Scribble World Travel Blog

Tigers in Thailand

I’m busy dreaming of future travels. There’s this place called Tiger Temple in Thailand where the tigers are so tame, people can actually walk around amongst them without getting attacked or eaten. I’ve seen amazing pictures taken from Tiger Temple that show just how up close the people can get to them-like this one with the tiger’s head laying in a girl’s lap. I was amazed how inexpensive doing a Tiger tour is-around 3800 baht which is around $111 U.S. dollars. It’s a beautiful country and that would make an amazing trip. I suppose flying to Thailand would be the biggest expense, but who knows, maybe there’ll be some great last minute travel deals to Thailand one of these days Just have to remember not to pack skirts, at least not for that day-no red colors are allowed around the tigers and no skirts-I guess deep down they’re still playful kitties when properly enticed. Monks have raised these tigers who were orphaned due to poachers killing the mom, and these orphaned tigers, as amazingly tolerant and friendly as they are, some of the monks believe the tigers are actually former Buddhist deciples reincarnated!

How we traveled with 2 cats

We have had quite a few people express curiosity as to how we managed to road trip around the country in a van for 6 months with TWO cats, so today I thought I’d share how we did it.
We began our adventure in Arizona in October and slowly traveled north before eventually driving down south again through early April. For the most part, we had very decent weather, but that’s not the half of it. I don’t think we could have traveled with two cats, let alone one, without some important safety measures.

For starters, we put an extra deep cell battery in our van. We then hooked it up to a
pure sine wave inverter to power a fan…so the fan worked even when the vehicle wasn’t running.

Second, We customized our van effectively changing the temperature dynamics by removing all the back seats and installing an elevated bed instead. The bed consisted of a wooden platform, covered by memory foam and piles of insulating blankets and pillows. Having the bed in our van not only saved us a lot of money along the way on accomodations, it also provided an excellent basement-like shelter for our cats to chill under.

The temperature difference was HUGE! The warmer air would
accumulate in the upper level, while beneath the bed the temp was always a bit on the chilly side.

We also had a large roof rack bag. The roofrack bag served as additional insulation for our van, deflecting the sun rays and providing yet another barrier. The roof rack bag was filled with clothes and extra blankets.

We made sure the cats always had plenty of food and fresh water at all times.

Their litterbox was easily accessible in the back of the van-also making it easy to clean simply by lifting the hatch.

We put up window shades on all the windows. Also, we would leave all the windows in the van partially open to allow a natural breeze and prevent the oven affect.

Common sense also played a role-we parked in the shade, did most of our site seeing during
the cooler morning and evening hours as much as possible and most importantly did
our van traveling before the hot spring and summer months.

I also recommend monitoring the temperature of your vehicle at all times. On some days, it’s probably a good idea to spray your pet with cold water which will have a cooling affect as it evaporates,
while you run your quick 10 minute errand. Some people even shave their pets.

I’d rather be overly precautious than not cautious enough whereas our cats are concerned. They are family members-unfortunately, it may be a while before they start opening doors and calling us on our cell phones, so in the meantime, another possibility is to leave the vehicle running with the a.c. on if there is a spare key. Another precaution is to wear a stopwatch as a reminder there’s a
pet waiting for you.

On another precautionary note, it is very important to realize that our pets are far more sensitive to heat than we humans are. The first sign of panting is a red flag that the animal has gotten too hot. Panting can be a sign of heat stroke. Other signs are findng your pet in a stupor and even seizures. A vet should be consulted at the first sign of heat stroke. According to the Maricopa County Gov site, normal body temperature for dogs and cats is between 101-103 degrees Fahrenheit, but it only takes seconds to rise to deadly levels.

Also relating to vehicular pet safety-did you know that antifreeze containing ethylene glycol is deadly, yet sweet and appealing to pets? Instead you can use products with propylene glycol, which are more pet friendly.

Many tourist destinations are taking positive steps in becoming more pet friendly and we found this very encouraging on our travels. The Fountain of Youth in St. Augustine, FL encouraged people to bring their pets with them- and also, The Kennedy Space Center near Titusville did too-they had a complimentary pet kennel.
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MaxCold Igloo Cooler Review

This is a review of the MaxCold Igloo Cooler 5 day cooler, which we used while traveling the U.S. in a van for six months as our travel cooler.

The MaxCold Igloo cooler with its 70 quart capacity is a decent size for a road trip cooler. It has a light blue reflective color and ultratherm insulation throughout. The advertisement states that ice can be kept cold for up to 5 days at 90 degrees Fahrenheit. “Up to” are the key words. Ours never seemed to last longer than 2 or 3 days- and in the warmer parts, like Florida, we found ourselves replenishing ice daily.

Now, before I scare you into thinking the MaxCold Igloo Cooler may not be a good investment, let me just add that we kept the cooler behind our van on a black cargo rack-so while the blue color of the cooler may have been reflecting heat, our cargo rack was absorbing it. Next time, we’ll attempt to insulate/shield the cooler better.

The cost of ice varied quite a bit on our travels. The self service ice stands tended to be the best deal. On average, it was probably around $2/bag for a 10 or 20 pound bag. Replenishing ice almost daily at times can add up so determine if what you’re trying to keep cold is worth the cooling cost. If $60 for a months supply of ice is saving you from buying hundreds of dollars in eating out than it’s worth it, but if you’re just keeping bottles of mayonnaise and a few hot dogs cold, it’s probably not worth the expense. We usually kept a few of shelf stable single serving size packets of our favorite condiments on hand. The kind fast food restaurants usually give too much of at the drive thru.

Having a cooler while camping and boon docking saves a bundle. We’d pack our MaxCold Igloo Cooler full of ice, (frozen water bottles work well too, then as it melts you have cold water to drink).  No need to waste gas driving into town for food with a good cooler.

When staying at a motel, we could usually use their ice machine to top up our ice also.
It’s all in the details…but make sure you’re having fun, afterall, that’s what road trips are all about!

p.s. Stay tuned for more Road Trip Travel Tips and advice to Save You Money-

Whether you’re trying to travel on a thin budget of $15/day or just wish you had more money for the things that matter, we’ll be sharing our road trip lessons in budgeting and making the most out of traveling and being on the road.

RV Pros and Cons

If you’re thinking about buying a new or used Rv, here are some RV pros and cons to consider based on our experience with a Maui Rv rental in Australia.

Space:

After traveling around the U.S. in a Honda Odyssey where space was at a premium for long term travel, space in our Maui RV rental was a definite pro.  I loved the fact that there were cupboards and under seat storage compartments for storage.  The closet was small but still a nice feature and then there were separate drawers and cabinets for kitchen-wares.  A shoe rack above the door and hooks to hang coats also made life a little more organized.

We took advantage of additional storage by keeping some things in the bathroom when driving.  During the day, we could use the bed above the cab as storage for our suitcases. At night, we’d move the stuff down to the cab.  This would have made it a little difficult to leave in a hurry though.  Also, if you have to do it everyday it could get a bit tiresome, depending on how heavy your “must have” stuff is how much time you have to complete the maintenance task.

A kitty litter box would have fit nicely on the bottom step by the door for those traveling with a pet…

A RV space con is that after we started using the kitchen sink to do our dishes, we discovered the gray water was overflowing into the bathroom, which also doubles as a shower.  We couldn’t be certain anything we stored in there wouldn’t get wet.

The Shower…

The Cons: Aside from the gray water gurgling up into the shower after washing dishes we also noticed a bad smell.  At first we thought it was from the black water, but we hadn’t yet used the toilet and we didn’t notice the smell until we started doing our dishes.  It became something we had to tolerate and we would open the roof vents when parked.

Balancing Act

We had a few scares when we started driving away suddenly realizing nobody had shut the roof vents-so that was always fun- trying to close the vents while driving-swerving all over the place.  The RV felt precariously tippy at times-and it occurred to us that perhaps our things were out of balance-we probably shouldn’t have had so much heavy stuff in the upper storage levels and cabinets.

Water Limitations..

Considering the water limitations, it was impractical to take a real shower, so that surprised me that the shower- something we thought would make the RV experience a step up from our van travels- was a pretty much useless feature.  There may, however, be tubes you can buy to give you extra water, but you would probably need to have a place to empty your gray water-and a nice environmentally friendly shampoo and soap so you could let it out on the side of the road as necessary.

Rv Toilet

The toilet we avoided as much as possible, but in a pinch, on those dark and scary nights, it was a bonus not to have to go outside. The strong smells didn’t make this an attractive long term solution though-even with the blue liquid chemical additives the RV dealership provided us. There’s surely a better way?

Gas

Gas, obviously was more expensive than our van.  It would cost around U.S. $130 to fill the gas tank in Australia with prices in the $1.45 Australian dollars/liter range.

Structural Integrity

As far as structural stability, I wouldn’t recommend taking an Rv some of the places we went.  In Karijini National Park, the closet door jiggled right off the hinges while we were driving over a particularly rough patch of dirt road.  We had a pocket handyman to re-attach it, but that was a rougher ride than that RV was probably built for. Luckily our dishes didn’t break. Driving to the Wilderness Camp at Cape Leveque called Kooljaman also would have been a bad road to take the Rv down-luckily we had a 4×4 for that, but even so, structural integrity seemed questionable at times.

The Awning

We never did get around to using the awning…it may have been nice, but we didn’t stay any one place long enough to make learning how to put it up, and take it down again, worthwhile.

Fuses/Power

We had a couple fuses blow on us.  Chris would probably be the one to talk more about this issue.  He found it odd that he was able to make a set up for our van to run a laptop and GPS program while driving with sufficient power, while in the Rv, it was easily overloaded because the fuse between the battery and the cigarette lighter power outlet didn’t allow as much power as we were trying to draw from it.  The AC outlets were only powered when plugged in at a campsite.  Chris bought an inverter in Australia for around $60 to plug into the cigarette lighter. The inverter made it possible to power one computer at a time.  In our van we had a thick cable going from the main battery to the auxiliary battery and a 1,000 watt inverter hooked up to the auxiliary battery allowing for more power.

Temperature Control

Another pitfall of the RV was that some days we would get really hot sitting in the back. Having the windows open seemed to make things worse, not better..so we had to wait and give the A.C. from the cab a chance to reach us in the rear, which could take a while.  I recommend water and an ice cold ginger beer in such situations.

Radio

The radio rarely had a good signal. Satellite radio is the way to go. We used Sirius radio while traveling in the U.S. which worked very well.

Fridge

One concern with the fridge in our Maui RV-it seemed to work well for most items, but the small freezer was not quite cold enough for our ice cream snacks-which became quite melty and we were “forced” to eat them right away.

Ants

As soon as our first day on the road, we discovered ants had already nested in our RV rental.  We did our best to keep the kitchen crumb free, but still, they were present and it was not particularly fun sharing our home on the road with ants but we could not seem to find where they were hiding in the RV. To avoid this problem, you’ll want to keep food in sealed containers or zip lock bags and clean up spills and crumbs immediately. Ants are drawn to these things-even in an RV.

A Simple Table…

I’ll end on a pro-it was great to have a table in the Rv as it makes such a convenient place for the laptop and other items.  Space was a constant struggle traveling in the van and having a table to work at would have made been a big pro.

Happy Road Trip Travels!