I Almost Quit | Living in a Travel Trailer | Canadian Rockies | Van Life

Five years passes by in the blink of an eye it seems. It's hard to believe I've lived on the road for five years now. I don't know that when I started I imagined I'd still be out here five years later. It's places like this and scenes like these that have kept me out here so long. Cheers from Canada everyone! From Jasper to be exact. I had a sister text me this morning asking when I plan on leaving and I could not answer that question. I'm having such a wonderful time here that I'm not in any rush to leave. A lot of you know that I'm still traveling with my friend Joey. He's been traveling with me for the last six months while he figures out what he wants to do for his living situation. He's either going to rent a place somewhere or maybe get a trailer like mine. It's been a nice change of pace to have someone to share a lot of these experiences with together. It's not forever so I am enjoying it while it lasts. I have been on the road now for over five years. I just celebrated my five-year anniversary in May. There are a lot of pros and cons. I see so many people out here living this lifestyle. I thought that I might share some of the pros, the pluses, the not so great things about it throughout this video. I'm not scripting this. It's just going to be things that are off the top of my head that I might share with you in case you're considering living this lifestyle or you might just be wondering what it's like. There's so many things to think about when you first get on the road that there's not a whole lot of time to think about being lonely and I didn't and I am okay with my own company and being alone. I've lived alone you know prior to getting on the road for many many years so that really wasn't an issue. However, it did get to be a little bit boring being out here by myself. To be honest with you, I considered coming off of the road. I don't know. I just felt like I needed an injection of some sort so the fact that Joey was available to travel with me now has really been that little boost of excitement that I needed and it has been just refreshing to be able to share these experiences with somebody else. I dropped him off a couple of days ago to do his own adventure. If you recall, he's been testing out a raft in the past couple of videos so he packed up that little raft and went on a trip to an island solo and I can't wait to hear how that went. I'm still here at the same campground that I was in in last week's video. However, you might remember that I was hoping to get a riverside spot. Unfortunately, they were all taken. Luckily, several of them cleared out after the weekend and I was able to get this awesome spot. I've got this little storybook pathway that leads right to the river. It is gorgeous. I'm not getting a whole lot of solar injection here because I do have a lot of trees around so I might not be able to stay too long because I do need to work and I need my solar to recharge but I'm going to just enjoy it while I'm here. It is just a beautiful little spot. Canada and the Canadian Rockies are just absolutely stunning so cheers to another beautiful day in Canada. To share my first pro of this lifestyle, it is the freedom. The freedom to pick up and go whenever you choose to wherever you choose to go. As I mentioned, my sister asked me when I will be leaving Canada and I don't have an answer for that and that's awesome. That is one of the amazing things about this lifestyle. For someone who likes to plan ahead, it might be a little bit anxiety inducing and it can be for me as well. However, I don't usually do a lot of planning in advance. I like fly by the seat of my pants and that is truly one of the definite pros of this lifestyle and one of the reasons I really wanted to live this way is the absolute freedom. The first order of business today is to pick up Joey from his rafting adventure. We pre-planned a meeting location for when he came out so that is where I'm headed. I'm here at the designated meeting site where I'll be picking up Joey. So far I don't see any sign of him out in the water. I'm here at Jasper Lake. I'm about 15 minutes early and he may be running late so I'm not going to get worried yet. One of the things that I wanted to do today is pick up a proper jack like a car jack. I don't know where mine is and my electric tongue jack on the trailer has been giving me a little bit of trouble. I've had it stop midway when I've tried to unhitch the trailer the last two times and I really have to jiggle it and play with it until it starts working again. It luckily has started working again but in the event that it just stops I'm gonna need a way to lift the trailer up or lower the trailer. So that will be on the agenda in the next couple of days and I will definitely say that that is a con of living on the road full-time. If you have a Stigson Briggs home you usually have lots of places at your disposal to get repairs done and things like that and of course having a home on wheels there is maintenance involved. However a lot of times I'm in very remote places so getting the items or the help that I need can be very difficult and in this situation I'll probably have to drive about an hour out of town to find what I need and that's not too bad. It's really not too bad but it could be worse and it has been worse. I have been stuck in more remote situations when things have gone wrong so that is something to consider. There he is. I was getting a little worried. No time it is I've just been like basically out of the current because it opened up and then it's super windy blowing swells you know bigger than my raft towards me and it's just leaking air and the whole time I'm out there all I can hear is and then you're hitting multiple places and try patching them just into the wind there's sticks sticking up out of everything so freaking awesome but I made it. Okay so you all know that I've been in Canada for a little while and while I'm here I want to see and do as much as I possibly can and that means hiking, backpacking, doing all the touristy type stuff and that also requires energy and that is why I take A.G.1 daily. A.G.1 boosts my energy. A.G.1 is so much more than greens. It's your daily drinkable scoop of vitamins, minerals, probiotics and whole food source ingredients in one. Validated by research and formulated for you, A.G.1 helps your whole body, brain and gut health thrive. You know what? I trust A.G.1 because they are constantly putting their formula to the test and they're backed by multiple research studies. Here's just one example. 97% of participants in a research study felt more energy after taking A.G.1 for 30 days. I'll tell you what, the proof is in the pudding for me. I have been taking A.G.1 now for over three years and I have felt nothing but awesome benefits as a result of my daily healthy habit. It helps with my focus and energy, stress and mood balance, immunity, gut health. So many great benefits are packed into one scoop daily. A.G.1 is designed to replace multiple supplements by covering nutritional gaps with a comprehensive blend of nutrients. Just one tasty scoop each day helps meet your foundational health needs. Simply put, it's a way to invest in your health now and in the long run. I have been singing the praises of A.G.1 to you all for over three years now and if you haven't tried it already, I highly recommend that you do. If you click that link below or scan the QR code here, they will give you a one-year supply of vitamin D3, K2 and five travel packs for free with your first subscription. Thank you once again to A.G.1 for sponsoring this video. Now back to the show. Tonight for dinner I'm cooking up a couple of steaks, some salad and then I found these little potatoes that you can microwave. They only take five minutes in the microwave. You let them sit for another four minutes and they're soft. They come with the herbs and everything already ready to season them and yeah it's a really easy way to make some yummy little potatoes. Got quite the thunderstorm going right now. Whoa lightning! Yep. We had a pretty good thunderstorm last night. The water is all the way up here to the end of the path. That is the beach I was sitting on yesterday and it is covered in water. It's raging pretty good. The water's all brown. Glad we decided to bring the chairs up last night or they would have been swept away by the river. A fantastic thing about this lifestyle is you can follow the good weather, the warmer temperate climates. That's what I did through the winter. I spent a lot of the winter in the southwest of the U.S. in Arizona, New Mexico and it was absolutely great. Up here it is a little cooler at the moment than it is down in the lower 48 where I would probably want to be at this time if I was anywhere but here. So it's a great place to be right now. On the flip side of that you are at the mercy of the weather so if it's really bad somewhere or stormy like it was last night you have to plan accordingly. There is some rain in the forecast over the next several days so it's going to limit what we can do outdoors. That goes for anybody anywhere but I think especially when you live on the road and spend so much time out in the wilds in the wilderness it makes a bigger difference when you live in a home on wheels. The plan for today was to take a drive outside the west entrance of the park and into British Columbia. We have just crossed over into British Columbia and into Mount Robson Park. We made a stop at the Mount Robson Provincial Park Visitor Center. Mount Robson is named for Mount Robson which is the highest point in the Canadian Rockies standing at 3,954 meters or for us U.S. citizens 12,972 feet. Well I think that would normally be a beautiful view of Mount Robson. Unfortunately it is obscured by clouds but there are a bunch of beautiful lupine down in this meadow below. Always doing recon for future camping grounds and we are currently at Robson Meadows right across from the visitor center Mount Robson. Lots of trees not many meadows. They all pretty much look like this. They are nice. Some spots are reservable and there are very few that are first come first serve. Came across a sign for Overlander Falls as we drove down the road so we thought we'd go check them out. Cannot see behind the visitor center. It's berry season and we've already seen two black bears. We just saw one on the side of the road we didn't get a shot of it but they are out. The weather is surprisingly a lot nicer than anticipated today. This has a different vibe with the plant life than Jasper. Reminds me a little bit of Washington. More rainforest like. The weather was quickly taking a turn after our hike so we decided to head back to camp. Alrighty then we got back to camp and I noticed there is a leak in the roof in the ceiling. We have a leak. It just dripped. I just saw a drip. Back in Oregon a bird flew into an antenna unit that the trailer came with on top of the roof. It has a plastic dome like cover covering this antenna and a bird flew right into it made this huge hole and we went ahead and taped it up as best as we could with super strong tape but with all the rains the rain has seeped underneath that cover and whatever's in that cover around the antenna unit is obviously not waterproof. Now it is leaking through that unit into the ceiling and that's a bummer because a lot more rain is expected. I do have a tarp that I'll probably have to put over that for the time being and I am insured through progressive insurance. I did pay extra for roof insurance so maybe that's something that will cover the repair of the roof. I'm just going to have that whole unit taken off and hopefully sealed properly as soon as I get back to the states. I don't think that I can do the repairs here in Canada. I'll have to look into that. So a bird flew into that thing in Oregon and it's some sort of a wi-fi antenna that came on the trailer so it's a big plastic cover. The bird crashed into it. Its body was still in there sadly the next morning. We heard the big bang but it created a big hole in the side and Joey taped it up in Oregon but we had pretty heavy rains so and that tape's not going to hold out hold the rain out so he's re-taping it for now and then we're going to throw a tarp over it. But there you have it there's another con of living life in a home on wheels. I mean things like that happen in Stigson Briggs homes all the time as well however it's a little bit more difficult. I'm here in Canada I am in a pretty remote area I don't know where I could have the repairs done here so that's something that I'm going to have to figure out. This isn't meant to be an in-depth pros and cons video it was just more food for thought for anybody who might be considering living this lifestyle or if you wonder what it is like living this lifestyle. A huge pro is being able to call these magnificent and beautiful places home albeit temporary homes. I move from it seems like one beautiful place right to another beautiful place and that's really priceless. Unfortunately I am not near my hair stylist I use two hair stylists this is not my natural color surprise surprise and right now I have about maybe two inches of roots growing in so that's why you see me wearing hats quite often. There you have it so that is a con. I have one of my hair stylists which is my brother-in-law he lives in Utah so when I'm passing through Utah I usually have him do my hair and then I have a friend that I've gone to for many many years in California and when I'm in California I have her do my hair but there's only a couple of people that I trust so when I'm near a hair stylist that I trust my roots just grow out and I wear a lot of hats. My hair is pretty clean though because I do have a shower in my trailer and that is one thing that was a must for me having a bathroom and a shower and that is something that I do take advantage of. I'm grateful I can't take showers every day so usually about once a week I try to jump in and take a shower and it's a huge luxury to be able to do that. As I mentioned earlier in the video I was seriously considering quitting life on the road in the not too distant past. It was getting honestly a little bit boring being out here by myself a little bit lonely being out here by myself. One of the big cons is I do miss my family and friends. I'm incredibly close to my family. I miss them a lot when I'm out here. I don't hardly call anybody out here on the road. I rarely pick up the phone. I keep in touch with my sisters and mom through a group text and we text on a regular basis but yeah I don't really have conversations with friends very often. I feel a little bit detached from community out here and it was getting to me to the point that I considered ending life on the road. I will say however that living this way has ruined me for any kind of a conventional life in a city or anything like that. So whatever living situation that I do choose down the line it will be probably something somewhat unconventional. Hopefully living somewhere out in nature maybe on some acreage maybe some sort of a homesteading type situation. I think a lot of people who live the quote-unquote van life that transition into a home base end up living that way and I can see why you just it's just difficult for me I can only speak for myself to see myself going back to any kind of a city dwelling or a large town dwelling after living this way. Having said that I do not see myself living in a travel trailer forever or living in a home on wheels forever. I don't know when it will eventually come to an end but I'm not ready for that to happen yet. I think as long as the pros outweigh the cons and I continue to enjoy myself out here I'll continue to live this way. It is a choice for me. Now putting my life on YouTube and out there for the world to see that adds a whole new set of challenges. It's not like somebody who's just kind of anonymous living on the road full-time. It adds a whole different element of considerations and that is something that I will leave for a future video. That deserves its own video. Anyhow I think I'm going to go ahead and wrap this one up here. I'm actually getting ready to go out on a little backcountry adventure. When this video goes live it'll be June 30th which is my birthday so I will be celebrating my birthday in the backcountry of the Canadian Rockies. I actually did that last year as well and I wasn't expecting to be in the backcountry for my birthday up here this year but I'm really glad that I'm here and that is where I'll spend my birthday. I'll of course document that adventure which I will share with you probably in the next video. As always I thank you all for joining me. I appreciate you coming along and I will see you on the next adventure. See you soon everybody. Bye-bye.