This is CRAZY! We're TAKING OUR LUXURY MOTORHOME to ALASKA

Alaska, wild, rugged, jaw-droppingly beautiful, and home to some of the roughest roads and wildest conditions you could throw at a motorhome. Yep, you guessed it, we're packing up our 45-foot Class A, this big bus, and pointing it north through Canada and straight into the last frontier. It's bold, maybe even a little crazy, and we wouldn't have it any other way. We're thrilled you're here. This isn't a vacation, it's an all-out summer expedition. In this video, we're laying it all out. Where we're headed, when we're rolling out, how we're getting there, and what it took to get ready for a trip that's equal parts beauty, challenge, and unknown. We've done our homework, packed our gear, and triple-checked the tires, but let's be honest, once you're deep into the Alaskan wild, anything can happen. That's part of the thrill, and that's why we're so glad to have you along for the ride. But first, if we haven't met before, we're the Shinpaws. We're a family of four who travels full-time, so we can make memories now. We'll be sharing the highs, the lows, and everything in between, and we just might need your advice or moral support along the way. So buckle up, stay tuned, and let's take on Alaska. Alaska, the final frontier, and we and them are going. So babe, why Alaska? It's the cherry on the top of all of our travels. We've been back and forth across the country multiple times, we've seen so much. We haven't seen everything, but we've seen a lot. And, you know, it's a huge commitment going to Alaska. There's a huge financial commitment, a time commitment. I mean, basically, we're planning to be there for three to four months. The entire summer. Right? And if we're gonna go that far, we're not gonna go and just kinda halfway do it. And turn around, right. We're going. You actually started researching Alaska two or three years ago, and then when we decided we were gonna go this summer, in the fall, you got real serious figuring out what reservations we need to make, what it looks like to go, the route, what we can take, what we can't take. So, yeah, it's a tremendous amount of planning. It's more planning than anything that I've done, and I am a planner, as you know. Like, I love planning our adventures. This one's a doozy. It sure is. And for our family, because we've been on the road over nine years, this is breathing a lot of life back into us. Because you can say about any state in the U.S., and we know what it looks like. And we are thrilled to go back or to do a part of that state that we haven't done before, but in the same breath, we kinda know what to expect. We kinda know what to do to get there, when we get there, all of that. But Alaska is in a class all of its own. So, the four of us are really excited. There's that energy of going somewhere that most people don't go to, especially in a motorhome like this. I mean, we're gonna come back and talk about that, because I know there's a lot of you out there going, y'all are crazy. You're gonna break it. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But again, we'll come back to that. But you know, it's to go somewhere that you've, I never, I don't think I've ever dreamed of going to Alaska before we started this lifestyle. So, the journey getting there, going through the Yukon, where we watch the TV shows about, just the trip there, even back up to Canada, right? Everything about this trip is exciting, because it's so unique. It's so involved. It's so intense. This is a really, really cool moment for us. Well, and don't forget, outside of our three parks that we booked in Canada, we don't have one reservation or one plan for the entire trip. Yeah, and we're gonna come back to that too. So hang on, guys, because we do know what we could do. We just aren't committing to anything. And we got some things that we've just done recently to help us be more flexible. But we are celebrating some really important things in our family this year, which help us justify the trip, right? Because it's a big trip. It's a big time commitment. It's a big financial commitment. It's just a really big trip. So what are we celebrating? Well, you turned 50. Yes, I did. Jason turned 18. Yes, he did. Sarah will turn 16. Right. I don't really have anything. I'm just the old guy. So I don't really have anything special. You have a birthday next week, so it counts. Yeah, we normally do a bigger trip as a family in the summer and call it our birthday trip. And then if we need any extra gear or whatever for it, we just make that part of our birthday presents. Especially with being on the road, we don't need much. So we have a very specific reason that we buy things and that has worked out well for us. And Willis not only turned 18, but he's graduating high school. So yeah, it's a really big year for our family. And this was somewhere that Willis wanted to go before our family separates. Now we're not doing that this summer, but we're getting closer. That's gonna happen. Don't stop. You're tearing up and I'm wanting to tear up, just saying the words. But at the end of the day, this was a trip that was really important to him that we do as a family. And because of the milestone in his life, that's what really drove us to take this trip. Yeah. So if we were doing this video live on YouTube, I could imagine what the chat would look like, right? It would be like, you're crazy, you're doing what? How would you even, why would you even take that bus? Like you're, you know, rent one, get an older one, take a smaller one, all of those things. So we do have a Prevo Motorhome. It's a 2008, but it is fantastic. But why do we feel comfortable taking it? What is it about our bus that makes us trust it and know that we can survive a summer in Alaska? Well, I mean, there's so many people that go with so many different vehicles to Alaska, right? I've been following some of the Facebook pages and I mean, there's people going in everything, from cars, to trucks, to vans, to- School buses. I mean- To Prevo buses. To Prevo. Our friends are already up there right now in the Prevo. Yeah, you showed me today, right. So I don't know that it's as much as, are we crazy, as we're willing. And I believe that we're for sure going to have some things. Sure. We had things getting to where we're sitting right now. We're missing a hubcap. We blew a hose. A couple days ago. So there's always things, regardless of where you are. And then we haven't had water the last two weeks because of where we were. And we pull in here today thinking we have full hookups and guess what? No water. And we only have a half a tank full and all the laundry that needs to be done, bed sheets, pillowcases, towels. I mean, tomorrow is a new day and we'll figure it out. I just feel like there's this unknown and fear of the unknown is what causes people to not do things. And we're just not afraid, right? We're not also saying that we're not going to have issues or something isn't going to break or whatever. But I just believe we're equipped to deal with it and we're going to figure it out. Well, and we're going to drive slowly. If there's nothing else that you have learned or advice you've taken from other people is drive according to the road conditions. However, I do want to back up because we do have a great bus, right? And whether it's our bus or your rig, we feel that we have a very sound structure, right? We have a solid steel frame and it's very sound. And if we were to have something major happen, we feel that we could be safe through an event, right? We've kept it up with maintenance. We've got people that we can call who will walk us through issues if we don't know how to fix them. And we're also traveling with some buddies. We're not going to do everything side by side, but we're actually going to go into Canada and into Alaska with another couple. And we're going to be within a couple hours of each other the whole summer. So we, you know, safety in numbers, right? Although I think from all of the comments you've read, you know, if you need a hand, lend a hand kind of thing, because you don't know which side of that equation you're going to be on, really anywhere in the RV space, but especially up there in Alaska. But, you know, our rig is really strong and it's really solid and it's made really well. And it can handle this. It can handle this. What it's built for, what it's built for. Right. So while we're in the middle of telling you about all these things we're doing for Alaska, I want to tell you about something that we're getting ready to do. And it's starting like with this video. We have finally created a Patreon membership account and over at Patreon, we're going to be sharing the behind the scenes cuts that don't make it into these videos. Because sometimes we get a little long winded or it might be something that not everybody would find interesting, or it could be something really silly that I'm like, do not put that in the video. But if you want to join our membership, the Shinpaw Inner Circle, we'd love to have you. And not only will you get to see behind the scenes footage and Patreon, but we also have a private Facebook group where we have community and we'll be talking about all things RV. We'll be super active. You'll probably see posts from Jason at like 5 a.m. in the morning, because that's what he does. It's like your Facebook hour. But anyhow, we're really excited to get to know you so much better this summer with the things that we're doing in Alaska and with this great new membership that we're rolling out. And I think that why we're doing that is we've had so many of you reach out to us and say, we would love to see more of the Shinpaws. And we're, number one, we're super humbled and honored by that. So just thank you all for the amazing comments and everything. I mean, it's really what keeps us chugging along. So check out the link in the description below and we'll look forward to seeing you on the Inner Circle. Let's talk about prepping and planning. Let's talk about where we started and how early this year we started planning for this. Well, and not so much just planning, because you've been planning for a while, but like physically doing things, right? Not just talking about it, not just sketching it out. In January, Jason's like, we've got to make our reservations for Canada because that's the only place that we have reservations for and it's with their national park system. So we got up real early. Well, actually we had a dress rehearsal the day before, two days before. We're having a family huddle this morning, getting ready to get hopefully a spot in Banff for June. You may or may not know, this is part of the process heading from the lower 48 to Alaska. You got to cut through Canada somehow. And we've decided that we're going to go to Banff and then go to Jasper. So we've all got our computers set up here. We all have accounts with the Canadian National Park System and we're hopeful that one of us at least will get the spot that we need for the time in June. It's going to happen. I know it's going to happen. We're going to get it. All four of us got logins to the Canadian Park System and got comfortable with the system. So that way we could be there when the lottery went live. And so we got, unfortunately, we got a spot at Banff and Jasper and that was two separate weeks back to back. But that was an incredible process. If you guys have never done that before, you literally go in and you log in and then whatever time it says the lottery starts, you are immediately entered into this random order. And that's your number for a reservation. I was like 25,000. I don't know, somebody else was 20,000, 16,000, but Sarah always was the lowest, right? She was maybe 13,000 or I don't know. But anyhow, it only took about 10 or 15 minutes for them to get to Sarah. And then we were able to get in and get the reservation we wanted. So this is crazy. I did not expect there to be 20 some thousand people ahead of me in this queue. And I also didn't know that this queue thing happened. I just thought it would go live. You would try to hit the buttons, hope to get a spot, pray that it didn't freeze. But this is really interesting. So I'm glad the four of us did it because Sarah obviously got the best output of any of us. We're down to one minute, 443 people in front of her. There was over 800. Oh my gosh, it just dropped to 280. That's a tremendous amount of people making reservations or not in a minute. It's your turn. That's true. Here we go. And it's us and the retired people. It's not like we're fighting with other families about school, bam. What's our number? 242 is the one that was on your name, right? Go, go, go, click it. Hit confirm. Come on, you need a touchscreen right now. Confirm it. I think we got it. Proceed to checkout, pay for it. We got it. Are you kidding? We got it. Are you kidding? We got it. All right, watch mine. Okay, all reservation details are correct. Yes, I have read and agree. Yes, if you choose to cancel, blah, blah, blah, non-refundable, perfect. I would still be 35 minutes from now. So having multiple people with multiple accounts in your party on reservation day is super important. Yes, it is. Yes, sir. We got it. Good job, sissy. Sissy, bring it in. Sissy, sissy, sissy. And the same thing the next week. She was first up. Incredible system. You definitely need to know how to do that because that is how you get a reservation for these parks. As you get closer and closer, you're truly at the mercy of somebody canceling and you having to be online when they do it. But these things sell out, don't they? That day of the lottery? Absolutely. I mean, they're sold out. I mean, well, in theory, the times that you want to be there and there's only one park that we fit in. There's only one park that has full hookups. Like, I mean- Right, and you had done the research. You had the park map. You knew which sites we fit in. You knew what order you wanted us to get sites. So, you know, January was when we were able actually like attack and actually do something that felt tangible. But before that, you spent a lot of time figuring things out. So we did those two things. And then, like I said, we're not making any other reservations. We do have a spreadsheet that we're sharing with our travel buddies. And almost by mile, we have identified things that you can do or where there's campgrounds or fuel and all that kind of stuff. So we do have this spreadsheet that will take us. It's like our own version of the outpost, right? So between the outpost, which you need to make sure you have, and the most current version, we probably should have it. Is it handy for you to grab? No. Okay, but you should get the most current version you can if you're going, because they do update that every year. But between the milepost and between this spreadsheet, as we travel through Alaska, we just want to be free to experience whatever comes across our paths, right? If there's a tremendous amount of wildlife, we're going to stop and we're going to check it out. If there's a really cool boondocking spot, we're going to do that too. But we don't want to be in a hurry and we don't want to be on any kind of timeline. So anyhow, but getting those reservations in Canada were super important. So after that, we started ticking off like service work and repairs. Well, and I just want to say, comment below if you think you could go on a three to four month journey and have no reservations. Would that freak you out or would you totally feel free? Because I'm pretty sure it's going to be awesome. And then I'm like, oh. We did the Tetons last summer for almost a month and we're going to build upon that for Alaska. And I think we'll be fine. We have all of the right systems to be able to do that. And we have something really cool in another video that I can't wait to share with you guys because it is awesome. Yeah, it kind of ups our ability for success tremendously. So let's talk about some of the repairs first. What are the things that we had done? Well, we needed to have our annual service done. So we have the uptime agreement with Prevo, which is super awesome. We have had this window leak and we finally figured out where it was. So we plan to have that done. And it was just a seal. Thank goodness. It was just the window seal. So we were able to get that done. And then our secret, that was part of our trip. And we've also spent some time, what do you want to say? And we've also spent some time upgrading our air system, replacing all the valves because they dry rot. Since we've had our bus, we have been dealing with air leaks. Our bus is completely driven by air. We have air brakes, the entire system, the suspension, the leveling system is all air. We've been repairing the system piece by piece and we'll fix something. And a little while later, something else will break. So I decided to have the entire system just replaced. And you can see, this is the fourth time that we've had work done on our air system. And this is what the gentleman replaced this time. We're still not a hundred percent done, but you can see here, look at all these different pieces and parts. You could have the smallest pinhole leak in any of these valves and it'll mess your entire system up. Look at this one. We found this on the auxiliary air system. The entire, whatever you want to call it, is cracked. And so we just kept fixing something and something else breaking and fixing something and something else breaking. And I don't want to keep paying to do that. So I said, let's make sure we just replace everything. Now, remember our bus is a 2008. So it's what, 17 years old. Things are going to break, things are going to happen, but this is part of the maintenance that you need to account for if you're ever considering a motor home like this. This thing sat on the Texas-Mexico border. If you want to learn more about that, you can check out one of our other videos about turning this immigration bus into the motor home that we call home now. So it's really important that we stay up on things, especially things that could have dried out because of our bus's prior life. Well, and we went to two different places. Yeah. Went to a private individual and Prevo. These things are notorious for air leaks. Right. And so we worked really hard to get those done. Because it affects leveling and how the slide works. And also we have an airbag around our slide that keeps air and water from coming in and out. So it's a really important system and we address that. So you may remember when we went to the Savannah Bananas game, we were having issues with our batteries. So we upgraded our batteries to Lifeline batteries. So here are our new batteries. And we went with the Lifeline and these are supposedly the best deep cycle batteries that you can get that are not lithium. And the gentleman that installed them for us said they were the very, very best. These will last for five years. And I believe it's a thousand cycles of completely empty to recharged. We won't be doing that again. We know how to set our generator up to auto start. So if the batteries get to a certain point, then the generator will kick on and keep them charged where they need to be. And then it only seemed fitting for the truck to need new batteries and we put new tires on it. Yeah. And then we were off to Nashville Coach. We had an issue with our shower that needed to be repaired. Thank goodness that was under warranty. And our goal was to make sure everything in our control was at the top of its game. Because this is a massive trip and we can't control everything, but we want to control what we can. Amen to that. So babe, there's lots of ways to get to Alaska. How are we going to go about it? We're choosing the route that is closest to Glacier National Park. And the reason is, is we want to go to Waterton National Park to start our journey into Canada. It's the only national park that shares a border. On the US side, it's Glacier. And on the Canadian side, it's Waterton. And there's a lake that goes across the border. So we're going to spend a few days there just to get into Canada, just get settled. I can't wait to experience Waterton National Park. You don't hear a lot about it, but I've heard it is amazing. From there, we're going to head to Banff. And then we're going to spend some time on the Icefields Parkway, which is supposed to be incredible. Obviously we've never been to any of these places, but based on the research that I've done. And then off to Jasper. And from there, into Alaska. Now, along with all this excitement comes some challenges. First of all, we're trying to get laser clear on what we can really take across the border with us, food wise. And then once we get into Canada and Alaska, really trying to understand what's available to us from a grocery standpoint. Because we plan to boondock so much, we're going to be in remote places. And, you know, we've been watching YouTube videos just like you are. And one of the ladies said, you know, in some of those places they get groceries once a week. So if groceries come on Thursday and you arrive in town the following Tuesday or Wednesday, you could find totally barren shelves. So, you know, we're not like afraid that we're going to starve or anything like that, but we certainly are making some extra Costco and Walmart runs and stocking up on shelf stable type products. So, you know, and we've got an extra freezer for the bay to put extra meat in. So we're really taking that seriously. So prepping food wise has been, you know, it's been a big deal around here. And also the time zone, right? It's Pacific plus one. So that means four hours different from Eastern Standard Time, which is what we work off of. I have a mortgage business and Jason has a real estate business. And most of our people are on Eastern Time. You know, going to Mountain Time isn't so bad. We actually kind of like that two hour difference, but adding two more hours is going to mean that we're starting our days between four and 5 a.m. every day. And with total like 24 hours sunlight, we're going to have to be really mindful of what time it is. I mean, we're probably going to have to set an alarm that goes off at night that says, hey, have you eaten dinner? Hey guys, time to go brush the teeth and go to bed. So that's definitely a real concern for us. Absolutely it is. And if you don't know, I am a loan officer and Jason is a real estate agent. And we're still working while we're doing this trip. So if you need to buy or sell a house or need help with a mortgage or a refinance, we'd love to help you that way. We're licensed at almost every state and where we're not, we know some really good people we could connect you with. So click the link in the description if we can help you in that way. One of the things we've heard a lot about is the mosquitoes. They say they're like little people flying around up there. And we- Yeah, I'm a little nervous about that. We are doing our very best to be prepared for that. We have some really cool spray that we've gotten. We're gonna have thermocells. Our friends are letting us borrow their clamshell to have that because we heard that's really helpful. Yep. So we're gonna do our very best because we spend a lot of time outside, just like right now. I mean, we wanna be outside as much as we can. Right. And we have our fire pit, which will help keep them away. But at the end of the day, there are bugs and we know there are bugs. So we're just gonna have to deal with it as they- So fuel. I think that's the biggest topic and maybe one of the biggest negatives, right? Cost of fuel, not just fuel, cost of fuel. So what do you think? Well, our open road slash EFS card does not work up there. It doesn't? No. Oh. So what we've heard is you never wanna pass a fuel stop. Right. We obviously have a huge fuel capacity. So we're gonna be fine. I'm not worried about getting fuel. There's tons of trucks going up and down the road. They get fuel. So I'm not worried about getting the fuel, but I will say I'm a little apprehensive of the cost. Yeah, I had no idea our fuel discount card wouldn't work because we use that all the time. I mean, you know, we're this far in, we're going, right? That's right. Maybe we'll just drive a little slower and see if we could squeeze out some extra mileage. We'll turn the generator off 10 minutes earlier. Yeah, we'll spend a little extra. Yeah. We're gonna keep track of our costs, especially the fuel, but I'm gonna do my best to keep track of everything. And then at the end of the summer, we'll share with you those major expenses. As we shared earlier, we don't have a ton of plans. We're looking forward to your suggestions of some things we should see and do along the way. So if you've got a favorite place, a favorite hike, a must do, please share it with us in the comments below because we are really gonna do our best to make sure we see and do some of the things that share with us. Yeah. If you've been to Alaska, tell us what we shouldn't miss. Especially some really great hole-in-the-wall places to eat. And we wanna fish, like we really do. We found that a lot of these excursions you can do in Alaska are super expensive, right? And if you're going for a week or two, you're going all in, right, on that vacation. But because we're gonna be there almost three months, we can't just like go hardcore the first couple of weeks with every excursion that we come across. So we would really welcome any insider tips you have and ways that we can go experience Alaska as naturally as possible. So here's what you can expect from us this summer. We are gonna highlight the heck out of Alaska, right? And my goal is to take you deep on some excursions with us. Not just take you from mile marker this to mile marker that, or give you a little picture of us in front of the, you know, the arch that says, welcome to Alaska. We wanna take you with us. We want those of you who may never ever get to go to Alaska to get to experience it like we do. So we promise to take you along on some really cool adventures. And we're gonna share with you the real side of taking a motor home this big. The goods and the bads, zero drama. That's our commitment to you. That's right. We cannot wait to get our trip started. We cross the border to Canada in one week from recording this video. So keep coming back week after week, go on these adventures with us, comment below, go grab someone you love, make a memory now, and we'll see you on the next adventure. Ready? Ready? Show the camera. Drop, drop. Ready? Good catch. Good job, Darby.