March seems to be a birth month of amazing projects in the RVing community. Today we wanted to take a moment and honor two of them we were blessed to be involved with.
Happy First Birthday, Xscapers!
A year ago today, we were in Tucson, AZ hanging out with the Escapee’s staff – all nervously awaiting the moment this new lifestyle club aimed at the working aged RVer would be announced at the 55th Escapade.
Co-Founders Travis & Mel took the stage, with grandma Kay Peterson (founder of the Escapees) giving her thumbs up. What an amazing, and unforgettable moment – especially for us, after having worked in the background the year prior helping the Escapee’s solidify the idea.
In the past year, they have signed up 2000 members to the Xscapers, which is included as part of the $39.95/year Escapees membership. They have added an articles & blog section bringing together great RVing content from across the web, a Job Board (where anyone can post a mobile-friendly job listing, and Xscapers can look for income on the road), partnered with RVer Insurance to help us all navigate the complicated health insurance landscape and just implemented a new mapping feature to find discount parks.
And of course, there have been two amazing convergences – the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta and Quartzsite, with more coming up later this year.
There’s much more coming as this group continues to grow.
This month’s issue of Escapee’s Magazine is a celebration of the 1 year birthday of Xscapers – and features articles by several members. Including us (on Mobile Internet, of course), RV Wanderlust (on Working From the Road), Becky Schade (on Work-camping at National Parks), Live Work Dream (on Telemedicine) and Full Time Families (on Roadschooling).
If you consider RVing a lifestyle, we highly encourage you to join – it’s $39.95 that is well spent to support such a great organization.
The Escapees does great stuff, including protecting our rights (most recently they were right on top of the threat to taking away the right to vote for RVers domiciled in South Dakota.)
Happy Second Birthday, RVillage!
And just a year prior to Xscapers, we helped build and launch RVillage – the social network for RVers.
The premise is you check into your current RV Park, campground or other location and can meet other RVers around you. Basically, an RV Park full of strangers becomes a Village full of friends. It’s also a great way to keep in touch with the people you meet on the road.
Today, there are over 42,000 members and it’s growing everyday.
The staff has continued to improve the site, rounded out the rough edges and added lots of requested features.
It’s looking great, and more in line with the original vision that we were so inspired to get on board with to begin with.
If you’ve not given it much of a look since the original beta launch 2 years ago, we encourage you to take a look again now with fresh eyes. And if you’ve not headed over there at all? Well, do so. It’s completely free.
The Mobile Internet Handbook – Print Editon Now Available!
These days, keeping track of mobile internet topics is our primary business focus – both running RVMobileInternet.com and publishing our book, The Mobile Internet Handbook.
The fourth edition of the book just came out late last month in eBook formats, and just today we approved the proof for the print edition.
(Which means.. yes.. you can go snag a copy now!)
It’s been a lot of work to get this one out, but we’re extremely proud to now have it available to help our RVing community keep online for work, school, pleasure or just checking in with their Xscapers buddies on RVillage.
It’s been amazing for us these past few years being involved in projects that we really feel will help shape the RVing experience for so many. From meeting people, navigating the logistics to keeping online. It’s not really until I try to sum all we’ve been honored to be involved with that I realize just why we got so tuckered out by the end of last year.
So now that the book is DONE, we get back to our main goal this year – work/life balance!
Awesome! glad all has gone well last year and this year coming. Safe travels and God Bless!
Cheers to that.. hopefully in the year ahead we can resist the urge to a bit, and enjoy some more down time.
ditto what Nina said…I could not say it any better….Congratulations to you both for all of your successes….
Thanks Jil! 🙂 So appreciate your support in it all!
A HUGE congrats to you both!! Such fabulous achievements all-around, not only with the projects you helped to launch last year, but the new book. A huge body of work which will be a valuable resource to all mobile travelers.
Nina
Thanks Nina… you have a rare vantage point I think, having been our neighbor through many of these projects over the past few years! Here’s to the prospect that during our next meet up, we’re project-free!
Looks like you’re back to writing this blog. Or maybe you have been for awhile and I’ve been missing the emails? I’m just glad I’ve found you again. I hope you’re well and happy with the remodel on your bus. That’s the last communication I read. Thanks for keeping us informed.
Hi Diane – Yes, we’ve been back to blogging since the beginning of the year. Lots of content to catch up on 🙂
I’ve been following you for some time now–youtube and your blog. We have your mobile internet book. Great!! One of the things I love about your blog is the beginning to every post–thank you for subscribing to our blog–and I want to say, thank you for blogging. We’ll finally be full-time this fall and hope to meet up and share an ‘actual’ bottle of wine or a glass of homemade liqueur…
Awww.. thank you. We love hearing the appreciation back. We look forward to that homemade liqueur when we finally meet!