Tag: Travel

Why YouTube??

Our family isn’t exactly one to share tons of information with everyone. It’s safe to say three of the five of us are introverted and the other two have their moments! So why in the world would we want to start a YouTube Channel and share things with folks we don’t even know? I’m not really sure I have a clear answer for you..

I think it started way back when I was a kid. My parents purchased a giant camcorder to record our school functions. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Any chance I got, I was holding this monstrosity up on my shoulder and trying to film anything I could. I remember watching music videos on MTV and thinking that I could probably make my own. I do remember having a buddy over and trying to make a few. We thought they were great, but I’m pretty sure they were no where close to it.

If you know, you know.

Then there was the Gateway Desktop we had. I couldn’t tell you anything about Gateway now, but at the time, I thought it was as amazing as a new MacBook Pro is today. This beast had music editing software installed from the factory! My brother-in-law and I became obsessed with mixing music imediately. I’ve always loved music, but this changed the way I saw and heard it for the rest of my life. I could imagine the wave forms in every song I heard on the radio. I could pick out exactly where I would cut it and start another song. We learned to blend the transitions and we would sit there for hours listening to our masterpiece! I still get pumped up thinking about it.

During high school and college, I spent lots of time filming wakeboarding trips with my friends. At some point, I purchased my own desktop and found Window’s Movie Maker. It was the most basic editing software, but that didn’t stop me from editing our wakeboard footage and adding music. This led to posting videos from local tournaments on a forum called End of Rope Gang. It was always a challenge to make my videos better and more exciting to watch. Unfortunately, my desktop and End of Rope are no longer with us, so all of those videos are just a memory.

This brings us to present day. Many things have changed since I was making wakeboard videos! We carry video cameras in our pockets and there’s a magic app called YouTube. If only it were around when I was in school!

As I’m sure you’ve seen or read, we’ve been camping for years. Like many RVers, we enjoy watching full time families travel and see the country. As a family, we have always dreamed of traveling further and more often, but maybe not living full time in a camper. The time came when we got a crazy idea to build our own camper. That idea led to the idea of creating a channel to share our build. Once the channel began growing, it really gave us a way to express ourselves creatively.

Editing videos and sharing our adventure has been almost therapeutic for me. I get lost in the editing process and picking music just like I did back in the day on the old Gateway. It’s a lot of work outside our everyday work life and school events, but it’s absolutely worth it. I enjoy the freedom to post whatever we want and to create at our own pace. It has been a great place for inspiration for myself and my family, and I hope that you find it to be inspirational as well.

What Does Travel Mean To You?

What does travel mean to you? For some it’s an escape, a chance to get away from the stress and pressures of everyday life. For others it’s an adventure, a chance to try something different or see something new. Others enjoy the social connections of traveling, meeting new people or catching up with friends or family.

For me, it’s a little of all of it; and my reasons for traveling have changed over time. Traveling, and camping specifically, has always been an escape from reality for me. I have a busy job at a school and our family has seemingly unending social obligations on the evenings and weekends. I am by nature a solitary, introverted person, and setting off with the truck and trailer has always been a way for me to escape all these demands and enjoy some quiet time with my husband and children.

For the last ten years, I have had a baby or small child on my hip. This stage of life has been the most challenging and rewarding years of my life thus far, but it is all too quickly drawing to a close. My youngest baby is almost four, and I am not needed in the ways that I have been in the past. I don’t have to stand constant watch over my children, they have a little more independence and free reign now. This has changed our travel style, too. In the past, it took all of our focus and energy just to make sure everyone stayed alive, didn’t jump into the campfire or wander away from our site. Now that everyone is a little older, we can do some adventuring together. We go on bike rides and short hikes, do a lot of swimming and exploring. It’s quite a different experience, but one I am finding that I really enjoy.

The social aspect of traveling is one that I never really cared for. After a stressful week of working and caring for my babies, spending the weekend entertaining friends and family just felt overwhelming to me. But then 2020 arrived in all its glory and sent us all for a tailspin! I hate to even say it, because I know it has caused many people much grief and heartache, but quarantine and staying at home has been good for our family in many ways. We’ve been able to spend more time together and focus on what’s important to us as a family. Our social obligations have become virtually non-existent, and I don’t feel so overwhelmed and stressed by life. Once we were able to start camping again, we found ourselves actually seeking out the company of friends and family, which was a first for us. I’ve been enjoying this time with others in a way I haven’t been able to before.

Traveling and exploring new places is such an important part of our life that I can’t imagine life without it. It brings us together and helps us to grow and learn as a family. It keeps us active and engaged in the world around us. It leaves me with a sense of good in the world, even during these difficult times. What about you? Why do you travel, and how have those reasons changed over time?