Many of you already know what we are talking about with the title of our blog post! Love it or hate it, YouTube can teach you just about anything you need to know or help you troubleshoot any problem you may have with anything technological or mechanical.
When we started this journey towards breaking the chains of societal norms, downsizing, purchasing our travel trailer, a truck with the proper towing capabilities and our next step of selling our home and going full time on the road, we had absolutely no clue where to start. Initially, thanks to my brother-in-law who purchased a bus and now has their skoolie on the road (see the pic below), we also began to realize that perhaps we CAN "retire" or at least break free of paying for a home that we do not need or want in an area we no longer like. We had thought we would work the rest of our lives, slaves to what the world has told us all how we should live. But for what? What really is the purpose of having all this stuff and working to keep this stuff or to get more stuff?! We live in one of the most diverse and beautiful countries on the planet. With our adventurous natures, we wanted to SEE more rather than HAVE more.
This all catapulted us into our year of learning through YouTube university. At first blush, we also wanted to have our own skoolie, so we researched to the 'inth degree, how to obtain one, how to design the layout, right down to decorating it (which I need a lot of help on, unlike my sister in law who has hers perfectly decorated - see left). Some people have that knack but this is admittedly not my area of expertise and I know there are a lot of good tips out there.
We learned quite a bit from YouTube, how to sell everything and downsize and how to get on the road by watching how seasoned veterans of the RV/nomad lifestyle have done it for years. Some have been doing this for over a decade or longer! So, if you are considering this lifestyle, want to retire on a budget and be "Mildly Retired" like we will be within this next year, we encourage you to utilize YouTube and your internet search engine of choice to help you make the right decisions for YOU.
Sometimes, it can also bite you in the rear end, as it did us when we purchased our bus through an online auction. Many have done this with great success, but when we arrived at the auction company to pick it up, our first clue that this would be a problem was when we watched through the window as they added fluids and had to jump start it. In short, we owned it for approximately 2-3 hours and promptly sold it back to someone who worked there, who just happened to know someone that would purchase the bus from us. We drove the 8 hours back home with our proverbial tails between our legs but also realized, we didn't want to (and quite frankly felt NOT young enough lol) to do all that work on a bus to make us a tiny home.
We headed back to YouTube university to research every different van, class of motorhome, fifth wheel and travel trailer to see which would fit our lifestyle. And this is what it really boils down to, is HOW it will fit YOUR lifestyle and your budget. Then once we purchased our travel trailer, we realized that we needed another truck, so yes, back to YouTube to research which truck would be best.
Learning is an ongoing process especially when switching major gears in life. Use the technology that the good Lord has blessed us with to make wise and well planned decisions. Downsizing, selling virtually your whole life (at our age) and stepping into this new journey will need all the help you can get. We have witnessed countless people who share their lives on YouTube who have not done their research and get into jams. This is what we would like to avoid, but as you probably well know, things happen even with the most well laid plans.
We will share more of our research in other posts and we hope you glean even a small tidbit from what we share that will help in YOUR journey!