Outland Adventures

  Winter RV Life 101: Staying Cozy on the Road Hey Y'all! Winter RV life can be magical—quiet campgrounds, snow-dusted landscapes , snow-covered views, and crisp mornings with hot coffee. But it can also be intimidating if you’re not prepared. Cold weather demands flexibility, smart routines, and a little creativity to stay comfortable on the road. Whether you’re chasing mild winters or braving frosty nights, this guide covers the essentials for staying warm, managing propane and heat, and building winter-friendly RV routines. Staying Warm (Without Freezing or Burning Through Your Budget) Insulation Is Everything Cold air will find every tiny gap. Start by: Sealing drafts around doors, windows, and storage bays with weather stripping or foam tape. Reflectix or thermal window covers for large windows and windshields. Rugs or foam mats on floors to block cold from below. Skirting (DIY or purchased) to reduce wind under the RV—especially helpful for longer stays. Layer Your Hea...

 🎄 Full-Time RV Life & The Holidays: Staying Festive on the Road When you live full-time on the road, the holidays look a little different. No big house to decorate. No attic full of ornaments. No seven-foot tree (unless you count that one inflatable we thought would fit in the RV ... it didn’t). But different doesn’t mean less magical. Out here, holiday cheer comes in smaller packages—twinkling lights strung under the awning, cinnamon candles flickering on the counter, and maybe a wreath made from pinecones we found on a hike. Every mile brings a new kind of celebration, and that’s part of the charm. 🎁 Cozy Spaces, Big Spirit We’ve learned that it doesn’t take much to feel festive in a tiny space. A strand of fairy lights instantly turns the RV into a cozy winter nook. We hang stockings on the cabinet handles, play our favorite holiday playlist , and let the smell of hot cocoa fill the air. Amanda’s crafting magic usually comes into play here— mini wreaths , hand...

  🏡 Small Town America: The Heartbeat of Our Journey Hey friends — it’s Amanda & Chris from Outland Adventures , coming at you from another one-stoplight town with the best biscuits we’ve ever had and a dollar store that sells both fishing poles and  dresses. Life on the road is full of surprises, but some of the best ones come from the places no one’s writing travel guides about — the small towns with rusty signs, handmade milkshakes, and big personalities in tiny zip codes. Let’s talk about why we love exploring Small Town America. 🌽 1. The Characters You Meet Every town has that guy — the one who knows everyone, runs the local feed store, and once met Elvis. You’ll meet the mayor at the gas station, your new best friend in line for ice cream, and the campground host who used to tour with a rock band. People in small towns don’t hide behind screens or rush past you. They look you in the eye and say things like, “Y’all ain’t from around here, are ya?” And it...

  🌤️ Lazy Days at Camp: Why Doing Nothing is Sometimes Everything Hey friends — it’s Amanda & Chris from Outland Adventures , coming to you live from the most important part of the full-time RV lifestyle: the lazy day . You know the one. The sun’s warm but not too hot. The birds are doing their thing. Your to-do list is “maybe later.” Your biggest decision is whether to make coffee now or wait 15 more minutes just because you can. Yep — we’re talking about the gloriously slow , refreshingly quiet , do-nothing-all-day-and-feel-good-about-it kind of campground day. 🪑 What a Lazy Day Looks Like for Us We’re not sightseeing. We’re not working. We’re not filming, cleaning, organizing, fixing, uploading, dumping, driving, planning, or packing. We’re just… being . Here’s how a lazy day at camp usually unfolds in the Wildebeest: ☕ Coffee outside , in chairs that squeak slightly, facing whatever view we’ve got — trees, fields, fellow campers walking their chonky golden re...

  🧭 Where to Next? We Don’t Know (and That’s the Best Part) Hey again, from somewhere slightly east of the middle of nowhere. It’s Chris & Amanda from Outland Adventures , and if you ask us where we’re headed next, we’ll smile and shrug and say: “Not sure yet.” And here’s the thing — we mean that in the best possible way. When we first hit the road in Brunilda, our previous van, we thought we’d have a color-coded map and a six-month plan. Instead, we’ve learned that the best parts of this lifestyle come when you leave space for the unknown. 📅 Plans? We Have Loose Ideas. Right now, we’ve wrapped up a workamping gig in Northwest Indiana. The campground’s been good to us — solid people, weird weather, and more than a few stories. But as it all winds down, the inevitable question pops up: “So… where are you headed next?” Honestly? We don’t know. We’ve got a short list of maybes. A few friends in a couple states. A festival we might hit if we feel like it. But no reser...

  🧭 Travel Day Prep with Outland Adventures What it really takes to hit the road with Wildebeest Hey friends! Amanda here — and today we’re giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how we prep for a travel day in our 1990 Ford E350 shuttle bus conversion, Wildebeest . It’s not quite as easy as turning the key and heading out (though we wish it was). Every travel day takes some planning, packing, and patience — but we’ve got a routine down that works for us. ✨ The Night Before We like to keep our travel mornings as stress-free as possible. That means starting the prep the night before: 🧺 Tidy Up We hand-wash dishes, put away laundry, and make sure anything loose is packed or secured. Amanda clears craft projects and books, Chris puts away tech gear. 🧠 Route Planning Amanda dives into maps, apps, and notes like the GPS queen she is — checking for low bridges, construction, road closures, and whether there’s a good spot for fuel or a fun roadside stop. She also conf...

🌄 Welcome to Outland Adventures: Life on the Road with Chris, Amanda, and Wildebeest Hey there, fellow travelers, dreamers, and DIY lovers!  We’re Chris and Amanda, the duo behind Outland Adventures — a rolling lifestyle of creativity, curiosity, and a whole lot of campfire coffee. We’ve traded traditional living for the open road, traveling full-time in our one-of-a-kind rig: Wildebeest , a 1990 Ford E350 Shuttle Bus conversion. Once a mobile command unit for county EMS, she’s now a quirky, dependable home packed with personality (and a couple of propane stoves that keep us well-fed and caffeinated). 🚐 Meet Wildebeest Before joining our crew, Wildebeest helped save lives — serving as a county EMS mobile command unit. Today, she’s on a new mission: helping us explore backroads, small towns, and the weirdest roadside attractions we can find. We converted her into a fully functional tiny home with everything we need (and nothing we don’t). No black tanks to worry about, just smart...

 Hey Y'all! So what have we done this month? Not much... adventure wise.  We did enjoy the scenic route back to NW Indiana.  We drove through: 2 National Forests, 3 states, over one massive river, through multiple mountains, a tunnel or 2, past countless fields, and wind turbines... We took some time out to swim in a little town with multiple animal sculptures. No pictures, because they were on the side of a highway. Very neat to see though. ( Haubstadt IN ) We met the nicest people at a random BP in a tiny little Indiana town.  (Benton County) We drove through Terre Haute (How do you say that?!?). That was pretty easy, it's big, but not a huge city. Since we've got back we've just been chilling at the campground when we're not working. We spent a day on the beach/in the water- and both got quite the sunburn. We've watched some stunning sunsets, storms, and viewed the stars. We've done the mundane chores, like laundry- which we hung to dry, because the local...

 Hey Y'all, In a previous blog we wrote about 5 things we love about Wildebeest, our 1990 E350 bus. In this blog we'll discuss 3 things we're less than thrilled about. We don't love... 1) That the main entry door is power only. Not a huge thing, but it'd be nice to not have to reach up front and flip the switch (to turn the power on) to open and close the doors. Power doors. 2) That the generator is missing. It'd be nice if that was still installed (and operational). We could run the A/C then. Currently it's only available if the bus is running. It works great, so it'd be nice to be able to use it more frequently. Especially on this extremely hot days. I'm not a huge fan of A/C, but when it's 90+ outside, I like to use it!  3) This one's a fairly easy fix, and we'll get there, but for now it's a bit annoying- No window tint in the cab. It makes driving around a bit warm, and super sunny on nice days. Things have already changed some ...

 Hey Y'all, We've only been living in Wildebeest, our bus, for about a week plus a few days & 600mi. That's long enough to choose some things we are LOVING about the bus and our temporary layout. Here's our list: 1) So Much more room! No more crouching, no more shuffling things, no more squishy. (I feel like that's already more than one, but we'll count it all together.) 2) She's much bigger, but still easily fits most places... everywhere we've been so far. She also feels SOLID, Brunilda did not. 3) Handles wind & weather like a champ! We had to go through a thunderstorm crossing Clinch Mtn and it was easy peasy.  4) This desk area Chris built, that we decided on very last minute. It's great for working on our laptops, folding clothes, etc. 5) So many storage opportunities, which will grow and change as we can afford more, and needs arise. The cluttered-ness is bother me, but we had to get here, and we've been busy working this past week...

 Hey Y'all, If you follow us on social media, you've seen Wildebeest (or Wilda for short). Our 1990 Ford E350 Shuttle Bus, whom we're converting into our new home on wheels. In her previous life she was a Mobile Emergency Unit Command Center, lots of words to say she was a Parking Lot Princess most of her life. We picked her up in Tennessee, did a bunch of mechanical work, and started on our clean up & temporary build. We've already discovered things we're liking and things we aren't (and plan to change in the future). The accompanying video isn't ready yet, unfortunately. We've been busy traveling and getting back to work. While she was in the shop we didn't have access to the footage to begin editing. We hope to have that posted by Saturday the 14th, and I'll add in the video HERE. Some work in progress pictures: Clean up, and planning. The middle table doesn't work for us. Passenger seat installed! (And seat belts.) A warm day! Moving ...

  Y'all, May was a real one. If you follow any  Outland Adventures  social media you already know... We started out in NW Indiana, doing our jobs, and a few fun things in-between. Then we left for all my doctor's appointments and scans in NE Tennessee... And things went far more south than we expected.  Multiple breakdowns, big decisions, new/bigger vehicle purchase, troubleshooting and repairs on it.... Taking forever. Chris did what he could and then it went to the shop.. it's been there for over a week, as they waited on parts to arrive, and getting work done. That took far longer than expected. Once parts arrived they supposedly continued work. Monday, turned into Tuesday, Wednesday... Thursday they gave an actual update that they hadn't even really began the 2 big jobs, but should be done by Friday. It's the following Monday... We're still here. What was supposed to be a few days turned into almost a month in Tennessee so far... All my doctor's appointm...

 Hey Y'all, We enjoyed our drive through Kankakee Sands, and while far away, we did see the Bison. We also saw several birds, butterflies, and many different plants. More about Kankakee Sands: Kankakee Sands  is a 10,000-acre (4,000 ha) complex of  tallgrass prairie  and  oak savanna  restorations and remnants in  Kankakee County, Illinois  and  Newton County, Indiana . [ 1 ] [ 2 ]  It is managed by  The Nature Conservancy  staff and volunteers. The Efroymson Restoration at Kankakee Sands is 8,400 acres (3,400 ha) of prairies and wetlands connecting  Willow Slough Fish and Wildlife Area ,  Beaver Lake Nature Preserve ,  Conrad Savanna Nature Preserve  and  Conrad Station Savanna . This creates over 20,000 acres (8,100 ha) of dry,  mesic  and wet sand prairies, sand blows, sedge meadows, wetlands, and black oak savannas. This area is part of the Grand Kankakee Marsh system and th...