March 27, 2026

Faith, Family & Full-Time Miles: Five Years On the Road With Travel With the Brams | Community Spotlight

Send us Fan Mail Faith, Family & Full-Time Miles Sponsored by RV Roofing Solutions Joel and Kristina Bram nearly hit the road back in 2010 before kids, before COVID, before anyone had a roadschooling playbook. Life had other plans. Fast-forward through infertility, a global pandemic, and a sideswiped truck in Florida, and the Brams are closing in on 5 full years on the road with 3 kids. They also happen to be the marketing minds powering Learn To RV behind the scenes. Jen sat down with th...

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Send us Fan Mail

Faith, Family & Full-Time Miles Sponsored by RV Roofing Solutions

Joel and Kristina Bram nearly hit the road back in 2010 before kids, before COVID, before anyone had a roadschooling playbook. Life had other plans. Fast-forward through infertility, a global pandemic, and a sideswiped truck in Florida, and the Brams are closing in on 5 full years on the road with 3 kids. They also happen to be the marketing minds powering Learn To RV behind the scenes.

Jen sat down with the Brams to talk about what it takes to build community on the road, keep a family thriving through the hard seasons, and run a full-service digital marketing business from wherever you're parked.

Learn How:
● The first 6 months nearly ended their RV journey

● An unexpected moment convinced them full-time life was possible

● The RV community showed up for them in a way no church building had

● To balance extroverts & introverts on the road

● To find faith & fellowship while traveling

● To fund full-time travel with remote work

Links & Resources:
🚐 Joel & Kristina Bram:

● Travel with the Brams on Facebook

● Instagram: @travelwiththebrams

● pillar.io/travelwiththebrams

● ReFocus Digital Marketing

● KB Travel Professional

🙏 Faith on the Road:

● Gathering of Nomads — Learn To RV Podcast

● gatheringofnomads.com

🎙️ Visit Our Podcast Website: learntorvthepodcast.com

👥 Join Our Free Facebook Community: Learn to RV: The Community

📸 Follow Our Adventures: @LearnToRV

👉 More RV Life Resources: learntorv.com

📺 Watch on YouTube: Learn To RV Channel

💛 Support the Podcast:

● Patreon (Join the Campfire Crew for bonus content, early access, exclusive episodes, + swag)

● Buy Me a Coffee (drop us a tip ☕)

💬 Five years in or just getting started — what does community on the road look like for you? Share your story in our Facebook community!

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WEBVTT

00:00:04.799 --> 00:00:07.679
Hey guys, welcome back to the Learn to RV the podcast.

00:00:07.839 --> 00:00:12.880
Tonight or today, or whenever you're listening, you're in the community spotlight series.

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I love that we get to highlight people's stories and how long they've been on the road, why they got on the road, and maybe a few of their favorite places and other things that they've done.

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And so I love the diversity that brings us.

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So tonight, you've got Joel and Christina Bram, and they are all the things, but they're really special to me personally because last fall, as we were navigating some stuff with RV Roofing Solutions, we ran into them at the Hershey Show, and they took on a key role of things behind the scenes that you don't realize has been happening all along.

00:00:45.359 --> 00:00:46.719
They're just good people.

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Like, you know, you're gonna want to talk to them.

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So tonight we're gonna hop right in.

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Let's start with how you guys met because your story goes back way back, and it's a little bit more than just you know being on the road together.

00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:01.200
So how you met each other?

00:01:01.439 --> 00:01:02.079
Yeah.

00:01:02.719 --> 00:01:05.840
Well, actually, our anniversary is this weekend.

00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:09.359
Um, 18 years wedding anniversary is the 15th.

00:01:09.519 --> 00:01:10.959
So you you are not that old.

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You're right.

00:01:11.599 --> 00:01:12.239
We got married really.

00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:13.280
We got married young.

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I I grew up in Southern California and and then uh ended up interning at a church in their youth department in Surprise, Arizona.

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I had met Christina, she worked in the children's department.

00:01:26.640 --> 00:01:40.079
We were friends for a while, just knew each other, both worked on staff, and then after I graduated high school, I started going to college group, and yeah, from there we just became inseparable, and that was twenty that'll be twenty years ago this July.

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That's very cool.

00:01:43.200 --> 00:01:45.519
So, how old were you guys when you got married then?

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I was 20.

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I just turned 20.

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And I was just before my 25th birthday.

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Yeah, so we're four and a half years apart.

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That's cool though.

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Yeah, so I'm older than Frank.

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Most people don't realize that, but I'm a year and a half older than Frank.

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And so he couldn't, you know, drink at our wedding or any of the crazy stuff.

00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:10.400
Um there was no alcohol at our wedding because I wasn't old enough to drink, and so it was like saved an expense.

00:02:10.879 --> 00:02:16.400
Yeah, there wasn't supposed to be at ours, but um, you know, our families had different ideas.

00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:18.000
So yeah.

00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:21.439
All right, so getting on the road, whose idea was it?

00:02:21.599 --> 00:02:25.520
Um, we almost got on the road actually, way before we had kids.

00:02:25.759 --> 00:02:26.960
So what year was that?

00:02:27.039 --> 00:02:27.280
20.

00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:29.039
Um that would have been 2010.

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Kind of a long so we have three kids right now.

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Right now they're 10, 11, and 12.

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Um, but before our quick three came along, we actually had infertility issues.

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I had been told that I would never hold a pregnancy.

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We lost a few, unfortunately.

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And so around that time we were like, this is 2010, and we were like, how about we just buy an RV and go travel and do ministry and do life and go help people, have a new experience.

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We we actually had an opportunity to somebody was going to give us a bus, an old school bus, and we had considered converting that.

00:03:01.759 --> 00:03:04.000
And so that was the first like real push.

00:03:04.159 --> 00:03:15.680
Um, and then I looked at what it was gonna take to do that, and we said, well, maybe buying an RV is a better plan than converting a bus since that takes like years and more money than an RV.

00:03:15.759 --> 00:03:18.479
So especially at the time where it was not as common.

00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:22.960
So back in 2010, like I mean, you know, that you were you guys on the road yet in 2010?

00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:23.360
Yeah, yeah.

00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:27.360
Nope, we we hit the road in 2013, so we were a few years behind that.

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But like full-time families was formed in 2010, so there were a few families out there doing it.

00:03:32.240 --> 00:03:32.400
Right.

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There just wasn't as many resources, I feel like then.

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Like we didn't see the information we saw by the time we came around and doing this for real this this this time.

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But we've always been uh we've always been road trippers.

00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:54.719
Whenever we've gone anywhere, we had family lived, uh we were in Arizona where we launched from, and we were uh we had family in Texas and New Mexico, Colorado.

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So we, you know, whenever somebody'd be like, hey, come by, we'd be like, done.

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Let's go.

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Hop in the car, let's go.

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And 18 hours later, we're there.

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The kids road trip from when they were little too.

00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:08.879
Like, we have pictures of them at one, two infants, and they'd all be in the car.

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We'd just like go on adventures.

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So I think it was always in our soul like to be this nomadic.

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We just honestly, I don't think we realized though, like after we didn't do it the first time, life happened.

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We ended up getting pregnant in 2012.

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That was JoJo.

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We had her in 2013.

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We kind of had put it out because we were like, oh, you don't do that with kids, right?

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And so then it wasn't until COVID hit, which I think a lot of people experience, where we stopped long enough to look out our window, see that people were doing this, and went, oh, we could do that.

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That would be really fun.

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Why not?

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And so that started our adventure of the whole why not.

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So, although it was my idea the second time, it was both of us.

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He wasn't too hard to convince, I don't think.

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I was looking forward to the travel.

00:04:52.639 --> 00:05:05.920
One of the other things that we always say is we never owned a house, we always rented, and and it was always because we just the idea of settling down in a neighborhood felt foreign to us.

00:05:06.079 --> 00:05:16.240
We we had we've been in a couple neighborhoods where we had amazing neighbors, but it just felt so foreign to just be like stuck in one place and make that your base.

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So I I think we really had it ingrained in us from the beginning.

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We just didn't realize you could with kids.

00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:28.639
Yeah, no, I mean, like when Frank retired from the Marine Corps, that was the second house we had bought.

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We had actually, so before he retired, we had bought a house in the middle of the desert in Joshua Tree, thinking that he was never gonna leave that last unit.

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And when we got orders, we actually that was that was a nightmare because we had six horses and we gave up a whole ranch because we had to move.

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And then so we settled back down in that same desert.

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But a year later, I was feeling like trapped.

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I don't I don't know how else to say it other than that.

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But I didn't want to do this like ever.

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I didn't want to go on the road full time.

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It was all Frank's idea.

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And you know, I came home from a ministry event and came home and said, We're supposed to go full time.

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And uh he looked at me and said, I've been waiting seven years for you to say that.

00:06:06.399 --> 00:06:08.800
And the next morning he sold our t television.

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Like he didn't wait.

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Like he's like, You mean it?

00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:13.519
Yeah, yeah.

00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:17.680
So I mean, like it was kind of like at that point, okay, we're doing this, we're gonna do this.

00:06:17.759 --> 00:06:19.600
So, you know, doing it with kids is different.

00:06:19.759 --> 00:06:21.759
So we hit the road with six out of seven of our kids.

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Our oldest was 18 at the time.

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She moved out, said, Love you, mean it.

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I don't want to do this.

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And so, but you know, you guys started.

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How old were your kids when you started traveling?

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Four, six, and seven, right?

00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:34.480
Oh wow.

00:06:34.639 --> 00:06:36.560
No, five, five, seven, five, seven, and eight.

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Five, seven, and eight.

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Five, seven and eight.

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So And they're how old now?

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10, 11, 12.

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So we're about to hit year five this May, the end of May.

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That's a big milestone in this community.

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You know, four years, you've seen a lot of people roll roll on and off the road by now.

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So I mean, like, what does that feel like?

00:06:55.199 --> 00:06:56.399
There's definitely like benchmarks.

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We kind of said, like, it feels like there's like the one-year people who like, okay, we did it, we tried it, we experienced it, cool, not for us.

00:07:02.319 --> 00:07:08.560
Um, and then you have other people who like three years felt like a lot of people that we knew got off the road.

00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:19.600
Um, and now I feel like we found a community of people with kids about the same age that we love, and that a lot of them are in that same like five, six, seven-year mark, who a lot of us call ourselves lifers almost.

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Like, as long as our kids are thriving.

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And part of that thriving though is actually having them together.

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So traveling, meeting up often, making sure that they have those relationships is so vital in that tween teen for us.

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So, but it's changed a lot.

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Like, I think every time groups of people got off the road, we definitely reevaluated, like, okay, why is everyone else getting off the road?

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Are they seeing something we don't see?

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Um, there's always that like fear.

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You know what I mean?

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Do you did you guys ever feel like that, Jen?

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Oh, yeah, totally.

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Like our four-year point was when a lot of our friends rolled off the road.

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And so then you, you know, you kind of regroup and you go to the friends that are still on the road that you've known before.

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One of our friends, The Simpsons, is a family that we traveled with extensively over the last 13 years, and all of our kids grew up together.

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And so, like, they've been to prom together now.

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And, you know, when they met, they were like six and seven.

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So now, you know, their son and my son are still best friends and they meet online and play games at night when even when they're not together, they make the time to be together.

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I think you have to learn to, you know, overcome and adapt it.

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I always caution people because I've been with families where we've made a decision to travel with other families and we don't know them well yet.

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It sounds like the group that you travel with, you know pretty well.

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Yeah, we've done a lot of like little meetups, and so it'll be like a few weeks, and then we tried like a month, and so like, and there's always just that really flexible, like, hey, this is for me, this isn't for me, you know, we're gonna go do this.

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Um, a lot of boundaries are good.

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So it's one of my really are really good friends, she's like the boundary queen.

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I love her to pieces.

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She's so good at being like, no, I don't want to go.

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And like, she's like, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I just don't want to, and that's okay.

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And so I've actually learned a lot from she gives me books.

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She was like, here's this book you need to read, Christina, because you're terrible at boundaries.

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I'm like, love you too.

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But I mean, I think too.

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But I think knowing like what the strengths and weaknesses are of those relationships is a critical point for that.

00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:12.159
Do you think the kids catch on to some of that?

00:09:12.240 --> 00:09:14.559
Uh, do you have all extroverts, all introverts?

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How do your kids manage the road?

00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:32.879
So we do know that we've got a couple of extroverts and an introvert, and we just encourage them to you know explore, to be themselves around their friends so that when they're out, they're not feeling like they have to put on a mask.

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They don't feel like they have to be normal.

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They can be a little weird and have fun.

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And the thing that I actually really love about like the group of friends they have right now is um there's a variety of boys-girls, ages like 14 all the way down to like eight, and they all intermingle and play with each other.

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So there's not this like, you know, in public school where the kids are all like all the fifth graders together, all this, and all your friends are like the same age.

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In this community, they don't have that.

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Like, not just like our friend group, but like the whole RB community.

00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:10.960
Like the kids get to interact with other children that aren't their exact same age, different genders, like they get to experience and try new things.

00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:16.159
Um, and we love we we we always joke that we're raising them like 90s kids, but it's so true.

00:10:16.320 --> 00:10:19.120
Like it it allows us to give them a different experience.

00:10:19.279 --> 00:10:23.840
We always joke that Joel has two that are like him and I have one like me because I'm more introverted.

00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:26.879
Um I run out of people skills, like people ing.

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And Joel and two of our kids can just people all day long.

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And so me and our my one introvert will just come inside and be like, let's go watch a movie, let's sneak away and go like have some ice fun.

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And him and the other two are gone till like midnight.

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And I'm like, Who are you people?

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See, and I have a friend named Becky, and Becky actually taught me something a long time ago.

00:10:45.919 --> 00:10:54.000
She was like, We'd go to these moms' nights out with all the other moms, and she'd say, I always want to sit next to Jennifer, and I could never figure out why, because she was a super introvert.

00:10:54.159 --> 00:10:56.960
And she said, Because you carry the conversation.

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When I start talking, though, you will step back and let me carry the conversation.

00:11:02.399 --> 00:11:04.879
I tell people all the time, that's a trained response.

00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:08.799
So my friends, Jason, he actually taught me how to be friends with his wife, Stephanie.

00:11:08.879 --> 00:11:11.440
And I actually had to be trained how to be friends with an introvert.

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So the first time I ever went over to their house, I went over and knocked on their door, and I'm like, and their little girl comes to the door.

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She's seven at the time and looks at me and she goes, You may not knock on my door.

00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:22.960
Oh, and I was like, Oh, okay.

00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:25.200
She's like, You must text my mother first.

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She needs to know that you're coming.

00:11:27.279 --> 00:11:30.000
So, but that was the birth of a really neat friendship.

00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:34.480
And that's the family we've traveled with over the years extensively from coast to coast.

00:11:34.559 --> 00:11:39.600
And so, like, our kids have a very different relationship with that family than a lot of other families.

00:11:39.759 --> 00:11:42.879
It does help that they've been on the road a year longer than us.

00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:46.639
And so, you know, we've done a lot of projects together, we've run rallies together.

00:11:46.799 --> 00:11:51.120
So the kids have a lot of similar experiences, and that really builds the community a lot.

00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:55.120
Um, I'm gonna switch gears just a little bit because you mentioned being a youth pastor.

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Do you do church on the road?

00:11:56.879 --> 00:11:59.600
So we we have done it a little different.

00:11:59.759 --> 00:12:04.559
We have enjoyed it, occasionally gone to churches on uh, you know, out and about.

00:12:04.960 --> 00:12:08.639
We joined a group called Gathering of Nomads.

00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:11.440
While they aren't Shane on the podcast, actually, right?

00:12:11.600 --> 00:12:12.960
Yeah, Shane's been on the podcast.

00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:14.480
So you guys should know, yeah.

00:12:14.559 --> 00:12:16.799
You guys have you know Shane the boy.

00:12:17.120 --> 00:12:19.440
So we'll make sure to link back to that in the show notes too.

00:12:19.519 --> 00:12:24.240
So if anybody wants to catch that replay on Shane, they can catch that there on Gathering of Nomads.

00:12:24.399 --> 00:12:35.919
Yeah, and it's it's you know, the thing is that that's not proper church per se, like as Americans would consider it, you know, building and worship and and you know, Bible time in the structured sense.

00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:56.799
But, you know, if you look through the Bible, the church was people getting together, breaking bread together, hanging out, discussing the word and outside of the confines of a head pastor watching over them and and uh you know a building and overhead and things like that.

00:12:56.879 --> 00:12:59.759
So for us, that's church, you know.

00:13:00.159 --> 00:13:05.519
When we first got on the road, we thought we would do more ministry stuff, but it just hasn't been the opportunity.

00:13:05.679 --> 00:13:09.679
So we we've served in other ways, like we're big on community building.

00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:22.000
So we've tried to host rallies, we've done um, you know, craft days, get togethers, which I think is ministry in its own right because RV life can be kind of lonely if you're not intentional about trying to bring people together.

00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:25.120
Um, and we have always kind of considered ourselves gatherers.

00:13:25.200 --> 00:13:28.159
We're like, hey, if you don't have anywhere to go, like come sit with us.

00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:29.919
Like, let's let's all go, let's all be together.

00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:32.000
And I know, Jen, that's very similar to you.

00:13:32.159 --> 00:13:34.080
Like, I think we're very similar in that.

00:13:34.159 --> 00:13:39.519
Like, we just want to take everybody with us, and everyone should have a place at the table and let's just all be friends, you know.

00:13:39.679 --> 00:13:45.039
So that kind of we feel like that has become church in a lot of ways, but it just not the conventional sense.

00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:50.480
Well, and we didn't have a good experience when we first hit the road with churches because we were like, we're gonna go to church, every town.

00:13:50.720 --> 00:14:00.639
The first time we would walk in, we would walk in with six kids plus Frank and I, and people were like, Oh my gosh, big family, big congregation, they're gonna step in and we'd be there two weeks and move on.

00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:04.159
And then they were like sending us an email, like, what did we do wrong?

00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:05.440
And I was like, No, no, no.

00:14:05.519 --> 00:14:07.200
Well, this is what we are, this is who we are.

00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:20.000
And so we actually had some very negative interactions at some churches where we had great interactions at others where people were very supportive, but it was new to them, the whole idea, you know, back in 2013, who was doing this handful of people.

00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:22.879
And so, you know, I think it's more common now.

00:14:23.039 --> 00:14:28.559
And I was actually talking to somebody today that said, they uh we're welcomed everywhere we go, and that's fantastic.

00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:30.320
I wish more churches were like that.

00:14:30.480 --> 00:14:34.000
So if that works for you and you can go to a church while you're traveling, that's great.

00:14:34.080 --> 00:14:43.279
But you know, there are alternatives like gathering of nomads as a place to like find community, find people to pray with, just have that support system, you know.

00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:47.360
And I mean, like that's the whole thing is without a support system, it kind of fizzes.

00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:49.600
Did you ever travel without a support system?

00:14:49.759 --> 00:14:51.360
I guess that would be the next question.

00:14:51.519 --> 00:14:54.080
How long did it take you to find community?

00:14:55.279 --> 00:14:57.440
Yeah, about the first six six months.

00:14:57.840 --> 00:14:58.879
Winter at TTO, right?

00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:05.279
When we first hit the road, we both got COVID for we were both down for over a month from that.

00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:14.159
We had to call TTO or not TTO, Thousand Trails and be like, hey, we really need to stay an extra week, even though we're not supposed to, because we're both deathly sick.

00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:19.600
The news was though, it was Texas in the summer, and if you know like Texas, it was gross, it was so humid.

00:15:19.759 --> 00:15:23.120
There was nobody there, so they didn't, they were actually really accommodating, which is super nice.

00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:26.960
But yeah, so we ended up being in Texas longer than we thought, and there wasn't families.

00:15:27.039 --> 00:15:35.679
Like, we actually we joke that every time our our kids saw another kid that first six months, they would like be like, Oh, you're my friend, oh, I never want to lose you again.

00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:44.559
Like they were almost like starving for community right away, which was we honestly thought probably that first like four or five months that it wasn't gonna work for us.

00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:51.120
That we were like, Okay, we maybe made a bad choice, and then we got to Florida in the winter, and that was really the the turning point for us.

00:15:51.200 --> 00:15:56.879
We found a lot of really wonderful people, people we're still friends with now that we've known all this time.

00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:07.200
People we see all the time, and it's it was that you know, finding places, we we joined a community, we were able to keep in communication, find out where people were.

00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:14.639
The big turning point for us was we well, not we, Christina was dry out driving the truck.

00:16:14.720 --> 00:16:16.399
It was our only vehicle at the time.

00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:18.080
And you're not blaming me, are you?

00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:24.720
I just she I blame I blame Florida because it was a Florida drivers are the worst.

00:16:24.879 --> 00:16:33.759
Sorry, tell the story completely oblivious uh older lady um that I'm pretty sure probably wouldn't have stopped, didn't even realize she hit you.

00:16:33.919 --> 00:16:43.679
Uh she sideswiped Christina in the truck and uh did did enough damage, pretty much almost the entire side of the truck, that the truck had to go into the shop.

00:16:44.080 --> 00:16:46.720
And so this is our only vehicle and it moves our house.

00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:53.200
And we were doing what everyone calls the Florida shuffle, which is two weeks in each thousand trails all winter long.

00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:56.399
And so that happened literally the first week we were in Florida.

00:16:56.559 --> 00:16:56.960
Yep.

00:16:57.120 --> 00:16:57.440
Yeah.

00:16:57.679 --> 00:16:57.919
Yeah.

00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:02.000
The first uh our first thousand trails stop in Florida.

00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:03.600
Trucks out of commission now.

00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:05.680
This is November of 2021.

00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:11.440
And at the time, there just wasn't anybody that you could, there wasn't like rental trucks you could get a hold of.

00:17:11.599 --> 00:17:18.960
So we were stranded and we very much had to just like put out this plea and was like, hey, can anybody help us?

00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:20.079
Can anybody move us?

00:17:20.240 --> 00:17:22.880
And ended up having to we had to be moved seven or eight times.

00:17:23.119 --> 00:17:26.880
Yeah, they had our they had our truck for three months, over three months.

00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:28.079
Wow.

00:17:28.559 --> 00:17:37.119
We were stranded, and I kid you not, the full-time traveling people, it was a lot of full-time families because that was the chat group we had access to at the time.

00:17:37.279 --> 00:17:38.720
We put out that we needed moved.

00:17:38.799 --> 00:17:44.799
We had people literally just pull up, stick our house on the back, move us, give us a high five, and be like, see you down the road.

00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:54.400
Um, we had another guy hand us his truck keys to his like really nice truck and was like, here, just gas it up when you're done uh and let us take it again, seven or eight times.

00:17:54.559 --> 00:17:57.039
And we had never experienced community like that.

00:17:57.200 --> 00:18:03.440
Even coming from like the ministry and the church world, we had never felt the kind of community and outpouring.

00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:07.519
And so from there on, we became the people who were like, if you need us, we're there.

00:18:07.599 --> 00:18:14.480
Like, not that we're like trying to repay a debt, but it was this like people gave up and helped us and they didn't have to.

00:18:14.559 --> 00:18:18.319
They just showed up, they didn't know us, and it was such a foreign, amazing feeling.

00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:24.720
And so, yeah, so we always said from that point on, like that was what, six months in, that we would invest back in the RB community.

00:18:24.880 --> 00:18:34.480
We would help host rallies, we would get people together for potlucks, we would do whatever we could, pick up people, we've moved people a bunch of times now as just like uh, you know, hey, you need us, we're here, let's do it.

00:18:34.799 --> 00:18:35.839
I say I have, he has.

00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:54.559
Yeah, we've I mean at one point we literally just gave somebody the keys to our truck because we were like we were sitting still, we had somebody else who could move us through the shuffle, and so we said, Hey, you need a truck, you need to get down, you have a you know, you they had a a need, and we handed them the keys and they they were able to take part in something that was important for their life.

00:18:54.720 --> 00:19:22.160
This community that I mean that's that's a huge reason why why we you know really enjoyed getting to know you, Jennifer and Frank, and and joined in and partnered with you guys because we just we want to build this community beyond what is what people see on Instagram and what what is seen, what you think the the independent go off to the keys and go stick your toes in the water lifestyle.

00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:26.640
It's like no, the day-to-day lifestyle of this is community.

00:19:26.799 --> 00:19:30.559
It's it's community when you need it and distance when you don't.

00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:32.319
Yeah, no, for sure.

00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:35.920
And I think that, you know, that that was what drew me to you guys too.

00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:40.000
You know, it's it's one of those things that I always say the magic's in the meetups.

00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:46.240
And so, you know, sometimes it's shorter time frames, but sometimes it's just, you know, doing life with people.

00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:55.920
And so, you know, I think that RV life lends itself to that in different ways than any other lifestyle does, you know, and I'm excited to see where that's going with Learn to RV.

00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:01.759
So let's let's dive in just a snitch to that, because you guys are at this point fully invested in learn to RV.

00:20:02.079 --> 00:20:04.079
And so that's kind of a thing.

00:20:04.319 --> 00:20:09.200
Um, people, Jennifer, we just level your ideas.

00:20:09.759 --> 00:20:10.400
Is that it?

00:20:10.559 --> 00:20:17.359
So um, you know, learn to RV is kind of the heartbeat of what I am doing, but the reality is it can't be done alone.

00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:20.000
As far as that goes, you know, you bring a skill set.

00:20:20.079 --> 00:20:21.839
So you have to be able to make money on the road.

00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:23.440
So let's talk about how you did that.

00:20:23.599 --> 00:20:25.279
Because the reality is very simple.

00:20:25.599 --> 00:20:34.720
You have a special set of skills between the two of you that so I'm I'm guessing we need to talk about how you like fund your travels.

00:20:34.880 --> 00:20:37.359
You know, you're not, you know, some trust fund kid, right?

00:20:37.519 --> 00:20:41.440
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I would happily be a trust fund kid.

00:20:41.519 --> 00:20:41.839
Just saying.

00:20:42.079 --> 00:20:47.599
If anybody wants to give us enough money to support us, yeah, if anybody has just traveled fun, they just want to like we'll take it.

00:20:48.720 --> 00:20:51.039
But we have skills to pay the bills.

00:20:51.359 --> 00:20:55.039
So I've I've worked in technology for for many years.

00:20:55.200 --> 00:20:57.279
I don't know off the top of my head how many.

00:20:57.440 --> 00:21:12.400
Um I was fortunate to be able to find a couple of remote jobs, and that that took us over that edge of the first couple of years on the road, just trying to um you know, just trying to make sure that we could travel and we got to see the east coast.

00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:22.880
But what's really neat is Christina in pre-COVID had started a business doing marketing and digital digital marketing and ads management.

00:21:23.039 --> 00:21:34.400
And we she took a pause when the kids came home in 2020 and she really enjoyed working with small businesses and um building businesses.

00:21:34.559 --> 00:21:39.599
So it yeah, it started as just like ads management because that at the time was very trendy.

00:21:39.759 --> 00:21:44.960
Um because it was a segue into what I really enjoyed, which was creating content.

00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:50.559
Um, and it's so interesting how much it's changed over the years of marketing as a whole.

00:21:50.799 --> 00:21:57.200
And so we do um social media management, marketing, full service marketing, content creation.

00:21:57.440 --> 00:21:59.519
And so I started a business and it was like one client.

00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:00.640
Clients.

00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:13.599
Um, it kind of grew, and then we just um Joel had a lot to offer in that, so we actually joined forces, and so now we do everything from SEO, website building, social media management, email marketing, kind of your full service marketing company.

00:22:13.759 --> 00:22:14.799
Um, it's really cool.

00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:15.759
We love working together.

00:22:15.920 --> 00:22:19.359
We actually have worked together multiple times since we were dating.

00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:21.759
We worked together and then always so it's fun.

00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:24.720
He's he has a very complimentary skill set.

00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:27.119
Um, and so yeah, so it's a lot of fun.

00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:33.359
And back at Hershey, I know we had gotten connected, and that has been a fun adventure ever since working with you guys.

00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:37.440
I mean, you're gonna be the people that help take learned RV to the next level.

00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:43.119
And so, you know, that's kind of the exciting part of this is behind the scenes, you guys are a huge aspect.

00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:49.039
So you don't just work on the road, you actually have a travel channel, you're actually, dare I say, influencers.

00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:52.960
And dude, we've always like had a love-hate relationship with the influencer thing.

00:22:53.119 --> 00:23:00.640
But it's funny because someone will say, like, we had something, a product in a reel recently, and a friend of ours walked up and they're like, Oh my gosh, you totally influenced my husband to buy that thing.

00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:01.839
Tell your husband thank you.

00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:06.559
And like shooting sarcastic because he spent money, but he bought it and they were actually really happy with it.

00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:09.039
And it was a product that you know, we had promoted on our channel.

00:23:09.279 --> 00:23:13.440
So yeah, we are travel with the brands um on social media.

00:23:13.599 --> 00:23:14.079
It's fun.

00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:14.799
We enjoy it.

00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:18.480
We do it for work, so it's like, why wouldn't we build something of our own too?

00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:19.119
Yeah.

00:23:19.279 --> 00:23:22.160
No, and and you don't do nearly as much as you should on it.

00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:30.960
But you know, now that you're coming over to Learn to RV to help with a lot of the things, I'm sure that we're gonna see lots more of Christina and Joel as we move forward with all of that.

00:23:31.200 --> 00:23:33.839
It is hard to create your own brand and not want to be on camera.

00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:35.200
Like, I think that's my struggle.

00:23:35.440 --> 00:23:35.759
Yeah.

00:23:36.079 --> 00:23:37.359
I don't love being on camera.

00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:38.720
And he's always like, Well, you have to be.

00:23:38.799 --> 00:23:40.319
And I was like, Well, then I won't make content.

00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:41.680
That's there to go.

00:23:42.240 --> 00:23:44.720
I don't mind, but nobody wants to see my face all the time.

00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:48.799
Well, see, but that's that's the thing, is like that's why I was like, I don't need to start a podcast.

00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:59.440
Because, you know, I had spent, you know, 12 years avoiding a brand because narrow road schoolers never really blew up because we decided our first year in that we weren't gonna do that, and so we didn't try.

00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:01.759
And so I've seen all the creators come and go.

00:24:01.920 --> 00:24:05.039
And so, you know, when people say, Oh, you know, so yeah, I do.

00:24:05.279 --> 00:24:06.640
I mean, like, I have dinner with them.

00:24:06.720 --> 00:24:08.400
It doesn't mean that I was one of them.

00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:13.519
And so now that I'm, you know, stepped into this role with Learn to RV, it's a whole new world.

00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:22.640
And so, like, I got my first media kit where you guys have been doing media kits forever, and so like, you know, it's old hat to you, where I was like, This is crazy.

00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:23.359
I loved it.

00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:29.119
It was the good news was it was very easy to impress you with the media kit because you were like, oh, and I was like, Oh, it's just a media kit.

00:24:29.279 --> 00:24:30.240
You're like, but it's so cool.

00:24:30.400 --> 00:24:32.000
And I was like, You're right, it is cool.

00:24:32.160 --> 00:24:32.799
That's true.

00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:33.440
I loved it.

00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:36.960
Yeah, but it's funny, I don't think people realize what a small community this is.

00:24:37.039 --> 00:24:48.559
Like, not that we all know everybody, but like it's very likely that you've met when you live full-time on the road that you've met a lot of the other full-time creators as you just it's we people wouldn't think that because the country is so large.

00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:49.920
So, how do you run into people?

00:24:50.079 --> 00:24:56.160
But the circles are small and there's only so many places to go and congregate and have communities, so it's fun.

00:24:56.319 --> 00:24:59.839
Knowing so many people over the years, just haven't gotten to meet people along the way is fun.

00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:02.640
And you get to see their genuine side, I guess, as well.

00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:03.119
Yeah.

00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:03.519
Yeah.

00:25:03.680 --> 00:25:06.000
Well, and I think that, you know, they're real people too.

00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:09.440
Like ultimately at the end of the day, I think we're all just real people.

00:25:09.599 --> 00:25:18.960
I mean, so that was actually why I didn't create a brand, is our first year on the road, my friend Margie said to me, You'll do it until somebody walks up and knows all your kids' names.

00:25:19.119 --> 00:25:21.200
And that was exactly what happened a year later.

00:25:21.359 --> 00:25:26.720
And I was like, and there was only like a thousand followers at that point, it wasn't like a ton, and they knew all my kids' names.

00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:30.079
And I was like, the kids looked at me and went, Okay, that was weird, I'm done.

00:25:30.240 --> 00:25:33.599
And so that was where it stopped for us at the time.

00:25:33.759 --> 00:25:36.880
And so, you know, learn to RV, they don't have to be on camera.

00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:51.039
So I think that that gives them that autonomy that they still want, but we still only have three kids traveling with us now, years later, because you know, some of mine have actually turned into like grown adults and moved out, so so it's a weird stage.

00:25:51.279 --> 00:25:56.960
Yeah, you're at an interesting new stage where yeah, you have adult kids who are having kids and you know, moving on with life.

00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:01.839
And so but yet I still have a 14 and a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old still on board.

00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:03.359
So, yeah, it's a little bit of both.

00:26:03.599 --> 00:26:04.480
Yeah, that's cool.

00:26:04.799 --> 00:26:05.200
All right.

00:26:05.279 --> 00:26:09.359
So, are you taking on new clients with your digital marketing company?

00:26:09.519 --> 00:26:13.359
That's really the big question that all small businesses are gonna be asking next.

00:26:13.599 --> 00:26:17.920
We're always open to having discussions and seeing, you know, if if our talents can help businesses grow.

00:26:18.079 --> 00:26:19.839
Because at the end of the day, that's our heart.

00:26:19.920 --> 00:26:23.279
Like the reason that we do what we do is we want to help them.

00:26:23.359 --> 00:26:29.039
We want to help them grow and share their story um in an authentic way and use our talents to do that.

00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:31.599
But our big focus is building learn to RV.

00:26:31.680 --> 00:26:33.119
We're really excited about that brand.

00:26:33.279 --> 00:26:37.359
Just with our passions and your passions, like I think there's so many exciting things to come.

00:26:37.519 --> 00:26:40.799
So that's gonna be a huge passion of ours over the next season.

00:26:41.039 --> 00:26:50.400
Yeah, I'll never forget the day we met in Hershey and like a week later, you said to me, I need you to shut off all your ads and just trust us so we can see what's gonna happen next.

00:26:50.480 --> 00:26:53.599
And I was like, you know, it's every business owner's worst nightmare.

00:26:53.759 --> 00:27:02.400
And so, you know, shutting off your Google Ads and we did it for 30 days, and organically, Joel and you turned around kind of what those numbers look like.

00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:06.400
So if any business owners are out there listing, you know, this is the team.

00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:09.200
Now I still want them for Learn to RV and RV Riffing Solutions.

00:27:09.359 --> 00:27:11.279
Oh, and these two promo.

00:27:12.079 --> 00:27:16.559
Yeah, so but the reality is is where can they find you if they wanted to reach out to you?

00:27:16.720 --> 00:27:21.519
Yeah, they want to look where uh refocus digital marketing is our uh business name.

00:27:21.599 --> 00:27:27.839
Um and you can reach out to us at Joel at Refocus Digital Marketing or Christina at refocusdm.com.

00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:29.599
Um that's with a K.

00:27:29.839 --> 00:27:30.880
Yes, Christina with RefM.

00:27:31.119 --> 00:27:33.359
Make sure you spell her name right to do that.

00:27:33.759 --> 00:27:34.559
You know, it's funny.

00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:39.839

Faith, Family & Full-Time Miles: Five Years On the Road With Travel With the Brams | Community Spotlight

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