Focusrite Scarlet 2i2

This is the Focusrite Scarlet 2i2. This is a USB interface device that allows us to plug in up to two XLR microphones. This interface will accept microphones that require 48V phantom power, as well as microphones which do not need phantom power. The device offers direct monitoring and more.

Find out more about the Focusrite Scarlet here: https://us.focusrite.com/products/scarlett-2i2-3rd-gen

Microphones

As we previously mentioned, there are a LOT of microphones on the market. Even after reducing the options to XLR the field is still very large. After reading reviews and researching for what seemed like a very long time, we made the decision to purchase the following microphones:

Condenser Mics

NEEWER NW-800

This is a great little mic that won’t break the budget. XLR interface and supports phantom power. We have two of these microphones in our podcast gear. They work very well and we have no complaints.

NEEWER Uni-directional (Shotgun) Microphone

This shotgun microphone works well. When in uni-directional mode sound only comes from one direction. Noise from the other directions is minimal, if detected at all.

NB: 48V phantom power is required in order for this microphone to operate in unidirectional mode. As of this writing the NEWER shotgun mic is unavailable, but the link will take you to the same mic under a different brand.

Movo VXR10-PRO External Microphone

While not directly part of our podcast gear, we purchased this microphone for better audio recording outside the studio, such as filming with a cell phone. This mic provides much better sound recording than the built in microphone on any phone. With USB-C and 1/8″ cables provided, this microphone should interface to all (or at least most) of your devices.

MOVO Lapel Microphone

We received this lapel mic as part of a special offer when we purchased the MOVO external mic above. It’s a great bit of podcast gear for those lapel mic moments.

Other Helpful Items

These items aren’t required podcast gear, but might be helpful.

Cable Matters XLR Cables

The XLR cables that come with these microphones may or may not work when you get them. They may or may not work a month later. Better quality XLR cables are probably in your future. We like these from Cable Matters.

Xvive Phantom Power Injector

This device injects phantom power into a microphone which requires it. The function that this device provides is fulfilled by the Scarlet in our setup, but would be useful in a setup which does not include an external DAC. For example, this will allow an XLR mic to be plugged directly into a computer’s sound card using the appropriate cable or converter (XLR -> 1/8″).

MAONO USB Microphone

If all of this talk of DACs, XLR and phantom power is over your head, or if you just want to get started right away, you could do worse than this microphone. This microphone supports USB-C as well as XLR interfaces with phantom power. This might be a good starter microphone to get started without springing for the whole XLR setup up front.

Conclusion

If the question is “What gear should I buy to start a podcast?” our answer would have to be “It depends”.

As we said, we have multiple uses in mind for this equipment that are not directly related to a podcast. Sam specifically wanted to be able to move the entire recording setup between computers by only swapping one cable. This setup accomplishes that goal and more, and we are very happy with this podcast gear.

Good luck on your podcast!

The post By Request: Podcast Gear appeared first on Metaphysical Family.

The first lesson that we learned is that RVs built after 2019 are called COVID CAMPERS with good reason. Forest River’s poor quality control is second only to their customer care after the sale. When our 2022 36BHQ began to literally fall apart in January of 2023, Forest River did nothing to help. Instead, Forest River did everything they could to shirk their responsibility, laying the blame for their poor construction at the feet of Super Springs International.

Feeling defeated, we returned to our “home base” property to build a tiny(ish) house in the woods. The lesson we learned here is that it takes much longer than one might think to build a house on a property that has been abandoned for ten years. After five months of clearing brush, a tractor purchase, tons (really) of dirt work, and one broken post hole auger later, we still didn’t even have a base foundation for the house prepared. The leaves were changing, letting us know that winter was coming whether we were ready or not.

As we didn’t want to spend another winter in the Sabre, Sam was working outside from sunrise to after sunset, but progress was slow. Any time we felt like we were making progress, an approaching setback seemed certain. Tensions were high in the household. For a few days it seemed like 2023 was going to end in a very unhappy way.

Then, on the third straight morning of breaking rock in the bottom of post holes, the tension reached the boiling point. Frustrated, we decided that it was time to admit that we were not going to have a house ready by winter, and that God was making it pretty clear that we were headed in the wrong direction.

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.”

Bruce Lee

Sam has observed that when difficulty arrives, it is usually the case that Sam is not moving in harmony with the flow of the Universe. Sam firmly believes that God is in direct communication with the created Universe, though those communications are usually very subtle. Pillars of fire are spectacular, but the important messages often come as whispers from God.

And after the ra’ash an eish; but Hashem was not in the eish; and after the eish a kol demamah dakkah (a quiet, gentle voice).

Melachim Alef 19:12 (First Kings 19:12)

After much reflection on ideas such as those above, Sam suggested that the time of year signaled the end of camping season, and that we might be able to get a decent deal on an older RV. As is often the case when we are moving with the Universe, we found a promising prospect a day or two later, and it was only a few hours away. A few days later, we brought our new (to us) RV to our base camp.

Introducing Corvus Canus

We were lucky enough to find a 2015 Jayco 4212 Toy Hauler. Compared to the Sabre, this RV is built like a tank. Everything about the structure of the RV as well as the materials and components used within the RV are superior in every conceivable way. We expect far, far fewer problems with this RV than the junk Forest River produced. After all, it has already outlived our Sabre seven times!

We spent the next month getting it ready for us. New carpet in the front bedroom, bunk beds for the kids, a reconfiguration of the garage/happy jack system, ROKU TVs to replace the off-brand TVs provided by the OEM (UpStart?) and two bottles of Meg’s 61 Oxidation remover later (it was really bad), it’s ready to roll, and we are on the road again!

On December 11, 2023 we departed base camp for a more southern latitude to enjoy a mild winter season.

We will upload many more pictures over the coming days, and will be releasing a tour video soon.

But, what about the tiny house?

We are still planning to improve the base camp property, including a tiny house, and other amenities that we will announce as we go along. We plan to return when the weather there is more favorable to outdoor activities, and take it from there.

Until then — see you “out there”!

The post On The Road Again! appeared first on Metaphysical Family.

Better Business Bureau Complaint

We initiated our BBB complaint against Forest River in early April after Forest River’s refusal to discuss our issue. When we opened the complaint we were only seeking a repair of the damaged sidewall discussed in Part One. As you saw in Part Three, the situation had unfortunately progressed in the time that Forest River was giving us the runaround, and the RV is now coming apart at the seams.

The initial complaint was sent to Cheyenne Clark. Cheyenne suggested through the complaint that we contact Henry Sears. You remember Mr. Sears from Part Three.

Mr. Sears’ initial response to the complaint read as follows:

This again?

Mr. Sears clearly hadn’t read the complaint. We sent this back along with another copy of the email and Lip Sheet 0104 from RV Masters, as well as a link to the Youtube video we shared in Part Three of the rear sidewall screws backing out.

Forest River Fails, Denies Responsibility (Yet Again)

We respectfully declined to participate in their offer to have the RV transported to Indiana for inspection for the reasons we stated in our response, but also because at no point has Forest River said anything other than “the bump stops did it”. Why would I send the RV to Indiana under these circumstances? So they can “inspect” the RV, stick to their position that “the bump stops did it”, and then hold the RV hostage until we pay for the “inspection”?

Forest River – A “Better” Recreational Vehicle

If a person clicks over to https://forestriverinc.com and scrolls down the page they will see this quote from Peter Liegl – Forest River’s CEO.

I wonder how Mr. Liegl feels his company is doing with his vision. I wonder if our experience is what he meant by “building better recreational vehicles” and the idea that his products serve the needs, interests, budget and lifestyles of every family. Maybe there are families out there who buy an RV that want the body to fall apart after a year … but we doubt it.

The Quest for Customer Service Continues

Forest River continues to deny any responsibility, or offer any reasonable resolution. We can not be without the RV until our cabin is built, so we can not have it disappear to Indiana for an undisclosed time, and certainly not for an undisclosed purpose. We asked what they would be inspecting, but Mr. Sears ignored that question in what is apparently Forest River’s typical style.

We hope to reach a resolution soon, but are aware that this can go on for a long time yet. Perhaps that is Forest River’s plan — to prolong and belabor this process as long as they can in hopes that we will get frustrated and go away. If that’s the case Forest River has grossly underestimated our resolve in this matter.

Check back for the next installment. We aren’t done yet!

Until then we ask that you please share our story with everyone you know.

UPDATE: Part five is available now!

The post Forest River Fails, Denies Responsibility – Part Four appeared first on Metaphysical Family.

The Defects Continue

We had noticed a bulge in the rear most portion of the passenger sidewall behind the slide. The bulge is (was) in the black aluminum skirting at the bottom of the wall which hides the wall seam and the frame rail. We don’t remember exactly when the bulge first appeared, but it was not there in February of 2022 when I was busy making skirts for the RV.

The bulge _was_ present in the fall of 2022, as can be seen in this picture from October.

The bulge had grown by February, but was still only a bulge at that time.

This is what the bulge looks like today. The video explains the rest.

As you can see, the first screw which backed out was one of the screws securing the bottom of the wall structure to the RV’s floor assembly. The RV’s floor assembly is then (supposed to be) bolted to the frame with the fasteners discussed in Part One and Part Two. Now the rest of this same line of screws which hold the sidewall to the floor assembly have begun to back out.

Will the RV make it back to our property? We honestly don’t know at this point, but we obviously hope so. Forest River still denies any responsibility for this damage or repair.

Forest River Fails, Denies Responsibility (Again)

If you recall the email that we sent back to Forest River after their denial, that email politely suggested that they review our case and reconsider. We thought that after we explained the situation with the frame checks having been done incorrectly that Forest River would tell us to find another shop to have the work redone.

But that’s not what happened.

We didn’t get any further responses from Forest River until I called LCI directly. After we had done so we sent the following email to Forest River.

Forest River did respond by EOD 4/7. This is what they sent.

Climbing the Ladder

Cheyenne Clark is the public interface to Forest River service. Since she is the only public point of contact for the service department, anyone wishing to communicate with Forest River must go through her. At least, that’s how Forest River would prefer it to be. But the power of the internet can help a person find all kinds of useful information.

Did you know that there are websites that keep track of companies’ boards of directors, C-level executives, etc? They sometimes include contact information for those company executives. Many of the people in this story are on LinkedIn as well.

We sent the following email as our final direct email communication about our case to Forest River. We sent it to Cheyenne Clark, whom you already know. We also sent it to two other people: Peter Liegl – Forest River’s founder and CEO, and David Youmans, Forest River’s C-level “Director of Ethics and Compliance”.

We were hopeful that this email to high level executives would get our case the attention it deserved.

Our hopes were shattered when we received this email from Henry Sears, who we presume is somewhere in middle management; above Cheyenne Clark and Chad Cook, but below the C-levels that we emailed above. Was Mr. Sears willing to help, or even discuss our case further?

No, he only doubled down again.

Lippert is Silent

Forest River keeps telling us to discuss the case with Lippert. it would be great if we could do that. Unfortunately, Lippert has been very elusive when we ask them for their denial and the reasons for it in writing. The last email we sent to Lippert was this one. We are still waiting for an answer…

And remember – ALL OF THIS centers around this supposed frame issue which neither Forest River nor LCI want to talk about, and which RV Masters has proven does not exist.

Refund or Replace

What a complete and total mess. Am I right?

When all this started we would have been very happy to have the crack repaired so that we could continue our traveling adventure. After everything that has happened, it seems that wasn’t meant to be. People say things like “The Lord moves in mysterious ways …”. As I have said before, that has not been my experience. I find it to be downright overt at times.

With the continued problems we are having with this RV we do not feel that it can be repaired. We have resigned ourselves to moving out of the RV and changing directions. Now we are hoping that the RV stays together long enough for us to get to our property. Once there it can sit stationary until we get the house built, but it can not continue to be used for travel camping in its condition.

With damage this severe we are seeking either a replacement unit or a refund. Even if this one can be saved we would never be able to trust it. How could we? Just take Forest River’s word for it because we have experienced so much honesty to this point?

To Be Continued

Thank you again to everyone who has come forward with their similar stories and support. There is a cynicism that we see both inside and outside the RV community too often. “It’s an RV. You should have known it was built as cheaply as they can make one. They have problems. That’s just part of it.”

I am not sorry that I refuse to accept this failure as normal, or just part of owning an RV. This is not normal wear and tear. The body of an RV should not fall off in the first year. That’s not a normal thing that happens. Our unit is bad, and Forest River should feel bad. But they don’t.

We have strength in numbers. The more of us there are, the more reasonable it becomes to hear terms like “class action” being thrown around. If you own a Forest River RV and have a similar experience, do not accept this as normal. If this is normal for Forest River, Forest River needs a new normal in a bad way.

Check back for the next – and hopefully final – episode of Forest River Fails, Denies Responsibility. We are living the next episode as we type this one. We will update you all as soon as we have more to share.

Update: Part four is now available.

The post Forest River Fails, Denies Responsibility – Part Three appeared first on Metaphysical Family.

When we started our journey we were so optimistic. The road was wide open and we were free to go wherever the winds blew us.

Our basic plan was to travel to the North East to visit with family for the summer.

From there we planned to travel south along the east coast, then west across the Great Smokey Mountains to Missouri for a stopover around Thanksgiving. November in Missouri starts to feel like winter, so we hitched up and headed south to Texas for the winter.

We spent New Years at Magnolia Beach in Texas. What a change from our winter in 2021!

But it wasn’t all fun.

There were nearly constant RV repairs. It seemed like we were still in the “shakedown” phase well into July when the black tank vent suddenly became taller. Water leaks were a constant issue. We had to replace the factory provided China bomb tires, thankfully before they blew out. You may have noticed that our posts about our RV far outnumber our travel or metaphysical posts.

In January of this year, while we were busy repairing the water leak in the back wall of the RV, we found that the RV had developed a stress fracture in the sidewall.

We had planned to leave Texas shortly after New Years to begin our trek across the southwest. We were going to see the Marfa lights, Guadalupe Mountain, Carsbad Caverns, Roswell, White Sands, City of Rocks, the Grand Canyon and more before turning north into Utah. Instead we contacted Forest River about our sidewall issue, and then spent all of February and March bouncing around the Houston area visiting repair centers.

When Forest River denied any responsibility for our RV in April we decided to have the RV diagnosed independent of Forest River, but at one of their authorized repair centers. We had to leave the RV at the shop for two weeks, which meant a new level of homelessness that we were not at all prepared for. With no other option we took out a two week rental through Airbnb in Galveston. Why Galveston? Because Houston is, well … Houston.

We had always planned to be on the road for at least one year, but also regularly talked about being on the road for two or three years. Of course we accounted for one constant in that – having the RV! This episode made us realize how unprepared we were in the event that the RV was unavailable. Not just because of Forest River’s apparent lack of quality control, but for anything. Where would we go if someone hit the RV and it had to go to the shop for a month, or longer?

Before we hit the road we sold our sticks and bricks, but purchased a small parcel of land nearby. We intended to use the land as “home base” as it has power, water and sewer already on the property, making it a fine place to park an RV. Provided that we had the RV.

So as we celebrate our one year “nomadaversary”, we are drawing up floorplans to build an off-grid cabin on the property that we own. We have realized that we need a proper home base because our RV is broken, and getting it replaced is going to take a while. We do not feel that we can ignore the issue and keep using the RV because of the signs of other structural problems which have begun to develop.

This is not the end for our RV adventures, but the the direction of this blog will be changing in the coming months as we build our home base. We plan to do all of the work ourselves. We have built smaller buildings, but this will be our most ambitious project yet.

We hope you will join us as we embark on this newest chapter in the wild adventure that is our lives!

The post One Year Nomadaversary appeared first on Metaphysical Family.

In our previous post around RV move day checklists we presented a modified boilerplate checklist that we had found online. Since that time we have changed and consolidated the lists from four checklists down to two checklists.

RV Move Day Checklist – Day Before Moving

RV Move Day Checklist – Move Day

Download your copy today

We are making our RV move day checklists available to our readers for free. If you don’t have a move day checklist, you probably should. Just fill out the form below to download your copies of the RV move day checklists right away!

The post RV Move Day Checklists Revisited appeared first on Metaphysical Family.

When we purchased our Forest River Sabre 36BBHQ we were underwhelmed with the CCC (Cargo Carrying Capacity) of the rig. In factory configuration the RV is only rated to carry 2,472 pounds. This sounds like a lot, but it goes quickly. Even though we only have 49 gallons of fresh water capacity, a full fresh tank is ~400 pounds of weight. This leaves just 2,000 pounds for food, clothes, tools, etc, and that assumes empty waste tanks.

Each Forest River RV is weighed at the manufacturing facility prior to shipping. A label identifying the unloaded vehicle weight of the actual unit and the cargo carrying capacity is applied to every Forest River RV prior to leaving our facilities.

https://forestriverinc.com/rvs/fifth-wheels/sabre/36BHQ/3192

According to the sticker installed at the factory, the RV must not be loaded heavier than 2785 pounds.

To confuse the matter further, there is another sticker which indicates that each axle is rated at 6160 pounds.

This confused us as we had eight lug axles, which usually indicates at least a 7,000 pound axle. A quick check under the rig indicates that it does indeed have two Lippert 7,000 pound axles under it.

We emailed Forest River’s service department to determine why there was an 1800 pound discrepancy between the stickers on the side of the RV and the equipment installed under it. This is the response we received from Chad Cook, Forest River’s service contact:

We had always planned to upgrade the tires on the RV so that we could take advantage of the extra ~1800 pounds of carry capacity, but we assumed that we had plenty of time to schedule the upgrade.

Then we met another full time family at Patton Pond in Ellsworth, Maine. They told us of their experience with the two blow outs (on two different RVs!) that they had endured in less than a year of being on the road. We discussed our RV, and that it still had the factory tires installed. The tires installed at the factory were rated at 3500 pounds (load range E) each at 80PSI cold, which is where we had been running them. When we weighed the rig at launch we were still under the 6160 pounds per axle, but talking with this family made us decide to get the tires replaced sooner than later.

It’s a good thing that we did.

This is one of two tires that had bulges in the sidewall. This is a blowout waiting for an opportunity. We probably would have lost this tire on the next move day.

Enter the appropriately named Necessary Auto Sales & Tires in Kennebunk, Maine.

They not only had the necessary tires for our RV – and they were necessary – they even opened the shop on Sunday to install the tires during our move day. If you are ever in the Kennebunk, Maine area and in need of tires, give Bob and Carrol at Necessary Auto Sales & Tires a call.

We bought four “G” rated 14 ply “Trailer King” tires rated at over 4000 pounds per tire @ 110 PSI cold. These tires also come from China (most if not all tires do in 2022), but they are made to more exacting QA standards than the “Castle Rock” brand tires installed on most RVs at the factory. Any tire can fail, but we do not feel like we are just waiting for the inevitable blow out after having the new tires installed.

UPDATE: We have had several people ask us how we know that our wheels are rated for these higher pressure tires and the weight they can carry. We answer these questions with the following pictures. RV wheels typically have the PSI rating as well as their weight capacity cast into the back side of the wheel itself. Ours are rated for 110PSI and 4080 pounds per wheel. The wheels are capable of carrying more than the axles are rated for, so we feel like we are well within the limits of tires, wheels and axles.

The RV manufacturers seem to think it is perfectly fine to install these cheap “China bomb” RV tires to save a few dollars per unit. They apparently do not care if the tires blow out causing damage to life and property.

We feel differently. Tires are probably the single most important safety device installed on your RV and truck. This is not the place to go cheap. The manufacturers can and should do better.

#rvlife #chinabomb #forestriver #sabre #36BHQ

The post “China Bomb” RV Tires appeared first on Metaphysical Family.

Appearing in this episode of “What’s wrong with the RV today” is the black tank roof vent.

I discovered this while doing our T-24 move day inspection on the roof. When I first saw what had happened I began running through the worst-case scenarios for what could have caused the black tank vent pipe to suddenly have gotten about a half an inch taller.

Had we run over something that pushed the black tank up? No, that didn’t seem likely.

Had the roof of the RV suddenly fallen? This didn’t seem plausible either, especially since this vent pipe runs through a wall, which would (should?) support the roof at this point.

Crawling into the basement revealed that the pipe had always been in a bind in the basement, and in fact still is. The pipe was too long when it was installed, but was forced into place anyway. Apparently the 2000 miles from Missouri to Maine had been enough to shift it around enough to force it up and pop the vent cap off.

My solution was to trim the pipe down and reinstall the vent cap. All is well again … until the next T-24.

If we were reliant upon RV service centers for repairs, I am sure that we would positively hate this RV.

#rvlife, #forestriver, #sabre

The post It’s always something appeared first on Metaphysical Family.

Disclaimer: Each family is unique and your family may have different requirements than ours so I have provided as much information as I was able to gather on each of the following companies. The following table serves as a quick reference of the data with more detailed information in the following sections.

Escapees

I found Escapees to be one of the most commonly recommended virtual mailboxes due to the fact that they will provide addresses for domicile in Texas, Florida, and South Dakota. They are the largest mail forwarding service and have been in business since 1985. Escapees mail forwarding is an add on service to their Escapees RV Club which provides discounts for RV products, Escapees RV parks and access to their online communities.

To become a member of the Escapees RV Club there is a cost of $49.95 per year. The mail forwarding add-on service costs $95-$135 per year depending on how much control over the types of mail items that you can have forwarded to you. In addition to the basic plan costs there is a $50 enrollment fee, $50 postage deposit, and annual service fee required.

If you are looking to have your mail scanned you can expect to pay an additional $10 per month for envelop scan and $.50 per page scanned.

I believe that Escapees could be a great fit for families who are in need of a domicile address, but as this was not something that we needed the cost was too high for the value provided.

https://escapees.com/

IPostal1

Even with its strange name, IPostal1 looks to be a strong contender. On their website they tout themselves as the “#1 Digital Mailbox Service” in the world and with over 2,300 locations throughout the US, US territories, and a handful of other countries it may be the service that provides the most options for address location.

Though their plans start at the listed price of $9.99; depending on the location address selected, you could see an additional monthly charge of up to $30. Also, there are no set shipping costs to forward your mail and packages. Shipping costs are left to the discretion of the address location selected.

While they do offer monthly payment options IPostal1 provides a “2 months free” discount if you decide to pay by the year. No contract is required and there are no set-up costs or enrollment fees. An additional benefit they provide is that junk mail does not count toward the plan allotments and they will recycle or discard the junk mail for free. Though this may not be an issue if you have opted-out of marketing mail, credit and insurance offers as I discuss below.

Scans of the outside of incoming mail items are included with the different plans, but page scans and shred requests have an additional cost of $2.25 for up to 10 pages scanned or shredded. They can be purchased in bundles of 5, 10, or 20 with higher discounts the more you purchase at a time. A scan or shred request covers 10 pages, but multiple requests can be made if the mail item is more than 10 pages.

In addition to the three plans outlined in the table above they have a fourth option which is $399 per year and allows up to 240 mail items.

This was the only company which had a storage limit. I am not sure how much scanned mail it would take to reach the 2G storage limit, but it may be something to consider.

Overall I think that IPostal1 could be a great virtual mailbox option, especially if you needed to have an address in a specific location, but it would be important to understand what types of mail you expect to receive so that there were not too many additional charges.

https://ipostal1.com/

PostScanMail

At first glance PostScanMail looks like it could be a competitive option, but after some review of their plan structures their pricing seems as though it might end up being the most expensive option.

PostScanMail‘s lowest plan starts at $180 per year, but has an additional costs for everything from additional mail received, storage costs, additional recipients, mail shredding, oversized packages, and even local pick-up. These additional costs could add up quickly and cause this virtual mailbox company to be the most expensive option I reviewed.

Another negative that I found was that junk mail does count towards your monthly allotment which could cause a lot of unanticipated additional expense.

One positive that I found was that PostScanMail stores all scanned images of your mail items to your account, for free, for as long as the account remains active and can be sorted using filters and folders.

This virtual mailbox might be the right fit for you if you know that your mail load will work with-in their specified plan structures, but as we were not sure exactly what our mail load would be at first we decided to go with a company that included more features in their basic plans.

https://postscanmail.com/

St. Brendan’s Isle

St. Brendan’s Isle has been around since 1988 and was initially created to help people who lived on boats manage their mail needs. As the company grew they began to included land travelers as well.

This company prides itself on the personal touch they provide and encourage you to come by and meet the team in Jacksonville, FL. They offer a couple of basic mail packages, but will also create a custom mail service tailored to your needs starting at $29.99. This personal touch has attracted many full-time travelers to use their service.

St. Brendan’s Isle requires a $100 deposit to begin using the service in which the monthly fees and services rendered come out of. You will then need to add additional money to your account, as needed, to cover your plan and any additional charges. One of those additional charges is for their scanning services which will add an additional $7.99/month to you plan costs.

St. Brendan’s Isle also has services to manage your voice mail, fax, and email forwarding. I have not seen some of these features offered by any other virtual mailbox provided I reviewed. These were not services which we were in need of, but may provide value to some families.

UPDATE: At the time of my initial research I found the St. Brendan’s Isle website to be severely outdated; however, I have recently re-reviewed their website and have seen that they have modernized the website. It is much more pleasant to explore and use now.

https://sbimailservice.com/

Traveling Mailbox

Traveling Mailbox has been providing virtual mailbox services since 2011. Their basic plan comes in at the same price as Post Scan Mail at $180, but provides more value for the price with additional mail items, page scans, and recipients. When looking into what was included in this base plan I was pleasantly surprised to see that junk mail did not count towards your incoming mail limits and that shredding mail was included.

Another thing I really liked about Traveling Mailbox was that all of their scans are converted to PDF and the files can be synced with Evernote, Bill.com, Google Drive, and Dropbox with their platforms integrations. Since we have converted most of our files to a digital format I appreciate when a company makes file keeping an easier task.

Mail forwarding has a base cost of $2 plus shipping which I felt was average among the different companies. And while all of the companies I reviewed did provide mail forwarding services, not all of them utilized all of the major shipping providers like Traveling Mailbox does. This allows you to choose the best and most cost efficient shipping for your mail and packages.

https://travelingmailbox.com/

USPS Form 1583

No matter which virtual mailbox you choose you will need to fill out and notarize a USPS Form 1583 (Postal Consent Form). This document is required by the U.S. Postal Service for security and must be done before any company is allowed to handle your mail and package deliveries.

This form maybe provided by your chosen virtual mailbox provider, but can also be found on the USPS site or by clicking the link below.

https://about.usps.com/forms/ps1583.pdf

Junk Mail

Regardless of which virtual mailbox company you select one of the most beneficial things you can do is to reduce your incoming mail load. There are a couple of websites I found during my research which can remove your name from a few of the larger marketing lists and help reduce this excess mail load.

Data & Marketing Association

The first thing you can do is sign up for the Data & Marketing Association‘s mail preference service. This will remove your name from most national telemarketing mail and email lists. You can fill out the short form online and pay the $2 fee and your name will be removed from the marketing list for 10 years.

Note: You will have to submit a form for each mail recipient in your household for the full benefit.

https://www.dmachoice.org/register.php

Consumer Credit Reporting Industry

The Consumer Credit Reporting Industry has an opt-out program which will remove your name from credit card and insurance offers. All of the major credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion) participate in this program. You can register online or call 1-888-567-8688 to opt-out for 5 years, but in order to opt-out permanently you must use the online registration though they do require you to submit a signed Permanent Opt-Out Election form which is provided once you submit your electronic request.

https://www.optoutprescreen.com/

Who We Chose

Through my research I realized that there may not be a perfect virtual mailbox solution for everyone, but there are many great companies which provide value in different areas that you can tailor depending on the actual needs of your family.

In the end we found that Traveling Mailbox best suit the needs of our family. The plan pricing was competitive and included everything we needed in a virtual mailbox service.

One of the reasons we decided to go with Traveling Mailbox was their highly available business model. They have customer assistance associates available 7 days a week through phone, chat and email and appear to take security seriously.

Traveling Mailbox has built its own custom mail facility to handle our operations. Our facility has automatic generators standing by in the event of a power failure. Our facility has multiple fiber internet lines that are completely independent and redundant. All customer data is securely encrypted and replicated multiple times to other targets. All of our systems are monitored 24/7, 365 days per year. Our goal is to remain operating no matter what comes our way. 

https://travelingmailbox.com/secure-solutions

When we began the sign-up process a member of the Traveling Mailbox team contacted us directly to set-up a video call to assist us in completing the process and then was able to notarize our USPS Form 1583. They made it a very easy process to get started.

Also, their app has a clean appearance and can be used seamlessly along side the web interface which allows us to manage our mail from anywhere we have service. The few times I have had to contact their customer service team they have been prompt and provided helpful service.

Overall we have been happy with using Traveling Mailbox as our virtual mailbox provider. If you are interested in trying them out as well our affiliate link is posted below.

httsp://travelingmailbox.com/metaphysicalfamily

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Downsizing has been quite an interesting experience. As we assessed each item of our once beloved “stuff” we realized that there was not much actual attachment to much of it. In just a few weeks worth of time we were able to fill our truck-bed full of items to donate three times. The vast majority of it has been easy to let go of. There have been some items that either would not fit in the RV or are not needed for this life that we have put aside to review again after most of it has been dealt with. But even with these pulled aside items we have found ourselves pulling items from there to place in the donate pile.

With the progress we have made we now felt that we were ready to start taking the RV out for a few trial runs. It was Hannah’s birthday week and we thought that we would surprise her with a trip to a Yogi Bear’s Jelly Stone Park . Since we have started talking about traveling full time in the RV Hannah has wanted to go to a Jelly Stone Park. So I began planning our adventure down to Branson for our first trip out. I was able to find an available spot and was about to book it when I decided to call the resort and check to make sure that the amenities would be available during our trip. After a short conversation with bookings I had learned that most of their amenities were already closed for the winter. With that information I was far less excited to spend the “character tax” when we would not be able to take part in all of the things we would be going for in the first place. And just like that my plans had fallen to pieces.

I have previously experienced bouts of anger and depression when plans would fall apart like this, but something we keep hearing in the full-time RV life groups is to remain flexible. Sometimes things are not going to work out the way you think they should, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t happen the way they were meant to. So with that in mind I looked at the situation and figured out what else we could do.

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.”

― Lao Tzu

We had just signed up for a couple of RV resort membership cards and I began to look at resorts which were with-in a days travel, as this would be our first excursion and we didn’t want to be too far from our “stick-and-bricks”. I first began to look down in the same area as the Jelly Stone Park because it is near-by and Branson is a tourist town so there would be lots of things we could go and do. I wasn’t really finding what I was looking for from any one park in the area. I found myself becoming more and more discouraged, but determined to being flexible I widened my search and found Lost Valley Lake Resort. This resort had everything we were looking for and more. There was nature, indoor activities (which remained open year round), and even some kids events planned for the weekend we were looking to go.

Being flexible allowed us to find a great new location which we may have never have checked out otherwise. Being flexible also allowed me to be filled with happiness and excitement instead of a state of negativity. By being flexible I was able to let go of a part of myself that I did not like and replace it with something I did. We are all thrilled to be going on this first adventure out and are looking forward to all of the new things we will learn and do.

To see how our trip went check out our post about Lost Valley Lake Resort here.

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