Five-Star Road Trip: Meet Dog Bloggers Who Travel Like Rock Stars

Published A Few Days Ago
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The life of a dog blogger is glamorous – especially if you’re Amy Burkert. Recently, she traded in her Class C motorhome she, her dogs and her husband travel and live in and upgraded to a Class A coach – you know, the ones the rock stars use when they go on tour! And Amy is a star in our books. She travels North America, scoping out pet friendly places to bring your dogs on vaca. In this article, she fills us in on life in an RV, so we can all dream of living her life one day!

A few months back, we made a big change at GoPetFriendly.com. We’d been living full-time in our motorhome for more than three years with our dogs, Ty and Buster and we decided it was time to upgrade to a bigger RV.

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The decision didn’t come easily … we were addicted to the maneuverability of our little 24-footer. We could take it – and, more importantly, park it – anywhere! We really appreciated its fuel efficiency, and it was fun knowing that we could live happily with a minimal amount of space and storage. But, sleeping over the cab was getting tiresome, and always having the dogs underfoot was tough, too.

So, we decided to look at the options, and the first time we stepped inside our new coach, I was already in love. Going from an RV that’s 24-feet long to a 37-footer is like increasing the size of your home from 300 square meters to more than 450!

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There’s no way to pick my favorite thing about our new home, because they’re all my favorites! The big kitchen and living room that make me feel like I’m living in a house again … the spacious bedroom (well, by RV standards, anyway) with tons of closet and cabinet space … the tile floors that are so easy to clean when the dogs get messy … the full-sized shower and two sinks that make getting ready to go in the morning a pleasure. I could go on and on.

The dogs seem to be enjoying our new digs as well. We have two sofas now, so Buster has his own and there’s a less furry one for the humans. (Truth be told, I spend more time on Buster’s – he’s a cuddle-bug and prefers the company.) And Ty loves surveying all the comings and goings of the campground from his perch in the driver’s seat.

There have been a few trade-offs, though. Tootling down the back roads just isn’t possible anymore, because we might come across bridges with weight restrictions or spots with low clearances that the RV won’t fit under. We have to find truck stops to get diesel, because most gas stations are too tight, and we can’t even count on being able to stop for groceries, because we require such a long parking space. Major travel is now done almost entirely by Interstate highway, and day trips to the hinterlands are saved for the car that we tow being the motorhome.

Still, the positives outweigh the drawbacks, and in the end we have the best of both worlds – a comfortable house on wheels that allows us to explore the US and Canada in comfort.

For two former accountants, the idea of living life in an RV took a bit of adjusting. Most full-timers we meet are retirees, so the fact that we are each running our own businesses while we’re traveling presented a few additional challenges. Fortunately, there have been significant improvements in cellular Internet capabilities over the past few years, and now companies, like our mail service, have sprung up to serve people who are constantly on the move. These days, anyone who has the flexibility to work from home could also choose to do their job from an RV.

This lifestyle couldn’t be more perfect for my business, which is running the pet travel website and writing the blog at GoPetFriendly.com. Each year we spend ten months traveling from place to place, researching pet friendly things to do and places to stay. It gives me the ability to pepper my posts with great photos of Ty and Buster in all kinds of gorgeous settings, from Victoria, British Columbia, to the Key West and everywhere in between!

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Living a mobile life may not be for everyone, but it definitely works for us!

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