Canada to Full-Time: How 1 Family Crossed Borders, Built Community & Created Opportunity | Community Spotlight

SPEAKER_01 0:04

We're back at the Learn to R V community spotlight series. And today I'm actually on site with somebody at a park that we're in together. And so that's always fun. This is Jennifer Stansford. You and I have known each other for probably four years now. And so Jennifer's been on the road with her family, but she's a little bit different than a lot of our community spotlight series people. And I can't wait to tell you why. So tell me a little bit about how you and your family got on the road.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

So we're from Canada originally, and we had bought land out in New Brunswick during COVID. We moved there and while we were clearing the land, we decided to buy an RV to put on it while we get it all cleared. And after the first summer, we knew the winter was coming and we knew we needed to head south. So we snowbirded down here for a few years and got on the road. But we knew as soon as we had been on the road, it was only like two hours, and we knew we were gonna keep doing this for a long time. Since then, we've even sold our land and we know we're not going back to New Brunswick in Canada, anyways, if we go back. That's fascinating. So do you have a home base now at all? We use our parents' house in Ontario, Canada as a home base, but we're actually Florida residents now. We're here on a visa through my husband's work.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Oh, that's not to worry about the snowbirding anymore. I mean, let's talk a little bit about that because so many people don't know online, you know, what that looks like for people. I didn't realize. Our first year on the road, I met this Canadian couple and they said, Well, it's not our laws that keep us out, it's yours. And I was fascinated by that. So, like crossing the border, what it does that entail for you guys?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

I mean, the big thing that I always have to do personally, like as the household side of things, is like we can't bring any meat and fruits and things like that across the border. So we honestly just empty most of our refrigerator completely, other than maybe condiments and stuff like that. Um, but we empty everything just so that we never have a problem because one time chicken was allowed to come to the US, but by the time we made it to the border, it wasn't allowed to come to the US. And we almost had to get to do a full inspection because of that. They helped us through, but they could they could have they could have done a full inspection just because of one chicken breast in the freezer. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Yeah. So it was one of those things where we were talking, we we own a company and we can't go into Canada with product and tools without them questioning us. So we haven't been into Canada in the 13 years we've been traveling for that reason. Well, no, that's not true. We we we accidentally entered Canada once and that spent a day because we didn't bring birth certificates because we weren't planning on going to Canada. And so that that is a whole thing. So if you're planning to go to Canada, make sure you have all your paperwork. But if you're planning to come back to the US, make sure to have all your paperwork. That was what we learned that day.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Yeah, and I think you need passports now. I think it's not even just used to be able to do birth certificates. Yeah, I remember like a many years ago, but now it's passports are a must to get back. You can get to Canada without a passport, but you can't get back to the US without one.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

And that was exactly the problem. And we didn't have any intention of staying in Canada that day. In fact, we were in the Pacific Northwest going into Peace Park, and I missed the turn. Oh no. When you miss the turn, the next turn is Canada. There's no way to turn around except go forward. To marry to a retired Marine, he was like, just go. There's barriers, you gotta go. But as far as being Canadian, so you said you're on a visa now.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

What changed to make that happen? We were sponsored through my husband's work. So uh he works in the internet security field, and his his company sponsored us to be down here. So now we're here on a visa for it's three years with the option to add some, and those visa classes can change too. So we'll see over the next few years how that works. If we can change visa classes and hopefully have a green card the next few years, that's our plan.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Now you also travel with kids, correct? We do. Yeah. So how old are your kids?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Uh they are nine and ten right now, almost eleven.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

And so when you first started traveling, how old were they?

SPEAKER_00 3:38

So they were five and seven. Okay, so this is normal for them for the most part. Yeah, between moving to the east coast and then being in the RV, that's that's really all that they they've known for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

So a lot of people always want to know how to road school? Is is there a method that you personally use that's different than others, or if you'd share a little bit about your road schooling journey, even?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

I um I started trying to do it all myself and I was really, really trying to do it everything myself. And because I'm working and because we're schooling, I was struggling a lot. And it wasn't until I got on the road and met other moms and started getting recommendations on uh different curriculums and things like that that I started changing things up. So I I changed to my academy, the academy, uh people say it differently, so I'm not sure. But I changed to that a few years ago. Um, and it's been really, really helpful. So it's all online, uh pre-recorded videos, so they can do it any time of day, and I've loved it. Now, does that give you the flexibility that you need to explore and travel as well? Because they can do it from anywhere. They do it in the car a lot of the times. We have work workbooks that go along with it. We bring it everywhere with us. They get it done, not a huge amount of time when you're homeschooling, right? It's not the same as being in school for eight hours. We make it work. We do four days a week. Fridays is our fun day with the kids, so we always take the day working-ish, but while we're traveling, like while we go and do something. So while we're in the Orlando marketplace, we're always at SeaWorld or Aquatica or somewhere like that, just uh just having a day with the kids out and about. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

And there's tons of education just in that alone. A ton. Yes. Like that's the thing people don't realize is how much we do. So, what would you say is like one of the places that you were surprised by the amount of education experience there?

SPEAKER_00 5:14

I feel like even SeaWorld, although I knew there was a lot of education there, I still feel like we've been going there for two seasons now while we've been here during the winter, and we'll still we're still learning new things every single time we go. I also really love the Orlando Science Center. It's been really, really good. We were just there last week and it was the second year we've been there, and I really liked it there.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Yeah, that's a great spot too. I think that so much is like the passions that we build into our kids and the foundations that we build, taking them to places like SeaWorld or other types of marine life animal places, most people don't even realize how much rescuing they do, how much money that they put toward rescues, even just here in Florida, manatee rescue, all sorts of things. That that's not just, you know, an amusement park. You actually can do things like touch a stingray. There's so much that like is hands-on that I feel like builds that protectiveness to our earth and our communities. What about the kids? So, like, you know, the other thing everybody asks, and I have seven kids, but they're gonna say, Well, what about socialization? How do you meet up with other families on the road?

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Well, spending our winters in Florida definitely we loved it because every winter everyone kind of disperses for the summer and goes up north because it gets too hot down here. We can stay, but it gets pretty hot down here. We head to Canada normally for a month or so every year, and then everyone kind of comes back here. So, starting in October-ish, a lot of our friends were already back here, and my kids have hundreds of friends, especially at this park we're at right now. There are so many children around, and it is so wonderful to be in a community that everyone is just so tightly knit and you're always meeting new people. You never think you're gonna meet new people, you think you've been around a long time and you're not gonna meet new people, and then there's a whole bunch of new people who you've never met before at a park. So it's truly wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Well, and it's being on a different schedule, it's new people come on the road and being accepting of those new people. But you guys are also believers, right? And so the other side of that is finding some kind of community to support that on the road. How do you guys do that?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

So we've joined uh the Gathering of Nomads. I know there's an entire podcast about that with you. So we did that very early on. We just we we still go to church every single Sunday. Um, no matter where we are, we find a church and then we kind of join that community really, really quickly. Even when we're up in Canada and traveling, we're always just going to church and meeting new people, which to us is powerful because I now have people in the community that I can reach out all across North America as we've been traveling in different cities where we've gone to churches and I've connected with other moms and things like that. It's truly powerful.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

And so you find that the churches are open to that.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

That's interesting because when I hit the road full time, we did that for the first two years and we found that they were not open to that back then. It's good to know that things change.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah, I mean, even when we were up at my mom's house like a few summers ago, we did VBS at a brand new church. We had never really been before. The kids did Vacation Bible camp there. I actually went and served as a like as a leader there for the summer. And they let me do it. They actually thanked me and said normally people who are just passing through wouldn't help in this kind of situation. They were very thankful and and very happy I did. That's actually fantastic. It's great to hear that.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

I love going to the gathering of nomads just for a place for support and prayer. When you're going through something that you don't want to talk about online, I love that it's a private group that you can trust the people that are there.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Do you guys do rallies at all? We haven't. Our very first year we did the full-time families. We were at Madison when the full-time families rally was going on, but we weren't actually part of the rally. And that's the closest we've even come to a rally since then. Not for any reason, other than the fact that we have our Thousand Trails membership and we want to get a thousand nights out of it just to make it worthwhile, cost-wise. We kind of have that goal in our minds. So we've kind of stuck very close to Thousand Trails and haven't really done any of the well.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

And I think that if you get on the right schedule with people, it's easy to get connected. But you have to put yourself out there. Now, are you an introvert or an extrovert? Extrovert. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

I'm a networker at heart. I love to meet people and I love to just to just know as many people as I can.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

So let's jump into that a little bit because networking is your thing. It is so it's something you're working on actively. Let's talk about that project.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah. Um, so I just the one thing I found in the R V community is just that I haven't found a great networking spot somewhere where I could actually business network with other business owners. A lot of the groups and things like that you can post about your business, but only in certain situations and really not promoting at all. There were a few, there are a few groups out there that I've found. They were only existent for a month or two and they were wonderful. But I want to, I want to create a place where we could have a network and a group of business owners who can share ideas and grow and have a place to post about our business when we want to and make sure that we're we're able to talk about it in a single place online. We started a community online called uh RV Business Hub and it's just been a it's been a blessing. It's very new. There's only a few businesses so far, but we're we're really excited about it.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Now, does it cost the business money to get involved?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

We put a$10 per month cost on it, but only because when you're when you're networking for business, if there's no money involved and if you're not paying something, things dwindle out so quickly. Yeah. And people leave, or they don't promote their business, or they're just there to spam the same thing over and over again. And I really want to create a place to grow. I was part of a mom's preneur's group. It's$10 a month, and I've been part of it for five years now, and I've loved every minute of it and it and just the network that it's built over the years. So I want to create the same thing. So I just kind of followed the same model as that. And so is that what what platform is that hosted on? Right now it's just on Facebook. We're just on Facebook only. And there's a community, you can join the community for free. There's no cost to that. Anyone can just be a part of the community. But if you want to be a business owner and post about your business on there, that's where we charge for it.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

It's it's a it's a community we should put on the community pages of Learn to RV if that's something you're open to. That would go on the main website. Do you have to be a woman to be in this group? Is that so it's any type of business?

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Any business, any business. And really, there are a lot of platforms and things like that out there for R V Techs, and it's wonderful. But for somebody who has a different traditional business, something they they're doing that's different, that's outside of the R V tech world, there really isn't a sense a place where you can go. RV techs are still welcome, absolutely, but anybody is welcome. It doesn't matter what kind of business you have, as long as it's servicing the RV community. We really just want to build families up to keep families on the road because there's so many families that are doing so many different things. Unless we have a place to go to find all those families, we could really start using that network so much more, having a central location for it all.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

It's one of those things that you don't think about till you're out there. And we did it back in the days where it was okay to share your Jambere or whatever it was that you were doing in whatever group it was. It was one of those things that, you know, you could make happen. The evolution of that did change. And I think it was because, you know, so many people, that's all the reason they joined those groups. For a company like ours, for RV Riffing Solutions, one of the things that we run into is we can't join those RV Tech groups. Because we're a service-based business and our guys are R V Techs, they are the only ones that can join those groups. Even for a company like mine that's nationwide, mobile, comes to you. We can't advertise in anywhere, even to find installers. Buying Learn to RV, my heart was to make sure everybody gets seen. Having a free community for them is a big deal to me. That's why we bring on extra people like writers and people that want to be a part of Learn to RV in other ways so that you can promote the things that are your passion projects. You said your husband works on a visa, and so that's not normal for everybody. A lot of people have to go back to Canada to handle that. Can you talk a little bit about how he scored such an amazing job?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Absolutely. Before, during COVID, we actually had a business in Canada. We wanted to get out of the suburbs. We knew during COVID we had been locked down for a really long time. And actually, this story is kind of funny, so I'll tell it. We got in trouble by the HOA of the kids of the townhouse we were living in because we grew tomatoes on our back deck. My husband got really, really mad one day. And he was like, you know what? I want out of the suburbs and we're gonna buy land in New Brunswick. We bought the land, we signed the paperwork the exact same day. The owner of the company he was working for called us and said, Do you want to work 100% remote from home? We thought we would transition into moving out east, we thought it might have taken a few years, but it turned out it took us one month, and in one month we had moved out there and rented a house to start clearing the land out there.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

That's a sweet day, and not everybody gets that lucky. We do have a how to make money on the road page on Learn to RV, but we talked about all the different ways people make money on the road. I think that having that diversity that's so important, and that's given you a lot of freedom and flexibility in this life.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

It really has. It really has. It changed everything that day. So we are very, very thankful. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

He's not the only one in your house working, correct? No. You do something a little bit different completely. So you work from home.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Do you make your own hours? I do, absolutely. Make my own hours. I can work anytime I need to. How do you score a job like that? This is a little bit of a story as well. About 15 years ago, we were living in an apartment and we moved out of that apartment. Well, we moved out the very next day after I moved out. My landlord called me and he said, You owe me another month's rent. And I was like, I don't think I do. Like I did everything right. I thought it was okay. And he said, No, you owe me another month's rent, pay it now, or I'll take you to collections. And I didn't know what to do. So I did what most people do. I went to work that night. I was working at a hotel and I complained to my coworker about it. And when I was complaining to her about it, my boss called me in the office. And I was like, uh oh, I was talking about personal stuff at work. I probably shouldn't have been doing that. And she actually was like, No, you're not in trouble. I actually overheard what you were talking about, and I think I have something that can help you. And she's like, We offer this service as an employee benefit to our management team. I can get you signed up tonight. You can talk to a lawyer tomorrow and see what's what. So I did exactly what she said. We got signed up. I called the law firm the very next day. They reviewed all my documents, they called me back and they said you did move out a month too early, but because they signed your paperwork when you moved out, you're free and clear. You don't owe him any money. Wow. Wow, that's powerful. So I said, okay, well, how do I tell him that? What do I have to do? And he's like, You don't mind? Can I make a phone call on your behalf? So the lawyer called the landlord. And the very next morning, the landlord called me and he apologized for the misunderstanding and wished me the best of luck. He said it was a clerical error on their part. And that's when I found the services that I share now because I started referring it to everybody, anyways. And when I found out that I could be, I could, I could share it part-time from home. It was almost three years later that I found out that there was a business attached to it. And I'd been referring people for three years. And then I joined, I joined, that was almost 12 years ago now. So that I that I joined as an independent associate with Legal Shield.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah. And so I mean, I got Legal Shield a bunch of years ago, and I've never used it until just recently. How easy it was to use was interesting to me because we had talked about meaning over Legal Shield. I don't have it for my business, but I have it for my personal side. Well, you can have a conversation about that because we definitely have business owners too. So awesome. That's something you don't think about on the road, especially as businesses. How do you, you know, protect those assets? You know, there's going to be that one unhappy customer from time to time. But how do you mitigate some of that? What people don't realize about us is that Frank and I lost our business partner in 2024. He passed away very unexpectedly. And when that happened, the old company ceased to exist. From a legal standpoint, it's very easy. We don't have to honor any of those warranties. We have, in many cases, because that's just who we are, but it's not legally required because it was he had a sole proprietorship and we opened within 10 days of his passing a new company. It has the same name. I'm not sure that was a good idea. Here we are in 2026, having to deal with the repercussions of that. We're just trying to do the best we can with what we have. But having that knowledge base and the people in the background, that's another reason to have that group on Facebook is if you are a business owner, knowing where to go to get those pieces of information. You wouldn't call a tow truck to fix your engine. You would call the tow truck because you're broke down. So knowing the right people to call for ways to find affordable because it's pretty affordable, legal care, isn't it? So I mean, like what does that look like if you can talk about a little bit of that?

SPEAKER_00 16:49

We have uh like a three-tiered plan that exists. Our middle tier plan is definitely what I recommend for most are veers because everything that's involved with it. And there's just so many different areas, but it starts around the 35, 95, 37, 95, sorry, a month. And then we offer business plans right up to a hundred employees. So there's a whole variety of products. And then we have things like home-based business ride add-ons and things like that that you can add to it. If you ride share, there's there's rideshare add-ons, and if you own guns, there's guns at gun add-ons to that to be able to protect you in different ways. So we have a whole slew of add-ons as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Those are things I wouldn't have even have thought of. Having a conversation with people that you may not know is one of those ways to find those things. I say I'm a super extrovert. I know you're an extrovert. So what about your husband? Is he more of an introvert? 100% introvert.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

You wouldn't really know if he got talking. If he got him talking, he would be, he would, he would, he gets talking, but um 100% introvert.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Interesting. So how does that work on the road? Does he come out? Sometimes. So so Frank is what I call kind of an ambivert, is really what he is. He seems like he's gonna be an introvert, and he mostly is an introvert, but he's not always an introvert. So if he knows you, he's not an introvert. Right. Or if he's performing, he's not an introvert. Okay. In fact, he's the guy that'll be in the chicken suit at at an event, and you're like, oh, he's an extrovert. No, no, no, he's not. I want to come back a little bit to community. And one of the things about community is it's unexpected, and people roll on and off the road a lot. We've been in the same circles, but like I think it was last year when we actually finally met face to face, nailing down schedules and making it work for both of us has been a little bit of a challenge. Do you schedule times with the people that you're traveling with, or do you just take what you can get and hope for the best?

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Most of the time, just take what we can get and hope for the best. I feel like our community is broad enough that no matter where we are, there's people around. A lot of our friends all stay like within the Orlando area in Florida. So we're not too far away. Like the most we're far away from each other is like 45 minutes. There are a few people that we try to connect, like try to stay connected with and try to get near each other. We're happy to meet new people at the exact same time, or I'm happy, I should say, to meet new people at the exact same time. My husband is too. He is, I promise.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Now, what about the kids? Are they pretty extroverted?

SPEAKER_00 19:01

I have one in one. I have one. My daughter is Mimi Me. She's exactly the same like I am. She loves to meet new people and she loves to have friends, and she always has a social calendar going on. She's the youngest. My son is exactly like my husband. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

So, how do you navigate that in terms of like Orlando, for example? When we're in the Orlando area, there's like 12 or 15 parks, and some are busier than others. I have kids that don't want to come out till like three o'clock in the afternoon when everybody's going to eat back home to eat dinner. I now have teenagers, which adds a whole nother layer. As a mom, I've found the most challenging point is to meet other parents because I'm not a younger mom. I do have a 31-year-old. The challenge for me is that a lot of times the people that are my age, that like I met at the pool yesterday, are like couples and they're like, you're here with your 19-year-old, and then they like swam away. It's not like it's always like that. I have the same problem on the other side of it. Like people that do have kids, we do have friends that are 10, 15 years younger than us because my youngest is 14. But not everybody's willing to engage a mom in her 50s and they think I'm their grandma. It's created some different situations in the last couple of years as you know, we travel with less kids. I think it was easier when they were little and you could just all meet at the playground. Right? Hungry. Last but not least, a couple rapid fire questions. What is your favorite place to travel?

SPEAKER_00 20:15

I love North Carolina on the Emerald Isles. It's probably my favorite place to go. Go always on the way north and on the way home every year. And I just love it there. I love the ocean. Me too. What's so magical about uh that? It's my happy place. Sitting on the ocean, like by the ocean, hearing the ocean, just sitting there. Happy place for sure. And we work, like we always take our Starlink with us on the back of the truck and work on the side of like work on the on at the beach and just spend as much time there as possible. If you've got to work, working at the beach is the way to go.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Right. Any um tips or tricks that you would share with the audience out there? What would you say? Tips on how to get into Canada or come back from Canada?

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Make sure you print all your paperwork, make you have everything ready ahead of time. Make sure you're counting the amount of days you're in the US and you're not over and like there's both sides. You have to worry about the amount of days you're in the US, but then you also, in a rolling calendar year, have to pay attention to how many days you've been in the US for the rolling calendar year when it comes to IRS. So do your research. Do your research. My husband is the research guy. I can honestly say that I'm not. But he had everything listed out of exactly what we needed and just make sure that you know, but it's not, it's not as scary as it sounds. It really, we've not had any real issues uh in the last four years crossing back and forth to Canada.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

See, and I grew up in upstate New York where you went to Canada and you just told them that you were from the US and what time you were coming back. It's just a different world out there, especially after COVID and what that looks like. How can people reach you?

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Um, I have a Facebook page called Shield Your Journey, helping RV, the R V community understand the services that I offer with Legal Shield and how it can benefit us all while we're on the road. The RV Business Hub, it's on Facebook as well. My website goes right to my uh page that gives you all the information about the services we offer. Probably the easiest way to reach me. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Okay, thanks, Jennifer. We appreciate you coming on. Learn to RV the podcast. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this with a friend, especially one that may be going to Canada this summer. And if you have questions, drop them in the notes. We'll send them over to Jennifer. Now, if you have questions about joining the business, have if you have questions about legal shield, if you have questions about crossing into Canada, they're they're a wealth of information. You know, Canadian friends are one of those things that it's very useful to find out the information that you have from them because not everybody understands that crossing into Canada is pretty easy. We have one friend that was banned from driving in Canada for seven years because he had a flashlight that had a taser on it. He didn't know it. And so he can no longer drive in Canada for another another couple of years. But the reality is, is we have friends that own campgrounds up there. It would be fun to be able to meet up with a handful of friends up in Canada one summer. Absolutely. So very cool. Well, thanks for joining us on Learn to RV the podcast, and we'll see you next time.