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Issue 1485
Welcome to another edition of RV Travel’s Daily Tips newsletter. Here you’ll find helpful RV-related and living tips from the pros, travel advice, a handy website of the day, tips on our favorite RVing-related products and, of course, a good laugh. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate you. Please tell your friends about us.
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Page Contents
Today’s thought
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” ―
Need an excuse to celebrate? Today is National Roof Over Your Head Day (and be thankful for that!)
On this day in history: 1910 – Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show.
Tip of the Day
Should you grease up the hitch ball?
By Russ and Tiña De Maris
A new hitch ball is often bright, shiny and chromed. But many RVers have been much dismayed, on lifting the hitch coupler off the new ball after the first use, that the chrome is scratched and scarred. What happened? Metal-to-metal contact can scrape off that shiny chrome and things are never the same. So should you grease up the hitch ball to preserve the shiny chrome? Find out here.
Do you have a tip? Submit it here.
Today’s RV review…
In today’s column, industry insider Tony Barthel reviews the new 2021 inTech RV Terra Oasis. As he reports, “This might be one of the better new trailers I’ve seen on the market in a while… and I have seen a lot of trailers. While it’s certainly not inexpensive, it seems to be a decent value for all the thought and components that have gone into its design.” Learn more.
Did you read Tony’s review yesterday of the Safari Condo Alto R1713 Travel Trailer? If you missed it, you can read it here.
For previous RV reviews, click here.
Is this your RV?
If it’s yours and you can prove it to us (send a photo for comparison), tell us here by 9 p.m. Pacific Standard time today, December 3, 2020. If it’s yours you’ll win a $25 Amazon gift certificate.
If this isn’t your RV, send us a photo of your RV here (if you haven’t already) for a chance to win in future issues.
LAST WEEK, THREE READERS RESPONDED and each claimed a $25 Amazon gift certificate. Congratulations to Dave A. of Pasadena, Maryland, Terri C. of Enfield, Connecticut, and Blaise B. of Marinette, Wisconsin.
We’ll have another photo in tomorrow’s RV Daily Tips Newsletter (sign up to receive an email alert so you don’t miss the issue or those that follow). Some of these photos are submitted by readers while others were taken by our editors and writers on their travels around the USA.
RV industry executive talks about lack of campgrounds
In this video from RV PRO Magazine with the Vice-President of Marketing and Communications for the RV Industry Association (RVIA), James Ashurst discusses ways the organization is working with the federal government. If you are interested in the workings of the RV industry, here’s an overview of what’s going on from the RVIA’s head PR man. Watch the video.
Yesterday’s featured article: Forget insect spray! Just paint yourself with stripes!
Reader poll
Have you purchased more or fewer clothes than normal since the pandemic began?
Think about it for a moment, then tell us here.
Quick Tip
Help ensure your trailer doesn’t get stolen
Website of the day
Camp California
Everything you need to know about camping in beautiful California. Search campgrounds, destinations and activities.
Tape it to the limit…
Rather than an adhesive, this type of tape fuses to itself. It makes a totally waterproof seal that can be used to repair the insulation on electrical wiring in the field. It has all kinds of other emergency uses advertised, such as a quick fix for a leaking radiator hose, so it certainly deserves a place in your RV toolbox since it’s a multi-tasking piece of equipment that could save your bacon. Learn more or order.
And the Survey Says…
We’ve polled RVtravel.com readers more than 1,500 times in recent years. Here are a few things we’ve learned about them:
• 60 percent travel with three pairs of shoes or less on their RV travels
• 39 percent brush their teeth just once a day
• If given the choice between pie, cake or ice cream for dessert, 50 percent would choose ice cream.
Recent poll: Have you lived in an RV full-time for the last 12 months?
Trivia
Want to drink hippo milk? If you did, at first glance you might think you were drinking Pepto Bismol. Hippo milk is bright pink! When milking a hippo (not that that happens too often…), two unique acids, one reddish in color and the other bright orange, get combined with the milk making it bright pink.
*How many employees does Facebook have?
A.) 14,927
B.) 52,534
C.) 108,117
We told you yesterday.
Readers’ Pet of the Day
“This is Porterhouse ‘Porter’, our 1.5-year-old Olde English Bulldogge. He loves to accompany us on our RV trips and has his own camping routine. Pre-trip packing: must have a good bone for the drive days. Then upon arrival at our destination, the first item of business is to take a quick walk around the campsite in search of the best grass, streams or rivers, and shade. It’s always nice to meet a friend or two also. Of course, a good dirt pile is a must! Nothing like burying that bone over and over again just to dig it up before we hit the road again. Photo was taken during our stay in the White Mountains of New Hampshire – summer 2020.” —Kevin & Vanessa Harwood
Send us a photo of your pet with a short description. We publish one each weekday in RV Daily Tips and in our Saturday RV Travel newsletter.
A toaster fit for an RV!
Want to keep a toaster in your RV but don’t have the space for it? This slim, compact toaster is made for RVs – it hardly takes up any space! The slots for your toast are normal width, and can even reheat and defrost foods too! It’s easy to use, and the reviews are stellar! Learn more or order one for your RV here. Happy toasting!
Leave here with a laugh
“The car won’t start!” A wife says to her husband. “I think there’s water in the carburetor!” “How do you know?” says the husband. “You don’t even know what the carburetor is…” “I am telling you,” repeated the wife, “I’m sure there’s water in the carburetor!” “We’ll see about that,” mocked the husband. “I’ll take a look at it. Where’d you park it?” “In the swimming pool.”
Did you miss the latest RV Travel Newsletter? If so, read it here.
Oh, and if you missed the latest Sunday News for RVers, make sure to catch up here.
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RV Daily Tips Staff
Publisher: Chuck Woodbury. Editor: Emily Woodbury. Senior editor: Diane McGovern. Social media and special projects director: Jessica Sarvis. Financial affairs director: Gail Meyring. IT wrangler: Kim Christiansen.
This website utilizes some advertising services. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Regardless of this potential revenue, unless stated otherwise, we only recommend products or services we believe provide value to our readers.
Everything in this newsletter is true to the best of our knowledge. But we occasionally get something wrong. We’re just human! So don’t go spending $10,000 on something we said was good simply because we said so, or fixing something according to what we suggested (check with your own technician first). Maybe we made a mistake. Tips and/or comments in this newsletter are those of the authors and may not reflect the views of RVtravel.com or this newsletter.
Mail us at 9792 Edmonds Way, #265, Edmonds, WA 98020.
This newsletter is copyright 2020 by RVtravel.com
“Is This Your RV?”
OK, how can three people claim it from the previous week?
Seven contests per week (one per day), minus three people who claimed their prize, equals four more unclaimed prizes for that week. 🙂 —Diane at RVtravel.com
Don’t bother going to California, the political regime with its iron fist just closed down almost all campgrounds to tourists and over night campers. Through his kindness and grace he will only allow long term tenets to stay. It is expected to last through the holidays. xxxxx His reason for closing campgrounds is because he thinks they are hotel’s that have transit people in them. He doesn’t realize RVers sleep in their own beds, cook in their own kitchen and hangout in their own little home. He’s as sharp as a bowling ball. [Bleeped by Diane.]
I thought we were done with political BS ..
I understand from an email today that RVillage has been acquired by ToGo RV which is controlled by Thor Industries. That is not a good sign for me. Looks like what may happen will follow what happened to GoodSam once CampingWorld and Mr. Lemonis took over?
Yes, for better or worse, it’s true that Togo Group (largely held by THOR Industries) acquired Curtis Coleman’s RVillage company. Following the provocative Facebook model where users are the product, Curtis built up his thriving RV community to 350K users and 150K members. CEO Danny Hest claims not to foresee making changes other than to add resources to help accelerate growth by offering more benefits to the RV community. Actually, this will be one of the topics discussed on our Friday YouTube livestream, “What’s New This Week in RV Travel.” You can read more about the acquisition here:
https://rvbusiness.com/togo-group-expands-platform-with-acquisition-of-rvillage/
porter is a cutie!!!
We did quite a bit of camping in California in 2007, mid May. Was gorgeous and back in the day when we could go with the flow and not make reservations. The coast north of San Fran was in full bloom and Yosemite was breath taking!
There’s enough wonderful camping in California to last a lifetime.
California is usually a generation ahead of the rest of the country in progressive change.
And usually not for the better
I have a recommendation….It appears there is plenty of :white space” in each segment, enough that if large font type was used an old guy like me might not have to lift his or her laptop or other device closer to their face in order to read what is printed. Why all the small print? Looks like there is plenty of room to up the print size. What say you?
Hi Terry, you can adjust the size of your font by clicking settings, appearance, then font size. That should help depending if you’re on a cell phone, laptop or desktop.
You can also make everything bigger by pressing [ctrl + +] if you have a keyboard.
Thank you! I’ve been using ctrl-key shortcuts for years, but never knew about that one!!
yep… worked for me too…
you can also hit {
control –] to make reading smaller
Or you can hold the ctrl key and use your mouse scroll wheel to do the same thing.
command ++ or command — for the Mac users.
Or you can put on reading glasses
🤔🤣🤣🤣
Yep there’s water in the carb
I agree that Hitch locks are useless. The defeat mechanism is hanging right there next to the lock–the safety chains. You can’t pull the trailer fast but you can pull it–especially if you shorten the chains with a heavy carabiner.
Not sure what this means?
Irv is saying that a scumbag does not need to remove the hitch lock (at least not right away), all that needs to be done is to wrap the safety chains onto the extended ball hitch, just ‘hanging it’ in place and then drive away to another area to remove the hitch lock at their convenience.
Thank you
Kevin & Vanessa Harwood…I hope you enjoyed your trip to my wonderful state of NH!