In case this story gets deleted/removed:
My mother and father are recently approaching retirement where they want to sell their home and have purchased a fifth wheel to become traveling YouTubers. I’m sure I’ll be back on this sub in the future as they have determined with nearly zero experience of videography, editing, and personal skills, that they can make $50k the first year of YouTubing and have 1 million followers.
I digress.
My mother has begun the tedious and repetitive task of “building the itinerary". She has been advised to drive no more than three hours each travel day (by the other youtubers). She is also convinced that this endeavor is cheaper than living in a paid for home.
When she mentioned to her family that she would be coming to visit them around “these dates” she was floored that no one cared about her camping, her channel, and wouldn’t allow her to park her massive fifth wheel in front of their homes in suburban neighborhoods. She realizes now that in order to stay there she will need to get campgrounds which “are so expensive!”
My tongue will certainly fall off by the end of the year with how much I haven’t told her off. It’s going to be so sweet to hear an “I told you so” in the back of my head every time they face a reality of camping full time at 65.
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Most digital nomads have a real job where they work remotely, even if part time. It is incredibly hard to get 1m followers on youtube and make 50k per year. This will not end well.
I mean, its less terrible than promoting actual scams like renowned titles and better help. And those were promoted by youtubers that people hold as saints.
To be fair to people who promoted Better Help, no one knew they were illegally selling confidential data until they were charged with it by the Feds.
Whereas Renowned Titles entire business plan is nonsense.
That said, people I know who bought one of those plots did it as essentially a gag gift that was allegedly helping in Scottish conservation. Calling the person a ‘Lord’ was just treated as a joke. But that doesn’t change how the Titles company absolutely engages in deceptive advertising and was never legit.
they're promoting better help? I really couldn't imagine they would do so without the best of intentions at heart. But at the end of the day, we really only know online personas.
Maybe they should do some research rather than just blindly take cash for shilling. Especially when a google search of better help shows multiple videos showing its a harmful group
Anyone who promoted it after the charges came up, absolutely. If they promoted it before anyone knew they were engaging in criminal behavior I’d cut more slack.
Any research into the Scottish Title companies would have revealed they were BS from day one, yeah.
You have noooo idea how deep the betterhelp rabbit hole goes.... created by a former israeli cyber intelligence officer, funded by the US naval research institute, shared a building with the israeli embassy, and some pockets of YT have known for years (since they started YT influencer marketing) that they're plan was to aggregate then sell mental health data...
Even witnessed a YT live podcast get bot swarmed when they were exposing BetterHelp the very first time... kept spamming political messages (both sides from 2012 and 2016, cheering for McCain/Obama and Trump/Clinton)...
Guessing these bots were originally used to artificially boost News agencies engagement numbers - the founder just repurposed this tool from his old side hustle.
Yes, looked that way in 2018. Would prefer to think it was started by a military vet with noble intentions and entrepreneurial aspirations... but their israeli connections, deep-state funding, and the bot swarm make me believe there is more going on with it.
There may be people with less subscribers who make more money but you need a niche market that pays well. I also suspect that the older you get, the less opportunities you get or less money you get from these opportunities. Seniors would probably make less money and have a more difficult time than young, fit, and hot 20 - 30 year old's. I hope they are a success but they should consult someone with a degree in marketing and specializing in digital marketing to help set them up for success.
I think interesting content is more important. Why would someone watch retirees driving around?
I watch Tasting History because Matt Miller tells interesting stories. I watch various Cruise youtubers, Ginny Di, Anne Reardon, and others to learn things. I even watch some home renovation type channels.
But unless these retirees have a hook, it will fail.
Retiree here that watches van life videos, and YT is FLOODED with seniors doing videos of their 'travels' and van life. It would be very hard to grab a substantial market share.
One could make it work, but just traveling isn't enough. You need to have some sort of outstanding personality or athleticism that makes people want to live through your adventures. Not just cooking dinner in your trailer at a glampsite with electricity.
Look at Steve Wallis. On paper his videos should be pretty lame, yet there's something about him, his personality, his experience, that is really cozy and familiar. He does cool stuff, but the channel succeeds because of his personality, not just his travels
I feel like them just traveling about “always on the verge of failing”, having some new “tragedy” and being shocked at everything might actually draw a crowd at least for a while.
Just have to go viral doing something stupid/outrageous a time or two then continue rather incompetently and people will watch waiting to see them fail.
I just did some rough math it's about 50k average views if you do 2 videos every week. That would just be the add revenue on YouTube for the views. It does not account for any sponsorships or promotional videos.
That is entirely different from somebody pulling in that kind of money off of just the monetization of their videos from ads, subscribers/memberships, etc. though.
More important than subscribers, is watch time. Someone making four videos a week could be making way more money with 200k subscribers than someone making 1 video a month with 1 million subscribers. Blogging channels tend to make good money though simply because of how non edit intensive the content is so they can upload a ton.
I work for a media corp - full team of editors, project managers, social media specialists, SEO specialists, consultants, etc.
In the time I have been there they have tried to get a dozen projects off the ground - podcasts, YouTube, etc. I think they have sold 2 that were successful and another one the host bought the rights to their own show…and then their channel died without the support of a team.
I don’t think most people realize how difficult it is to make a viable business model from a social media without a) having immense talent and drive b) a social media team (or at least an editor) and c) a clear vision of your target audience.
It’s doable - but people need to take into account the literal media machines they are up against in that space.
Having been a retiree/5th wheel RV full timer for 3 years... Stopped in 2018. I can't speak to the YouTube stuff, but full time RVing isn't cheap. Depending on season, to feel safe, we budgeted $50 a night, $1500/month for sites. And that was playing all the memberships,and discounts we could. Good news is that power, water and sewer is included. I'm sure it's more now.
The standard rule is 2,2,2 or 3,3,3. Drive no more than 200 miles, arrive by 2 pm and stay 2 nights or 3...
Our big Dodge Ram diesel pickup gets 10-12 MPG pulling our 43 ft trailer. Going 200 miles at $5 per gallon is $100 per travel day for fuel. So if you really do the 2,2,2, at least $3000 per month just for the lifestyle. Oh and hopefully they paid cash for that truck and trailer. Cuz payments, insurance, and maintenance, tires, lots of tires.
Plus life. They still need to eat, hobbies, recreation. Etc, etc, etc. I wish them luck.
I have a friend who does it with her little family. They travel to where the work is for her licensed husband and they plan to stay usually at least 3 months. They’ve been stacking away cash like crazy while also traveling with the kiddos.
Europeans think Americans don't travel, but it's just, we go 200 miles and we're still in the same state. But the exact accent with which people speak English does change *slightly* in that distance.
Wow! I knew you guys say 100 miles is not a distance but over 200 to next site does give the idea of the scale. We recently went to Northern France, area of D-day beaches, every little village had either a campground or an aire, or just overnight parking. Very cheap too. I mean there was something every 10 km or so. And something to see too. Memorials, nature, cider farms. Out of such high value touristy areas obviously the parkings are further apart, maybe 20-30 km. I open the parking app and the whole screen is dotted with places, choose which you like better.
Yeah, as a not fulltime RV'er, she's in for a reality check. Cities/HOAs don't allow RVs in driveways or parked on the road (except CA, which junkers can be for years). Who wants to watch a YouTube of 65 year olds finding out how little they know?
She'll be back within a year.
This is my fucking parents. They are lovely people and much more self aware than your typical boomer. But my brother took them to Japan and basically had to take them to American fast food establishments the whole time because they kept complaining about the food
My dad took my grandfather to Europe for a holiday, Spain, France and Italy. My grandfather only ate pizza and Spaghetti Bolognese for the two months they were there.
My dad was not impressed.
How old was he in the war? 17 or 18? And eating tinned rations, probably? It’s kinda not surprising he regressed to childhood eating habits, as he was a child in the middle of a warzone
He signed up at 17. That's a very good poin, I never thought of it that way.
He was a very simple man who rarely went outside his comfort zone.
He and my grandma had very traditional roles in the house. He never cooked whilst my grandma was well, when she got Alzheimer's he had to learn and then did everything for her. When she moved to the nursing home when she needed too much support he would walk down three times a day to feed her, and learned to do her make up.
Idk why I'm even sharing this. He was a very good man and people should know.
LOL. It cracks me up that people think the Americanized version of food is the best. LOL. I mean I like Taco Bell occasionally but I don’t call it Mexican food. I have plenty of options here in CA for real Mexican food. 🤣😂
I’m just gonna say this… living in California spoiled us for having so many options on food, but especially Mexican. I’ve been near DC now for 8yrs and I can’t find decent Mexican food, it’s mostly folks from Central America here and it’s completely different. Even when they work at a supposed “Mexican restaurant” they put their own flair from their home country that is not quite the same.
We end up making our own Mexican food at home simply cuz we had extended family and close friends who are from there and had their own food business (I miss their chorizo tacos) who showed us how make a lot authentically.
Fellow DC person here. I once worked for a corporate food establishment where the kitchen was staffed primarily with South & Central American workers and the office with white people. Upper Management decided morale was low, and instead of paying us more they threw the staff a “Cinco de Mayo” party in the back parking lot with tables full of food and drinks, music chosen by the kitchen staff, the works. (Oh my god it was so good.) That year we had a new warehouse manager who, like all the other managers, was a white dude. His wife, however, was from Mexico. So he took one look at the spread and the music and was like “What the fuck is this? It’s not Mexican!”
ETA: I forgot where Bolivia was located when I wrote my post at 6 AM.
Hahahahaha that’s hilarious. Didn’t get me wrong, I do like some of the food from Central America that I’ve tried but it is a whole separate category and so many people don’t get that.
My last office I was in had a cleaning lady who basically was there all day, awesome person to chat with, and she just recently retired. From talking with me she knew I had some Spanish understanding and often would mix in when she spoke with me. She always had her lunch routine and had her Spanish soap operas on while she ate in the kitchen area, and had her Spanish news on in the early morning when I came to the office gym. She’s from El Salvador but has been here for a long time already and loves being here. She always talks about the differences from the various neighborhoods here and even compared to how California is (her son was in the Bay Area and also down in SoCal for a time) with how Mexicans communities are vs the ones she’s familiar with. She always found it so amusing about people not knowing the difference.
I was invited to a dinner. I was told we would be eating Chinese food, real Chinese food cooked by grandma. It was great food but I didn’t recognize anything but the rice.
omg. One of the most savage yelp reviews I ever read was for a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco where someone just wrote “this place tastes like the company cafeteria on Cinco de Mayo”
I visited Sydney around 20 years ago. We went to a little Italian restaurant we selected randomly.
Every single dish had green peas added.
Every. Single. Dish.
It would look like typical Italian dishes, except with green peas. Really weird.
I tell that story every now and then, and people always ask me if that's an Australian thing. Cracks me up every time.
This may be heresy but I spent a few weeks in Italy and by the end was craving an olive garden. I'm sorry the butter and oil flows through my arteries......it's who I am now
I don't entirely blame you. I spent two summers in Italy, and the food was... fine, I suppose. Pizza there is fun because those crazy fuckers will put literally anything on it. Creative Nutella-based desserts everywhere you go are entertaining; they're very proud of their Nutella. Pasta, though, is overwhelmingly a dry, bland experience. Most of the food I had in Italy was... well, it was food.
One of my favorite ways to (playfully) troll my Italian friends is to refer to Olive Garden as "authentic" Italian food.
Or to refer to Domino's Pizza as "better than anything you can get in Italy".
Or to refer to NY style pizza as "greasy and gross".
Okay, I genuinely like Olive Garden as much as the next mediocre Midwesterner, but I live in Europe now and some of the best food I’ve ever had was in Italy. Definitely a higher quality than “Olive Garden”. 😂 Some people astound me with their sheer lack of curiosity about the wider world.
> My friend's husband once said that there's no point in going to Italy because Olive Garden already has the best Italian food 🤦🏻♀️
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
I'm going to rage by myself in a corner now.
I was chatting with a friend of mine about her wanting to go on a safari in Africa. Not hunting or anything, just to experience the landscape and maybe some cool animals. Her husband sat there being a total grouch and just kept saying it was totally pointless because, “didn’t we know you can see the animals better and see more variety by watching a nature documentary.” This fool just kept being such a condescending ass about how boring it would be when you’ve have to sit around for an animal to walk by when you could see video footage on any tv.
I wanted to slap him. It’s weird when your friends start turning into grumpy ass old men.
We paid for a private high tea service done by Twinings (the group that supplied tea for the queen of England) and my grandfather asked for a bourbon instead. 😂
We took my father in law to Thailand and stupidly offered to pay for everything including food - when there we always eat the delicious Thai food which is fairly cheap and at the time (2012) you could still get a decent meal and a drink even in a touristy area for 50 baht. We figured he'd do the same, being in a new place and wanting to experience the local food. Nope - he ordered 500 baht steak every night and raved about it because it was slightly cheaper than back home.
I took my mom to the best Korean BBQ restaurant in our town, and she acted so fucking disinterested, but later RAVED to my step dad about how good it was, but not once told me she enjoyed it.. boomers are so weird.. 😒
[https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20161216-why-japan-celebrates-christmas-with-kfc](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20161216-why-japan-celebrates-christmas-with-kfc)
Yup, you may have to order weeks in advance, or queue for hours.
*According to KFC Japan spokeswoman Motoichi Nakatani, it started thanks to Takeshi Okawara, the manager of the first KFC in the country. Shortly after it opened in 1970, Okawara woke up at midnight and jotted down an idea that came to him in a dream: a “party barrel” to be sold on Christmas.*
*(...)*
*This year \[2016\], the company is selling* [*Kentucky Christmas dinner packages*](http://www.kfc.co.jp/campaign/xmas2016/index.html#premium_anc) *that range from a box of chicken for 3,780 yen, ($32), up to a “premium” whole-roasted chicken and sides for 5,800 yen. According to KFC, the packages account for about a third of the chain’s yearly sales in Japan.*
My mom recently CANCELED a trip to Japan because she realized her boomer self couldn't handle not having her needs met at all times and deferring to strong non-American cultural norms ... now my dad will never go to Japan. Sad sad
I mean, I understand wanting familiar food when you're tired out or stressed. The first day I spent in Manhattan job-hunting after moving up from North Carolina, I stopped at an Arby's. But fast food after that night was a rare thing. So, now and then I get, but all the time is such a waste!
Went to a friend's wedding in China (she was from Jiaxing). Groom's parents refused to try anything new so bride's parents always had to order something more American americanized for them anywhere we went.
Looking back, it's no wonder the bride's family got so excited when I and the groom were happy to try anything they put in front of us lol
This was half my family visiting us, my dad and one brother would eat anything pretty much, but my mom and other brother basically lived off McDonald's
For it to work one of their kids (*looks at OP*) would have to sacrifice themselves to be their documentarian but edited the footage in the style of The Office or Parks & Rec.
This has the feel of a good comedy movie plot. By the end, I see the RV on fire, half sunk in a sewage wheat field arguing with each other as they wheel overstuff suitcases to a bus stop to live with their children so that the parents can "get back on their feet". Mom's already starting to think of an even more disastrous plan for what they'll do next ...
Yeah, my municipality only allows an RV to be parked in my driveway if I own it. They can only be on the street for a certain number of hours, or possibly minutes I’m not sure, per day for loading/unloading.
People with private lots make a lot of money renting space to people who want to store their RVs in this community. But those lots pay a lot of taxes and have to be zoned properly.
But now a friend of mine is traveling around in an RV, and I was excited to have her camp in my driveway, but then I realized that would not be fun. There is no hook up. There’s no electricity. Where is her dog going to run? I think it would be really annoying to my neighbors, so I can understand.
Unlike OP’s parents, she completely understands and from the start had planned to park in a campground. Same with my sister-in-law a few years ago, they were excited to have us come visit them at their campground, which was pretty fancy and had a dog park.
My sister-in-law is retired military so they camp for free in certain places (AFB’s) and very low cost in others. OP’s parents to take out deals for retired campers, some campgrounds offer pretty sweet deals.
So my dad's cousin did this. EXCEPT what they did was have their house paid off...then fitted for their RV hookups (and I hate to break it people but there is actually work involved here to keep a long term living RV functional) and then gifted their paid off house to their son with the caveat that they can "summer" up North.
It's a situation that has worked out great for everyone. Son got a house, parents got a "summer hook up!" (tongue in cheek intended), they winter down in the south (Florida) where RV hook ups are a whole thing.
This wasn't a "the Lord will provide" situation. These were people who planned out, prepared, and executed an ideal setup.
ETA: oh and it is contractually binding. In my family, we trust that we will "never have to execute a document." So who cares if after reading it that you sign one?
I didn’t know this until we moved to the mid Atlantic but tons of caravans of folks from Quebec head back and forth every year to Florida and use the back road highways a lot of the time and pass through near where we live. They make northeast snowbirds a whole separate category from them.
Our town allows RVs on the street for a couple of days and they don't really enforce it unless someone complains. One neighbor lived in their RV in their front yard for months after their house burned down.
A different neighbor let someone park in front of their house, run extension cords and a hose across the sidewalk, and push out the sliders, blocking the sidewalk and part of the street. We called code enforcement because hell no and they got ticketed. I'd love to see a video of that interaction.
>A different neighbor let someone park in front of their house, run extension cords and a hose across the sidewalk
My grandpa recently couldn't find space at a campground and did that at our house, except there are no sidewalks in my neighborhood. His "just going to stay for one evening and be off in the morning" turned into a four and a half day visit. (My husband's liver still hasn't recovered).
Anyway, I am in the back corner of a street with very little through traffic and the next door neighbor already has an RV in their front yard. But I'd hope that if a neighbor had an issue with it there, they'd come talk to us instead of calling code enforcement.
I'm not faulting you because I have no idea what your neighborhood and relationship with your neighbors are like, but I'm also pretty sure it's legal in my FL city.
> Who wants to watch a YouTube of 65 year olds finding out how little they know?
Honestly? Sign me up! I need some catharsis after years of old people telling me all the things they know I'll eventually do, believe, act like, ETC.
A former work colleague sold their home and planned a retirement life of living and traveling in an RV.
They drove it from New England to FL in a round about way
Then bought a house in FL
I don’t know if they’ve sold the rv yet.
Even in CA you have to move the RV or car every 3 days. There are designated places in some cities for an RV to park long term but they are basically just homeless encampments that the government has set up to get social services out to people. Not the type of place that OP's parents will want to be.
And some cities are starting to crack down. The beach communities have had some areas totally overrun. Even some nice beach camping is not available as it’s all homeless RV people living there permanently.
I had a neighbor who, along with his wife, was incredibly nice. Their dream was to retire, sell the house, buy an rv and spend their golden years driving around the country. And they did it! But a couple of months into the travels she got sick. Breast cancer. They spent the remainder of their savings getting her care. And she died. And he is broke, back in town and parks his rv in a local campground. He has social security, but picks up work when he can because he is still liable for her medical bills. He wishes they still had their house.
I asked about their plans for medical care if an emergency arose and the plan is to “not do this forever just for three years”. But you never know when health will be impacted. Traveling like this is not easy.
Even if nothing horrible happens, what's the plan in 3 years if they've sold the house? Where will they be? This age group is notoriously out to lunch when it comes to rental prices and how hard it is to find a place to live. If you can convince them not to sell the house, that would be best
FR, even if they live in the RV and get a long term lease you're probably looking at $1000 a month for a campsite with power if you're not in the absolute sticks
My parents are over 70 and just refi'd the house - to pay for my papa's big rig. He was over the retirement age at his job so he got laid off...so his dream was to buy his own rig and start his own business. At 78. And put all their assets at risk. And they just paid $30K of all their savings to remodel the kitchen. It's awesome.
I mean, at some point, you realize you can't take it with you?
But, seriously, my job calls for spending a fair amount of time talking to people over 65. The number of people I talk to who can't scrounge up a $300 copay or find a ride for surgery is so unbelievably sad. However, it has motivated me to be mindful of my retirement accounts, and to also make sure I have age diversity in my inner circle.
>If you can convince them not to sell the house, that would be best.
Yeah, this right here. See if you can convince them to keep the house (maybe turn it into an airbnb for this period so they have a little supplemental income to help defray the travel costs?) and try the nomad thing for a year or two. ~~If~~ When they crash and burn, they'll at least have a home to go back to and not have to buy in this market. Or move in with you and/or your sibs, perish the thought.
Yea my mom and her partner (at the time late 60s) got a small little camper and hoped to do some traveling with it. Not a full time thing but do maybe two trips a year since we live all the way across the country from them. They got one major cross country trip in before her partner’s health began to decline (COPD, heart issues, etc) and he was diagnosed with dementia. So they sold it off and don’t travel anymore except by plane.
Edited to add, I forgot about this, my MIL sort of wanted to do soemthing similar and got a small camper RV van. She and her useless older son couldn’t even make it once trip (long story). Then she ended up with a stroke and can’t live alone anymore. So while the idea to travel in the golden years is nice, there’s a lot of reality that they need to realize.
It can work with planning, though; my Grandpa is (and Grandma was, until her sudden passing nine months ago) a snowbird living in a park in Tampa, then one in Brownsville, TX, over each winter, then spending the other ~8 months of the year in their home up north (important here is that they could buy the motor home outright and keep their home, still afford to pay park fees, etc.). Now Grandpa's 86 and getting all sorts of attention from all the RVing widows around and hoping to have "a friend" with him when he comes through next year. (He was married sixty years, give or take a few months, to Grandma, and he's lonely, so I'm glad he's finding amiable companionship).
(And I feel like if he had the technical chops to become a YouTuber, people would watch the heck out of that, at least if he'd shut it about Wheat Belly).
Are they just gonna live in the RV in 3 years?! Even long-term rental spots to park aren't cheap, like $750-1200 for a spot even before your actual RV mortgage. x.X
I met a lady in the airport who was flying to meet her family. Her Mom and Dad were doing something similar and one of them had a stroke. It was a few years ago and one conversation in an airport so details are fuzzy. She was heartbroken though. She had to figure out how to get them all home and the parent was hospitalized States away.
My inlaws did this too. Solf their house and got a really nice self propelled RV.
Now, as best as the cops could piece it together, 3 years in some dude who was getting divorced and losing his kids decides to go for a drive. He had his mother and 2/3 kids in the car, and committed suicide by pulling out and hitting my in laws head on at highway speed.
Everyone in the car died, thankfully inlaws were lucky enough to get out before the RV completely burned to the ground.
Insurance only covered the vehicle and maybe a quarter of the contents.
That is horrible. He could’ve just not paid the medical bills. Paying medical bills with a credit card is one of the worst financial decisions I can imagine. Now they accrue interest whereas the hospital would’ve ate the debt when she died, and if she survived they could’ve paid it off over time, or done a lump sum settlement and saved some cash. Gosh that sucks so bad.
Yepppp, my husband and I paid like seven grand for an older model - I think it's an '07. And it's fine for the few days at a time we go, but would be miserable full time.
A new one the same size as ours is like 25 grand and it would probably still not be comfy long term. They'd need something a lot larger
Here are a couple of thoughts. They can volunteer to be camp hosts at National Parks where they can park for free and live rent free for the camping months. They have to be like tour guides a certain number of days for this deal. They can camp in county fair grounds for relatively cheap. Until they need to use the festival grounds. At least in my state.
My jaw literally dropped, haha! Honestly this horribly planned RV adventure channel where two older people just make asses of themselves all day by knowing nothing and being ignorant is starting to sound pretty entertaining.
OH my goodness. Are they familiar with YouTube TOS? I know they aren’t… OP, how are you going to cope when you have “I told you so” echoing in your head so loudly and consistently?!
I used to work in national parks and being a camphost is surprisingly very competitive for being a volunteer gig. We’d regularly get 200+ applications for 24 spots (two per month) and this wasn’t even one of the big well known parks. Most hosts returned year after year so there were very few spots for new people and they always went to people with significant experience. I think OP’s parents would have a tough time.
And this was ten years ago, I can’t even imagine now with all the new RVers and people trying to do van life.
I’m older than your folks and have been a camper for roughly 15 years. You know what I am not? I am not delusional enough to believe anyone would want my advice on camping, nor compensate me for it.
Most RV's have a tank that can be emptied every few days. My parents can go almost a week with theirs. Most cities have somewhere to empty the tank safely.
In college, I worked at a grocery store. My co-worker, who cooked at the prepared food counter, had to have been at least 70. She and her husband had sold their home and bought an RV. They lasted a month. She was working so they could afford a condo.
I hope your parents have a backup plan.
I am a boomer who lived that lifestyle before there were people making YouTube channels about it. It was hard 25-30 years ago. It's not any easier now, especially with people like your parents who think it's all campfires and kumbaya out there gumming up the roads. They will spend most of their time in rest areas and truck stops, or maybe in a motel near the garage their rig was hauled to when it breaks down. An RV isn't a house. It's not safe and sturdy, and they're wicked easy to break into. Selling their house and blowing it all on a giant RV is a horrible idea. They should keep the house, get a smaller camper, and go camping. That's what's going to give them the experience they're looking for. I really hope you can talk them out of this.
My uncle and his wife sold their house for a camper to travel the states (bad idea) and proceeded to obliterate it within the first few months and now theyre homeless.
Yeah and Walmart is starting to crack down on overnight campers, due to all the "Van life" and Rv YouTubers all talking about how great it is to stay in Walmart parking lots.. Casino parking lots will be next because they're all talking about how great those are. Because of that all the campgrounds will be full and/or unsustainably expensive. That, cpupled with the fact that there's 843,612 boomer YouTube RV channels they will never recover the cost of the video gear/computer (and the removal of the viruses that boomers get on their computer because they click on everything and install 8 different task bars) But I would watch a YouTube video of them having a nervous breakdown once they realize they will be forced to live at rest areas and truck stops forever. So please, post the link to their channel of it ever happens 😂
I stay mostly at rest stops but have noticed over the past year that more and more signs at rest stops are now being installed on a sign thats states two hour max parking. Havnt seen anyone enforcing it yet tho
Every retired couple I know who has done this is back in their house within a few months. One couple made it to Iowa or Idaho when their rv caught on fire and burned up. My parents bought an RV and made one trip to my aunts house in Oregon and sold it. Best of luck to them!
Roflmao.
Take it from me...I've attempted to be a travel YouTuber and it's bloody HARD. The market is absolutely saturated so you've gotta be GOOD to make any money at all.
Almost any WalMart will allow overnight camper parking. Free, plentiful nationwide, and *not your driveway*. Which is discouraged/banned in many municipalities anyway. So it saves everyone the stress and tickets or other enforcement actions.
https://thervadvisor.com/walmart-stores-that-offer-free-overnight-parking/
My grandparents sold their house and lived in a fifth wheel for their retirement, but they did it because they wanted to travel the country and stay in campgrounds. It sounds like your parents aren't aware of all the effort that goes into camping in an rv, let alone the upkeep and skills required to live in one.
There's plenty of YouTube videos about making money while living full time in an RV/van, and having 1 million followers on YT is not one the suggestions. As well, there's a lot of information out there about where to camp for free (e.g., BLM) or cheap. When we decided to go on a half year camping trip across Canada and the US, husband and I spent weeks finding the best places to go to, the best apps to download, the best routes to take for what we wanted to see. In other words, the information is out there and easy to find and it boggles my mind that this couple made so little effort in figuring out what full time camping requires.
This reminds me of my aunt and uncle. They bought an RV for vacations to “save money” then had to buy a bigger vehicle to pull the RV. They spent way over 100K (this was years ago.)
They went twice a year to the beach every year and sometimes a 3rd week. Their child (at about 14 years old) ended up calculating they spent like $8700+ per week for vacations even 5-6 years after getting it.
They also had to pay some kind of fee or fine every year to park the RV at their own home, not to mention the costs of gas, maintenance, campsite fees etc.
70F here. We've lived full time in an RV for nearly two decades. RV living requires a long and steep learning curve. It's not for the faint of heart.
Urban and suburban areas generally prohibit parking RVs on the street or in driveways. In rural and unincorporated areas, you can usually get by with it if the landowner allows. Don't be surprised if the landowner charges you rent, especially if you are using their electricity, water, sewer, garbage pickup, Wi-Fi, and so forth. Lot rent at an RV park generally includes those services. All of this costs money to provide.
You can park short term at truck stops. They will charge you for fuel and propane, and they may also charge you for dumping your waste tanks.
Some places like Walmart or Cracker Barrel will let you park overnight, but you obviously can't stay there long term. They don't have any services other than a place to park and to buy food and other odds and ends. Not every Walmart allows this.
BLM lands let you camp for no more than two weeks in any one place. Some restrictions apply.
State parks sometimes allow camping. Fees, services, and regulations vary from state to state.
She's incredibly naive and clueless. My partner and I are full-timers, we both had previous experiences doing the Van life lifestyle when younger so we were prepared.
For starters if they plan to be YouTubers you need electric to hook up to, or, solar for when you boondock.
It's totally unrealistic to think she can park a big ass RV in neighborhoods, that's a no go. RV parks with full hook ups are pricey. We have a Thousand Trails membership so the cost is very low.
The thing is, it's work setting up the RV when you arrive and when the day you leave. On the inside you need to take things down and stow away to keep things from breaking. Oh, and the Internet, ha, better get Starlink cause when you are in areas with little reception Verizon or the other Internet companies don't work.
Good luck
Not sure if anyone said this but she can get the Vanly app and others like it. People straight up rent their driveways and such for this type of thing. There are a lot of them as well. You can download the app and search the map.
Weird if they didn’t know about this.
I’m not sure if this would be OP’s parents’ style, but there could be a “hook” here if they base their channel specifically on “We’re learning this stuff as we go along!”, and seek out the humor in being the newbies who are building the plane while they’re flying it. This means they have to be willing to post the things that go wrong, instead of deleting them.
I could see myself building a channel like that, if I was going to do a “Welcome to my nomadic existence!” channel. However, I’ve spent the vast majority of my life making a point in spotting the humor in the ludicrous aspects of living.
I can imagine that “Keystone Kops go camping” angle would allow them to stand out from the highly-curated, oh-so-perfect nomadic-life channels out there. But not everyone is willing to lampoon themselves and everything else when everything’s going haywire.
See, this would be hilarious. From what Op has stated about her parents I don’t think they find much humor in things. I see this as a failed experience.
No. It’s a type of hitch that drops into a slot in the bed of your truck versus being a bumper pull. They usually have a cutback area over where the hitch is located that is setup as a bed. You can pull a lot more weight comfortably, have far more adjustability turning and steering, but can still drop/park it and drive your truck around without it.
I worked at a wilderness lodge in Alaska for two summers and about 1/4th of the staff was retirees living in RVs. They would work for 3-4 months each summer and then drive around the country in their RV visiting family for the rest of the year. Most of them were there both summers and according to their FBs are still living their RV lives, a full decade later. I'm all for retired people living their best RV lives, so I hope your parents figure it out. Maybe at their first campground they'll meet ordinary RV people instead of YT RV people, and the ordinary people can help them.
I follow different YouTube channels for vanlife, living out of your car, living in an RV, living on a boat, etc.
None of it is easy. You have to be a mechanic, plumber, electrician, etc. I've seen quite a few eager people embark on this new way of life .... and then most disappear. It takes a lot of dedication to get a YouTube channel up and running. And doing that while adjusting to a new life is brutal. The people who succeed either already understand videography, or are already settled into their lifestyle.
And above all, you have to be likable.
You have to keep us updated on the consequences of this venture.
I full timed for 4 years and stopped last year. It’s incredibly fun but exhausting and I’m in my 30s. Especially in a 5th wheel. Most retirees are in class As or Cs because setup and tear down are less stressful. I would tell people to never get into it unless you can get back out at any moment. We mainly stayed in Thousand Trails parks and moved every two weeks. Harvest Host is good for cheap single nights. Everyone who was trying to hit it big as influencers soon realized it’s incredibly hard and a full time job on its own. Some friends made it work and now want to quit RVing but their income is tied to traveling.
Everyone is talking about the insanity of selling a house and living full time in an RV or about how they probably won’t make it as YouTubers. Both of those are of course true but I am fucking dying at the idea of two boomers (?) with ZERO videography or editing experience wanting to start a YouTube channel that they expect to get to a million subscribers. Like holy shit, there’s gonna be so many calls complaining that “the computer messed up”
My husband and I thought about it for like one minute, then we sat down and talked. The realities of being on the road and living in campgrounds didn’t compute. If she’s only driving for three hrs a day, she would make it through someplace like Texas in, wow too many days. My friend did this same thing with the influencer/RV, it finished her and her husband’s marriage off in a few weeks. No one watched her channel either.
I love how they think 50K per year will keep them moving. What happens when they into a wreck, one of needs medical care, or that RV inevitably gets towed?
To make this happen, you really have to find free/virtually free places to park, for more than just an overnight (so don't rely on Harvest Hosts that much). Unless they're really making their rig off-grid capable, and have experience with water conservation and waste disposal, it's going to be miserable for them. Vanlifers do it because a lot of times you can stealth camp, but a fifth wheel is another thing entirely.
They might get a million followers to subscribe for an absolute train wreck disaster, but their lives and marriage might not survive that. Maybe you can warn them to watch youtubers who also speak about the downsides of full-time RVing.
Spoken by a non-youtuber who spends over a month at a stretch in a tiny fiberglass camper.
This is so funny because my parents did the exact same thing. They ended up working with migrants on a farm in idaho for a short period. They quit all together and moved back to their home state after about a year. Realizing parks charge like 50 a night. Winter is like 400 a month in propane. They went overboard with a truck and camper to where the loans cost more than a mortgage. They also took my little brother out of school for that year so he spent an extra year to finish school that pissed him off to the point where I don't even think he associates with them anymore. Don't live on the road it is not cheap and it will not be easy.
In case this story gets deleted/removed: My mother and father are recently approaching retirement where they want to sell their home and have purchased a fifth wheel to become traveling YouTubers. I’m sure I’ll be back on this sub in the future as they have determined with nearly zero experience of videography, editing, and personal skills, that they can make $50k the first year of YouTubing and have 1 million followers. I digress. My mother has begun the tedious and repetitive task of “building the itinerary". She has been advised to drive no more than three hours each travel day (by the other youtubers). She is also convinced that this endeavor is cheaper than living in a paid for home. When she mentioned to her family that she would be coming to visit them around “these dates” she was floored that no one cared about her camping, her channel, and wouldn’t allow her to park her massive fifth wheel in front of their homes in suburban neighborhoods. She realizes now that in order to stay there she will need to get campgrounds which “are so expensive!” My tongue will certainly fall off by the end of the year with how much I haven’t told her off. It’s going to be so sweet to hear an “I told you so” in the back of my head every time they face a reality of camping full time at 65. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/OhNoConsequences) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Most digital nomads have a real job where they work remotely, even if part time. It is incredibly hard to get 1m followers on youtube and make 50k per year. This will not end well.
Do you actually need 1M to make that? I thought RAID Shadow Legends was paying something like 2-3k a month for people even in the 10-20k sub range
Yes, but then you have to ask yourself is it worth it to go straight to Hell when you die for promoting Raid: Shadow Legends.
I mean, its less terrible than promoting actual scams like renowned titles and better help. And those were promoted by youtubers that people hold as saints.
To be fair to people who promoted Better Help, no one knew they were illegally selling confidential data until they were charged with it by the Feds. Whereas Renowned Titles entire business plan is nonsense. That said, people I know who bought one of those plots did it as essentially a gag gift that was allegedly helping in Scottish conservation. Calling the person a ‘Lord’ was just treated as a joke. But that doesn’t change how the Titles company absolutely engages in deceptive advertising and was never legit.
People are still promoting better help
I know a few of the more prominent YouTube’s are only promoting them because they have contracts that still need to be fulfilled.
I *really* hope this is the case for Good Mythical Morning.
they're promoting better help? I really couldn't imagine they would do so without the best of intentions at heart. But at the end of the day, we really only know online personas.
Maybe they should do some research rather than just blindly take cash for shilling. Especially when a google search of better help shows multiple videos showing its a harmful group
Anyone who promoted it after the charges came up, absolutely. If they promoted it before anyone knew they were engaging in criminal behavior I’d cut more slack. Any research into the Scottish Title companies would have revealed they were BS from day one, yeah.
You have noooo idea how deep the betterhelp rabbit hole goes.... created by a former israeli cyber intelligence officer, funded by the US naval research institute, shared a building with the israeli embassy, and some pockets of YT have known for years (since they started YT influencer marketing) that they're plan was to aggregate then sell mental health data... Even witnessed a YT live podcast get bot swarmed when they were exposing BetterHelp the very first time... kept spamming political messages (both sides from 2012 and 2016, cheering for McCain/Obama and Trump/Clinton)... Guessing these bots were originally used to artificially boost News agencies engagement numbers - the founder just repurposed this tool from his old side hustle.
So in addition to being a poorly run scam, it was also a multinational psy op?
Yes, looked that way in 2018. Would prefer to think it was started by a military vet with noble intentions and entrepreneurial aspirations... but their israeli connections, deep-state funding, and the bot swarm make me believe there is more going on with it.
There may be people with less subscribers who make more money but you need a niche market that pays well. I also suspect that the older you get, the less opportunities you get or less money you get from these opportunities. Seniors would probably make less money and have a more difficult time than young, fit, and hot 20 - 30 year old's. I hope they are a success but they should consult someone with a degree in marketing and specializing in digital marketing to help set them up for success.
I think interesting content is more important. Why would someone watch retirees driving around? I watch Tasting History because Matt Miller tells interesting stories. I watch various Cruise youtubers, Ginny Di, Anne Reardon, and others to learn things. I even watch some home renovation type channels. But unless these retirees have a hook, it will fail.
Retiree here that watches van life videos, and YT is FLOODED with seniors doing videos of their 'travels' and van life. It would be very hard to grab a substantial market share.
One could make it work, but just traveling isn't enough. You need to have some sort of outstanding personality or athleticism that makes people want to live through your adventures. Not just cooking dinner in your trailer at a glampsite with electricity. Look at Steve Wallis. On paper his videos should be pretty lame, yet there's something about him, his personality, his experience, that is really cozy and familiar. He does cool stuff, but the channel succeeds because of his personality, not just his travels
I feel like them just traveling about “always on the verge of failing”, having some new “tragedy” and being shocked at everything might actually draw a crowd at least for a while. Just have to go viral doing something stupid/outrageous a time or two then continue rather incompetently and people will watch waiting to see them fail.
I just did some rough math it's about 50k average views if you do 2 videos every week. That would just be the add revenue on YouTube for the views. It does not account for any sponsorships or promotional videos.
Yeah, but vlogging can be incredibly easy to pump out depending on what your care for quality is.
That is entirely different from somebody pulling in that kind of money off of just the monetization of their videos from ads, subscribers/memberships, etc. though.
More important than subscribers, is watch time. Someone making four videos a week could be making way more money with 200k subscribers than someone making 1 video a month with 1 million subscribers. Blogging channels tend to make good money though simply because of how non edit intensive the content is so they can upload a ton.
No. 1m subscribers with decent views is well over six figures
My brother has about 700k subs and generally makes substantially more than that. Having multiple revenue streams helps.
I work for a media corp - full team of editors, project managers, social media specialists, SEO specialists, consultants, etc. In the time I have been there they have tried to get a dozen projects off the ground - podcasts, YouTube, etc. I think they have sold 2 that were successful and another one the host bought the rights to their own show…and then their channel died without the support of a team. I don’t think most people realize how difficult it is to make a viable business model from a social media without a) having immense talent and drive b) a social media team (or at least an editor) and c) a clear vision of your target audience. It’s doable - but people need to take into account the literal media machines they are up against in that space.
She better get really good at CoD.
Having been a retiree/5th wheel RV full timer for 3 years... Stopped in 2018. I can't speak to the YouTube stuff, but full time RVing isn't cheap. Depending on season, to feel safe, we budgeted $50 a night, $1500/month for sites. And that was playing all the memberships,and discounts we could. Good news is that power, water and sewer is included. I'm sure it's more now. The standard rule is 2,2,2 or 3,3,3. Drive no more than 200 miles, arrive by 2 pm and stay 2 nights or 3... Our big Dodge Ram diesel pickup gets 10-12 MPG pulling our 43 ft trailer. Going 200 miles at $5 per gallon is $100 per travel day for fuel. So if you really do the 2,2,2, at least $3000 per month just for the lifestyle. Oh and hopefully they paid cash for that truck and trailer. Cuz payments, insurance, and maintenance, tires, lots of tires. Plus life. They still need to eat, hobbies, recreation. Etc, etc, etc. I wish them luck.
It's less money if you stay somewhere for at least a month. Been doing this since forever; now retired.
I have a friend who does it with her little family. They travel to where the work is for her licensed husband and they plan to stay usually at least 3 months. They’ve been stacking away cash like crazy while also traveling with the kiddos.
Fuck, just reminded me I need to renew my husband license.
You’re good. I’ve had temp tags on mine for, like, 17 years.
Reading something like this is why I will never stop scrolling the comments. Take my upvote and thank you for the laugh
didn’t expect to find something so relatable in this thread.
Hahahahaha!
Oh for sure. But I can't imagine anyone would watch a YT series on spending a month in some snowbird haven in AZ.
This man vans
With 200 miles a day you would be out of Europe within a week.
Europeans think Americans don't travel, but it's just, we go 200 miles and we're still in the same state. But the exact accent with which people speak English does change *slightly* in that distance.
Ha ha and I thought this was low, some places in Canada it’s a lot more than 200 miles to the next campground!
Yeah 200mi I was like dude.....itll take you fuking weeks just to get out of my state.
Found the Texan. Or, maybe the Californian... Enjoying everyone's comments on this sub. Peace, out!
Wow! I knew you guys say 100 miles is not a distance but over 200 to next site does give the idea of the scale. We recently went to Northern France, area of D-day beaches, every little village had either a campground or an aire, or just overnight parking. Very cheap too. I mean there was something every 10 km or so. And something to see too. Memorials, nature, cider farms. Out of such high value touristy areas obviously the parkings are further apart, maybe 20-30 km. I open the parking app and the whole screen is dotted with places, choose which you like better.
$100 a day for fuel, stay 2-3 nights, quit after 3 years. Surprise surprise.....
There are campground networks now with thousands of sites as it's gotten so popular.
Yeah, as a not fulltime RV'er, she's in for a reality check. Cities/HOAs don't allow RVs in driveways or parked on the road (except CA, which junkers can be for years). Who wants to watch a YouTube of 65 year olds finding out how little they know? She'll be back within a year.
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This is my fucking parents. They are lovely people and much more self aware than your typical boomer. But my brother took them to Japan and basically had to take them to American fast food establishments the whole time because they kept complaining about the food
My dad took my grandfather to Europe for a holiday, Spain, France and Italy. My grandfather only ate pizza and Spaghetti Bolognese for the two months they were there. My dad was not impressed.
My friend's husband once said that there's no point in going to Italy because Olive Garden already has the best Italian food 🤦🏻♀️
Jesus take the whole car.
Oh that’s going in my stress catalog!
Roflmao
They took my grandfather to see some of the places he had been stationed during the war. I guess he must have liked the pasta when he was there
How old was he in the war? 17 or 18? And eating tinned rations, probably? It’s kinda not surprising he regressed to childhood eating habits, as he was a child in the middle of a warzone
He signed up at 17. That's a very good poin, I never thought of it that way. He was a very simple man who rarely went outside his comfort zone. He and my grandma had very traditional roles in the house. He never cooked whilst my grandma was well, when she got Alzheimer's he had to learn and then did everything for her. When she moved to the nursing home when she needed too much support he would walk down three times a day to feed her, and learned to do her make up. Idk why I'm even sharing this. He was a very good man and people should know.
That’s really sweet of him. I didn’t talk to my grandfather about his experiences enough. He didn’t ever bring it up. Thanks for sharing
LOL. It cracks me up that people think the Americanized version of food is the best. LOL. I mean I like Taco Bell occasionally but I don’t call it Mexican food. I have plenty of options here in CA for real Mexican food. 🤣😂
I’m just gonna say this… living in California spoiled us for having so many options on food, but especially Mexican. I’ve been near DC now for 8yrs and I can’t find decent Mexican food, it’s mostly folks from Central America here and it’s completely different. Even when they work at a supposed “Mexican restaurant” they put their own flair from their home country that is not quite the same. We end up making our own Mexican food at home simply cuz we had extended family and close friends who are from there and had their own food business (I miss their chorizo tacos) who showed us how make a lot authentically.
Fellow DC person here. I once worked for a corporate food establishment where the kitchen was staffed primarily with South & Central American workers and the office with white people. Upper Management decided morale was low, and instead of paying us more they threw the staff a “Cinco de Mayo” party in the back parking lot with tables full of food and drinks, music chosen by the kitchen staff, the works. (Oh my god it was so good.) That year we had a new warehouse manager who, like all the other managers, was a white dude. His wife, however, was from Mexico. So he took one look at the spread and the music and was like “What the fuck is this? It’s not Mexican!” ETA: I forgot where Bolivia was located when I wrote my post at 6 AM.
Hahahahaha that’s hilarious. Didn’t get me wrong, I do like some of the food from Central America that I’ve tried but it is a whole separate category and so many people don’t get that. My last office I was in had a cleaning lady who basically was there all day, awesome person to chat with, and she just recently retired. From talking with me she knew I had some Spanish understanding and often would mix in when she spoke with me. She always had her lunch routine and had her Spanish soap operas on while she ate in the kitchen area, and had her Spanish news on in the early morning when I came to the office gym. She’s from El Salvador but has been here for a long time already and loves being here. She always talks about the differences from the various neighborhoods here and even compared to how California is (her son was in the Bay Area and also down in SoCal for a time) with how Mexicans communities are vs the ones she’s familiar with. She always found it so amusing about people not knowing the difference.
I was invited to a dinner. I was told we would be eating Chinese food, real Chinese food cooked by grandma. It was great food but I didn’t recognize anything but the rice.
omg. One of the most savage yelp reviews I ever read was for a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco where someone just wrote “this place tastes like the company cafeteria on Cinco de Mayo”
I miss proper elote and fish tacos from Cal-Mex. Everyone in Florida does their own spins on them but none are just fried fish, cabbage, and crema.
Weirdly enough rural Kentucky is *awesome* for good Mexican food.
As an Italian I’m extremely offended 🤣
Im Australian w zero Italian heritage and Im offended.
I visited Sydney around 20 years ago. We went to a little Italian restaurant we selected randomly. Every single dish had green peas added. Every. Single. Dish. It would look like typical Italian dishes, except with green peas. Really weird. I tell that story every now and then, and people always ask me if that's an Australian thing. Cracks me up every time.
At least in Adelaide (and where I live now in Norway) there's a difference between actually Italian and Italian ish restaurants
This may be heresy but I spent a few weeks in Italy and by the end was craving an olive garden. I'm sorry the butter and oil flows through my arteries......it's who I am now
I once was a person. Now I am just a bowl of unlimited breadsticks
I don't entirely blame you. I spent two summers in Italy, and the food was... fine, I suppose. Pizza there is fun because those crazy fuckers will put literally anything on it. Creative Nutella-based desserts everywhere you go are entertaining; they're very proud of their Nutella. Pasta, though, is overwhelmingly a dry, bland experience. Most of the food I had in Italy was... well, it was food.
One of my favorite ways to (playfully) troll my Italian friends is to refer to Olive Garden as "authentic" Italian food. Or to refer to Domino's Pizza as "better than anything you can get in Italy". Or to refer to NY style pizza as "greasy and gross".
Okay, I genuinely like Olive Garden as much as the next mediocre Midwesterner, but I live in Europe now and some of the best food I’ve ever had was in Italy. Definitely a higher quality than “Olive Garden”. 😂 Some people astound me with their sheer lack of curiosity about the wider world.
> My friend's husband once said that there's no point in going to Italy because Olive Garden already has the best Italian food 🤦🏻♀️ NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I'm going to rage by myself in a corner now.
I was chatting with a friend of mine about her wanting to go on a safari in Africa. Not hunting or anything, just to experience the landscape and maybe some cool animals. Her husband sat there being a total grouch and just kept saying it was totally pointless because, “didn’t we know you can see the animals better and see more variety by watching a nature documentary.” This fool just kept being such a condescending ass about how boring it would be when you’ve have to sit around for an animal to walk by when you could see video footage on any tv. I wanted to slap him. It’s weird when your friends start turning into grumpy ass old men.
We paid for a private high tea service done by Twinings (the group that supplied tea for the queen of England) and my grandfather asked for a bourbon instead. 😂
We took my father in law to Thailand and stupidly offered to pay for everything including food - when there we always eat the delicious Thai food which is fairly cheap and at the time (2012) you could still get a decent meal and a drink even in a touristy area for 50 baht. We figured he'd do the same, being in a new place and wanting to experience the local food. Nope - he ordered 500 baht steak every night and raved about it because it was slightly cheaper than back home.
I took my mom to the best Korean BBQ restaurant in our town, and she acted so fucking disinterested, but later RAVED to my step dad about how good it was, but not once told me she enjoyed it.. boomers are so weird.. 😒
KFC for Christmas?
From what I have read, that's a thing in Japan.
[https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20161216-why-japan-celebrates-christmas-with-kfc](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20161216-why-japan-celebrates-christmas-with-kfc) Yup, you may have to order weeks in advance, or queue for hours. *According to KFC Japan spokeswoman Motoichi Nakatani, it started thanks to Takeshi Okawara, the manager of the first KFC in the country. Shortly after it opened in 1970, Okawara woke up at midnight and jotted down an idea that came to him in a dream: a “party barrel” to be sold on Christmas.* *(...)* *This year \[2016\], the company is selling* [*Kentucky Christmas dinner packages*](http://www.kfc.co.jp/campaign/xmas2016/index.html#premium_anc) *that range from a box of chicken for 3,780 yen, ($32), up to a “premium” whole-roasted chicken and sides for 5,800 yen. According to KFC, the packages account for about a third of the chain’s yearly sales in Japan.*
My mom recently CANCELED a trip to Japan because she realized her boomer self couldn't handle not having her needs met at all times and deferring to strong non-American cultural norms ... now my dad will never go to Japan. Sad sad
I mean, I understand wanting familiar food when you're tired out or stressed. The first day I spent in Manhattan job-hunting after moving up from North Carolina, I stopped at an Arby's. But fast food after that night was a rare thing. So, now and then I get, but all the time is such a waste!
And all these “foreigners” everywhere
Went to a friend's wedding in China (she was from Jiaxing). Groom's parents refused to try anything new so bride's parents always had to order something more American americanized for them anywhere we went. Looking back, it's no wonder the bride's family got so excited when I and the groom were happy to try anything they put in front of us lol
This was half my family visiting us, my dad and one brother would eat anything pretty much, but my mom and other brother basically lived off McDonald's
I’d watch them getting schooled but you know they wouldn’t show anything that would paint them in a bad light.
I’d watch a scripted show with that premise, but I doubt a vlogger would have the necessary self-awareness to make it work.
For it to work one of their kids (*looks at OP*) would have to sacrifice themselves to be their documentarian but edited the footage in the style of The Office or Parks & Rec.
But would they allow themselves to be mocked over and over? I mean it would be pretty much like being roasted for every episode.
This would be awesome. Can I nominate Ted Danson for your fantasy casting consideration?
But they're hardly going to film their own shocked Pikachu faces and *admit* they're *wrong*...!?!?!
Though if they did, they might actually get that million followers
Absolutely. I’d be more up for this than what they had planned 😂
This has the feel of a good comedy movie plot. By the end, I see the RV on fire, half sunk in a sewage wheat field arguing with each other as they wheel overstuff suitcases to a bus stop to live with their children so that the parents can "get back on their feet". Mom's already starting to think of an even more disastrous plan for what they'll do next ...
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This could only happen if a non-boomer edited the videos... I don't think their offspring will engage in the shenanigans.
High class comedy
this is so a movie waiting to happen
Can we have Ron Howard narrate it *Arrested Development* style?
“We’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Yeah, my municipality only allows an RV to be parked in my driveway if I own it. They can only be on the street for a certain number of hours, or possibly minutes I’m not sure, per day for loading/unloading. People with private lots make a lot of money renting space to people who want to store their RVs in this community. But those lots pay a lot of taxes and have to be zoned properly. But now a friend of mine is traveling around in an RV, and I was excited to have her camp in my driveway, but then I realized that would not be fun. There is no hook up. There’s no electricity. Where is her dog going to run? I think it would be really annoying to my neighbors, so I can understand. Unlike OP’s parents, she completely understands and from the start had planned to park in a campground. Same with my sister-in-law a few years ago, they were excited to have us come visit them at their campground, which was pretty fancy and had a dog park. My sister-in-law is retired military so they camp for free in certain places (AFB’s) and very low cost in others. OP’s parents to take out deals for retired campers, some campgrounds offer pretty sweet deals.
So my dad's cousin did this. EXCEPT what they did was have their house paid off...then fitted for their RV hookups (and I hate to break it people but there is actually work involved here to keep a long term living RV functional) and then gifted their paid off house to their son with the caveat that they can "summer" up North. It's a situation that has worked out great for everyone. Son got a house, parents got a "summer hook up!" (tongue in cheek intended), they winter down in the south (Florida) where RV hook ups are a whole thing. This wasn't a "the Lord will provide" situation. These were people who planned out, prepared, and executed an ideal setup. ETA: oh and it is contractually binding. In my family, we trust that we will "never have to execute a document." So who cares if after reading it that you sign one?
Merry Christmas! Shitter’s full
I didn’t know this until we moved to the mid Atlantic but tons of caravans of folks from Quebec head back and forth every year to Florida and use the back road highways a lot of the time and pass through near where we live. They make northeast snowbirds a whole separate category from them.
Our town allows RVs on the street for a couple of days and they don't really enforce it unless someone complains. One neighbor lived in their RV in their front yard for months after their house burned down. A different neighbor let someone park in front of their house, run extension cords and a hose across the sidewalk, and push out the sliders, blocking the sidewalk and part of the street. We called code enforcement because hell no and they got ticketed. I'd love to see a video of that interaction.
>A different neighbor let someone park in front of their house, run extension cords and a hose across the sidewalk My grandpa recently couldn't find space at a campground and did that at our house, except there are no sidewalks in my neighborhood. His "just going to stay for one evening and be off in the morning" turned into a four and a half day visit. (My husband's liver still hasn't recovered). Anyway, I am in the back corner of a street with very little through traffic and the next door neighbor already has an RV in their front yard. But I'd hope that if a neighbor had an issue with it there, they'd come talk to us instead of calling code enforcement. I'm not faulting you because I have no idea what your neighborhood and relationship with your neighbors are like, but I'm also pretty sure it's legal in my FL city.
Naw….3-6 months, that’s when the honeymoon phase wears off.😂😂😂
It has a certain appeal. Like Naked and Afraid and other shows you watch to see people suffering.
> Who wants to watch a YouTube of 65 year olds finding out how little they know? Honestly? Sign me up! I need some catharsis after years of old people telling me all the things they know I'll eventually do, believe, act like, ETC.
A former work colleague sold their home and planned a retirement life of living and traveling in an RV. They drove it from New England to FL in a round about way Then bought a house in FL I don’t know if they’ve sold the rv yet.
Even in CA you have to move the RV or car every 3 days. There are designated places in some cities for an RV to park long term but they are basically just homeless encampments that the government has set up to get social services out to people. Not the type of place that OP's parents will want to be.
And some cities are starting to crack down. The beach communities have had some areas totally overrun. Even some nice beach camping is not available as it’s all homeless RV people living there permanently.
I had a neighbor who, along with his wife, was incredibly nice. Their dream was to retire, sell the house, buy an rv and spend their golden years driving around the country. And they did it! But a couple of months into the travels she got sick. Breast cancer. They spent the remainder of their savings getting her care. And she died. And he is broke, back in town and parks his rv in a local campground. He has social security, but picks up work when he can because he is still liable for her medical bills. He wishes they still had their house.
I asked about their plans for medical care if an emergency arose and the plan is to “not do this forever just for three years”. But you never know when health will be impacted. Traveling like this is not easy.
Even if nothing horrible happens, what's the plan in 3 years if they've sold the house? Where will they be? This age group is notoriously out to lunch when it comes to rental prices and how hard it is to find a place to live. If you can convince them not to sell the house, that would be best
FR, even if they live in the RV and get a long term lease you're probably looking at $1000 a month for a campsite with power if you're not in the absolute sticks
Yes def they should rent the house. My God, watching your parents f up like this has to be painful ....
My parents are over 70 and just refi'd the house - to pay for my papa's big rig. He was over the retirement age at his job so he got laid off...so his dream was to buy his own rig and start his own business. At 78. And put all their assets at risk. And they just paid $30K of all their savings to remodel the kitchen. It's awesome.
I mean, at some point, you realize you can't take it with you? But, seriously, my job calls for spending a fair amount of time talking to people over 65. The number of people I talk to who can't scrounge up a $300 copay or find a ride for surgery is so unbelievably sad. However, it has motivated me to be mindful of my retirement accounts, and to also make sure I have age diversity in my inner circle.
>If you can convince them not to sell the house, that would be best. Yeah, this right here. See if you can convince them to keep the house (maybe turn it into an airbnb for this period so they have a little supplemental income to help defray the travel costs?) and try the nomad thing for a year or two. ~~If~~ When they crash and burn, they'll at least have a home to go back to and not have to buy in this market. Or move in with you and/or your sibs, perish the thought.
Yea my mom and her partner (at the time late 60s) got a small little camper and hoped to do some traveling with it. Not a full time thing but do maybe two trips a year since we live all the way across the country from them. They got one major cross country trip in before her partner’s health began to decline (COPD, heart issues, etc) and he was diagnosed with dementia. So they sold it off and don’t travel anymore except by plane. Edited to add, I forgot about this, my MIL sort of wanted to do soemthing similar and got a small camper RV van. She and her useless older son couldn’t even make it once trip (long story). Then she ended up with a stroke and can’t live alone anymore. So while the idea to travel in the golden years is nice, there’s a lot of reality that they need to realize.
It can work with planning, though; my Grandpa is (and Grandma was, until her sudden passing nine months ago) a snowbird living in a park in Tampa, then one in Brownsville, TX, over each winter, then spending the other ~8 months of the year in their home up north (important here is that they could buy the motor home outright and keep their home, still afford to pay park fees, etc.). Now Grandpa's 86 and getting all sorts of attention from all the RVing widows around and hoping to have "a friend" with him when he comes through next year. (He was married sixty years, give or take a few months, to Grandma, and he's lonely, so I'm glad he's finding amiable companionship). (And I feel like if he had the technical chops to become a YouTuber, people would watch the heck out of that, at least if he'd shut it about Wheat Belly).
Are they just gonna live in the RV in 3 years?! Even long-term rental spots to park aren't cheap, like $750-1200 for a spot even before your actual RV mortgage. x.X
I met a lady in the airport who was flying to meet her family. Her Mom and Dad were doing something similar and one of them had a stroke. It was a few years ago and one conversation in an airport so details are fuzzy. She was heartbroken though. She had to figure out how to get them all home and the parent was hospitalized States away.
My inlaws did this too. Solf their house and got a really nice self propelled RV. Now, as best as the cops could piece it together, 3 years in some dude who was getting divorced and losing his kids decides to go for a drive. He had his mother and 2/3 kids in the car, and committed suicide by pulling out and hitting my in laws head on at highway speed. Everyone in the car died, thankfully inlaws were lucky enough to get out before the RV completely burned to the ground. Insurance only covered the vehicle and maybe a quarter of the contents.
Yikes, that's horrible! I hope they're doing okay now.
Oh, that's horrible...
Sounds like a great time for a bankruptcy.
He’s not liable for her medical bills. That’s illegal.
Yes, that’s true. But they paid for a lot of the treatments with credit cards. He is liable for that.
That is horrible. He could’ve just not paid the medical bills. Paying medical bills with a credit card is one of the worst financial decisions I can imagine. Now they accrue interest whereas the hospital would’ve ate the debt when she died, and if she survived they could’ve paid it off over time, or done a lump sum settlement and saved some cash. Gosh that sucks so bad.
My wife's aunt and uncle did the same - right after they bought the RV, he was diagnosed with cancer. Died before they ever got a chance to travel.
I blame that on our failed health care system more than your neighbors. That's so sad
I wonder how much of the retirement savings they burned through on that fifth wheel. Even older ones aren’t that cheap.
I hope the OP isn't counting on a big inheritance.
He's getting a very big inheritance: the fifth wheel.
Yepppp, my husband and I paid like seven grand for an older model - I think it's an '07. And it's fine for the few days at a time we go, but would be miserable full time. A new one the same size as ours is like 25 grand and it would probably still not be comfy long term. They'd need something a lot larger
Here are a couple of thoughts. They can volunteer to be camp hosts at National Parks where they can park for free and live rent free for the camping months. They have to be like tour guides a certain number of days for this deal. They can camp in county fair grounds for relatively cheap. Until they need to use the festival grounds. At least in my state.
I should mention they have been banned from Nextdoor app multiple times for racial slurs. So… wouldn’t say they are the most likable lol
My jaw literally dropped, haha! Honestly this horribly planned RV adventure channel where two older people just make asses of themselves all day by knowing nothing and being ignorant is starting to sound pretty entertaining.
Right?! I'd sub!
Let's not accidentally make them successful now lol
Can someone drop the channel link please. I just had the desire to subscribe.
OH my goodness. Are they familiar with YouTube TOS? I know they aren’t… OP, how are you going to cope when you have “I told you so” echoing in your head so loudly and consistently?!
Oh, then maybe do not mention those options to them...lol.
I am struck by this but not particularly surprised.
I doubt that many people will want to watch tiresome loudmouth racist nobodies on YouTube.
honestly i would watch that if it includes them getting their just desserts by the end of each video.
I used to work in national parks and being a camphost is surprisingly very competitive for being a volunteer gig. We’d regularly get 200+ applications for 24 spots (two per month) and this wasn’t even one of the big well known parks. Most hosts returned year after year so there were very few spots for new people and they always went to people with significant experience. I think OP’s parents would have a tough time. And this was ten years ago, I can’t even imagine now with all the new RVers and people trying to do van life.
I’m older than your folks and have been a camper for roughly 15 years. You know what I am not? I am not delusional enough to believe anyone would want my advice on camping, nor compensate me for it.
Same here! Besides which, I like my privacy. I don't want photos and videos of myself all over the Internet.
Don't they have to stay in campgrounds for sewage disposal and stuff anyway? You can't just flush out the toilet on someone's lawn
Shitter's full! *(sorry, I had to)*
It had to be said
I read that in Eddie's voice lol
Most RV's have a tank that can be emptied every few days. My parents can go almost a week with theirs. Most cities have somewhere to empty the tank safely.
Truck stops usually have a waste dump.
In college, I worked at a grocery store. My co-worker, who cooked at the prepared food counter, had to have been at least 70. She and her husband had sold their home and bought an RV. They lasted a month. She was working so they could afford a condo. I hope your parents have a backup plan.
I am a boomer who lived that lifestyle before there were people making YouTube channels about it. It was hard 25-30 years ago. It's not any easier now, especially with people like your parents who think it's all campfires and kumbaya out there gumming up the roads. They will spend most of their time in rest areas and truck stops, or maybe in a motel near the garage their rig was hauled to when it breaks down. An RV isn't a house. It's not safe and sturdy, and they're wicked easy to break into. Selling their house and blowing it all on a giant RV is a horrible idea. They should keep the house, get a smaller camper, and go camping. That's what's going to give them the experience they're looking for. I really hope you can talk them out of this.
My uncle and his wife sold their house for a camper to travel the states (bad idea) and proceeded to obliterate it within the first few months and now theyre homeless.
Make her watch the movie Nomadland. It is GRIM.
Yeah and Walmart is starting to crack down on overnight campers, due to all the "Van life" and Rv YouTubers all talking about how great it is to stay in Walmart parking lots.. Casino parking lots will be next because they're all talking about how great those are. Because of that all the campgrounds will be full and/or unsustainably expensive. That, cpupled with the fact that there's 843,612 boomer YouTube RV channels they will never recover the cost of the video gear/computer (and the removal of the viruses that boomers get on their computer because they click on everything and install 8 different task bars) But I would watch a YouTube video of them having a nervous breakdown once they realize they will be forced to live at rest areas and truck stops forever. So please, post the link to their channel of it ever happens 😂
I stay mostly at rest stops but have noticed over the past year that more and more signs at rest stops are now being installed on a sign thats states two hour max parking. Havnt seen anyone enforcing it yet tho
Every retired couple I know who has done this is back in their house within a few months. One couple made it to Iowa or Idaho when their rv caught on fire and burned up. My parents bought an RV and made one trip to my aunts house in Oregon and sold it. Best of luck to them!
Roflmao. Take it from me...I've attempted to be a travel YouTuber and it's bloody HARD. The market is absolutely saturated so you've gotta be GOOD to make any money at all.
Almost any WalMart will allow overnight camper parking. Free, plentiful nationwide, and *not your driveway*. Which is discouraged/banned in many municipalities anyway. So it saves everyone the stress and tickets or other enforcement actions. https://thervadvisor.com/walmart-stores-that-offer-free-overnight-parking/
Even Kristen Bell and Dax Shepherd have done it
Also Cracker Barrel restaurants allow free RV parking for a night.
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My grandparents sold their house and lived in a fifth wheel for their retirement, but they did it because they wanted to travel the country and stay in campgrounds. It sounds like your parents aren't aware of all the effort that goes into camping in an rv, let alone the upkeep and skills required to live in one.
There's plenty of YouTube videos about making money while living full time in an RV/van, and having 1 million followers on YT is not one the suggestions. As well, there's a lot of information out there about where to camp for free (e.g., BLM) or cheap. When we decided to go on a half year camping trip across Canada and the US, husband and I spent weeks finding the best places to go to, the best apps to download, the best routes to take for what we wanted to see. In other words, the information is out there and easy to find and it boggles my mind that this couple made so little effort in figuring out what full time camping requires.
This reminds me of my aunt and uncle. They bought an RV for vacations to “save money” then had to buy a bigger vehicle to pull the RV. They spent way over 100K (this was years ago.) They went twice a year to the beach every year and sometimes a 3rd week. Their child (at about 14 years old) ended up calculating they spent like $8700+ per week for vacations even 5-6 years after getting it. They also had to pay some kind of fee or fine every year to park the RV at their own home, not to mention the costs of gas, maintenance, campsite fees etc.
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70F here. We've lived full time in an RV for nearly two decades. RV living requires a long and steep learning curve. It's not for the faint of heart. Urban and suburban areas generally prohibit parking RVs on the street or in driveways. In rural and unincorporated areas, you can usually get by with it if the landowner allows. Don't be surprised if the landowner charges you rent, especially if you are using their electricity, water, sewer, garbage pickup, Wi-Fi, and so forth. Lot rent at an RV park generally includes those services. All of this costs money to provide. You can park short term at truck stops. They will charge you for fuel and propane, and they may also charge you for dumping your waste tanks. Some places like Walmart or Cracker Barrel will let you park overnight, but you obviously can't stay there long term. They don't have any services other than a place to park and to buy food and other odds and ends. Not every Walmart allows this. BLM lands let you camp for no more than two weeks in any one place. Some restrictions apply. State parks sometimes allow camping. Fees, services, and regulations vary from state to state.
She's incredibly naive and clueless. My partner and I are full-timers, we both had previous experiences doing the Van life lifestyle when younger so we were prepared. For starters if they plan to be YouTubers you need electric to hook up to, or, solar for when you boondock. It's totally unrealistic to think she can park a big ass RV in neighborhoods, that's a no go. RV parks with full hook ups are pricey. We have a Thousand Trails membership so the cost is very low. The thing is, it's work setting up the RV when you arrive and when the day you leave. On the inside you need to take things down and stow away to keep things from breaking. Oh, and the Internet, ha, better get Starlink cause when you are in areas with little reception Verizon or the other Internet companies don't work. Good luck
Not sure if anyone said this but she can get the Vanly app and others like it. People straight up rent their driveways and such for this type of thing. There are a lot of them as well. You can download the app and search the map. Weird if they didn’t know about this.
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I’m not sure if this would be OP’s parents’ style, but there could be a “hook” here if they base their channel specifically on “We’re learning this stuff as we go along!”, and seek out the humor in being the newbies who are building the plane while they’re flying it. This means they have to be willing to post the things that go wrong, instead of deleting them. I could see myself building a channel like that, if I was going to do a “Welcome to my nomadic existence!” channel. However, I’ve spent the vast majority of my life making a point in spotting the humor in the ludicrous aspects of living. I can imagine that “Keystone Kops go camping” angle would allow them to stand out from the highly-curated, oh-so-perfect nomadic-life channels out there. But not everyone is willing to lampoon themselves and everything else when everything’s going haywire.
See, this would be hilarious. From what Op has stated about her parents I don’t think they find much humor in things. I see this as a failed experience.
“Fifth wheel”? Is that a particular brand of RV?
No. It’s a type of hitch that drops into a slot in the bed of your truck versus being a bumper pull. They usually have a cutback area over where the hitch is located that is setup as a bed. You can pull a lot more weight comfortably, have far more adjustability turning and steering, but can still drop/park it and drive your truck around without it.
I worked at a wilderness lodge in Alaska for two summers and about 1/4th of the staff was retirees living in RVs. They would work for 3-4 months each summer and then drive around the country in their RV visiting family for the rest of the year. Most of them were there both summers and according to their FBs are still living their RV lives, a full decade later. I'm all for retired people living their best RV lives, so I hope your parents figure it out. Maybe at their first campground they'll meet ordinary RV people instead of YT RV people, and the ordinary people can help them.
Tell them to stay in State Parks they’re cheaper
I follow different YouTube channels for vanlife, living out of your car, living in an RV, living on a boat, etc. None of it is easy. You have to be a mechanic, plumber, electrician, etc. I've seen quite a few eager people embark on this new way of life .... and then most disappear. It takes a lot of dedication to get a YouTube channel up and running. And doing that while adjusting to a new life is brutal. The people who succeed either already understand videography, or are already settled into their lifestyle. And above all, you have to be likable. You have to keep us updated on the consequences of this venture.
The naive entitlement of this is delicious.
I full timed for 4 years and stopped last year. It’s incredibly fun but exhausting and I’m in my 30s. Especially in a 5th wheel. Most retirees are in class As or Cs because setup and tear down are less stressful. I would tell people to never get into it unless you can get back out at any moment. We mainly stayed in Thousand Trails parks and moved every two weeks. Harvest Host is good for cheap single nights. Everyone who was trying to hit it big as influencers soon realized it’s incredibly hard and a full time job on its own. Some friends made it work and now want to quit RVing but their income is tied to traveling.
Everyone is talking about the insanity of selling a house and living full time in an RV or about how they probably won’t make it as YouTubers. Both of those are of course true but I am fucking dying at the idea of two boomers (?) with ZERO videography or editing experience wanting to start a YouTube channel that they expect to get to a million subscribers. Like holy shit, there’s gonna be so many calls complaining that “the computer messed up”
omg, I need this to be a continuing series. I beg you.
My husband and I thought about it for like one minute, then we sat down and talked. The realities of being on the road and living in campgrounds didn’t compute. If she’s only driving for three hrs a day, she would make it through someplace like Texas in, wow too many days. My friend did this same thing with the influencer/RV, it finished her and her husband’s marriage off in a few weeks. No one watched her channel either.
I love how they think 50K per year will keep them moving. What happens when they into a wreck, one of needs medical care, or that RV inevitably gets towed?
Op this "I told you so" is going to end with your parents asking to live with you in 6mo. Get your laughs in now before it comes back at you.
To make this happen, you really have to find free/virtually free places to park, for more than just an overnight (so don't rely on Harvest Hosts that much). Unless they're really making their rig off-grid capable, and have experience with water conservation and waste disposal, it's going to be miserable for them. Vanlifers do it because a lot of times you can stealth camp, but a fifth wheel is another thing entirely. They might get a million followers to subscribe for an absolute train wreck disaster, but their lives and marriage might not survive that. Maybe you can warn them to watch youtubers who also speak about the downsides of full-time RVing. Spoken by a non-youtuber who spends over a month at a stretch in a tiny fiberglass camper.
This is so funny because my parents did the exact same thing. They ended up working with migrants on a farm in idaho for a short period. They quit all together and moved back to their home state after about a year. Realizing parks charge like 50 a night. Winter is like 400 a month in propane. They went overboard with a truck and camper to where the loans cost more than a mortgage. They also took my little brother out of school for that year so he spent an extra year to finish school that pissed him off to the point where I don't even think he associates with them anymore. Don't live on the road it is not cheap and it will not be easy.
My HOA is pretty laid back... They would shit bricks anything more that 2 days.
As a retired former LVN nurse may I please suggest to your parents, don’t sell your home! Listen to your son!