Below, we will discuss all of those in a bit more detail. However, you may click on any of the links above to go directly to that particular section.
Come To An RV-Dreams Rally!
We love doing our educational rallies each year, and most of our attendees leave with expanded knowledge and life-long new friendships.
The biggest promoters of our RV-Dreams Rallies are our prior participants. It is always our goal to give every attendee more than they expected, and many have returned again and again. :)
There are a few events each year where we are paid to speak or present seminars on the RVing lifestyle.
We are the lifestyle seminar speakers for the RV Safety & Education Foundation's (RVSEF) RV Lifestyle Education & Safety Conferences. The Conference includes over 60 seminars and provides unmatched RV knowledge in a few days. Also, your attendance is a huge help for the non-profit RVSEF which is dedicated to RVer safety and education.
In addition to the RVSEF Conference, we are asked to speak at various RV shows, rallies, and functions. Your attendance at these events supports the RV industry and allows the promoters to provide better and better consumer education.
Purchasing Products & Services From Our Referral Partners
Over the years we have run across various products and services that we have purchased and later recommended. In some cases, the owners of the companies have developed certain referral or commission plans that we take part in. It's a win-win for us and the company, and often we are able to offer discounts to our readers off of retail prices, making it a win-win-win deal. It's great to earn a little cash from something we were going to promote anyway, and it's a huge bonus when our readers can get a discount as well. :)
RV Extended Warranties Through Wholesale Warranties
After having good results with our initial seven-year extended warranty on our RV, we researched a variety of warranty companies. Wholesale Warranties provided us with the best quote for the best coverage, and we signed up. Since then, we have learned much more about the business and we were asked to become independent representatives.
We have created a webpage that explains extended warranties, what to look for, and how to get the most out of them: RV Extended Warranties.
Workamper News matches RVers with jobs for RVers all across the country. Finding this website before we started full-timing road gave us the confidence that we could earn funds on the road without taking on traditional jobs.
Over the years, we have worked seven different workamping jobs and still get daily email updates of open positions. We are big fans and are now a Workamper News Concierge which means those that sign up for Workamper News subscriptions using our Concierge Code get an extra couple of months for free.
We recommend every full-time RVer have RV-specific Emergency Roadside Assistance. The two top plans in our research over time are Coach-Net (which we have) and Good Sam Roadside Assistance.
We work with Coach-Net and they have authorized us to provide discounts to our readers. Another win-win-win situation. Click on the banner below for more information.
Our readers know that we love getting out on the water and some of the best times we've had on the road have been while using our Sea Eagle inflatable boats. For years now we've been promoting InflatableBoats4Less, Sea Eagle's largest dealer.
Tim & Cyrstal are wonderful folks and provide personal advice depending on your needs and wants in a boat. They guarantee lowest prices and, therefore, it's another win-win-win situation as all the parties involved. Click on the block below to get to their "Howard Sent Me" page.
Boondockers Welcome is a website where RV enthusiasts sign up to host traveling RVers on their private property for free (or a small donation for hook-ups). You can sign up as a host for $19.95 per year or sign up as traveling member for $24.95 a year. It only takes a couple stays a year to cover the cost of membership.
Passport America is a discount RV club whereby members can camp at over 1,800 campgrounds and RV parks for half price (with certain restrictions). It's a no-brainer for full-timers at $44 per year. :)
Mark & Dawn Polk of RV Education 101 provide technical guidance on RV operation and cover many of the basic aspects of RVing. It's one thing to read about all this, but it is much more beneficial to be shown on video.
We wish we would have had these videos before going on the road as complete "newbies". We think they are a great addition to the "lifestyle" information on our website, and we hope you agree.
We are HUGE proponents of getting your RV weighed wheel-by-wheel so you have the best information possible for the safest and most enjoyable use of your RV.
There are very few places to get that done properly, but we have partnered with the RV Safety & Education Foundation (RVSEF) to provide that service. Obviously, RVSEF shares a portion of the weighing fee with us.
This fits in perfectly with our passion for education and assistance of RVers AND it helps support the great work of the non-profit RVSEF. To find out more, go to our
Shopping our advertisers is one of the easiest ways to support RV-Dreams.com. Not only that, but the following information may help you earn some money from your own website or blog.
Google Ads
The folks at Google long ago established Google AdSense for web publishers. AdSense is a way for website owners to place ads on their website without having to solicit advertisers to pay for ad space.
Basically, anyone with a website can establish a Google AdSense account for free. Once an account is established you can customize colors and sizes of ads as well as a few other items. Then all you have to do is copy the HTML code Google provides and place it in whatever location you choose on your website. Many blog services and website building services have "Help" sections that provide instructions for placing Google Ads.
Once the code is in place, Google scans your website for content and places "content relevant" ads in the ad blocks. It may take a little time for relevant ads to show up. Often, immediately after posting a Journal entry, we end up with ads that we have no control over and don't like, but they eventually change as the information on the page is scanned and re-scanned. If we get objectionable ads over and over, we have the ability to block those URLs within our Google Adsense account.
So how do you make money with Google Ads? Well, Google has another program they call AdWords. It's somewhat complicated, but basically advertisers pay Google to place their ads on websites that are relevant to the product or service they are selling. Those advertisers also pay Google based on the number of clicks on their ads. When you own a website with Google Ads, you get paid a small percentage of what Google gets paid, pennies at a time, for each click on an ad on your website. If you have enough traffic and enough people click on the ads they are interested in, you can earn some decent income from Google. Even if you don't have a lot of traffic, once the ads are there, there is no maintenance and even a few dollars a month helps, right?
Now, Google has some very strict policies to protect their AdWords customers. If those advertisers end up paying a bunch of money on a bunch of bogus clicks, then the system will fail. So, Google will terminate your Google AdSense account if 1) you blatantly tell your audience to randomly click on Google Ads, and 2) if you click on your own Google Ads.
So, that's why you will never see us tell our readers to just click on ads. We occasionally remind folks to look at all of our "sponsors", but we absolutely cannot encourage clicks.
The restriction to click on your own ads is also why we, and other RVers that have wireless hotspots and websites with Google Ads, keep our internet access secure. If someone sharing your internet access clicks on your Google Ads, it can look like you are clicking them yourself and you can be terminated. And it's not easy to get reinstated.
So, while we don't want our readers to randomly click, it does help us if you see Google Ads that legitimately interest you and you check them out. And hopefully, this explanation also helps some of our readers earn a little spending money as well. :)
Affiliate ads are also ads that you can add to your website for free. The difference between affiliate ads and Google Ads is that while you get paid for clicks with Google Ads, you don't get paid with affiliate ads unless a purchase is made or a lead is generated (perhaps the completion of an application or online form). The percentage you get paid is much higher, but the percentage of people that click through your website and buy something is very, very small.
Many, many online businesses that sell products or services have affiliate programs. Look at the bottom of the home pages for links that say "Affiliates" or "Partner With Us" or something to that effect.
Usually, not always, but usually, the online businesses run their affiliate program through an affiliate manager like Commission Junction, Clickbank, LinkShare, and many others.
If you want to be an affiliate for a certain business, you click on their "Affiliate" link. Most often you have to sign up with their affiliate manager and complete an application through that affiliate manager. Sometimes your application is "rubber stamped" and you can place affiliate ads immediately. Other times, your application really does go through an approval process and it may take a little time for an approval. And sometimes, your application will be rejected due to 1) not enough traffic on your website, or 2) your website doesn't fit the product or target audience of the business/product.
Like Google Ads, you will be instructed how to locate ads and you may have lots of choices. Once you decide on the ad you want to display, you copy the HTML code and place it where you want it on your website. Then you wait.
How do you get paid? Well, as I said before, you only get paid with affiliate ads IF your website visitor clicks on the ad on your site AND either buys something or becomes a "lead". Here's the good news. They don't have to buy something THAT day. A cookie gets placed on your website visitor's computer, and it remains there and valid for a certain period. That period may be a few days or several months (depending on each specific company's policy). If your website visitor thinks about it and goes back to the online business later and buys a product, you can still get a commission.
The affiliate manager compiles your commissions and sends them to you by check or direct deposit. Usually, you have to accumulate a certain threshold of commissions before a payment is sent. Commissions are usually paid once a month.
Now, the percentage of website visitors that click on ads of any kind is very small. And the percentage of website visitors that click on ads AND actually buy something is much, much smaller. So it takes a lot of traffic to make any serious money with affiliate ads. That's why Google Ads are more attractive to sites with limited traffic - even though the "per click" payments are small, there are more of them.
Anyway, if you see an ad on our websites that are NOT Google Ads, chances are they are affiliate ads. You can click away on those. :) And if you happen to buy something, we will at some point get some type of commission.
Amazon.com has its own "affiliate" program that they call Amazon.com Associates. It's pretty easy to set up and is also free. You can include links to Amazon in general, set up ads that will be populated based on key words you provide, or you can place ads for specific products. There are lots of options. Again, you only get paid if your website visitor buys something after clicking through the ad on your site.
Most small website owners have very little success with Amazon ads. The commissions are low, especially for books.
However, a wide range of people buy lots of products on Amazon.com, so there is potential. Although it is still one of our least successful strategies, we have had a little more success because many of our readers are simply using our Amazon links (like the search box below) to get to the site for items they were going to buy anyway. They don't pay any more, but because they accessed Amazon through our site, we get a small commission.
In conclusion, by shopping our advertisers, our website visitors help support RV-Dreams.com in multiple ways, and without spending any money at all or by spending an amount they were going to spend anyway.
Every link to our site helps. Not only does it bring others to our site, but it helps our rankings on search engines.
We have several options for promoting your site and doing cross-links if you wish. We are all about mutually beneficial relationships. Use our Contact Form to send us information if you would like to work together.
Many of our website visitors do this already and that word of mouth is greatly appreciated. Mentions on other forums and in blogs and emails have brought numerous new people to RV-Dreams.com.
So, we want to say "Thank You!" and we cannot emphasize enough how helpful that is and how much it means to us.
"Chipping In" basically takes a "pay what you think it is worth" approach. Rather than requiring subscriptions and restricting information, we have established the ability for readers to voluntarily "Chip In" whatever value they attach to the information provided.
"Chip Ins" may be done online using the drop down box and "Pay Now" button below or a "Chip In" can be done via check by using the form below that.
Note: For those that send "Chip Ins" and would like either an RV-Dreams static cling window decal or an RV-Dreams bumper sticker (or both), we will be happy to send them out. If you have sent a "Chip In" and would like decal or sticker, just let us know via our Contact Page.
Online "Chip Ins" Via Credit Card, Debit Card, or Your PayPal Account
To "Chip In", simply select an amount from the drop-down box and click on the "Pay Now" button to make an online contribution.
All online "Chip Ins" are processed through PayPal, but you don't have to have a PayPal account to use a credit or debit card.
Note: A new window should open when you click the "Pay Now" button. You should see the amount you selected on the left. Ignore the "shipping information" box below that. On the right, you can sign in to your PayPal account OR below that you can pay with a credit/debit card (a PayPal account is not necessary).
Check Contributions
For those that are uncomfortable with "chipping in" online, you may mail a check if you wish. To send a check, please complete the Form below. When finished, click on the "Request Address To Send Check" button at the bottom of the form. You will then get a "Thank You" page with final instructions.
Please know that all support of any kind is greatly appreciated. Part of living our dream is to help others live their dreams. You help make that possible.
