GordonThree wrote:

Wynns and LoLoHo. Sometimes Less Junk More Journey, they travel with a pet too, a human toddler.

The Jacobs' merry band of RV beggars is almost complete. Missing Livin Free Mikey from that list. He used to mooch off Lydia but she kicked him out.

Check out the channel Nomadic Fanatic Stickers for background on Jacobs

mileena wrote:


Yep, it is rumored he is a convicted felon. But I am more concerned he schemed people out of money to fix his transmission and then bought a new RV instead. That, and failing to send stickers to a whole bunch of people who paid.

And you are right about Mike. And he looks different from his channel pic since he gained weight. Now Lydia has some new RV'ing boyfriend.

Old-Biscuit wrote:

I have definitely got old........

I thought 'reality TV' was bad enough.
Now 'Reality RVng'

I just don't get the fascination with 'other folks' lives

Old-Biscuit wrote:

I thought 'reality TV' was bad enough.
Now 'Reality RVng'

I just don't get the fascination with 'other folks' lives

We FTd for 7 yrs. Loved it but then again we went and did it.

Oh well.........

pnichols wrote:

I've always considering long term living/traveling on a boat as too constrictive and boring ... all on a relatively flat surface except for waves. I just don't understand the fascination with that.

RV'ing is way more fun ... constant exposure to an ever-changing environment, with such things as: Tunnels, covered bridges, high mountain roads/passes, deep canyons, interstate highways through beautiful scenery, two-lane highways through beautiful scenery, dirt/gravel roads out in the middle of nowhere with hills/mountains off in the distance, camping by rivers or lakes without sharks or tsunamis, no packing of life jackets, no waterspouts, fascinating wild animals with four legs, mighty condors overhead, etc.. IAW, not boring in the least, ever.

GordonThree wrote:

RVers converting to sailors ... Is that maybe the next level up in self sufficiency and isolation?

Sailing along a coast could be just like driving your RV along a coast, but spending days sailing off shore, in deep water, 100s of nautical miles to your destination. I can't think of an RV equivalent. Maybe overland camping in a remote country? Sure RVing in the southwest or Alaska provides the feeling of isolation, but truly a place to bail out isn't that far away.

hotbyte wrote:

Most of the ones we watch are already mentioned. I didn’t notice Life is a Joy and Drivin and Vibin. Drivin and Vibin also has RV/travel album.

We also watch lots of sailing/boating and woodworking.

I don’t get the ebegger comments. I just don’t see them rising to level of begging.

hotbyte wrote:

I understand how they make money. I’ve been watching these channels for a while and I just don’t see what they do as begging. Anyone that thinks they are begging should not walk through downtown of big city near homeless folks.

Farmboy666 wrote:


Well thats the difference between begging and Ebegging, instead of holding their cup out they give you their Elinks so you can give them money.

tragusa3 wrote:

I don't want this to come across as promotion, but it is on topic. I was so impressed with the new platform for sharing this hobby, that I decided to give it a go myself and get in front of (and behind) the camera. Although I think we are highly entertaining, apparently I'm no good at it. Our videos seem to get a few dozen views, and when I compare that to the 100k views that a video of a cat using the litter box gets....well, it kind of tells you the pecking order. LOL.

pnichols wrote:

I've always considering long term living/traveling on a boat as too constrictive and boring ... all on a relatively flat surface except for waves. I just don't understand the fascination with that.

free radical wrote:

if they have enough money to buy RV and cameras and computer they are doing better then me..and if they get famous, YT pays them plenty anyway.

free radical wrote:


You do realize that no one is forcing you to pay these people!?

I never pay anyone,,if they have enough money to buy RV and cameras and computer they are doing better then me..and if they get famous, YT pays them plenty anyway..

Sometimes I watch cooking videos,,this for example is beautifuly done
https://youtu.be/9WXIrnWsaCo

For funny but bit shocking stuff,,look up
Russia driving vids,,they must have worlds worst drivers there..

Farmboy666 wrote:


Well thats the difference between begging and Ebegging, instead of holding their cup out they give you their Elinks so you can give them money.

FirstTracks wrote:

Oh, so much to respond to!



You ARE good at it, and I'm saying that as one of your subs. Hang in there! (which sounds odd coming from someone trying to break into the medium, too.)

I suspect that you do it for the same reason I do: the fun of it. For me, photography (and by extension, cinematography) is a hobby, or more accurately a passion. I simply enjoy it. Heck, I even enjoy the post-production. With a YouTube RV channel, I get to marry my love of cinematography with my love of camping. And YouTube is nothing but the modern day version of the vacation slide show that our parents projected on the living room wall for friends and family to watch as they sipped Manhattans from the couch. The more people who watch our videos, the happier I am.

hotbyte wrote:


Someone holding a cup out on the street is asking for something (money) in exchange for nothing. YouTubers are creating content that is either entertaining or informative and expending time, effort, and other resources to create that content. They provide a link for viewers, that are so compelled, to reward them for that. I’m sure at times the poor pitiful me stories are to get more viewers to contribute but it is not begging unless that is the only content in the videos.

What’s your view of street performers? Are they beggars when they play/sing/etc. and accept money?

FirstTracks wrote:

Oh, so much to respond to!



You ARE good at it, and I'm saying that as one of your subs. Hang in there! (which sounds odd coming from someone trying to break into the medium, too.)

I suspect that you do it for the same reason I do: the fun of it. For me, photography (and by extension, cinematography) is a hobby, or more accurately a passion. I simply enjoy it. Heck, I even enjoy the post-production. With a YouTube RV channel, I get to marry my love of cinematography with my love of camping. And YouTube is nothing but the modern day version of the vacation slide show that our parents projected on the living room wall for friends and family to watch as they sipped Manhattans from the couch. The more people who watch our videos, the happier I am.



It's not constrictive or boring at all. We did the opposite of the current YouTube phase -- we came from a medium-sized sailboat to a small travel trailer. Years ago we lived along Florida's Gulf Coast, where we did a lot of weekend coastal cruising. Basically we got on the boat on Friday after work each week, and didn't get home until Sunday night. There's nothing like being out on a storm day, heeling 30º to leeward as you're beating upwind, waves breaking over the bow and soaking you at the stern in the cockpit. Or being at anchor in the mangroves -- the maritime equivalent of boondocking -- having a smoke on deck at 2 a.m. where all you hear all around you are the dolphins surfacing for air. Or when we registered for the race across the Gulf to Havana, Cuba (but regrettably had to back out). Then again, there's the time that we took a direct lightning strike 3 miles off St. Petersburg and made the 6 p.m. evening news. That's a whole different story, but it sure wasn't boring.

Ironically, an RV is kind of an extension of the sailboat mentality for us. We can drop anchor for the night (boondock) or stay in a marina (RV park). We can travel wherever our mood takes us. We get to experience Mother Nature at her finest, and at her worst. And much like I enjoyed tinkering with, upgrading, modifying and fixing things on the sailboat, I get to do the same on the RV, especially as the systems are remarkably similar to one another.



Au contraire! Let's look at Nomadic Fanatic as an example, although with 135K subs he's near the top of the YouTube RV wave. SocialBlade estimates his annual YT earnings at $3800-61,400 (https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/nomadicfanatic), although I can guarantee you that the true number is well south of the median of that range, as SocialBlade's top end is beyond a best case scenario. A more realistic example would be, say, Drivin' & Vibin', which SocialBlade estimates at $919 - $14.7K annually (again, the true number is almost assuredly well below the middle of that range). Our channel doesn't yet make a penny off YouTube, because you have to have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time over the preceding 12 months to even qualify for the YouTube Partner Program...to make $20 per year once we do qualify!

That's not enough to live off for a year, especially for a couple, so these full-timers find ways to supplement their income. For Drivin' & Vibin' almost all of their income came from an Etsy shop where they sold digital products. Sure, some go the Patreon route, but even as a YouTube publisher myself I do find that somewhat distasteful. Perhaps that's because I'd starve that way myself. LOL!

Amazon links are another story altogether. Those affiliate links take absolutely no money out of a viewer's pocket. The purchaser pays the same price to Amazon for something that they were buying anyway, it's just that Amazon pays the link affiliate a small (very small) commission. How small? Our site has earned a whopping $35 in four months that way. That's not even enough to cover the $15/month we pay to license music to use in the videos.

In my own example, I'll explain the backstory. I thought for sure that I was losing my job this past fall. My wife and I have sufficient financial resources that we decided that, should that happen, we'd tell the world to go screw itself, we'd pack up the dogs and the RV and go wander around the western U.S. until ski season started. At that point we'd return home and I'd ski while searching for a real job. It would be a three-month sabbatical of sorts.

And if we did that, we wanted to be able to document the experience for ourselves. I wanted to keep photos and video as a souvenir. As described above, I wanted to share my "modern-day slide show" with anyone who wanted to see it. So several thousands of dollars later I accumulated the drone, the gimbal camera, the microphones, the studio lighting, the camera bags, the green screen...

...and then I somehow kept my job.

So we're not full-timers, we're weekenders and vacation weekers who love sharing our own love of RVing with anyone willing to watch. Our Amazon links do a very small part to help offset that investment. We only provide links to products that we use ourselves, and would recommend to friends and family. Do I feel like an eBeggar because Amazon pays our channel a small commission on each sale? Not at all.

hotbyte wrote:

What’s your view of street performers? Are they beggars when they play/sing/etc. and accept money?

Range Maggot Bob wrote:

To me, 99% of those you tubers just love to see themselves on video. One of them that is VERY informative as related to boondocking and really great camping spots, is "Grand Adventures".