People who full-time RV with kids are a brave bunch. Jim and I looked like freaks as we explained to our friends why we wanted to give up a conventional lifestyle, but I’m sure parents get even more flack when they defy society’s expectations of what family life should look like.

Nathan Swartz, 33, a native Pennsylvanian and Reneé Stevenson, 31, from Michigan are two parents who have the guts go against the norm by living on the road with their kids. These two seasoned road trippers have followed their heart’s urge to travel while showing their kids the world, instead of just letting them read about it in books.

The couple is also sharing the highlights of the best North American destinations with Wand’rly Magazine, a destination-oriented, online publication for “full-time travelers, hitchhikers, trainhoppers, snowbirds and galavanters.”

Jim and I were recently featured in their comprehensive guide to supporting road-tripping lifestyles, “How to Make a Living on the Road,” and loved the magazine so much we became subscribers.

All in the Family Road Tripping

We first connected online with Nathan a few years ago as he was traveling through West Texas with his young son Tristan. It was his compelling descriptions about the vast, wide-open skies and quirky residents of the Big Bend that inspired us to go there, and today he’s bringing his writing and design talents to an even bigger audience with Wand’rly.

Photo by Nathan Swartz

Nathan and Reneé currently based near Asheville, North Carolina awaiting the birth of their third child. They’re itching to get back on the road with the new baby and sons, Tristan, 10, and Winter, 2, along with Reneé’s mom, Nancy.

While getting ready for their new baby, the family has launched three beautifully designed and well-written issues of Wand’rly that cover everything from couch surfing to restaurant reviews.

Nathan is a talented graphic designer who left a position at PBS after road tripping got into his soul in 2004. “A friend of mine (and I) took 17 days off of work, hopped in my old Dodge Neon, and headed for San Diego from Erie, PA. It was a life changing episode, and I ended up quitting my job a few months later, started my own freelance web design business, and have been traveling ever since.”

The couple met up two years ago, and their son Winter has been road tripping practically since he learned to walk. Nathan says he’s become “an all time pro at sleeping in small spaces, making random state parks his back yard for a week or so, and learning how to make new friends in the time it takes us to pop the top up.”

When it comes to choosing a destination, Nathan has his favorite places he prefers to repeatedly visit. “Bisbee, Arizona is a real gem, it’s as authentic as it gets in my mind, no chain stores, border diversity, winding mountain streets and plenty of genuine people willing to make new friends. West Texas was home for many, many months. West Texans are the freest people I know, and the least political of anyone. As long as you can enjoy a good, cold beer and are willing to wave every time you pass someone on the road, you can make it down there.”

Inspiring Others along the Way

Nathan and Reneé are creatives who “make a great living from the wild world of web design“ and are now living their dream of launching a travel magazine for like-minded spirits. He’s the writer, she’s the photographer, and together they manage the publication while working hard to make it profitable.

“We just want to write entertaining articles about cool places to call home for a week or a month or so in the US.,” he explains. In the next two years, Wand’rly will cover the US, Canada and Mexico.

Destinations are a major focus of the publication, with the ultimate goal of inspiring other road trip dreamers to follow their hearts and get out there to see the world.

“Plenty of people are doing it already, we live in a really great time for wanderlust, it’s so easy to make a living online, and I know people who have a steady job don’t think that, but it couldn’t be more true.

I was afraid to quit my job, the security of a paycheck and just the “reality” that a 9 to 5er for an employee is in America. But it seems to me that there are a whole lot of people who would love to be able to do what we do, and what you and Jim are doing, they just need to see everyday people like themselves doing it as well.

So if we can help inspire a few folks along the way, not only does that make us feel good, but it ups the number of people we know on the road and can call on for a good night around the campfire at some point.”

Give Wand’rly a Kickstart, Win a Face Tattoo

Wand’rly is available online at no charge but you can get complete issues delivered to your in-box by subscribing just $5 a year!

An upcoming Kickstarter campaign is their big move that will give readers a chance to ”judge whether we’re ready for prime time by voting with their dollars, and in exchange it gives us a chance to talk with our readers and potential future readers about what it is they want to hear about, their questions about getting onto the road, homeschooling, whatever.

If you want to donate $100,000 or more, we’ll promise you our fourthborn son. Or maybe just let you name him. Or I’ll get a tattoo of your face on my face and take really cool pictures of you/me at scenic overlooks. That type of stuff.”

See why our road tripping destinations are often inspired by Nathan’s writing. Visit and subscribe to Wand’rly Magazine today!

A few years ago, I read a Time Magazine article about a young full-time RVer named Kevin who earned Income Anywhere while working as a computer programmer. Reading his story was like finding a long-lost member of our tribe. Suddenly we weren’t the only young folks on the road.

I found him hanging with the old-timers at RV.net, and during one of our conversations, the NuRVers community was hatched.

A few days later, Kevin launched NuRVers.com which has been rolling along ever since.

Anyone can join NuRVers, but you need to be an open-minded, forward-thinking person to do so.

Of course, a passion for diving headfirst into outrageous killer parties helps.

NuRVers Gatherings, Exposed!

NuRVers gatherings tend to be held on the fly and usually at the crossroads of where members’ driving routes intersect. Sometimes it’s just two rigs, other times it’s several. Members have spontaneously met in different places around the U.S., like Quartzite and Florida, but the group has only put on two “official” gatherings.

The last official NuRVers meet-up was held in 2010, in Gonzales, Texas.

Kevin and his partner Angie deserve a major kudos for doing almost all of the work to put on this historic event.

About 20 families gathered at the fabulously funky HillShade RV Park to share, learn and party. Party, a LOT!

Thankfully, fellow NuRVers Chris and Cherie of Technomadia documented the respectable parts of this the historic event. Recently, they shared some of this footage in a terrific video profiling the lives of young full-time RVers and how they make money traveling.

Watching this RVing video is a must for anyone who is curious about the variety of ways in which people can earn Income Anywhere. Take a look, and be sure to tell us how you make a living while traveling, or how you dream of doing so!

Thanks for all of your hard work on this Chris and Cherie. Great job!

Within 48 hours of returning home to our stick house for the summer, we had used a blender, bread machine, waffle iron, food processor and panini grill – all appliances we left behind when hitting the road six months ago.

With limited space in our 24′ fifth wheel, the only kitchen gadget we take with us when we head south for the winter is a toaster. We survived with a camp stove toaster when we first left, but that novelty wore off long ago, along with a lot of burnt crumbs.

Every RVer has that one gotta-have gizmo they just can’t live without, right? What’s yours?

During the first NüRver Bartender Wars, we discovered Kevin’s is a Margaritaville Frozen Concoction Maker. Those Technomads had a soda maker, the Happy Jansens had an industrial strength juicer, and Ben had one of the finest commercial grade espresso machines I had seen since my busboy days at Graziano’s.

For those of us without a basement in our rig, storage space comes at a premium. We keep our toaster in the oven when we roll. Kinda gives new meaning to the term toaster oven, eh? Too bad a margarita machine won’t fit inside our Magic Chef oven! Guess we’ll stick to making Republic Texas Tea.

Here’s that informative post I promised before i got distracted by those great steaks and cocktails at the AA. I hope at least, that anyone who publishes an RV blog – or any website for that matter – will find this information, well… informative!

A while back, fellow Nü RVers those tech nomads informed us that a certain website was repurposing blog posts, not only from this site, but theirs and those of a number of other RVers.

Sure enough, a simple search revealed that entire posts of ours, including photos, were being republished in their entirely without our permission. Furthermore, we discovered that the site in question was a paid membership site, so it was using our content for profit!

The infringing website’s owner argued that because we make our posts available via rss feed, that the content was free to use as he wished. A bogus claim from someone who hadn’t done his homework, but a slightly grey area nonetheless.

TIP: To search a specific website for something you wrote, use Google and enter a distinct phrase followed by “site:” and the domain, like this…

“freaky vegan cooking” site:liveworkdream.com

Replace domain.com and the phrase or keywords to meet your needs.

While we were able to remove all existing and future content of ours from the website in question with one request, it got me thinking. I decided to do my own homework regarding the rights of web publishers, and gladly share what I found out here.

Ownership Rights of Web Content Publishers

According to the The Berne Copyright Convention, everything on the internet is considered copyrighted the moment it is written. Under the Berne Convention, copyright is automatic upon publication and does not require formal registration. When the United States joined the Convention in 1988, however, statutory damages and attorney’s fees continued to be available available only for registered works.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty of 1996, “compilations of data or other material (databases), in any form, which by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations.” All blog content is stored in a database and is therefore an intellectual creation.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (title 17, U. S. Code) states that “Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.”

Finally, by republishing our copyrighted content on a for-profit website I confirmed that the infringing site was  in violation of the federal copyright fair use doctrine, as described in sections 107 through 118 of the copyright law (title 17, U. S. Code)

Please note that I am by no means a lawyer, not even close, in any way. So I consulted one. I visited the free legal advice website LawGuru.com and asked:

What law can be cited when notifying someone who has republished original website content without permission, when they insist syndicated content (rss) is in the public domain?

My research proved me correct. Here is the answer I received:

You can cite 17 USC 106 which defines your exclusive rights, including a right of attribution, and 17 USC 501-506 which define your remedies. 505 authorizes recovery of attorneys fees and expenses and 506 may make it a criminal offense, particularly when done via the web.

However, you need to know that for the Court to have jurisdiction to enforce a copyright in the US, you must first apply to register it. It is a simple process for a copyright attorney to do that online. You should use an attorney, so that the attorney can simultaneously write a CDL (cease and desist letter) to this apparent infringer. A letter from you is not likely to have the same effect and not likely to be worded for optimum impact. In fact, most do-it-yourself non-lawyer CDLs are a disaster and some even create grounds for countersuit.

So, if you want to ensure your legal rights to anything you publish, see a copyright attorney, consider assigning a creative commons license, or register your own copyright.

How to Re-Publish Blog Posts From RSS Feed

There are numerous blog aggregators on the interwebs that legally republish copyrighted content. They do this by only publishing an excerpt, assigning attribution, and including a link to the original source. But there may be times when one might wish to republish content from another source in its entirety, when it is appropriate to do so. Like when said person owns the copyright to the original content, or has explicit written permission to do so.

I’ve been considering doing just that with a new Tripawds Blog that will republish posts from our five featured blogs, giving readers one location to find all the best news, gear, gifts and nutrition advice for three legged dogs in one convenient site. Just how would I go about doing this?

To republish our own content and consolidate posts from multiple different blogs in one site, I plan to use the Autoblog plugin from WPMU Dev. Should you choose to do the same, of course, we know you’ll be certain you have the rights to do so.

Recommended Reading

Infringement Nation: Copyright 2.0 and You

Patents Copyrights and Trademarks for Dummies

The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Copyrights

Every Writer’s Guide to Copyright and Publishing Law: Third Edition

Law of the Web: A Field Guide to Internet Publishing

My dad once told me a similar joke where an immigrant gave up on learning the English language after reading that headline. But yet again, I digress.

Though I have said it before, whenever I go AWOL around here you can rest assured it has something to do with three legged dogs. This time was a big deal.

I recently completed the long overdue Tripawds site makeover with a complete overhaul of the site’s theme and active plugin structure. Anyone interested in the easiest way to make random header images or how to integrate multi-site stats into a site-wide header might be interested in the bit I wrote about how to customize the WPMU-Nelo custom homepage CMS WordPress theme.

Suffice it to say, however, that this undertaking was a crash course in php and css. And so far, it has paid off. Speaking figuratively, not literally. My prime directive for overhauling the Tripawds site was to improve performance in the discussion forums.

We started Tripawds using Mandigo, the same theme behind this blog and the RVblogz community. It has served us well. Mandigo is massively configurable, with lots of java and many files. Over the past few years, Jerry’s blog infrastructure had become bloated.

Too many hacks, scripts and widgets were bogging down the site.

So how did I do it?

One word: WPMUdev.

Seriously, there’s no way I alone could make the Tripawds Blogs community what it has become without my WPMUdev premium subscription for the best WordPress themes plugins and support. That’s how during the recent makeover I easily implemented robust new features like a global site search and searchable directories for blogs and members.

It’s also where I got the lean and mean WPMU-Nelo. Hacking this slick WordPress theme to bits was relatively easy, even for me due to it’s code simplicity and parent/child theme structure.

Did someone say digress? We’re in Quartzite now with the Nü Crew, and I haven’t even written about Walla Walla. As much as I hate reading blogs that bemoan infrequent updates, we gots some catchin’ up to do!