speaker-0 (00:04)
The Badlands and Mount Rushmore are two locations that keep coming up when we ask people for recommendations of where we have to visit in our RV. Same travel.
speaker-1 (00:16)
They wrong.
speaker-0 (00:17)
This is the Sunshine Travelers. So Melissa, we've asked several people both out on the road as well as on social media and
Two of the places that keep coming up as places that we need to go and travel to are the Badlands and Mount Rushmore.
speaker-1 (00:37)
Yeah, we had a great conversation actually at our last campground with a couple. do you remember how long they've been they said they've been traveling?
I don't. Okay. but several years it seemed like. They they were telling us all kinds of places. but then that's what she proceeded to say. She said, you know, of all the places that you have to go, is you need to go to Mount Rushmore. And she talked about a specific tour. She said, take the full day tour and just how much she said that that place stuck out to her, of all the places that they have traveled to over the last several years.
speaker-0 (01:11)
And so today I think we want to talk about how just talking to people, even strangers, can have an impact and influence the way that you travel, reaching out to people that have already gone to those places, asking for their recommendations. I mean this is what we like to do when we are traveling somewhere, and we're going to talk about some of that today.
speaker-1 (01:32)
Yeah, and I think that's also regardless of where we travel. we have these conversations with people. We've had internationally, like when we've met people and traveling and we like to ask the question anytime we've had podcast guests, like, where have you been? What's your favorite place you've ever been? Like what do you recommend? What's next? Those kind of things to try to see, like w what is it that people love and the places that they've been.
speaker-0 (01:52)
So stick around. Later in the episode, we're gonna be soliciting advice from you on some of our upcoming travel, and we want you to give us that feedback.
speaker-1 (02:02)
Yeah, and Scott, I think this episode is gonna help s answer some of the questions too. that I think that we've been getting is just like, where do you plan to go? Like what do you plan to do? And while we have kind of said, this is where we are in the short term, in the long term, where do we want to go? Probably everywhere we can go. but we'll help answer some of the questions about maybe like why some of these places are on our list.
speaker-0 (02:22)
And it seems like we're getting a slow start into this full-time travel because we're still within three hours of where we moved from, but that's kind of how we wanted to travel. We want to just take it slow, and we've got some things coming up with the holidays, some upcoming travel that we're going to be doing. So we didn't want to get too far away right now. Plus, it's
Pretty warm here in Florida and I don't know what it's like where you live right now, but it's nice and warm here.
speaker-1 (02:53)
Yeah. And one other thing, and I think we sort of mentioned this in passing somewhere, is that when you travel full time, it's not like I'm gonna go on vacation for a week and do all the things and do all the vacation things. Like you can't do that, I think, consistently. when you're traveling like this because you'll just be like completely slab worn out. And you do have like the day to day things, we have to check our remote mailbox, we have to, grow grocery shopping, we have to do some things that maybe you wouldn't typically do on a regular trip. So
So I think we we balance those two things but then we get do and will get to explore a lot of places that we otherwise never would have gotten.
speaker-0 (03:27)
And while it's been pretty warm here over the last few days, we did have a week of kind of blustery, cooler weather that led into some torrential rains. I mean Sunday night we had rain that went all night long, just a hard, steady rain with no break.
speaker-1 (03:49)
And the good thing about traveling like this is it's not like, well today we were supposed to do X, Y, and Z and well, it's raining, we have to do that anyway. We can kinda take a step back and and rearrange, which is nice.
speaker-0 (04:02)
What would you say seems to start the most conversations with people that we meet in these R V parks and just around the places that we're we're visiting?
speaker-1 (04:12)
I think that people want to talk about the camper. they either have a brinkley also and so they're like, this and that about your brinkley, or they want to talk about where did you buy it, what was your experience, or they're curious about another kind of camper, I think. And so we've had people come and, look on the inside of our camper and we've talked to them about, their camper.
funny enough, Scott, you've actually talked to more people than I have because you tend to do the things on the outside, and then and then you end up talking. so w what would you say have been most of the conversation starters?
speaker-0 (04:48)
It is it's the Brinkley. It's a newer brand, people are interested in it, maybe they've seen some videos about it. and so it one point here on this little road where we are right now, it was all Brinkleys. And there still is about a dozen Brinkleys in this park in the immediate vicinity of us. So it is something that I think that people are
interested in why are all these people buying brinkley campers? and I think sometimes it's just it's an icebreaker, right? They will they're friendly people. one thing I can say about the R V lifestyle is you're just gonna run into a lot of friendly people. they're interested in just living their lives and enjoying their lives and so usually they're
really nice folks and they're very talkative I have
speaker-1 (05:42)
Yeah. Which is great because but then it leads into other things that you have learned that have been helpful. You talked to an electrician, or I guess he was electrician before he retired, so he's like super interested in the electrical stuff like surrounding R V and the things that you need. And it it really in a real life situation, not just on a forum board or asking questions, made you reconsider what you use for your surge protector, for example. Would you say also you also put
Sunshine Travelers podcast on the back. And so I think that's has started some conversations as well.
speaker-0 (06:15)
Yeah, we get a number of people who have come up to us and said, Hey, I'm following you now, because we had that Sunshine Travelers podcast put onto the back of the the trailer and so people around us see it and then they'll come up and comment it about it. we've even had some of you who
have mentioned that you've seen us going down the road. And so that's really neat to have people reach out and say, hey, we saw you going down the road and so and so. And we had that just recently here in Orlando. We had missed our turn and turned around and we just happened to be where those those people were. And when they saw it on the back of the RV, they looked us up and they left a comment.
speaker-1 (06:58)
Yeah, reached out on social media and said, Hey, we were leaving Epcot and and passed you. So that was really cool.
speaker-0 (07:03)
Yeah. and then like you just are friendly to the people around you and you'll you'll say hello and then sometimes that's enough to spark a conversation. The people across from us right now are actually jet car dragster people. And so they've got this really long
Super C motorhome and then they were telling me that they put a forty foot trailer behind it and I was like, I I think it's gotta be close to like ninety something feet. Wow. when you have those things together. And so that's wow, that's that's really long. I mean, I think we're around sixty five feet or something like that with the truck in front of the the camper. But ninety something feet
I'd hate to take it into some tight areas.
speaker-1 (07:52)
Yeah.
And it reminds me also, so like even if you are RVing and you're traveling, you really can learn a lot from people when you do spark a conversation. And it just reminds me of the conversation we had with the couple when we were sitting in Atrani on the Amafi coast. And here we thought we were gonna give them some tips. And I guess we did, like about Atrani specifically, but and what to eat there, and that everything was good. But then we got some great tips from them. They gave us some tips for Naples. they were the ones
had bought a sailboat in Turkey on and were, sailing slowly back to the Bahamas, but they gave us some great tips for the Amalfi coast as well. So it just doesn't apply just to our being, but just like sparking up a conversation. And sometimes, yeah, sometimes you'll run into people who are, not talkative and not want to talk. But we had we end up talking to those people for a long time about their travels and their adventures. And you honestly can really get some great information from people just by sparking some conversation. So just figuring out how to start that.
speaker-0 (08:48)
Yeah, I think they were the ones that really sparked my interest into looking at Starlink. I had heard of Starlink but hadn't really paid much attention to it. And they said they used it on the boat. That's true. And so, because sh th that lady was still working, remotely or whatever and she she would work from the boat during the day. And so, that was one of the reasons
really looked seriously into Starlink for our internet access.
speaker-1 (09:13)
Yeah. So yeah, so for all kinds of stuff. people might make random recommendations about, where to eat, places to go, e sim cards, internet. But like and it can be in the middle of a trip, right? As long as if you can like change your plans. Like I said, they gave us some tips, when we were ahead to Naples about a couple of different things. And so you might really pick up some good things, obviously along the way on your travels from locals or other travelers.
speaker-0 (09:36)
Well, you pick up tips of good things to do and then you also pick up tips of things that might be more challenging. So one of the things that we've said that we're very interested in doing is going up the northeast, and going along the coast But some of the people here in this park that we were talking to said it's hard to get a big rig around
in that area. So it's doable, but they said it's very challenging. So we did hear that from some people as well.
speaker-1 (10:07)
So just knowing that going in probably as you're thinking about okay, where do I want to book? And so just knowing that and knowing how to make that a part of our travel plans.
speaker-0 (10:15)
And we're not planning to go that far north during the winter. yeah, we don't wanna be towing this thing through snowy roads and stuff like that.
I would just say if you have traveled in the Northeast during the winter or any time with the big rig, let us know what your experience was. We'd like to hear from you because it does have me a little bit anxious of traveling into the northeast for that reason with the with the Brinkley, but there's so many people that do it, so I've got to just think that it's very doable.
speaker-1 (10:49)
But it's helpful to have have people's tips. So if there's specific routes, there's specific roads where you would say, you need to avoid that. I know you t told me about an Instagram reel, I think it was, where the people had decided they were gonna camp in the campground where you could see like the Statue of Liberty and they're driving through New York City. He's like, No and it would be helpful,
Well, and what we have found has been helpful, we had the campground in St. Augustine, for example, where their directions were a little bit different from the GPS because they were like with your camper, don't turn where it's gonna tell you, go to the next and turn that way. So it's very helpful to like have those tips and know those tips. you're using the app R V Life for directions. You can also save things that's more geared toward
towing an R V, but if you have specific routes that you would tell us, you have to do this or I really would avoid this or you have campgrounds that you have loved or places even that you've been. Maybe you're not in camping in R V, but places you've been where you like, okay, you need to go to this place. And maybe a place that's not as busy like Stowe Vermont or somewhere like that where it's like everybody goes there now, somewhere that's kinda a little more off the beaten path. We would love to hear that from you. Yeah.
speaker-0 (12:00)
'Cause we can always go somewhere nearby and then drive a short distance to to those places. So don't don't feel like you have to just give us the places where we can take our R V. you know, we'll try to figure it out.
Melissa, when when people are giving you advice, 'cause that's what we do, right? We give a lot of advice on our podcast, tips that we've learned, that we think would be helpful. How do you figure out which of those really apply to you versus, that's one person's opinion
speaker-1 (12:34)
I always try to take it and keep some kind of master list of places everywhere we want to go. But we do a a lot of research, right? We'll we'll look up places and Google we'll d we'll definitely use an AI chat to help us find y some of the hidden places there. And also what's interesting about that, always keep in mind that where that's reading from
So everything is not gonna be on there and sometimes you'll find on things on there that aren't somewhere else, the same as when you talk to people. and then I I also like to like go directly to the sources, right? So asking for the sources or going to specific blog posts, especially of people that live there because I think that's the difference is when you
travel there and you have a short amount of time and you can only fit certain things in versus where you live there. We really tried to do that with like our Amelia Island episodes that we would do and our and our blog and our podcast is really kind of keep it updated and then put the places that we would really go over and over and over again. Yeah, this place is fine. This place you're gonna hear about, but we would this is where we would really recommend. so I think just kind of doing our own research. and also that helps us say, okay, what
would we enjoy versus only, what is the popular thing if people are only going there for pictures, and and kinda weigh in those things. I would say all all those things.
speaker-0 (13:52)
I think our time in Italy proved to us that the places where everybody's going to get the photos aren't necessarily the places that you want to go to. Yeah. and we found really good restaurants, we found really good views, that were not the places that everybody was going to take the photos of. And so and I also know that like if you're telling me about a five star luxury resort,
that is your favorite place to go to, that's not us. I mean We've been to some five star hotels like the Lanesboro in London and it was it was great. It was wonderful. but that's just not how we travel and so generally we're not giving you advice to go to
five star resorts because we don't go there ourselves.
speaker-1 (14:36)
Well, and and the other thing I would say about that is too, is just so you have to fit that advice again to how you wanna travel. Aruba is a perfect example. Lots of people like to go to Aruba and just chill and do nothing. We have a place in Cancun where we like to do that. but to go to Aruba we were like, we wanna go see what else there is to see, which of course we have done in Cancun to
But we wanted to get out and see and a lot of times it's like, no, just go to this resort, go to the four seasons, go to the whatever and just hang out there. so I think definitely sourcing your travel advice from lots of different things, kind of filing that away and then picking those things. And I'll come back to the, for some reason that that's really gonna stick out to me about going to Mount Rushmore and taking that tour and learning the history and going to these different places, that's gonna stick out to me.
and so that's de definitely when we get ready to do that, that's something that I'm gonna investigate.
speaker-0 (15:30)
Yeah, I think if your recommendation for Aruba f is an example, if your recommendation comes back and says, go to this place right next to the olive garden in Aruba, I'm probably not gonna follow that recommendation.
speaker-1 (15:44)
Right,
because in that case our best restaurant recommendations were from a local where he's like, Hey, go way down here and
speaker-0 (15:52)
Get out
of the hotel district, get out of the, what I called the Americana district with the Longhorn Steakhouse, the Olive Garden, the, all Burger King, McDonald's, all that right there together. And go find something that's more authentic. Yeah. Well the thing that we wanted to
solicit your advice for today is in a few weeks we're leaving to go to our Christmas market trip in Germany. And while we've done some research on our own about these places and have picked out the cities that we're going to, the the markets that we're gonna try to hit up while we're in these cities.
we wanted to throw them out there and see if you had any recommendations that you would like to share with us as well. maybe you would tell us in in one of the cities that we're going to, we should definitely go to this part of the market. or maybe there's a medieval market and a traditional market, right? And which one should we spend our time at? And so those are the type of things that we would love to hear.
From you own and this is where we're going to. So I'm gonna read this list to you. We're gonna spend two days in Paderborn. and that one we have people there who are taking us to different places. so if you're in Paderborn or near Paderborn and you wanna share your list with us, please go ahead and do so because we might miss something.
speaker-1 (17:22)
I'm really excited about that because we are going with locals. Yes. And so that's I'm really excited about that. So we'll almost have our what do you say? Since we have never done Christmas markets before, our here's how you do Christmas markets and we'll be with locals.
speaker-0 (17:33)
Yeah, we'll get that introduction. Yeah. in Paderborn. Then we're leaving from there and going to Rudesheim so Rudesheim Wiesbaden, that area. we're gonna try to hit both of those cities, staying centrally to them. we're gonna spend one day in Bernkastel-Kues as I was doing the research, this one just came up and was like, you should definitely go there.
then we'll go to Strasbourg and we're gonna spend a couple of days in Strasbourg. This this next one I'm really interested in is it's only for three days that they have this market. And it's while we're there and it's in Tubingen. so if you know anything about that three-day market in Tubingen, let us know about it. Then we'll leave from there going to Esslingen, then to Rothenburg
Ob der Tauber. We'll spend two days there. Then to Nuremberg. We'll have one day in Nuremberg. And then we're gonna have three days to finish it out in Munich. I think it's really two days in Munich, the third day we're leaving going home. So let us know. if you have any experience with those, what we should be looking for. Like, even this is our first time going to Christmas markets, like
Just tell us what we need to know even before we go to the first one. I'm pretty certain that you're not dressing in lederhosen so if I get that advice, I'm gonna know that you're pulling my leg. But tell us a little bit about it. we'd love to hear from you and what are the places you've been to. And if you've been to others, feel free to share that with us as well. our purpose on this trip is to go and to scout out.
the a potential Christmas market trip in twenty twenty seven to see if we believe that that would be a possibility in the places that we're going to. would we be able to get hotels? Would we be able to have a group, inside there and making some contacts. So that's our purpose in going there this year. And we would very much welcome your feedback.
speaker-1 (19:37)
I honestly can't believe all the years you've been going to Germany and now all the years I've been going to Germany that you've never been to a Christmas market.
speaker-0 (19:43)
Yeah, never. We've never been that time of year. Well, I take it back. We must have been there at some point around Christmas. 'Cause it seemed like I've maybe we just talked about it, but it seems like, they had the candles the real candles on the tree, but maybe it was just, a discussion and, how things happen sometimes. Yeah. It's like
were we there for that or did we just talk about it?
speaker-1 (20:10)
So we're we're super excited.
speaker-0 (20:12)
And then I have w one friend in Germany and he hangs a tree from the ceiling. So up upside down. I think it's upside down. Maybe the tree maybe the tree's just hanging from the ceiling. I don't know. I don't know. But we'll see some of those German traditions while we're there. I'm sure we'll have lots of Glühwein
speaker-1 (20:35)
And we'll have to decide what mugs to bring and which ones don't come back with us. Yeah. One or two each, probably one.
speaker-0 (20:39)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (20:42)
Well give for gifts.
speaker-0 (20:44)
That maybe maybe that's what we'll have to do is bring some back and and give away. But we have kind of a new
The new mantra around here is if we bring something home something else has to go away.
speaker-1 (20:55)
Yeah, and I feel like mugs is one thing so we already have we use the same ones, we already have something we don't need. But it'll be fun to it'll be fun to see all anyway.
speaker-0 (21:03)
Well we'll put that list into the show notes. so go click on the show notes. I know I we just kinda went through that list real quick. Look and see where we're going and see if you have any advice or recommendations that you can sh share with us. what time should we go there? is it better to go in the morning? Is it only maybe some of these are only in the evenings. are even if you're very familiar with them.
are there certain booths or areas of the market that we should focus on and go to? We'd love to hear all of that from you.
speaker-1 (21:35)
Yeah, and what we would like to do is when we're there is obviously we'll do some filming, but we would like to say, Hey, we got this tip or we were told this and be able to share that. and also I wanted to point out Scott, so depending on where you are watching or listening, whether it's easy to post comments or not, you can always email us either at Scott at sunshine travelers dot com or Melissa at sunshine travelers dot com and we'll put those links in the show notes too. So you can just say, Hey, shoot us a message and that's an easy way to do that if you can't leave a comment.
speaker-0 (22:03)
And feel free anytime just shoot us an email, let us know where you're listening from, and how you heard about us. 'Cause we'd love to to find that out. Melissa, is there anything about the Christmas markets that you're really looking forward to?
speaker-1 (22:17)
I think just I mean, I think just the atmosphere and seeing the lights and just taking it all in. I know there's so many different ones, but I think just trying to just experience it. How about
speaker-0 (22:29)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (22:31)
you?
speaker-0 (22:32)
Well
So yes, I'm very excited about being there during Christmas. we love Germany and seeing it decorated at Christmas time is gonna be really special going to these markets, especially the ones that are at night. I don't know. I think there's something about a a nighttime market with all the lights that's very special. what I don't know though is like we're gonna be there in the beginning of December.
do we dress for like fall like temperatures or do we need to be dressing for really cold temperatures?
speaker-1 (23:03)
Question. Or is it like is it everywhere else now? Well it's normally like this, but now it's like this. So I would say we probably follow our general layers rule. Have a heavy coat, have boots. I know that you could get snow. but also probably packing light, we're gonna do a lot of moving around and they like to re wear clothes, so we'll do it too. Yeah. Probably won't be sweating, so we'll probably be good.
speaker-0 (23:27)
So one of the things that we'll do, Melissa, is we'll make sure to share some of the recommendations that we get. Yeah. So make sure to get those to us quickly. Like I said, we only have a few weeks before we leave. So make sure to get those recommendations over to us very quick. And then maybe in the upcoming podcast we can share some of the recommendations that we've gotten.
speaker-1 (23:47)
Yeah, in case you've got a Christmas market trip. my sister actually reached out to me yesterday. she has a friend who's going. they're going a little bit later than us. She wanted to see if they were gonna kinda overlap. but we could share things here that you share and then I could send that to her too. So that would be very helpful for not only us but for other people who are planning the trip this year.
speaker-0 (24:09)
And then let me just end by saying if you're listening to our podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcast or or one of those places and it's audio only, make sure to jump over to YouTube. We've started posting a lot more video content, as well as some bonus content that won't go into the podcast about the R V side of living.
We're trying to make sure that we stay true to the heart of our podcast and sharing tips and destinations and things like that. You will see a lot more of the RV life bleed in just because that's how we're traveling around now. but go over to the YouTube channel and the bonus content for this week is actually going to be a walkthrough of the R V that we're living in now.
So if you've wondered what it's like when we talk about living in 400 square feet, you'll be able to see that on your own. So go over to YouTube, it's Sunshine Travelers Podcast on YouTube. And make sure to subscribe. We're trying to build up that that channel as well so that you get notified every time we have new content.
speaker-1 (25:17)
Yeah, I'll put the link in the show notes, but I'll also put the link once it comes out. So if you're watching this like right away, we won't have that tour out, but we're actually gonna put it out in the next few days. so then pop back here and find that link or then it'll be the latest video and we'll we'll pin that. So I think that'll be that'll be fun. We've been wanting to share this for a while.
speaker-0 (25:36)
All right, we look forward to seeing you on the road.
