Articles YouTube Gear Our Family Our Rig

Introducing: Days' Great Adventure

#rvlife #travel #fulltime

2021-04-12

Full-time dreams come true

Today we want to introduce you to another great RVing couple whose 3 years of planning and dreaming of becoming full-time RVers’came true. Greg and Shelley have a similar travel style to us - short drive days, long stays. They are traveling the US with their beautiful Winnebago 5th wheel and their Youtube channel has a lot of great RV tips and travel ideas as they document their journey.  

The Story

Tell us all about who you are!

Greg and Shelley Day and our channel name is Days Great Adventure  We are semi-retired/workampers and live full-time in our RV.  After 3 years of planning, dreaming and praying, we began our full-time journey on October 1, 2019.  We sold our home in North Central Washington and most of our belongings and began our journey.

Tell us the story of how you found and chose your rig.

When we decided to sell our home of 14 years and embark on this new journey, one of our main goals was to be debt free.  We knew we wanted a diesel truck and a fifth wheel.  We looked at numerous trucks (which were not easy to find, even in 2019, they were pretty scarce).  We found our 2016 GMC Dually Diesel about 45 minutes from our home.  We made a couple of trips looking at it and driving it to make sure that it was what would work for us.  We also took it to a mechanic in the area to have it checked out.  It is a dark grey (almost black) with the lower part of the body covered in Rhino Liner.  It has been fantastic for the many miles that we travel – no rock chips!!

We looked at many RVs and even made an offer on another one, but (thankfully) that one did not work out.  We found our RV on RVTrader – it was at a dealership in Oregon.  We have a 2016 Winnebago Destination 39FB Fifth Wheel.  It is 42’ and has a bath and a half.  We        absolutely love our home and it works so well for us.  We had an inspector check it out before we made the deal and he said it was the cleanest used RV he has ever seen. We are pretty convinced that the previous owners hardly used it.  The plastic was still on all the lampshades 😊

What’s your travel style?

We are full-time and usually stay about 2 weeks in an area.  We prefer to travel around 300 miles per day – no more than 6 hours if possible.  Our kids and grandbabies are in Wenatchee, Washington so we consider that our home port, but we do not have a base there.  We are members of Thousand Trails, so we stay at Crescent Bar which is about 25 miles from Wenatchee.

What are the top 3 favorite places that you’ve visited?

#1: The Grand Tetons – we only visited for a day, buy plan to go back and boondock in the area and spend some time there

#2: Quartzsite – we spent about 4 weeks in Jan and Feb of this year boondocking with friends.  It was an amazing experience!

#3: South Dakota – we spent about a month exploring and fell in love!  We will return for sure!!

Tell us about one of your most challenging travel or RVing experiences.

As much as we love our truck, last March, the engine blew out in it.  We were in Mesa, Arizona at an Encore/Thousand Trails Park (at the beginning of the CoronaVirus) and it took 8 weeks to get it replaced.  Due to the pandemic, it was close to impossible to get parts and everything they needed to replace it.  We had to stay in the park and pay a monthly fee – which was not cheap.  The engine ended up costing us $25,000 – so much for being debt free!!  Needless to say, we had to put part of that on a credit card and are still paying it off.  It was a challenge as the temps in Mesa were in the upper 90s – 112.  We also had a grandbaby being born back in Washington that we had planned on being there for.  We ended up leaving the RV at the park, driving our rental car to Washington to be there for the birth of our grandbaby.  While there, Greg was diagnosed with a heart condition . . . we ended up staying 5 weeks for doctor’s appointments and medical procedures.  It was a trying time, but so glad we had our family there to go through it with.  We know that God is in control of all things and our peace and hope is in him, so we just take one day at a time.

In what way has the pandemic impacted your activities?

At the beginning of the pandemic, some states were totally shut down and you could not find a park open to stay at.  The park we stay at in Washington is normally open the end of April, but last year they did not open until June 1, so we had to make other arrangements.  We stay at Harvest Hosts and even now some of them are not taking guests.  It is finally getting better, but there are still some places closed or limited on amenities.

The channel

What sparked your decision to start a YouTube travel channel?

We mainly wanted to document our travels for ourselves and for our friends and family.  But, we talked a lot about doing a channel.  We thought it would be fun and were so inspired by the channels that we watched – we binged many as we prepared for our journey – and wanted to inspire others as well.

Are there any other YouTubers that inspired your decision to start a channel?

Greg started watching Drivin and Vibin and was so impressed by them.  I stumbled across KYD when they first started out and thought if this family of 5 can do it, so can we.  We learned so much from other channels as we were figuring out this full-time RV life. We discovered many other channels after that and once we started our channel we began to meet and then spend time with so many wonderful people.

What are some of the most rewarding parts of having a YouTube travel channel?

The YouTube community is amazing and we have some very close friends now because of our channel and the people that we have met and spent time with.  We are so blessed by the relationships that we have.

What are some of the most challenging parts of having a YouTube travel channel?

Sometimes life gets in the way of putting out consistent videos.  You have to make it a priority if you are serious about it.  With Greg’s health and the truck breaking down, we ducked out for about 4 months.  It was a tough time for us and we were just trying to navigate through all of that.  We were with our family and honestly I did not want to spend all my spare time in front of a computer.  We started publishing videos again in September and it has taken a bit to get our momentum back and our numbers back up.

How many videos per week do you typically publish?

We publish every Sunday at 6:30 pm CST and usually on Thursdays at 6:30pm CST.

What is some of your favorite equipment for producing videos?

We use our phones for some shooting – I have Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and Greg has the Samsung Galaxy 20FE, Canon SX730 HS, Mavic Mini Drone, and we hope to get a Insta360 OneX2 – it is an amazing camera!

Learn More

To find out even more about Days' Great Adventure, please check out the links below:

Until next time, keep on living the life you've imagined,

Mel, Jay & Benny

west Next | Index | Previous east
Subscribe
Sign up and never miss out on the latest videos!