HappilyRV is a newsletter for RV owners by an RV owner. For RV owners who want to get the most out of their rig. Covering DIY, improvements, travels and more.

While some RV sites are a glorified travel journal, I decided to create a site to help other RV owners. Like many RV owners, I take a certain pride in ownership and enjoy not only using my rig, but working on it, too. On this blog, I will compile experience and knowledge from myself and others on RV ownership, maintenance, upgrades and (obviously) travel.

My name is David Risley and I am the publisher and writer for Happily RV. I come to you from the Tampa Bay, FL area. In fact, I live pretty much in the thick of one of the “hot spots” of RVs in the country… only a few miles from LazyDays and the state fairgrounds which is home to the largest RV Supershow in the country every January.

My Background With RVs

Like many young families, we have some of the trappings of “regular life”. We have a house, a mortgage. 2 cars. But, for me, the RV is a way to be ultra-portable. I look at it as a “second home”…. one that just happens to have wheels on it and I can park it wherever I want.

This didn’t just come to me one day. I grew up around RVs. The first RV I traveled in with my parents was an old 70’s 19-foot Tioga. Hard to believe we fit a family of 4 in that thing. Through most of my childhood, my family owned a motorhome. Much of the rest of my family did as well. I remember fondly doing family camping at Fort DeSoto park (in St. Petersburg, FL) where much of my extended family would rent sites next to each other and we’d tandem camp for several days. Good times!

But, fast forward to adulthood.

In 2013, I purchased my first personal RV. It was a 1996 Coachman Santara – Class A. It was in really nice shape and the prior owner was former military, so he took damn good care of it. We took that RV all over the place, and I got to expose my family to RV travel. We took it up to Maine and back – and a ton of places in between.

More recently in 2016, I went for an upgrade. The lack of slideouts – and some other things – led me to upgrade the RV earlier than I would have otherwise. But, it was worth it.

Today, we own a 2002 Holiday Rambler Vacationer. It literally crosses every checkbox for us that the Coachman didn’t.

Since buying the Vacationer, we’ve traveled with it into Canada as well as out to California. It has… been around. ???? Most of it towing my Honda CRV on the back as the toad.

Owning an older rig, I’ve gotten my hands dirty with it quite a bit. Done lots of repairs and even remodeled much of the interior.

We’re not full-timers. We don’t own a super-expensive diesel pusher. We work hard. We’ve got two school-age kids. But, we’ve definitely used the RV more than most families our age.

It is a lot of freakin’ fun. I enjoy it. And especially given what I do for a living, I thought creating a blog for this part of my life might be a fun thing to do. After a few years, I decided to turn it into a newsletter and take it a little more seriously. And here we are. ???? 

So welcome. I hope you enjoy and find value in the Happily RV newsletter.

My Professional Life

I’ve had several assume that I am in the RV business or that I’m an RV service tech. ???? But, no.

I have been an online entrepreneur, blogger and publisher since 1998. I am the founder of David Risley Enterprises (parent company name of PC Media, Inc.).

I am a blog marketing strategist, WordPress membership site consultant & (obviously) a publisher. Obviously, HappilyRV is one of my companies. More of a passion project right now, but we’ll see how things evolve. ???? 

If you’d like to learn more about my professional life, you can check out DavidRisley.com and learn more.