Rv Navigator

This month we continued the South African safari. We stayed in several tented camps along our route. Every national park has it animal specialties, so visiting several gives visitors a broad perspective on animal viewing and habitats. We did of course manage to see the big 5 (lion, leopard, rhino, cape buffalo, and elephants) plus hundreds of other type of animals and birds. Tented camps are outposts in remote areas that offer visitors easy access to the game and a secure compound to spend the night. Although they are called tented camps, and do have canvas tents, they are on the boondocking style tents pitched temporarily by visitors. Instead they are permanent tents erected on cement pads with rooms for sleeping, changing and toilet/shower. Most are run by generator so power is limited although some of our camps had A/C. Game drives are a daily event beginning very early (before dawn) when the animals are active. A game drive is just that, driving around in an open 4x4 looking for animals doing th

It has been many years since we last visited South Africa (at the very southern most tip of Africa). In 2006, we drove a rental RV in South Africa for about 6 weeks. We of course cooked our meals and drove the RV to all of the attractions. This time we are on tour with meals, transportation, and sightseeing included. I remember having lunch in Kruger NP while watching elephants eating grass on the shore of a river. Now that's camping. This time our visit to Kruger will be via safari jeep driven by a guide. WE are still enjoying the adventure but just in a different way. We boarded our flight from Chicago to Cape Town, South Africa on a Monday and arrived on Wednesday morning at 11am local time. This involved a 13hr and 10hr flights and several time zones. We moved from snowy winter to hot summer with long days and the sun in the North. Welcome to the Southern Hemisphere. We RVed here in 2006 but this time we are on a safari and cruise. Lots of travel details plus our take on Chat GPT in this episode.

The New Year (2023) finds at home in Chicago awaiting our next travel adventure which begins in mid January. After some adventures at home with our furnace and the cold weather, we'll be off to Africa for a 2 month safari & cruise in the warm Southern Hemisphere. The safari will cover Africas big 5 plus lots of interesting birds. Our accommodations say "tented camp" so we are expecting almost primitive camping experiences. I wish we could take the RV! Our 32 day cruise from Cape Town should be a bit more civilized as we travel from South Africa to Portugal up the Western coast of Africa. Our main topic is the importance of documenting your travels as they occur. As our old selves taking to our younger selves, we would strongly recommend that you start some sort of record keeping of your travels for later reference. We unfortunately didn't start this project until about 20 years ago, so our early travels are documented only in a few photos and memory. These day with some much digital memory ava

Winter has greeted us as we return to our suburban Chicago base in time for the holidays. Seasons greetings in this episode extend to our expanded list of gift suggestions for you or your RV friends. We chat about the direction that our podcast has taken over the years. Is it still the RV Navigator or has the focus changed as our lives have changed (mainly due to the pandemic)? Although we share our travels with interested listeners, RVing is always at the heart of the podcast. We always appreciate your input and comments about our topics and focus. This is especially true as we tend to travel overseas without the RV. We'd love to take the RV on our distant travels, but that is not an option, so we do the next best thing, share our travels with interested listeners. As you know, it is important to us NOT to monetize our listeners. So much of the tech world is about money, but the RV Navigators don't expect or ask for your dollars either through advertising or subscription. So, we'll keep the moniker

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

Note that in the podcast we make a reference to this is episode 209. It should be 210.Take off on our next trip happened mid month as we flew to Riga, Latvia for the beginning of our tour of the Baltics and Scandinavia over the next couple of weeks. We have been surprised at our lack of knowledge of this area plus the many tourist attractions that make a visit worthwhile. Riga has turn out to be very walkable, scenic with art nouveaux neighborhoods. I of course had no idea what Art Nouveaux was, but after doing some touring, we learned that it is a very ornate style of building. Riga's buildings have been restored to their original beauty making them shine. We open this episode with a music selection recorded on the great pipe organ of the Riga Cathedral (dome). It is one of the largest pipe organs in the world with almost 7000 pipes. Our tour will take us to 5 countries over the next couple of months. Next months podcast will be made from the road again. We take you on tour with us plus we share severa

Just after the last episode, we moved from Italy to France to join our river cruise in Bordeaux. This involved a short flight across the 2 countries landing in Paris and a bus trip south to meet the ship. The weather was very hot as expected in Summer, but the AC was was subpar in most locations. Sailing the rivers of the Bordeaux region of France, means learning about wine. This is the heart of the wine region and the grapes are treated with reverence. We, of course, tried our share of the fine wines of the area, but din't come away overly impressed. Earlier in the trip we enjoyed many varieties of Italian wine, which we felt was equal to the French wines. Traveling does give one the opportunity to make these comparisons first hand. After our flight home and jet lag recovery period, we pickup the RV for a quick trip north to the Cape Cod of the midwest, Door County Wisconsin. This destination, just north of Green Bay WI, is know in the local area for its harbor towns and picturesque water views, craf

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

With our email back in operation, we have received several questions and comments from listeners. Thanks!! New email is at rvnavigator@mac.com. As you might expect, we headed to the Indiana Dunes for our annual beach RV trip. I feel strongly that the motorhome needs to be exercised regularly to keep it in good working order. Therefore when we are not doing a major trip we do spaced out small trips to keep the gears working smoothly on the MH. Great family time for all of those staying at the Indiana State Park. We enjoyed good weather and the company of lots of families enjoying camping in the old style - beach, campfires, food cooked outdoors, bikes, sand, water and toys to keep everyone busy. June has been a typical summer month and we have used it to recover from our quarantine experience and get ready for our next overseas travel adventure next month. We head to Italy and France for about 5 weeks starting in July, so the podcast will be done remotely next month. This month we talk about RV electr

After joking last month about the possibility of having to quarantine, it happened to us. We were escorted off of our cruise and into a hotel for a 10 day quarantine due to positive covid tests. Neither of us were sick, but the policy is that a positive test requires a quarantine period off of the ship. So we spent the first 10 days of May ensconced behind the door of a hotel in Brussels. The hotel delivered 3 meals a day to our door to keep us healthy and well, but otherwise we were confined to our 5th floor room. We had many quarantining neighbors on the 5th floor as 3 Viking ships had their covid positive passengers transferred to this hotel. Not fun, but we have lots of insights to share about traveling abroad at this time. How to return back to the US is challenge for most of those testing positive. We did of course make it back home on May 11th after the full 10 day quarantine period so in the end we are safely back but the adventure was trying even for experienced travelers like ourselves. Und

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

We drove the motorhome north back to IL so that we could leave again but this time on a plane back to FL to meet our trans Atlantic cruise to Copenhagen. We did have a new roof installed and I am lusting after a Starlink internet dish, but for now the MH is safely parked in our new storage lot. We are wondering why we drove the 1200 miles back to IL just to turn around and head to Ft Lauderdale to board our cruise. It's economics. Florida is an expensive place to leave our motorhome parked unoccupied. At least twice as expensive as leaving storage in IL. We'll not be using the MH for while, so storage at the home base in Chicago is our better option. Of course we have a follow-up to our Costa Rica report that we started last month. We actually did a multistage zip line as well as several other adventure activities while in CR. This month we share our ideas about how we plan our trips both RV and out of country as well as share RV stories. Yes, we had a new roof installed as a proactive measure. No

This episode was recorded on the road, as we traveled south this month on a planned group trip to Costa Rica and its many national parks. Although CR is only the size of West Virgina, it has as many national parks as the US.

The beginning of the month found us on the high seas in the Caribbean aboard the Silver Spirit for 11 nights. This was our second "covid" cruise, and like the first it went off without a hitch. Testing and vaxing were part of the routine, but these were not oppressive on a daily basis. We of course were nervous about the covid protocols that have been put in place but they were manageable and did not detract from the cruise overall. Our general reaction is that this is the time to cruise, if you can. With reduced passenger loads, welcoming crew, and generally lower tourism traffic, the ports are open to many adventures. Our ship was able to maintain it original schedule, although 2 of our shore excursions were cancelled due to low numbers. With only 50% of the passenger capacity actually onboard, some activities were naturally curtailed. This was our first time on an upscale ship (Silversea) with a large cabin and butler service (this was due to reduced per diem due to covid). After the cruise in Mid-J

Our annual New Years podcast finds us feeling lucky to be healthy after another year of Covid. Little did we know at the beginning of the year that we'd still be in the grips of this pandemic. Last January we were so thankful to be vaxed and hoped that we'd get this pandemic under control. However the fates turned our differently and we are still in uncertain times.

Fifteen years ago when we began this podcast, we were just retired and ready to hit the road with the idea to share our adventures with listeners. Of course we had no listeners at the time. After 15 years, the listener base as expanded to over 10,000 downloads/month. We regularly hear from and meet listeners from all over the world as we travel. On 2 occasions in the last months, we have met loyal listeners that have "been in a campground near us" and said hello in person. THANKS to everyone who has reached out over the past 15 years to connect with your hosts. In this episode we try to take our listeners on a guided tour of the best of episodes from each year of our adventures. This has taken us to all parts of the US and the world. Listen as we take you on a ride through the best of the RV Navigator.

This month started with our attending the 49th Annual Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta for 8 days in early October. We successfully boondocked for our entire stay without needing to take on additional water or empty our holding tanks. We did use about 18 galloons of diesel to keep the generator running and batteries charged. The weather for our stay was perfect for ballooning. Our parking location was perfect for easy entry into the launch field where we were able to watch the launch and recovery of the huge hot air balloons. The launch happens at dawn so we had some early starts, but there is no activity midday so a nap was in order. We spent the rest of the month slowly heading East on our way back to FL for our winter stay. We tried to see some fall colors in the mountains of NM but were not too successful and the weather was turning cool, so we headed further south and east. The end of the month finds us in the panhandle of FL enjoying some very nice state parks. We've been testing our big rig in sev

Our Western National Parks RV caravan concluded after 31 days and 1600 miles. It was an adventure so we spend much of this episode sharing the details of the trip. This journey was title Western Grand Circle because we visited several iconic national parks and scenic attractions during month of travel. Traveling in a caravan means that all of the details are planned by the caravan company. We drive between locations and the camping spot is waiting at a full service campground. This plus many additional side trips, make traveling easy. It followed the typical RV caravan flow so if you are thinking of joining a caravan, then you should take a listen. This includes our unclose encounter with a wolf that decided to disable our car. How you ask - well you'll have to listen. We are about to attend the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta early in October, so we are preparing to do some serious boon docking (living off the grid). Although the Fiesta is well attended, to stay on the grounds means no hookups. They tur

After cruising last month, we are back on the RV trail. We embark on our trip west to meet the planned RV Caravan leaving from St. George UT. We left a few days early because the trip is almost 1700 miles from our home base in IL. Lucky we did because we had a couple of extra stops along the way to get tires fixed.

Your RV Navigators have successfully made their way to Malta and back without incident. We enjoyed 10 days on the beautiful Viking Venus as it made it way to several ports in Croatia and then back to Malta. There were many covid protocols that were observed, but over all the experience was worth the hassle of completing the paperwork. We had to provide proof of covid testing throughout the trip both at the airports, boarders, and on the ship. Once completed, the cruise was almost normal. However with only 1/5 the ships normal passenger load, we experience great service and a sense of being on a unique cruise.