RV Canada - 1,390 Mile Alcan Highway (RV Boondocking & Hot Springs)

Discover the ultimate hotspot to explore while cruising along the iconic Alcan highway in Canada. Brace yourself for part one of our thrilling RV series as we make our way back home to the United States driving through the vast and secluded corners of Canada. Join us for today's episode as we unveil an incredible destination and share a first-hand experience of driving an RV down the You know what today feels like? It feels like a good day to let it rip. All right so what's the game plan? Well we're finally doing the hot springs. I don't think we should stay the night though because it's only an hour maybe two hours away from here and I don't want to just do only two hours driving today since we have places we got to be. So what you're saying is we're going to do another pull over enjoy our time and get back on the road? Right. I like it. So what things do we need to worry about before going there? Do we need more water or anything? Well our tank says E. Yeah I would like to be able to wash my hair after the hot springs. They don't have showers on site they literally just have like this wooden deck with like changing rooms that's all they have. I guess it'd be nice to just have a third tank of water so we could both shower after. Okay. So finding a dump station and a water fill is gonna be on our horizon. How about those bison yesterday? That was crazy. Those bison I was thinking are we already in Yellowstone already? No. No we're not. Oh hello. Hey there. It's funny because the book tells you there's gonna be bison on the road and then you're like no way and then all of a sudden a whole herd of them. They just I think there's like a hangout spot for them they're like yo we're going to mile post 83 Jerry's gonna be there Frank's gonna be there. Meet up at six. So be there or be square. Hi there I was wondering if the fuel station at that location is open today? It's open until 9 p.m. Okay perfect thank you so much. I think I called the hotel. I am curious though like when we get to these places if they do take American cash. Nice call on calling the gas station ahead of time that's a big help. Yesterday when we went to that diesel fuel up station that was crazy. I've never seen anything like that. The guy in there was running a calculator and a cash register and that was it. Then he's like go pump then come pay. I was like great. He's like take a picture of how much you pump. Sure enough I filled up the truck. I accidentally put the nozzle back cleared the pump. I was like buddy I'm so sorry I hung it up and it cleared itself uh you're gonna have to take my word for it. He did he didn't even know what was he's like sure whatever. I could have the truck up for like 20 bucks and he would have been like yeah no problem. But we ended up paying like 180 dollars yesterday in American cash to fill up the truck. Well maybe I should reiterate Canadian money it was like well over 200 so I'm assuming it's like in the 180 dollar range. It gets pricey out here. Where are the Hanks currently? That's a great question. Last time I checked we're somewhere between Watson Lake and Liard River. We're on our way to Liard Hot Springs and we're just off the Alcan Highway. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. No cell service. Luckily we have Starlink but we're on our own and by we I mean us like all of us. We're all in this together. Not gonna lie it's been nice taking our time driving. Being without the caravan has its pluses and negatives and what I mean by that is a big negative is you're traveling alone so if any emergencies happen like what happened just a few episodes ago well you're stuck figuring it out by yourself. But being on your own kind of takes the pressure off the travel days as well because you're not having to navigate everyone's schedule. It's just relying solely on what does Dexter want. That's most important. If you don't know who Dexter is it's our cat. Siamese chocolate very salty need I say more. I personally didn't know how I was going to take to all this boondocking but arriving here last night it opened up a whole new perspective for Carl's mind. It's everything I ever dreamed about when I first got into RVing. Exploring new places. Being kind of out in nature and consumed by it. This is what I'm calling the true meaning of RV life. By the way I always forget to mention if you guys really enjoy our content and you want to help support us make sure you hit the subscribe button. It's absolutely free and it just helps remind the YouTube that you want to see our videos and we just want to say thank you guys for all your love and support. We couldn't be here without each and every one of you. You guys rock. Obviously we are really into the boondocking lifestyle. You can hear the generator ripping back there because we're trying to get them batteries recharged so we could do this again tonight. Yeah! It's gonna be a great day. We're gonna leave here. We're gonna show up at a campground and hopefully be allowed to dump our tanks. Refresh some water. We're going to Leard Hot Springs where we're gonna soak in the basking wonderful soakingness of the hot spring. We're just gonna stay there for a few hours. Pay the day fee. Park in their parking lot. We can shower right in the parking lot in our own RV after which I think is so cool and one of the cool reasons about having an RV on the road. After that we're gonna fill up on the diesel and then finally I found another cool boondocking spot on the iOverlander app that we're gonna try out. It's by a river. Pretty desolate. I'm imagining there's not gonna be many people out there because it's the end of the season and though I'm a little chilly this morning, I'm excited because we're gonna warm up in some hot springs. I have to be honest with you guys. Boondocking has become a regular part of our routine to save money while traveling. I'm loving the new solar setup, the lithium batteries. They've been working amazingly well. Now having the generator also has given us a lot of peace of mind. Canada offers some countless incredible boondocking locations so you gotta be sure to pick up a copy of the milepost book in your travels going to or from Alaska as well as utilizing free apps like iOverlander. They are both great resources to find these awesome locations. Now as our journey continues so do the unique road conditions. It seems like construction is an ongoing challenge on these northern routes so if you're planning to come this way just take it slow. There's lots of dust and loose gravel but don't let that deter you from making the trip. Consider them like colorful additions to many memories you can create here. Yes please. Um how does this work? We just can we use a credit card? Oh yeah I'll grab it after. Oh and quick question for you. Do you guys have a our uh like a water fill station and a dump station for RVs to use? Yes we do. Okay god thank you. Oh it feels good to stretch the legs. Yep that's the good stuff. You guys take cards but you said do you guys take I guess cash also? Yeah. Do you take American cash if people don't have? Oh wow. Oh I didn't know but it's straight across. Like most gas stations will take American dollars if. Yeah. Some places do an exchange rate other places don't. We started running out of Canadian cash and I was like oh no. Oh wow this is awesome. Sweet. Yeah as long as the internet's working. Yeah right. So you can just pull off to like the pooch park and just go ask. Okay and they'll tell us. Yeah they'll tell you exactly where everything is. Awesome. Thank you. Well thank you so much. I think the water is covered I'm just not sure about the dump. Okay sounds good. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you very much. You know I just got to thinking I wonder with the little water we've been using if we could just get away with dumping tomorrow instead. The gray tanks may not be even full right now and I don't want to have to dump today and tomorrow. Yeah because they might charge like 10 bucks a dump. Exactly. All right let's go. Dexter's okay? Yep. Cool van. I like that van. Let's get one of those one day. Sounds good. Yeah it's just the hose right outside. Hose right out here? Yeah. I'm working on it. So if you open the door just look to the right and it's like a white hose. Okay. Yeah just right there. Thank you. All right. Is it free? Yeah. Cool. Okay. Thank you very much. It's only water. It's only water. Thank you. Yeah it's not like coca-cola. All right. So that's it right there huh? The white hose. The infamous white hose and Nene scouting it out. I like your thinking with the whole waiting to dump the tanks. Offloading water is always good to save on weight but then it's like well you're paying 10 bucks a dump today. You're paying 10 bucks a dump tomorrow and I think we're gonna be okay with a tiny bit extra water on board. Wait are you saying I made a right decision for once? I'm not gonna repeat myself okay? I said it once and that's all you're getting. That's that's it. It's your guys's turn to watch her. I'm done. I'm tapping out for the day. Your responsibility now. Thank you. looking to check it out and then hit the road. Hey. Hi there how can I help you? Hey we're looking for a day pass please. It's ten dollars. Ten dollars? Ten dollars please. It's in my wallet. In my purse? Yeah. Okay. If you drive straight forward you will come to the parking lots. There will be outhouses and a gate leading up all the way to the hot springs over there. Okay so it's you said how long of a walk I'm sorry? Like seven or ten minutes. Okay perfect. All right well thanks for your time. Have a good day. Enjoy. Thank you. This is great because it's like we're camping for a couple hours and then we get to hit the road and cover more ground. Wow okay. Yeah let's see how far those steps go down. I mean if somebody hits those then they're not having a good day. I don't know. Oh my gosh mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are going inside. Oh wrong side. Look at us just RVing. Just living the RV life in the middle of nowhere here. All right game plan. Here's what we're doing. Dexter are you listening? Hot spring for like one to two hours. However long we want to we come back, shower, dinner, hit the road again. Sounds like a plan. Hank's family at it. Dexter you're staying here. Your parents are gonna go have fun for once. Oh you guys want to go along with? Come on we'll take you. Do I look like an RVer? You're wearing Chacos? I want to wear Chacos. Hurry. I'm wearing stupid flip-flops. Feel better about yourself? I do. I'm ready now. I need to let you guys all know a little secret here. If we get eaten by a bear, y'all be the first to know. So do what you will with that information. I know it's a lot of responsibility to hold in your hands but we're counting on you guys. What are you guys doing? You gotta keep up. Come on. It's this way. Listen I'm not gonna carry you guys the whole way. You're gonna have to start pulling your own weight here. Well you definitely better add this to your travel itinerary. I want it to soak longer but I don't know. You gotta continue this drive. Well plus I'm hungry. Well worth the trip though. Hank's approved. Come see Liard Hot Springs. If you have to go completely out of your way to do it, do it. It's worth it. It's five dollars to get in per person and if you just want to park in a day use area, there's plenty of RV parking and if there's not RV parking there, they have a overflow parking across the street. I guess if you want to stay the night that they do want you to get a campsite because there is a campground here and that is a little bit more like 20 something dollars a night but so worth it. I can't believe it's only five dollars a person. I feel like I've been to hot springs that are not as cool as that and you paid way more. You ready to go home? Ready. Home is where you park it and where we parked it is by the pit toilets. Home is the pit toilets. We say we have some dinner, we get some showers and then we hit the road. Does that sound good Jack? Hit the road Jack? Yeah. What's for dinner? Just some chicken sandwiches but they're like big chicken sandwiches but we have like snackies and if we're hungry later we have more snackies. Well it's 5 45 right now. Once we get showers and eat, get back on the road. Realistically it probably won't be till 6 30. We still got a two hour drive but we're completely okay with this. We're trying something though. Usually we rush to the next destination, get set up, waste the rest of the night and then go on the adventure the next day. It's just a lot of wasting time. We slept in today. We got to hang out with you guys, go enjoy the hot springs, eat, take our time, get back on the road. By the time we pull over it'll just be getting somewhat dark. We'll be able to kind of just hop in bed, relax, watch a little tv and then hit the sack. All in all, I think life is all about balance is what I'm getting at. We're gonna try to do just that. Oh my gosh, Mae is never gonna let me be in charge of chicken again but hey a little burnt piece of chicken never hurt anyone. Plus this is all part of my plan. Carl's not a good cook. Just kidding, I can hold my own in the kitchen. Not quite there yet. 30 more degrees and we'll be in the clear. Almost there. I'm watching you. Showers are yours. I'm on chicken duty. Say no more. See ya Dexter. Oh Canada, you are gorgeous. We are just loving this drive. Well, we didn't stop for diesel like we said we would in Muncho Lake but that's okay because we're learning that there are more fuel stations as we go and we're pretty full and don't worry we're gonna fill up tomorrow morning at the same place we're gonna dump our tanks. It's all good. Gosh, this boondocking is so awesome but we are getting kind of tired. Can you tell it's getting late? We did it family. Good job everybody. Holy cow. I think that app that we're using, the iOverlander, it is really awesome because this is basically part of the provincial park in a way. It's free because it's so desolate. They just want you to make sure you whatever you pack in you pack out and there are a few campers here tonight but I don't know guys this boondocking is really fun and we're so excited to show you some more boondocking and if you want to know what kind of setup we have we talked about it in a previous video and we're doing more videos on it guys so make sure you click one of these videos here and we'll see you next week.