Answering your questions... Q&A! | Full-time 4Runner Camping

I am in the car on a road trip right now. I am at the very tail end of about a 13-hour drive and I figured what better time than now to do a little multitasking and answer some of the questions that I got on Instagram the other day when I put up a little question box thing. If you are brand new to the channel, welcome. My name is Grace and I travel full-time out of a 4Runner with a Belgian Malinois named Zora aka Moose or Gator. She has a bunch of nicknames. Her real name is Zora. I did my best to organize these questions ahead of time to make them make a little bit more sense and flow better. I didn't do a perfect job. There were some random ones, but let's get started. Lydia asked, when did I find my love for road life? I found my love for road life well before I started on the road full-time. It started off with a road trip in 2019, I think it was 2019, when I had a break of about 12 days between my summer semester of college and my fall semester. I texted my parents that day and when I finished up my summer semester and I said, hey guys, I have this little gap of time. I don't want to spend it here in Missouri. I'm going to leave and go to Colorado. And they basically texted back, all right, that's a little unexpected, but also totally expected. So have a good time, keep us posted. And I left the next day in a Toyota Camry. I of course packed it full of way too much stuff. I have a couple pictures and I'll put one on the screen, but that was my first glimpse into road life. So I went out to Colorado. I started in Colorado Springs, worked my way south and then up through all the mountain towns, back over into Denver and Boulder. I did literally all of the touristy things that you could possibly do in we're talking great sand dunes. I took Boulder Creek, which was a lot of fun. I went skydiving. I climbed a 14er or two. I did everything. It was a blast. And when I finished that trip, I made a little video to the song Live Like You're Dying by Tim McGraw and I put it up on my personal Instagram account. And from that trip on, I knew that I wanted to do road life full-time. I wasn't sure how I was going to make it happen. I was a broke college student. I had almost no money to my name, but I knew that I wanted to live on the road. And that segues nicely into Melanie's question, which is how did I get into full-time travel? So I had a traditional path originally. I graduated college and almost immediately after that, I got a remote corporate job. It was COVID era and so almost all jobs were remote. That worked out very nicely for me. And so I had this remote corporate job in merchandising and I started to look for vehicles that would allow me to travel full-time. And at that point in time, I had, and I still do have, horses. So I bought a horse trailer that summer, got a truck, and I set off officially on the road in September 2020. I drove that rig around the eastern side of the United States for about six months or so. I had a lot of fun during those six months, but I also recognized something about that time and that was I wanted to be able to travel a little bit more freely. So I was working the corporate job at the time and I was also hemorrhaging money. So I wasn't really saving hardly anything because I was spending a thousand dollars a month to board my horses, two or three hundred, maybe even four hundred dollars depending on location on all of my horse feed and hay, eight hundred dollars a month or so on a parking spot for my trailer to camp at because I couldn't disperse camp in the areas that I was. And on top of that, I had gas, I had groceries for myself, I also had a trailer payment that was four hundred dollars a month. It was really expensive and as much as I enjoyed it, I recognized that it was not a smart way to travel. So I returned home in February of 2021 and I started brainstorming on how I could travel in a manner that was less expensive and easier logistics-wise. And that's when I settled on the 4Runner. I didn't end up buying the 4Runner until the very tail end of April in 2021, so during that time I was just saving every single penny that I made and that is the money that I used as seed money or whatever to get started on the road in the 4Runner and to support myself because I ended up quitting my job knowing that I wanted to start the YouTube channel and that I had saved up enough money. So that's the very long-winded answer on how I got started on the road full-time. Next question. Iksha, sorry if I butcher your name, I am doing my best, I promise. I googled how to say some of your names before I did this, so I really do apologize if I don't pronounce it correctly. But Iksha asked, the first time that I went car camping, was I scared or nervous? The honest answer is no. I recognize that that's not the answer that most people would expect. I haven't talked a lot about safety on the road and I do that very deliberately. I trust 99% of you follow me, but the 1% are the percent that I have to cater all the content to in terms of safety. I keep it pretty under wraps on the safety aspect of the training that I've received, anything that I do or don't carry for self-protection, and that's solely because I don't want the 1% knowing what I have at my disposal. It's purely for my own protection, but what I will say on the safety aspect, I felt very capable of being able to protect myself before I started out on the road. I was raised to be fairly independent and I just honestly wasn't afraid. I do apologize if that's not a helpful answer, but it's the honest answer. I am happy to offer some more guidance to people if you reach out to me directly, but I'm not going to put it out in this YouTube video. I will say however though, and I've said this in another video, safety comes down to two big things in my opinion. The first one is situational awareness. Know who's around you, know what they're doing, know where you can get away, and just keeping your head on a swivel. Being generally aware. And the second one is trust your gut, and those two things will keep you out of almost all dangerous situations in my opinion. What about those other few worst case scenarios? Well that's where you look for training from experts. I am not one of those people. I recommend finding some people who are more educated in that aspect and go to them for guidance. I'm not your source of that. Alright, on a lighter note, Molly wants to know what is my favorite state? Colorado of the states that I've visited definitely is my top pick. I am not going to say that Colorado will always be my favorite, but I will say that it has good activities winter and summer. The wildlife is rather easy to manage. You don't have to worry about grizzly bears or a bunch of poisonous animals, and the weather there is honestly not too bad. So that's my opinion right now. Subject to change. That wraps up most of the personal questions. We're going to move on to the 4Runner. G wants to know how has the 4Runner been with maintenance, and have I done all the maintenance? Maintenance on the 4Runner has been very easy. ToyotaCare covered the first 25,000 miles, so my first two oil changes and all of the tire rotations and general checks up to that point were done by Toyota after 25,000 miles, and that was at no cost. There's a huge benefit of this car. After the 25,000 miles, my dad has done all the oil changes on this car, and we do them about every 7 to 10,000 miles, but sometimes we will do them at 5,000 if I feel like I've been idling my car a little bit more than I did. Also dealing with maintenance, Ray wants to know whether I've had any issues other than the driver's side seat warmer. In my hotel video, I talked about how my driver's side seat warmer does not work. It is entirely my fault, and I recognize that. It's because I got water in the switch. So, easy fix, not permanent, not an issue with the Toyota. It's completely avoidable, and I would say that this car has been very reliable in terms of everything working as it should and not giving me any problems. As a little addition to that, I picked this car very deliberately, and one of the smartest things in my opinion that I've done to set myself up for success on the road is find a vehicle that is very low maintenance. The other thing is getting rid of all of my debt. I have zero debt, and I have a vehicle that will not break down on me every 10 minutes. Those two things have saved me countless headaches on the road and made my time a lot more enjoyable. I did not write down a name for this next question. I apologize, but would I do anything different with the build? That answer depends because before I had the dog, the answer was no. I really enjoyed my build. Would I have liked to have a roof rack and a roof box and some solar on the top of my car for the past year? Yes, that would have been helpful, but in terms of the internal build, I honestly love it. It's worked out really well. Also, the reason that I did not add all of that stuff on the top of my car initially is because I had such a quick turnaround time from the time that I bought the vehicle to the time that I moved onto the road full-time that I could not get any parts for this car. It was a two-week turnaround, and there was absolutely no way during all the supply chain issues that I was going to be able to outfit this car other than with just the plain build on the back. So I rolled with it stock, and it worked out very well for me. Now that I have the dog, the answer to that question changes dramatically. If I were to stay in the 4Runner, the changes that I would make to this car to accommodate the dog and myself and all of our stuff, I have a big kennel sitting in the garage at my parents' house waiting to be added to this car. It's going to take up the majority of the back seat, so I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to make that work, but I would add that into the car, keep my fridge, keep my Goal Zero. I would put all of my adventure stuff in a roof box on my roof rack because that takes up the majority of space in my large drawer. I would put everything else in Rubbermaid containers. I would not even do a drawer system at this point. This leads me to the next question, and Frank wants to know whether I'm planning on getting bigger tires and upgrading my suspension so that I can access more trails. No, I'm not. If you'd asked me a year ago, yes. I just couldn't because of the supply chain issues. Now, I don't want to for a completely different reason, and that's because this car is too small for Zora and I, and we will be switching vehicles in the near future, and I don't want to do all the stuff to the car if I'm just going to move out of it. If you are just getting into road life and you're trying to figure out which mods to do to your car, keep in mind your own ability level too. Whenever I got into road life initially, I did not have any friends in overlanding. I was not an experienced driver at all for off-road trails, and so it wouldn't have really made any sense for me to upgrade a bunch of those aspects of my vehicle because the stock parts were more than capable of taking me to places that I should be, if that makes sense. I know my limits, so I'm not going to upgrade my car just to look cool if I can't actually use the upgrades. So do be honest with yourself if you are considering different mods to your car and think about what's really a priority for you in the near future versus in the long-term future. Next topic. Zora. My dog. Grant wants to know how my adventures have changed since I got Zora. Challenges and benefits. I could make an entire video on this and I probably will, but to try and put it as succinctly as possible, challenges are numerous at this point because she is a puppy. I would actually say they probably outweigh the benefits right now. The biggest one is I have to consider everything. I have to plan out my entire day at least the day before because if I want to go to gym, if I need to go to the grocery store or do laundry, any of that stuff has to be accomplished early in the day or late at night before it gets too hot or after it cools down a little bit. Even if it's 50 degrees outside, if the sun's beating in the car, it's hot. It is hot and I can't leave her in the car, so I have to know what needs to get done and plan out my day before I actually get to that day. I'm also obviously limited by what places are and are not dog friendly. Now that is less of an issue because of what just was released by the national park and the court system where I'm not even able to film in national parks anymore without a permit, so that doesn't really matter anymore, but there are obviously some state parks and towns that I wouldn't want to visit with the dog because it just wouldn't make sense, so she does dictate a little bit of where I choose to go. And the other big thing right now that I struggle with is I'm a very active person. I love going on super long hikes and taking backpacking trips and I just can't do that with her right now. She is limited to about a mile and a half or maybe two miles if I kind of carry her for a stretch, but that's about all she can do right now to protect her joints, and that's limiting for me because if I want to do a long hike, I pretty much have to wake up in the middle of the night and do it throughout the middle of the night because I can't take her and I can't leave her in the car in the middle of the day. I have to do it while she sleeps. I would say those are the biggest challenges though. For the benefits, she is really adorable and she provides a lot of companionship on the road and it's also very nice to have at least one consistency. I think this question came from Lydia, but I did not write down a name for this question either. It says, do I find it hard to do day-to-day things such as the gym with the dog? As long as you plan out what needs to get done and you're willing to make some sacrifices in terms of your time, your sleeping time, I think it's just as easy to have a dog in the car as it isn't. Also, a benefit that I forgot to include is that she really encourages me to stay outside of the car. I can't sit in the car and chill with her like I am right now. It's just not fun, so this is a very rare instance of us sitting in the car. Usually, we are doing a little walk or just sitting in town and working on neutrality, so I am always training with her and I'm always out of the car, which has been awesome for getting to know places a little bit better than I did whenever I was just by myself and I was able to hunker down in the car for hours on end. Next question, what do I plan to do with Zora in the future? I'm not going to share too much about this right now for a couple of reasons, but what I will say is that at the present moment, I am focused on establishing what I see as the most critical fundamentals for her. So for me, that's things like a solid recall, emergency down stay, a good out, good neutrality and confidence. That's what I'm working on right now, but in the future, what I decide to do with her is going to be dependent on what is most fulfilling to her as a working dog and also what a trainer recommends for her main job to be. Because Zora's name was in this question, I figured I would include it in Zora's question section. Oscar says, I want to be Zora's stepdad. Would you marry me? As compelling a question that is, the answer is going to be no. For the people who are just shocked that I put this in the Q&A, of course I was going to put this in the Q&A. I have a very dry sense of humor and I'm a pretty sarcastic person, so keep that in mind whenever you ask me questions because I will give you an answer whether you want me to or not. Okay, moving on to camera gear. Matt asks, what camera gear do I use to capture my amazing videos? First of all, thank you. That is very kind of you. Short answer first, I have a Sony a7S III with a 24-70mm f2.8 lens that I am recording on right now. That is my quote unquote main camera. This camera that I am recording on right now is not my favorite camera to record on. I find it really hard to talk to. I'm a shy person by nature and it takes a lot of internal confidence and strength to stare at this massive camera and want to talk to it. I much prefer talking to this little pocket camera, which I will talk more about in a second, or just my phone. Yes, I know. And why that is important is because if you were looking at it from a YouTube perspective and having success on YouTube, the way that you have the most success, in my opinion, is by being an authentic person, by having real genuine content. People love the cinematic masterpieces, don't get me wrong. There are tons of beautiful videos out there, but from what I've seen, the people who do best on YouTube are just genuine people. They don't always have the most cinematic stuff, but that doesn't matter because they are relatable and they keep you coming back to see more videos. While I do think there is a place for the super cinematic stuff, I would definitely aim for getting something that you are more comfortable talking to versus the best camera that you can possibly buy. In terms of other gear, I do have a drone. It is the DJI Mavic Air 2 and I also have a gimbal that I do not use for this camera that I'm recording on right now, the a7S III, and a GoPro, the Hero 8, but I do not like the GoPro and I do not use it. I think the colors on the GoPro are too far off compared to this camera and the Sony and it just doesn't look right in my videos, so I try and stay away from that. If I do use it, I'm going to use it to film the entire video. Not saying it's a bad camera to get. It's a good camera as long as you record the entire video on the GoPro or if you want to spend a lot of time in That is the long-winded answer to the camera gear question, but I do want to talk a little bit more about this because Carly wants to know whether I love it and would I recommend it. This thing is incredible. It is a little gimbal camera. It shoots 4k video and it is so easy to use. Like this, you can carry around with you anywhere, have fairly good audio, and it just is convenient. I use this for anytime that I want to film something without people really knowing that I'm filming, so that could be in grocery stores or stores in general and in public places that I feel conspicuous. Any of those situations, this thing comes in handy. I also love the gimbal on it. It makes it really nice and smooth when I'm walking and talking. I think this is a great option for a beginner vlogger or if you just want to capture random moments throughout your day and don't want to use your phone. This thing is awesome for the price. It's 350 bucks. All right, now for the very random questions that I could not put in a category. Noah asks, what happens if I get sick on the road like flu or food poisoning? I've gotten sick one time and I stayed in a hotel for a few days and then I eventually drove home because I was too sick, could not eat, could not drink, and I was miserable. So if it's short, I go to a hotel for those couple days to recover. If it's longer than that, I will probably just head home because it will be cheaper in the long run. I don't have a name, but is there a song that I keep repeating over and over or is the music always new? I don't know if this is asking in my own personal life or in my videos. The music that I use in my videos is licensed entirely through Musicbed. I used to have a subscription to Musicbed and Epidemic, but I found that I was using Musicbed way more and it was pointless to keep both of them. And in terms of using music over and over, I can think of a single time that I reused a song. So I've licensed probably over 150 songs and repeated once. If you're curious about any of the music that I use in my videos, reach out to me because I will let you know what the name and the artist is so you can find that song. And to answer that question personally, if I find a song that I like, I am the type of person to listen to it on repeat until I get tired of it and then I'll find a new song. I make it a goal for myself on road trips to find at least one new song that I love. So that's just a fun challenge for me whenever I'm driving super far, which is a lot lately. Natalie wants to know, what do I do for Wi-Fi? I either go to a coffee shop, the library, or sometimes parks, but usually the coffee shop or the library if I need good Wi-Fi. I do know that a lot of road lifers are getting Starlink and I'm going to wait for a little while because I am often in areas with trees and it's just not going to work for me. So coffee shops, that's it. To wrap up the video, I did get a couple questions about my future plans so we'll close with these. Tommy wants to know if I'm going to film gym content. I don't know. I don't know about this because I am super passionate about the gym and fitness but I'm not sure that that's what my channel is all about or if I want it to be a big part of the channel. We will see about that. I am working on my personal trainer certification right now so once I have that I will be a little bit more comfortable posting some stuff about the gym but for the present and near future I don't think it's going to happen. And lastly, where am I now? What are my future plans and what am I doing for the holidays? Well, I am currently in North Carolina. I am only going to be here for a short time though. I am going back to Illinois and then after Illinois I have no idea what I am doing, where I'm going. I don't know where I'm spending Christmas. Long-term future plans, I really want to visit Alaska and California, mainly NorCal. How all that's going to shake out, I don't know. No perfect plan I guess because I've never referenced my name like that and it does feel a little cringy but it is true. I don't have a plan. I don't know what's happening but I do have set destinations that I want to visit so we will see what happens. And for now, the Gators wants to go do a Zoom so we're going to do that. Thank you for tuning in. If you have some more questions, reach out to me on Instagram because I get to all of that stuff. I do not always get to all my comments or even most of them and I will see you in the next video which will most likely be a vlog.