Where you been, WorkerBees?

Hello.

My name is Nick.
It’s been more than six months since my last post.

HI NICK! 👋

Thanks. It’s great to be back.

I’ve been thinking.

Two years ago, I still believed that maybe—just maybe—this blog could end up being an entirely new career for me. It’s not uncommon to hear about some random blogger or YouTuber who was able to quit their day job and make a living writing articles or making videos focused entirely on some passion project. Jill and I are still pretty big fans of Keep Your Daydream who in no small measure influenced the creation and trajectory of this blog. But when they got their start back in 2014 or 2015, YouTube was nowhere near the behemoth it is now. From what I understand, back then, channels focused on RV travel weren’t common. I think KYD and a few other big channels found themselves entering a wide open market at the exactly the right time, like those lucky souls who bought Apple stock immediately prior to Steve Jobs’ return in 1996. Today, however, the RV travel market is thoroughly saturated. If you want to create a successful RV-themed YouTube channel or blog today, it’s a grind. One YouTube channel that managed to break through in recent years features a young couple who live and travel full-time in a fifth wheel. Their early videos were quirky almost to the point of being annoying, but their unique brand of humor grew on us. They both sacrificed careers as traveling nurses in order to make YouTube their full-time jobs. I found that inspiring while going through a relatively low period at my own job, but over the past year or so Jill and I have both sensed that their channel is suffering. Their charming quirkiness has given way to an irritating clickbait-y vibe. Video titles like “We’re Selling our RV! We’re DONE!” generates clicks by implying that they’re giving up the RV life entirely when in fact they’re just getting a new rig. It’s a cheap trick that I find irksome. We eventually stopped watching them altogether. I have to wonder if they regret giving up reliable careers in nursing in exchange for the unpredictable slog of constantly battling for eyeballs on YouTube.

Watching that channel deteriorate eroded my fantasy of blogging for a living more than almost anything else. Even if I managed to produce a healthy income from this blog or our YouTube channel, would it persist year after year? Probably not. At least, not with a consistency on par with my current job—or another one like it. My job may register on the low end of the personal satisfaction spectrum, but it rates high in terms of financial stability.

Besides all that, I’m not sure travel writing is in demand these days. Most people—ourselves included—default to YouTube for much of the “travel entertainment” content that I post here in written form. So why don’t I just focus on creating videos instead? Four reasons:

1. Writing comes naturally to me.
2. I have little experience with video editing, making it a slow process for me—even for simple, short videos.
3. Managing lots and lots of humongous video files is a pain in the butt.
4. The scarcity of high-quality RV blogs keeps me thinking that there might be some untapped demand out there. (Clearly, I’m prone to wishful thinking.)

Timing Is Everything

Between 2004 and 2014, I was an avid skydiver. Over those ten years, I jumped from planes, helicopters, and hot air balloons something like 1,400 times. Most skydivers don’t last that long. The vast majority only do it once or twice. Of those who get licensed, only a relatively small minority continues past 500 jumps or so. My skydiving obsession peaked between 2006 and 2009 when I was averaging between 250 and 300 jumps a year, which is a lot for an amateur. I’d book a dirt-cheap motel near my dropzone most Saturday nights so I could jump from sunrise to sunset all weekend long. As I became part of a smaller and smaller group of “regulars” who kept coming back for more, I had difficulty comprehending why so many participants walked away from the sport right as they were developing real proficiency. Skydiving was the most amazing thing in the world! How could you quit?? Talking with a friend about this, he explained. “Not everyone has a skydiving-shaped hole in their life.”

Skydiving is expensive. It’s dangerous. It requires a massive time commitment. When I was going balls to the wall, I was single with no real obligations to anyone but myself. In short, I had a skydiving-shaped hole in my life. Over time, that hole got smaller and smaller until I realized skydiving simply didn’t have a place in my life any longer. My career took off. I met my now-wife. I became more risk-averse. I wanted to save for retirement.

I’ve come to realize that the blogging-shaped hole in my life is relatively small and will probably remain that way for some time to come. I’d like to think at some point in the future that hole will expand to the point where I can consistently churn out an article a week and maybe even produce video content on a somewhat regular basis. For now, however, I decided to content myself with posting whatever I want, whenever I want, without too much regard for clicks, search engine results, affiliate sales, advertising, or any of that stuff. Not that I’ve been overly concerned with those things up until now, but—as Jill can attest—I often berate myself for “not doing more to treat the blog like a business”. That adds stress and reduces fun for little benefit. It’s better just to think of this as a hobby, pure and simple.

The Big Distraction

There’s one main reason why blogging has taken a back seat over the past several months. Ever since Jill and I got serious about buying an RV I’ve been broadly disappointed by the entire landscape of RV-oriented review websites and apps that are currently available. Campendium, Campground Reviews, RV Parky, AllStays, The Dyrt… they’re all either ugly, outdated, minimally updated, or generally lacking in some other way. I’ve always wanted something better. Something visually appealing, highly functional, and exclusively focused on RV travelers. And since nothing better has magically materialized over the past few years, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Behold: RV Travel Scout, the nascent RV review website destined to scratch your every itch. (To clarify, this is about reviewing RV locations, not vehicles. As the tagline says, “All the places you go with your RV, reviewed.”)

Travel Scout isn’t quite ready for prime time, but I plan on taking off the covers within the next several months. My goal is to create a tool that addresses all or most of the inadequacies I find in the existing alternatives. I’ll judge my success by the degree to which the end result resonates with the RV community. It’ll take years to amass the number of reviews necessary to get there. In the worst case, I’ll have a fancy tool that at least I alone enjoy using. 🤷

So, what changes?

From your point of view, nothing. LOL. You’ll still see the same sporadic clusters of posts along with the very occasional YouTube video, followed by weeks or months without any activity at all. The only difference is that I’ve decided to be at peace with that inconsistency.

If you’d like to be notified when Travel Scout goes live, be sure to submit your email address here: https://rvtravelscout.com

Happy Holidays!