Hey, Pathfinders! Surprise Friday episode, anyone? We thought we'd shake things up a bit and bring you some bonus travel content to fuel your wanderlust. Not sure what to call it yet or how often we'll do these, but we're excited to add a little extra travel talk to your lives, straight from our adventures. But first, let's kick things off with a quote that really resonated with us from our recent chat with Jeremy from the RV Atlas.

 

Quote of the Week

"It's about getting outside for me... making memories with my family. It is not about the features of the RV."

This quote got us thinking about prioritizing experiences over material possessions, whether it's choosing an RV or making any big purchase in life. Every dollar saved means more opportunities to explore new places and create lasting memories. So before splurging on fancy features, ask yourself if they align with your travel goals or if you're just buying into the hype.

Learning from Personal Experiences

Take it from our own experiences, like the time I bought a flashy truck fresh out of college, only to realize later it wasn't the smartest financial move. It's easy to get caught up in the allure of new gadgets or bigger, better things, but often, simplicity reigns supreme. Whether it's a vehicle, a home, or even just everyday purchases, consider the long-term impact on your finances and travel aspirations.

Our Southern Adventure: North Bend Park Upgrade

Speaking of travel, let's dive into our latest adventure down south to the Florida Keys. Currently, we're situated in Raleigh, North Carolina, catching up with family while we get some work done. But before that, we scored a sweet campsite upgrade at North Bend Park in Southern Virginia.

How we did it? Hope asked the park staff at check in if there were any better sites available. We lucked out with a waterfront spot overlooking a serene cove, perfect for fishing and soaking in those sunrise views. Best of all, it cost us nothing more!

Planning Your Own Epic Road Trip

And hey, if you're itching to hit the road like we did, we've got you covered with a step-by-step guide for your own epic road trip. Shoot us an email or sign up for our newsletter for your free copy.

Fueling Your Adventures with Delicioats

Now, let's talk sustenance. Have you tried Delicioats yet? These overnight oats are our go-to travel fuel, packed with great ingredients and NO ADDED SUGAR. Use the link below and the discount code “PATH” to claim your discount!

·        https://delicioats.com/discount/PATH Use Code “PATH”

Transcript

Hey, Pathfinders, surprised to hear me on a Friday? So we decided to add another segment to our show, not sure entirely what it's gonna be called or how often these little Friday extras are gonna be, but we figured it's a great way to add a little extra travel content to your lives with some helpful details from our lives to help you reach your travel goals. And who knows, maybe at the end of this segment, we will reveal our guest for next Monday and we can keep that our little Friday secret. I wanted to start by sharing one of our favorite quotes from the show earlier in the week with Jeremy from the RV Atlas, where he talked about choosing experiences over features when considering buying an RV. And I'll play that quote right now.

 

- It's about getting outside for me. For me, it's getting outside, making memories with my family. It is not about the features of the RV. And I say that as somebody, I love RVs. And a lot of times when you get a more expensive RV that has tons of features in it, you end up messing with them a lot or this doesn't work or that doesn't work. I have just really come to appreciate simple, basic, straightforward RVs that work well and are priced well. –

 

Now, one thing that resonated with me about that quote, and I think you can look at it both like it's implied with RVs, but also with everything you're buying in life in general. And listen, every time you can save a buck or save a dollar or more, travel's expensive, right? So if you can find ways to save here and there, that's more opportunity for you to travel and explore and get to the places you wanna get to. And every little bell and whistle and feature of these newer RVs, they add up, right? I think it was a great segment of that podcast where we just talked about, it's about getting outside. Once it's raining outside, we're really not spending time in RVs at all. We wanna be outside exploring, whether it's hiking trails, hanging out at the campground, exploring the towns we're visiting. And I related to that a lot about when you're at an RV dealership and all these new things have all these new, bigger, smarter things that you can do and features to your RVs. First of all, you're really not going to use them that much, right? I remember we had this swivel chair, and now currently I'm using it because we're traveling full-time and working on it, but originally bought our van to travel and vacation and to not work. And we wanted to just make this recreation vacation type thing. And we thought it was so cool how the seat swiveled backwards and we didn't use it once. So it's important to really think about, are you going to use these things? And Jeremy did a great job explaining that point, geared towards RVing, and when you're buying an RV, you can relate a lot of that to things in real life.

 

For instance, if you're buying a car, right? A lot of times, you work with your car, do you have a certain car or truck you wanna buy? And it reminded me of a time when I was graduating college, I wanted to buy this F-150. At 2013, at the time, it was three years old, it was my motivation to graduate college, right? And looking back on that, it was a terrible financial decision because I had graduated school, had nothing in my bank account, had to have my father co-sign my truck for me, and I had a $500 payment for a pickup truck. And when I didn't even need a pickup truck to begin with, I didn't have a job or wasn't doing anything that I needed a truck for, but I had this massive $500 payment I was paying each month because it was new, I liked it, I was a truck guy. And after about a month or so, that novelty wears off fast. Before long, I just viewed it as a truck, as a normal car, I didn't think anything much of it. Obviously the first few weeks, I'd raise the current, raise the blinds and look out at it, and I'd be so proud and happy the fact that I have it, but after a while, I was stuck with a payment, and I could have been just as happy driving a much older truck, a car that was much less expensive.

And that reminded me, when Jeremy had mentioned that during our show, it kinda reminded me of that where you really need to consider long-term, especially if you're financing or buying really expensive things, how much of an impact is buying this extra piece or buying this extra fancy car going to have on you other than you paying more for it? And I saw the same thing a lot with real estate. When you're buying a house, I would always tell my clients now selling houses, you wanna offer what you can, but just because you can afford something bigger and better, it doesn't mean you need one, right? If you're listening to this podcast, you're trying to reach your travel goals. That's what we were trying to do for a while, and if you're listening to this podcast, you're trying to do the same thing, right? So in a lot of instances, I see people, they buy houses that all they're going to do after a while is fill rooms they're not using with stuff they don't need.

They're paying extra heating costs, extra moving costs, extra costs for things that they don't need. All this money could be used for something else. Really ask yourself how much of that is it a need versus how much of it is you want to impress others or is it just a keeping up with the Jones type thing? Because like I said, I mean, travel is not cheap. Travel is expensive no matter what form of travel you're doing. The more money you can save, the more opportunity you have with travel. So just really think about those things before you buy anything really expensive because especially if you're financing those monthly payments, they do not go away for a long time. And picture yourself five, 10 years from now having that extra payment and really think about am I going to be using these extra features, these extra space, is this extra payment versus something I could get and have the same use for half the price, is it worth that extra? Again, not saying don't go after it but it's just something to really, really consider before you pull the trigger and make a purchase. So I wanted to share that a little bit because that kind of stuck to me.

 

So maybe we'll keep this a segment of the podcast kind of sharing our favorite quotes, things that resonated with us and putting our little twist and spin on it. I will fill you in currently.