be on the show, but they make it kind of difficult to contact them. So it’s really interesting. What would you say to the other, you know, video people out there or the ones who are micro blogging on social? What’s the benefit of having the website grant you managed? Like there’s an audience there. You obviously love to read. So do you think the audience will continue to be there?

GRANT: Honestly it all. You know, right now, it depends on our ability to adapt to the changes in terms of Google and the mighty search engine gods. You know, in terms of that aspect, the audience is going to be there. People are going to want that information, and they’re going to get out there and they’re going to search for it. The real question is, are they going to find us? And so, you know, we’re we’re doing our best to adapt to that, that very, almost like quicksand environment of adapting to search engine optimization. And this kind of leads into another question that you sent us is, you know, why is it that we have the newsletter? Well, long ago, we read that your newsletter readers are your best audience, and that’s the audience you can control. So we always recommend to our readers, hey, sign up for the newsletter. We won’t spam you.

JIM: Awesome. I want to get into that in a bit. We’ll just put a pin there. I want to also talk about your National Parks adventures. Do you know how many you’ve visited so far?

BONNIE: We have been to 302 park sites, 38 of the named national parks. Wow. So we’re we’re working through them.

JIM: What have you found to be the biggest challenge when carving in national parks? Because so many of them you can’t get a big rig in.

BONNIE: That’s exactly it. Either there just isn’t a campground or it’s very small and difficult to get a reservation there. Or, you know, we want to stay longer and we want hookups and there aren’t hookups or, you know, whatever the case may be. So it is a challenge for sure. But, you know, there’s also some great opportunities out there and great parks that we have camped at and really enjoyed.

JIM: Tell me about those. Like, uh, Grant, what was your favorite memory of any of the parks that you might have visited?

GRANT: Oh, wow. That, you know, we were talking about this. I’m going to have to say we were on a hike up in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. And basically in the process of this hike, we managed to spook a herd of bison that turned around and stampeded at us. And, uh, we had to clamber up a canyon wall to get up out of their way as they came basically barreling by us. And that was probably one of the most terrifying, but also one of the coolest experiences we’ve ever had.

JIM: Exciting for sure. Bonnie, do you have a similar memory you can share?

BONNIE: I will go on the far other spectrum, and honestly, this is a trip we did without the camper. Uh, well, we were kind of with the camper, but we left the camper and went out to Isle Royale National Park. So obviously you have to take a boat to Isle Royale because it’s in the middle of Lake Michigan, Lake Superior. Lake superior, thank you. I knew I was going to get that wrong. And so, you know, we we parked the camper overnight, went out there and we just spent one night out there. But it was so amazing, so peaceful. No cars, not a lot of people. Absolutely gorgeous. I mean, literally before we stepped off the boat, we said, we can’t wait to come back because we knew we only had one night there. It was just all we could fit in with our trip. But it was absolutely worth it and and can’t wait to go back.

JIM: That’s why we do what we do, right? But we have so many of those, oh, we got to get back to those places and yet so many that oh, we haven’t been to yet. Yeah. Your book, the RV adventures, guys, you launched that earlier this year. Um, but aside from that, I’m wondering how you guys monetize the blog since you’re focusing on blogging. I noticed some ads, but I also noticed a work with us link. So how are you partnering with brands, or are there any specific types of niche gear that you guys cover?

GRANT: Well, obviously we do the ads. We also do affiliate marketing because, you know, we like to to get out there and promote the gear that we use. When it comes to working with brands, we’ve worked with campgrounds who’ve asked us to come and stay in exchange for coverage. We have worked with various gear brands that have sent us gear for us to review, and we’ve basically made a point to say, look, we’re not just going to toss something random on our website, we’re not going to put anything up there that isn’t something that we like and use. And we made a point to be kind of strict about that editorially. And the reason for it is we feel that that helps build trust with our with our audience and not just taking every Tom, Dick and Harry who wants us to do a sponsored post or a sponsored link about particular gear in a, you know, random blog post. It, you know, yeah, it seems like we’re throwing away good money, but legitimately, in terms of building the audience, as far as I’m concerned, trust is key.

JIM: And it shows in your authenticity. Um, there was a time early on where we would tend to like, oh, let’s just throw this up there because there’s an affiliate link, but we stopped doing that long ago and only focus on, you know, authentic stuff that we have used. Like you guys, there’s some conflict in my mind, but a concept in content creators out there that you shouldn’t work for free unless you’re getting paid to do something, you shouldn’t do it. I tend to disagree. If it’s a product that is worth a certain amount, that makes it worthwhile to you. Um, I worked with a brand and did some video content creation and blogging for a set of airbags for our truck, and then later as auto sensing kit. You know, these are high ticket items, so that value to me was worth it. Do you agree that you would work for product if the product was worth the content you were developed? Or do you stand by the guns of many of them out there?

GRANT: Absolutely. The one that that comes to mind is we had a folks send us a solar generator, and, um, we were so impressed with how capable the solar generator was that we made a point to invest our own money to upgrade it and add additional battery capacity and a solar panel for it, so that we could use it when we were boondocking or dry camping. And honestly, we we still recommend it highly. It’s a great piece of gear and, um, we take it with us every time we go on the road because at the very least, that sucker will power a fan and keep us cool in a Walmart parking lot.

JIM: It comes back to the authenticity. It’s something you guys can stand by. And write about and support and still feel good about it. I neglected to ask, what type of rig do you travel in?

BONNIE: We have a 27 foot travel trailer. It’s actually I think it’s 27 like tip to tip. So it’s really probably 23, 24 interior, but it’s a travel trailer.

JIM: Awesome. So back to the blogging for a second here. We mentioned the newsletter and you kind of told us about that. But what type of email marketing do you do? I mean, you’re capturing names, you’re sending them updates on the blog, but is there any other email marketing that you’re doing to help grow?

BONNIE: Honestly? Not really. Um, that’s kind of something we’ve, we’ve been working on, um, or want to work on trying to improve on. But we don’t sell anything ourselves. We don’t have any products. So, you know, other than the book, um, so it’s really just, you know, our, our email is really just to send out links and personal updates and, you know, just keep it informational and try to not make it spammy, because I know there’s a lot of people out there doing that. And, you know, we don’t want to fight too much or inundate people with too much junk.

JIM: Again, back to the authenticity, you know, so you’re using it as a good tool to announce your followers. And there was a recent article in the RV entrepreneur about newsletter marketing and how that is where your audience acts. You may get engagement on the social medias, but when it comes to purchasing or actually visiting your website, they’re going to do that from your list. What is the best way that you found? Maybe to grow your list? Is it just organic and people find you and they subscribe? Or are you out there kind of promoting the list to get people to consume your content?

GRANT: I’ll let Bonnie answer that one. She’s in charge of the newsletter.

BONNIE: It’s really just organic. I think in the past we have run ads here or there, um, you know, on Facebook or whatever to to try to get in front of more eyes. But it’s really just organic. And honestly, we don’t even have a freebie that goes with signing up. Um, I know most people, it’s like, you know, sign up on our email to get this free whatever list. And we haven’t even done that because we haven’t come up with something that we feel like we can create that is worth it. Yet that that’s different. So I’m I’m constantly trying to come up with ideas for that. But you know what? People sign up because they want to be there. And you know, I know our list is not as big as it could be, but that’s okay. I figure the people that are there are there because they want to be there.

JIM: I’m a strong believer of quality over quantity, and over the years I’ve actually pared back my list regularly just to keep the core there and the open rates there, rather than just sending it out to the masses. But this book USA RV adventures what makes for a good RV adventure? What is it that makes any certain trip adventurous to you guys?

GRANT: Exploring new places for us. It’s all about seeing something new, experiencing something new, experiencing a corner of the country, a corner of the world that we haven’t been to before. That, and one of the the major bits when we were planning the various routes that we put in the book, was we wanted to make sure that we gave folks some stuff that they’ve never seen before and go to some places that they wouldn’t have thought about going. Like, for example, uh, we’ve got a route for traversing the plains, going through Kansas, up into Nebraska, into, uh, Wyoming. So that for the the person who’s traveling east to west across the plains thinking, oh God, I can’t wait to get through with this. We actually have some really cool and pretty places for them to go. Another one that I’m particularly proud of is I call it The Road Not Traveled, which is taking us two from Mackinac all the way across to Washington state. And you know who thinks about driving us two? Us one popular, but us two, uh, the High Line. So it’s all about, you know, going out and finding those new and interesting places that aren’t in every single road trip book out there.

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JIM: I would agree that the element of surprise is what makes a real adventure. So I’m curious. I mean, you must offer much more in the book than telling someone where to go and how to get there, because then you’re making their adventure for them. So what other resources are in there besides these trips and this great attraction you have to go see?

BONNIE: We have a little bit of, you know, just RV basic information. Um, so that if you are renting an RV and you know, you’re not familiar with how it operates, that we’ve got some of the basic stuff in there, you know, just from the different types of RVs to things you need to know about hooking up at a campground and towing, and that it is definitely not the end all be all, you know, full information about everything, but more enough to say, okay, these are the basics. Make sure you know this information so you know. If you don’t know how to empty your black tank, know how to do that before you drive away with your rented RV or new RV that you just purchased. You know, so we do have some of those tips in there as well.

JIM: Grant. It sounds like the book offers enough for people to go create their own adventures. It’s some guidelines and some things that, you know, you might definitely want to see this because we’ve been in so many places over the years where people then later say, oh, did you see XYZ while you were there? And of course we didn’t because we didn’t know about it, right?

BONNIE: Yes. And that’s, you know, we hope that for somebody who doesn’t have any idea where to start, this gives them, you know, a good starting place. We don’t expect people to really necessarily follow the routes exactly as they are written. You know, we want you to to make it your own, take it as inspiration. And, you know, maybe you only do five days out of the ten that are on the route. Or maybe you take a ten day route and turn it into a 20 day route by simply just slowing down and taking more time or, you know, you know, you want to go to Yellowstone. What else you know is around that you can do on the way there, on the way back, you know, how can you turn it into a trip versus just a destination?

JIM: It sounds like a great starter guide for folks that want, you know, oh, I’m thinking of going that way. Here’s a way we can get there some things, and I understand there’s some longer trips and some shorter trips, and it sounds like it’s just about for any rver that might want to travel those routes. But let’s talk for a minute. Walk me through the process of how that book took shape. When did you first get the idea to write a book, and then how long until you actually had a working draft?

GRANT: So we got contacted by our friend Becky Lomax, who is another moon author. She writes their Yellowstone and Glacier and the 63 National Parks Guide, and we are in contact with her through the park chat on Twitter now X. And basically she said to us, hey, moon is looking for someone to write an RV trip guide. You’re the people I know who who do this kind of thing. You would be a good fit for this. You should really apply for it.

BONNIE: So which my first response was, we would be crazy to think that we can fit this into our schedule.

GRANT: And she was right.

BONNIE: But we did it anyways.

GRANT: But we were on the road out on the west coast. We were doing basically what is now in the book is the Circle of Discovery loop, which is Lassen Volcanic National Park to redwoods, to Crater Lake and a few other sites in between. And honestly, we put together the the basics of the proposal then and they said, yeah, we want to work with you. We by September we’ve got the contract and it’s okay, time to write. And we had all of the chapters done. And to the editor by February. Wow.

JIM: Late worked quick.

GRANT: And I’m not going to lie, it kicked our butts.

JIM: That’s hard work. We’ve written a book or two and it takes a lot of time and dedication.

BONNIE: Yeah, it was a lot more than we expected.

GRANT: As we were working through the original ideas. We were going to write two routes a week and, you know, go back. And that quickly slowed down to one route a week. And it was, um, very much a divide and conquer. So if I was writing the route, Bonnie was researching the campgrounds and getting in all the contact information for all the places that we want to stay and stuff along those lines, and then we would flip flop and, you know, do it the opposite way for the next route.

JIM: You’ve just answered my next question, which about why you chose to work with Moon travel guides, but I’m interested in that process. Did they have a particular framework? Like, I know if you want to write An Idiot’s Guide to XYZ, you got to make it look like an Idiot’s guide to XYZ, and they have very strict framework to fit in. So how easy or difficult did they make it? What kind of hoops did you have to jump through? Or was it a skeleton that you had to fill out to follow their guidelines? What was it like working with moon?

BONNIE: We had some options and we kind of talked through it with them when we, you know, had our initial interview and proposal process because a lot of their books are just informational, not necessarily itinerary. And then they have some road trip books that are itinerary style. So we bounced back and forth the, the ideas and and fairly quickly settled on going the itinerary, you know, idea and just fleshing that out to make it, you know, 25 routes. But it was a back and forth kind of between us and them of, you know, what would be useful, you know, how do we do that? And we felt like that was the best, I guess, the best of both worlds, that if you want to go to just one place, then you can just pick that one place and dive into it. Um, and if you want the route, then you’ve got the full route.

JIM: Awesome.

GRANT: And in terms of the framework of the book, they had kind of I’m not going to say it was paint by numbers, but they had various elements that they, you know, wanted done for the beginning. Um, much like their their road trip book. And we were able to emulate a good bit of that so that we were consistent with the moon brand.

JIM: Cool. And about the routes, you might have just answered this, but which came first? The routes or the guide? It sounds like. Are these routes you had actually traveled and then wrote about, or did you just kind of research these and then did them later?

BONNIE: The vast majority of the routes are things we have done. There’s a few of them that we have done almost exactly as written. I think there’s one route that we have done absolutely nothing on. And so that one was definitely, you know, a little bit difficult. And then there’s some that we’ve done, you know, bits and pieces and we, you know, either combined together a couple of different trips we had taken or we expanded on a trip we had done. But yeah, I think it is 24 that we have done, at least in part. Right. Yeah.

JIM: Now obviously know what you’re speaking about there. Tell me about the actual book launch. Did you have any tips for nomadic authors out there hoping to release their first book while on the road?

GRANT: So we were thinking. About that. In terms of tips for nomadic authors, I would say our biggest tip is find a niche that is not being met by a particular publisher and show them why it’s going to be profitable. That’s the key is finding that niche that a particular publisher doesn’t have anything on. And, you know, show them how they can compete in that space. And in terms of the launch of the book, honestly, the biggest thing moon was after us to do was get in and do interviews. And so we made a point to to do various radio interviews. We’ve done a couple other podcasts and stuff along those lines, but it’s all about getting out there and getting your name out there to the people who, who, who want that particular book. And I will say this, and the the book publishing world is getting leaner and leaner every year. And, uh, the days of the, um, you know, the Stephen King, you know, kind of of tours to all the different cities and, and book signings and stuff like that. Yeah. They’re not doing that for travel books.

BONNIE: Yeah. And, you know, thankfully working with a big publisher like moon, you know, they kind of drove what we did, you know. So certainly we can do any promotion that we want to do. But we were lucky that, you know, they said this is what we want to do and we’re going to make it happen.

JIM: So and there’s almost a built in audience there. I mean, they’ve got a portal of all guides and your guide might appear next to other guides. So there’s kind of a nice way to do that route. We went the strictly self-publishing route and did it ourself and published and launched right before Covid with these big plans to go on the tour and stop in these towns and say, the authors are here, we’re going to meet, well, that never happened. And we quickly found out that marketing a book was more challenging than writing the book in many ways. Are you guys finding a similar type of challenge or what are you doing to address that?

GRANT: Obviously, we’re out there sharing it. You know, we’re we’re making a point that, you know, you can’t get to our website without tripping over mention of the book and that, you know, we’re holiday gift guides, etc. the the normal avenues for pushing out anything along those lines. But we’re also making a point of reaching out to folks like y’all and saying, hey, we’ve got a really good guide, let’s chat about it. And, you know, making a point to get involved in the RV Creators Facebook group. That has been very helpful in terms of connecting with other creators and basically being able to share audience and say, hey, we’ve got, you know, something that’s good for your audience. We’d love to share your materials with our audience as another way for our audience to get to know us better.

JIM: Well, I’m excited to share it because I’m passionate about RV adventures. How does your guide differ from the other typical RV travel guides out there? What makes it stand out?

BONNIE: I think it’s the roots, honestly. Um, because as we were doing research on what else is out there, there one just we weren’t finding a lot of RV travel guides or RV books in terms of, you know, actually hitting the road and going somewhere. You know, I’ve found books that cover particular campgrounds or particular national or state parks or, you know, just the basics of RV thing, but there really aren’t many, if any, that are the here’s a route and go do it. And 25 of them. So hopefully we, you know, we hit something that that really is unique and we’ll stay unique.

JIM: I’m sure it is. I can only think of one in particular that comes to mind. And that’s the milepost, which is the Bible, the three inch thick Bible of basically one route from south up to Alaska, and it branches off in a couple of places, but it will give you details on every. So at mile 387 you need to see the moose hanging from the tree. Uh.

GRANT: It’s funny that you say that, because I made a point to mention the milepost when we did our Alaska route, because I knew how useful that resource was to anyone who was actually going to drive the Alaska Highway.

JIM: Um, of course, of course. I may need to ask you this a bit earlier, but what does it mean to have a wonder filled life? I love the pun there, the play on words. But who came up with that name for the blog there?

GRANT: Yeah, that one’s all me. And, um, basically our feeling on how to live life is get out there and experience it and see the world and allow yourself to wander. Don’t just get in a rut. Believe me, I’ve met so many people in, you know, growing up in rural North Georgia that when it came to travel, they’d been to Gatlinburg or they’ve been to, um, Daytona or Panama City Beach and that’s it. Those are the only places they’ve ever experienced in their life beyond their home state. And I want people to get out and see not just the country, but the world, because you you learn so much, you experience so much. And by wandering and having a wonder filled life, you gain so much perspective on the rest of the world.

JIM: Wonderful, wonderful, I love it. What lessons did you guys learn while publishing your book and what might you do differently next time?

BONNIE: I think we learned that it’s a lot of work. Um, it’s a lot of detail. It is different from blogging. Putting out a physical book is much different from something that’s, you know, on the internet that you can change and we can go in and change a blog post anytime we want to. Once the book is out, the book is out. So definitely a higher stress level of must get it right the first time. So, you know, I think just understanding exactly how much work goes into it and how it is different was a big learning curve. And, you know, if we decide to do this again, it will be give ourselves enough time, make sure we clear our plate of other commitments, um, as best you can. And, you know, just be realistic about the amount of time and amount of energy it’s going to take.

JIM: And grant any lessons learned there.

GRANT: Um, the big one I would say is. I guess the best way to put it in one of the biggest changes in how we travel now is we don’t think about just taking pictures for the blog. We’re thinking about taking pictures for the next edition of the book and what pictures do we need? You know, we need pictures of, you know, campers and the campground, but not just our camper anymore. And as you go through the book, if you notice the same camper on, you know, at various campgrounds, guess what? That’s ours. Uh, but, you know, little things like that of. Okay, I know how I want to do this differently next time. Um, honestly, for the second edition, I’ve already got ideas for additional routes I want to add. And to one of the the few complaints we’ve seen that about the book is a lack of East Coast routes and want to add at least a couple of those, plus one that is kind of an east to west route, but it stays, uh, east of the Mississippi River. So I’ve got some ideas on how I want to to do that and, um, bring in some additional routings to, to make the second edition even that much more.

JIM: I think you’ve already answered my last question, and that was, Will there be a next time? What’s in store for a wander filled life in the upcoming year or so?

BONNIE: Well, we hope another edition of the book, we don’t know for sure yet, but we’re hopeful that there will be another edition in another year or two, maybe. And beyond that, you know, we’re just going to keep traveling, keep exploring, keep writing, and, you know, encourage other people to do the same.

GRANT: And, uh, in.

JIM: Terms of trips that we have.

GRANT: Planned, we’re going to be exploring Texas coming up over our Christmas break, spring break, we’re taking the camper up to Washington, D.C., and we’re going to camp just outside the city and explore the the national monuments and all that up in Washington, D.C. and this summer, we are going to be headed to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in order to see the national park sites down in the islands. There’s um, one in in Puerto Rico and then one in Saint John, the Virgin Islands National Park, and then a couple on Saint Croix.

BONNIE: Yeah. And we’ll also, um, be attending the, uh, travel blog conference while we’re in San Juan as well.

JIM: Oh, fantastic. Well, we’ll get all those links in the notes here when we’re done. What is the best way for people to learn more about you guys and your book, and where can they connect with you?

BONNIE: How our website is wonder filled life.com so you can go straight to that. We are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, what else? Linkedin. We are not on some of the other ones that if I didn’t mention it, I think that’s about it. Yeah, I think that’s all the places you can find us. So wander.

JIM: Filled life.

GRANT: You know, if you’re looking for more information on the book, one of the articles and this was kind of Bonnie’s brain trust here that we’ve done is a companion article for the book where we go in and and do updates, you know, um, if things have changed, if we know that there’s a, you know, something that, you know, particular places closed or something along those lines, we post updates there and it’s kind of a companion piece for the book, and it links to all of the articles that we’ve written on the various places in the book.

JIM: Wonderful. Be sure to get a link to that into the show notes. And I want to thank you guys both so much. I understand you’re finishing up the teaching year here and might be heading out again, so we look forward to learning more about your travels. Thanks again for joining us.

BONNIE: Thank you so much.

GRANT: Thanks so much for having us.

JIM: How exciting. If you’re thinking about your next RV adventure, check out Wander Filled Life.com and consider some of the roots in USA RV adventures from Moon Publishing, and check the show notes for links to learn more. One of the great takeaways I have from this conversation is how Grant and Bonnie are now always on the lookout for interesting photos and attractions everywhere they go. That RV parked in some pullout or an old soda fountain they find might make great content for future blog posts or another book.

What type of content are you creating? Got some good photos from your latest adventures? Head on over to the RV Entrepreneur Facebook group to share what you’ve been up to and where you’ve been. Until next time, catch up on all the latest podcast episodes and articles from our hosts at The RV Entrepreneur.com/News.

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