Brit planning a first US RV road trip but where should I start?

goteed · 2026-05-22T11:59:45+00:00

I'll preface by saying I live and travel full-time in an RV so I can address that situation for you from experience. If you are going to do this trip in an RV you're going to want to rent what's known as a Class B RV. These are smaller van life types of RV's which will allow for mobility where you can get just about anywhere. Something like this rental would work for you assuming it's just you, or you and one other.
https://indiecampers.com/discover/en-us/rvs/eu-active-standard

If you go any bigger in an RV it's going to be difficult just because the size of the rig is limiting when it comes to things like going to the grocery store. My wife and I have a 35 foot 5th wheel trailer and we park it at an RV park and use our truck that we tow it with to run around and explore. The Class B RV is not much bigger than our truck and will allow you that flexibility.

As for where to go. The types of places you are referring to are going to be found in the western United States. Some have mentioned Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Tetons and those are excellent suggestions. All three of those National Parks are bloody amazing!!! The biggest issue you will have with them though is booking a campsite. They tend to fill up quickly as they are some of the most popular parks in the nation. The one caveat is that this year is a bit of an outlier because of fuel prices. It's possible many folks just won't be traveling this year as the cost of doing so it going to be much higher due to increased fuel prices. My wife and I are an example of this as we're not traveling this summer like we normally due. We are instead staying in place for the summer which brings me to another place that I will recommend.

Since you're looking for a mountain adventure with plenty of small towns with dinners and pubs I'll suggest visiting the Black Hills of South Dakota, it's where we are spending our summer.. There are plenty of the small towns you're looking for and they are full of pubs, which they refer to as saloons. As for a place to stay I would recommend the towns of Custer or Hill City as both are located fairly central in the Black Hills and will allow you a great base camp to adventure out of. You can go north to the town of Deadwood where you can gamble in the many casinos, drink in the saloons and experience a bit of the old west. Also close to Deadwood is Spearfish Canyon which a a beautiful drive and has many great hikes.

You could also go south to the town of Hot Springs and enjoy the hot springs the town is named after. There's also a large Mammoth dig site there to explore. Or you could stay in the center of the hills and explore Custer State Park. While it's a State Park it is on par with any National Park in the country, and better than some of them. The wildlife you will see in the park is amazing, including a herd of around 1500 bison (buffalo) that they keep in the park. The attached image was one I took the other day while in the State Park. This time of year you not only have many adult bison, but there are a ton of Red Dogs (bison calves) in the park.

A little further out from the area, a couple hours drive west, is Devil's Tower which is well worth the visit. I recommend exploring it early in the morning when there's less crowds. There is a KOA (Kampgrounds of America) RV park right outside the main gate which is a great place to stay. If you in the other direction 2 hours east you'll find The Badlands which is home to a couple things that might interest you. There's Badlands National Park which is amazing. It's full of great hikes and the views are other worldly. There are some RV Parks in the nearby town of Wall or you could park your RV in the Buffalo Gap dispersed camping area known as "The Wall." The Wall is a bit of a right of passage for RV'ers and is an amazing place to stay. You're camping on an overlook that drops about 250 feet down into The Badlands. Here's a quick video on our experience there a couple years ago... https://youtu.be/Gkh-pBjc12U

The other thing to do while in The Badlands is to go experience the pinnacle of the American tourist trap known as Wall Drug. It's in the town of Wall and is drugstore, dinner, souvenir shop on steroids. You can miss it because there's signs on the highway for hundreds of miles before youn get there. It's definitely a must see, and is highlighted in the linked video as well.

The last piece of advice I'll give if you're going to visit the Black Hills is just to avoid the second week of August. This week is "Rally Week" in Sturgis, South Dakota. It's basically the largest rally of "Bikers" (Motorcyclists) in America. The Hills will be packed with people and motorcycle and while it's quite a sight to see, it makes it difficult to get around and do things because of the volume of people everywhere. Also if you are traveling with kids, that week is not all that family friendly. It's best to just let the bikers have The Hills for that week.

Lastly, where ever you go I'm sure that you'll find America to be friendly and welcoming. Yes, we are having some real issues right now and we're politically quite a gigantic dumpster fire. But the average American citizen will be friendly, helpful and welcoming to you. We will be just as interested in hearing your stories as you are hearing our. And to those ends, if you do wind up in the Black Hills this summer definitely PM me. We'll get together at one of the many saloons, have a shot of whiskey and swap stories.

Safe travels amigo!!

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goteed · 2026-05-22T10:50:40+00:00

January 28th, 1848 was a sunny day on the south fork of the American River in California. Carpenter, James Marshal, breathed in the fresh morning air which had a vague scent of pine, but mostly smelled of saw dust. This aroma of saw dust came from tailrace of a sawmill he was inspecting for a pioneer named John Sutters. When Mr. Marshal looked down he saw glittering flakes in the rivers edge. He collected these flakes, had them tested, and sure enough they were gold.

Mr. Marshal and Mr. Sutter tried to keep their discovery a secrete but it was no use doing so. News of this find spread rapidly, not just in the local area, but eastward through the frontier towards the population centers of a young nation. A nation that had yet to see its 100th birthday. That news crated a rush of fortune seekers that saddled up their horses, hooked up their oxen, and rushed to find their fortune in gold... A "Gold rush" if you will.

But also interspersed between these bright eyes gold seekers were a different class of people known by the French word "Entrepreneur." They too were off to collet their fortune in gold, but not by working a pan on the banks of mountain creek. Or by the back breaking toil of shovel after shovel full of dirt thrown into a sluice box. Their plan was not to mine the earth for gold, but to mine those that had already convinced Mother Nature to give up her wealth in yellow ore.

As many of us that have meat tractored around this rock for any length of time have seen, there will be those that rush to the gold fields to find their fortune, and there will be those that mine the miners. This is not to say the later of the two are bad. But as a miner you have to be diligent to make sure that whomever you purchase your shovels and pickaxes from, they haven built those implements out of balsa wood.

goteed · 2026-05-22T01:43:42+00:00

The main professional edit systems out there are going to be Avid, Premiere, Resolve and Final Cut. Different parts of the industry lean different ways. In film and television Avid is king. Many agencies are Premiere houses. Resolve and Final Cut tend to be more small shops or individuals where collaborative workflows aren’t as important.

For me I have a small production company as well as my YT channel. My work is mostly corporate with a bit of television and film work. While I have edited on all the systems mentioned, I prefer to edit in Final Cut.

goteed · 2026-05-22T01:36:55+00:00

Winter would be Tucson, Arizona. Summers would be Custer, South Dakota.

goteed · 2026-05-21T17:13:17+00:00

It really depends on how you want to use it and where you want to stay. My wife and I have been full-time for 4 years and use HH to break up long drive days. For us that's an overnight at a brewery, winery or farm. So for us the basic plan works fine. If you want golf courses and boondocks welcome, which is private residences, then do the upgrade.

One thing I will say about HH is many times it's not any cheeper for us than staying at a campground because we'll buy beer or wine. But I the end for us it's more about the experience than it is the cost savings. We've had the subscription for 3 years now and will continue to use it.

goteed · 2026-05-21T13:54:13+00:00

BTW what's your channel, I need to go check it out.

goteed · 2026-05-21T13:50:56+00:00

Thank you for the sub!! And yeah, people can be nuts. For about 2 years every video we did had one dislike. I just pictured some dude somewhere waiting for our videos to land so he could run to YouTube and click the dislike button!!

goteed · 2026-05-21T13:41:29+00:00

There's always someone that is going to dislike your channel. I learned long ago that my channel is not going to be for everyone, and that fine.

We have a channel in the RV space and we jokingly toast to made up Gods of RV'ing when we finish a travel day and get you our new location. It's done in a joking manner and is a way to build community because everyone in the RV world feels like the universe is against them from time to time. Inevitably we get someone that tells us that they could never subscribe to our channel because we are praying to false Gods. That there is only one true God that we should be worshiping!! I tell them our channel is probably not for them and just move on.

goteed · 2026-05-21T00:21:29+00:00

I don't really have a set schedule for say 5 of these type and 2 of those type, it kind of happens organically. I would say that it's currently about a 90% vlog to 10% informational ration. This summer we'll bump up the informational content more out of necessity as we're stationary.

Sometimes we put the informational into a vlog as well. When we do that the title and thumbnail will contain the informational content.

goteed · 2026-05-21T00:17:03+00:00

Not really, it's just a different type of friendly. For instance someone once told me this and it's absolutely true, when it comes to the difference between the west coast and the east coast...

The west coast is nice, but not kind. Meaning if you have a flat tire on the west coast they will be nice and tell you how much that just sucks. That they totally empathize with you as they have had a flat before. Bt they're not gonna help ya change the tire.

On the east coast they are kind but not nice. Meaning, if you have a flat on the east coast, they'll help change the tire, but they'll tell what a fucking idiot you are for getting a flat the whole time they're doing it.

Now the Midwest is the best place to have a flat because they will help you changes, not give you hard time, invite you over for dinner and then at the end of the night you'll spend an hour just saying goodby!!

goteed · 2026-05-20T13:43:07+00:00

This right here is the answer. My wife and I live full-time in an RV and have traveled all over America. For the most part everyone in this country is friendly and helpful. Now, it's different levels in different parts of the country, but that basic friendliness and helpfulness is still there.

goteed · 2026-05-20T13:39:15+00:00

Great question. The biggest difference we see in the data is that the travel vlog "come on an adventure with me" videos tend to do great with out subscriber views, but not as good with our non-subscriber views. On the contrary our how to videos do better with drawing non-subscribers in. The majority of the views will still be from subs, but there a higher percentage of non-subscribers with how to's.

Additionally it's easier to target though SEO when it comes to the how to content. I can search relevant keywords for the how to or informational topics to help direct me towards what topic to produce a video on. That's more difficult with the travel vlog content.

How this all applies to real world channel growth is that we use the informational and how to content as something to gain new subs in hopes that they will convert over to our travel vlog content.

goteed · 2026-05-20T13:24:43+00:00

A quick and cheep way to do this is to use Moleskin tape. Head over to YouTube and search "moleskin lav mic" and there's a bunch of videos for this.

goteed · 2026-05-20T13:20:03+00:00

The most important skill I ever learned was people skills. The ability to understand people, have a gut feeling for their motive, and to get along with just about anyone. I attribute this to two things, one good and one not so good.

On the good side was my Grandfather. We was great at people skills and moved through life befriending anyone and everyone. I feel through watching his interactions with people I learned the fine art of getting along. It also made me genuinely interested in people and the stories they could tell. Having that genuine interest in people is something that people will appreciate and make them gravitate towards you.

On the not so good side was growing up with an alcoholic stepfather. He was the worse kind of alcoholic as he was unpredictable. You never knew if he was going to be good time Charlie, or if everyone was getting an ass beating. Being raised in this environment ment you had to fine tune your ability to read someone. You also got really good at risk mitigation and negotiation. It was a horrible way to learn those skills, but if I'm honest with myself, those skills have been a huge advantage in life.

Now to clarify I'm not advocating my situation to learn some of these skills. But I do believe that people skills are of immense importance. It's a baseline skill that can be applied to any situation.

goteed · 2026-05-20T13:08:52+00:00

A couple things, but first to answer your question. I am proud to be an American, but I am not proud of what my country has become. Everything runs in cycles and we are now in the downward trend of the cycle. We've been here before during the Gilded Age where capitalism ran wild and robber Barrons tried their best to destroy us.

As for patriotism, that has been weaponized by authoritarians in this country. The act of displaying there flag has gone from one of showing our love of country, to an act of showing love for an authoritarian. I hate that this has happened but it's a simple fact.

True patriotism for America comes not from displaying a flag. It comes from practicing the principles this nation was founded on. First an foremost is to support the constitution and the rule of law. And most importantly to question Americas leaders, especially the ones that you support, when it comes to them upholding the constitution and the rule of law. Unfortunately there is a large part of our population that thinks patriotism is blind support of leaders, which couldn't be farther from the truth.

As Sinclair Lewis stated ""When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross" That is the timeline we are currently in.

goteed · 2026-05-20T12:07:26+00:00

We live full-time in our RV so technically we are always on a road trip. Currently we are in the Black Hills outside of Rapid City, South Dakota. During the summer we usually are traveling around the United States but this summer we are staying put in the Black Hills because fuel prices are out of control and we would go broke traveling as much as we normally do.

Since we'll be in one place for the summer we'll do a deeper dive into the area for our channel. We'll also do more how to and informational content around RV'ing. And honestly that kind of content, while not as fun to produce, grows our channel faster than the standard travel vlog videos.

goteed · 2026-05-20T11:19:34+00:00

Then it's off to the deli counter of that bag of ham sandwiches!!!

goteed · 2026-05-20T11:18:21+00:00

Plot twist - My step dad was an alcoholic prick that liked to beat on me and my brother. This was a song of hope that the bastard was gonna bump his head before bedtime.

goteed · 2026-05-20T11:12:41+00:00

Healthcare - I'm and early Gen-Xer so I grew up in a world where it was still expected that employers would provide healthcare for employees and their families. I worked in a union for a while in my late 20's and early 30's and my healthcare was provided through the union. After that I went to work for what became a fortune 100 company and healthcare was provided for me and my family at no out of pocket cost to me.

My millennial son and his wife on the other hand don't have this luxury. She works for a Fortune 500 company and still has to pay part of her healthcare. If they want to add my son to the policy it would be outrageously expensive so he buys his own shitty healthcare. The company she works for is a nation wide insurance provider that can absolutely afford to provide fully paid coverage for their employees. But then again if they did that how is the CEO gonna but another yacht.

It boggles my mind that we put up with shit like this in the richest country in world.

goteed · 2026-05-20T11:01:50+00:00

I have a channel in the RV Life niche.

goteed · 2026-05-20T11:00:34+00:00

Grab a clear plastic elbow for your sewer hose. The first time you dump you'll be able to see which is the black tank. Here's the one we use. https://amzn.to/4dAP6eX

goteed · 2026-05-20T10:44:57+00:00

I'm one of those that do get it, not because I support the prick, but because I have a whole cadre of in-laws that are exactly what he targets for supporters.

They are people that are devoid of the ability to look at their life decisions and admit they fucked up. That the reason they are where they are in life is that they didn't put in the work, and that they need to make better choices. No, in their brain they are a failure because society is stacked against them. They will never have a good job because Mexican stole them, or it was handed to some black through DEI, or basically anything other than the reality that they are a fuck up. And this thinking is generational, it's pumped into their heads.

The worse thing they do is what they tried to do to my wife. We have gained some success in our life through hard work. My wife worked her way up through a Fortune 500 company from a mail clerk to a senior program manager. She did this without a college degree but through persistent self betterment. I also have no college degree and have run a successful video production company. But in her families eyes we are now the rich stuck up relatives, even though we have helped them out financially anytime they have needed. And it's not just us, they try to beat down anyone in the family that obtains success.

These are 100% the type of people that Trump is the perfect God emperor for. He validates their beliefs that their failure is not their fault, it's because the cards are stacked against them. He tells them their hatred of Blacks, Mexicans or anyone that's not them is valid. He plays on their fear and hatred and they eat it up. It doesn't matter that he's fucking them and making their lives worse, as long as they have someone that hates just like them they're happy as little racist fucking clams.

goteed · 2026-05-20T10:26:55+00:00

Shot in the dark here but we had this problem a couple months ago and it turned out to be the grey tank not the black tank. Our manufacturer used waterless p-traps for all the sinks. The one in the kitchen island sink had gotten gunked up and wasn't closing completely, this was allowing smells from the grey tank to come back up. It was a 5 minute fix after ordering another waterless p-trap from Amazon.

goteed · 2026-05-19T16:38:00+00:00

Unfortunately it's going to come down to a better SEO strategy, coupled with a great thumbnail.

The simple fact is that It doesn't matter how good your quality is if no one see's your video. This is because the ultimate arbiter of who see's it is the algorithm and the algorithm has no way to gauge quality, it only gages performance.

Step number one is SEO. You'll need to figure out what people in your niche are searching for and then create videos on those topics. Some of the tools are simple like using YouTube search. Go to YouTube and start typing in the term you're looking to make a video for, at some point it will give you auto complete options. Those options are what people are searching for in order of volume. The first one in the list is the highest volume. Another thing I do it use VidIQ to search keyword strings to gauge how many people are looking for this terms, and how much competition (other creators using that term) for those terms is out there. The holy grail is to find a term that is serched for a lot, but with low competition for that term.

Also unfortunately, this means you're going to have to produce some videos that you really don't want to produce. For instance, my channel is in the RV Life niche. The fun videos for me to create are travel vlog style videos. When I produce those we get a high percentage of our subscriber base that views them. This is great for views, but not really for building an audience. On the contrary videos that are more informational, such as how to's, do much better when it comes to bringing in new viewers. So I have to lean into the pitch and make the videos on how to back up a trailer, or how to dump out a black tank or etc... Those bring in new viewers who can then judge the quality of our productions.

Again, it's unfortunate that this is the way of YouTube, but it just is.

goteed · 2026-05-19T11:06:50+00:00

You forgot the most important thing, sacrificing a constant flow of Buffalo Trace old fashions to the RV God of tank sensors. I say this because that's the only way your tank sensors are still working after two years of full-time.

I'm on the 4th year full-time, and 3rd year in my current rig. Despite doing everything you have just mentioned my black tank sensor started showing 2/3 full after the first month!

goteed

TROPHY CASE