Snowbird RV Show – Key Notes and RV Tips

This past weekend Dan and I held 8 Seminars at the Snowbird RV Show in Abbotsford, BC and it was beyond epic!!  We offered our best advice and some pretty sound RV Tips!

Today, we want to share a bit of what we talked about in hopes that it may inspire you to reach for those dreams you have shelved over your lifetime and rekindle some of your vision for your life!!

Was it a Good Event?

First, RV Shows are always fun.  They are like 40+ Open Houses held in the same complex.  The Snowbird RV Show is unique in that ALL proceeds go to charity, which means no profit at all by the organizers. They do all the work and donate all the money.  That’s something our family can get behind for sure.

Now we don’t tend to gauge our events by who had a blast, or who commented on fb saying it was awesome.  We don’t gauge OUR events by who had a good time or who said it was great, rather we gauge our events by what it inspired our attendees to do.

Feedback

So let me give you a little feedback about what we’ve heard from our new friends, whose last names we are excluding for privacy.

I went to the Show to browse, with little intention to buy, but after hearing your presentation, digesting your advice and RV Tips, my husband was so excited we bought an RV on the spot. Cindy L.

Thank you so much Kellogg family, we are so lucky to have listened to you speak.  We have been on the fence about retiring and hitting the road, but I think your story has inspired us to go for it. Mark

Just watched you on Global BC – cannot wait to meet you (perhaps) at the Snowbird RV Show in Abbotsford this weekend. My husband and I are starting this in retirement next spring and my reservations have just evaporated – if you can do it with 13 – we can do it easily with two. What an inspiration you all are. Patti

Joan and I have considered selling out and hitting the open road. We did a motorhome trip across Canada in 1995 and have often thought of doing it again as a lifestyle change. Your story has renewed that dream! Maybe we will cross paths out there somewhere. As the oldest (now 78) of 5 siblings, I can identify with your ark-load of kids, and the babysitting that might be needed to give you a break!!! Thank you for your story! Brian and Joan

Our Seminars

Our seminars were broken into two 45-minute presentations, twice daily.  The first “Our Story”, delved into the details of “What” we do, and “Why” we do it, with a plethora of RV Tips and some fun and crazy stories thrown into the mix.

The second presentation was all about the “How”, as in how we are able to travel nearly full time in a 36’ RV with 11 kids, one dog and two cats!

Now, there is NO way possible for me to cover everything we said in these 45 minute presentations. In fact, the kids saw people writing pages and pages of notes!   One gentleman came up to me and said, pointing to his notebook, “I’ve got it all written down. This is my blueprint for how I’m getting out there with my family.”

Now, we’ve attended several other RV Shows, but we were simply there to drive media, with one exception, where we gave one presentation daily for two days.  The Snowbird RV Show was a big step up for us in terms of creating 90 minutes of quality speaking that gave a ton of value for our guests.

Snowbird RV Show

We took it seriously.  We wanted to give the Snowbird RV Show our very best, and we wanted to inspire those who came to see us with the best advice and the most practical RV tips.  And, you know what?  We think we put together two very beneficial, inspiring, and exciting presentations!

We even invited the kids up to talk specifically about what RVing has meant to them, to share their favorite places and some of the projects they are currently working on.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKwJOElhNqy/

We answered some tough questions and we did 3 days of media prior to the event and two interviews after the event. Here are a few:

The Province
City TV
Global BC

When we commit to something, we are all in.  In fact, we are still doing interviews about the Snowbird RV Show and that was 2 weeks ago.

Here are some highlights from the event. Keep in mind there was a plethora of information shared, tons of RV Tips, too much for this blog!  🙂  Hopefully we will have the opportunity to share more of our RV Tips and info with you in person at a later date!!  🙂

Our Story

Pretty sure y’all know our story… we’ve been traveling for 4 ½ years, and it’s been amazing.  So much has changed, yet we still have the same pioneer spirit as when we started.  We still wake up everyday anew, living life to the fullest, teaching our kids what life is really about and having a blast!

You know, when we first started out, we were only focused on changing our life. But after a chance meeting with a Denver Post reporter who wanted to do a story about us, and his story caught the attention of the Today Show, that triggered a crazy media frenzy.

Did you know we’ve been contacted by at least 100 different producers?  In fact, we are still being contacted today!!  We talked to them. We were curious…let’s see what they were offering, right?  In the end, we turned them all down.

This isn’t about making money. This is about adventure and family and education and faith and love.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to follow us on Social Media, you should, because you’ll get to see the amazing places we go, the adventures, the people we get to hang out with, and most importantly, the real connections that everyone of us makes because we have the freedom to truly do whatever we want.

Our Why

I actually chronicled our why here, so I won’t spend the time writing about it again … but, personally, I think the why of everyone’s story is the BEST part!!

Benefits to RVing

The amazing thing about RVing is that there really is an RV for everyone!  If we can afford one and find one to fit our family of 14, then you know there is an RV for you and your family (unless you have like 20 kids)!  🙂  And we’ve written a few blogs giving you some handy RV Tips when searching for your family’s RV, like the best RV for your family and Must Haves in an RV!!

There are many many reasons we decided to chuck the ordinary life and opt for something totally unknown, and we talked about them in detail at the seminar, but the number one reason we decided to start full-time RVing was family..time with our family and with each other.  There is nothing better, nothing more important, nothing more worthwhile than Family Time.

Kids grow up so fast…literally, in the blink of an eye.  Kerry is living on her own. Grady is getting married next year. Brody and Kady are taking their first solo trip outta the country.  Well actually, this is Brody’s second, since he went to France and Spain with Grady 2 years ago.  But you get my gist right?

We spend 18, 19, sometimes 20+ years raising our kids, pouring love and life into our children. We give them everything we have in hopes that they will one day find the courage to soar and fly off in search of what makes them happy, fulfilled, and of service.

But when they do, oh it hurts…like so much, with tears and such.  So, I wanted to give my kids a reason to come home. I wanted a bond of love, filled with memories and adventures that they could not deny.  And I’m telling you, nothing brings families closer together than traveling.  And RVing makes travel more about the actual traveling than the destination.  It makes family travel slow and comfortable, fun and exciting!

Now, the second seminar concentrated on the HOW we manage to travel.  We gave a detailed accounting of how we can do this and covered everything from work and school to financial and more.

Our House

A big fear, really the only fear, I had when we decided to hit the road full time was whether to sell our home or not.  It was such a HUGE decision.  Dan was 100% for it, to get rid of the mortgage and breathe.  I had brought home 6 children to that house, every room had a story, I was emotionally attached.

We actually did end up putting the house on the market, but due to the incredibly awful market at the time, it didn’t sell.  And we both knew that meant we would have to rent.  We couldn’t afford to keep the house and travel.

But, we knew we could rent and at the very least cover our mortgage and we did this for a bit, until we realized we could rent to vacationers and make a profit.  Even when you rent for a modest nightly or weekly rate, you can make a chunk of extra money.  And this is how we afforded to travel in the beginning.

Now we are stoked to no longer need to rent, but in those early days, it seriously made a huge difference!!  You can read more about the pros and cons of selling here.

How Does it Work For Your Kids?

We spoke in detail here about friends and jobs and dating.  In terms of friends, they have friends across the country. Everywhere we go, they meet new people and are able to keep in touch via social media, texting, Zoom calls, etc.

Dating?  Aside from Grady who is getting married next summer, the older kids do their fair share of dating, but they aren’t ready to settle down, and are having way to much fun being free.

Jobs?  We spoke in great length about raising business owners and employers, not employees.  Already, three out of our four oldest are entrepreneurs.  Grady is the owner of 14k Studios, a full service videography firm.  14K has produced many outside projects and just recently released our first Episode in our new TV series on TruLifeTV.

We even invited Kady and Brody up on stage to talk a bit about what RVing has done for them.  This was very powerful as they’ve spent their teenage years traveling.

Brody is an entrepreneur. He’s started his own business and he has no desire to sit behind a desk. He fully intends to hire his friends when they graduate from college.  Kady is joining the family business of health and wellness and pursuing her passion in photography. She plans to travel the world spreading love and peace and, yes, health.

The rest of the kids are still in school, learning about the world, about themselves, their faith and their passions.  We are thriving, our kids, our family, our marriage, all thriving … ordinary people, living extraordinary lives!

How Do We All Fit in the RV?

RV’s are like transformers.  They rapidly change depending on the need.  We did our homework and set out to find an RV with the most seating (seatbelts for 14, yes sir, we found one), and the most sleeping capacity.  Everything in our RV breaks down and so we have sleeping on the sofas, booth and back bed, for 10 easy.

Obviously that is not enough, especially when cousins come to visit or we bring friends on trips.  We also use CamoBunks … brilliant little bunk bed systems.  These babies add 4 extra beds to our plethora of space.  Then we also have a Queen Size Air Mattress and we have installed bolts in the RV for hanging up to 5 hammocks!!  We could literally sleep 21 people in here comfortably, because our kids will fight over the hammock and the bunks!  🙂

And then, anytime it’s remotely possible, tents are pitched and all of the kids, and often Dan and I, will sleep outside, like the good ole days!  We’ll even grab some extra hammocks and string them and sleep under the moon and stars … life is meant to be lived … we are living it!!!

Now, drum roll please as we get to the number one question asked …

How Do We Afford To Travel?

We could spend hours writing about this, and we did spend a lot of time discussing this, but if you are wanting to travel and are looking for ways to make it happen, give us a call or drop us an email.  We promise we follow up with EVERY ONE!  But, for the short version check this out.

There you have it, just a few notes from our SnowBird RV Show.  If you were there, please drop a comment and let us know what you liked best about the event. If you have made any movement toward achieving your dreams … we’d LOVE to hear from you!!

Here are some more resources for you:
Build a Life You Don’t Need a Vacation From
Raising a Badass Family
TruLife.TV – Gunny Gorge

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