Centralia, Pennsylvania

Centralia is, or rather was, a small mining town in the east of Pennsylvania.  The town was constructed on top of the coal mine that many of the inhabitants worked in.  These days, it doesn't have many mine workers, or shops, or restaurants, or houses, or even a postal code.  Here's why. In 1962, a fire started in the underground mine.  There are a few theories on how it started but most agree that the source of...

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Atlantic City, New Jersey

I've heard Atlantic City described as "The Vegas of the East".  Quite an ambitious claim really considering sin city's reputation.  I've been once when I was young, but I think my vices at the time included a mild addiction to Mario Kart on the SNES and the occasional Wham bar, so I'm pretty sure I didn't venture into any casinos or experience the nightlife. It seemed like a good place to spend my birthday on the 4th so...

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Time Flies...

I know we've been a bit quiet the last few weeks and I'll try and bring everything up to date over the next couple of days.  In the mean time, here are some quick stats about the trip so far, for the numbers fans: Miles travelled:  2700 Max MPG: 14.2! Average MPG: 8!! Tyre replacements: 2 Minor repairs to the RV: 10-15 Major repairs: 1 Number of people who think we're Australian: 3 Guns fired: 0 (so far) Bears sighted: 0 (unfortunately) Hours wasted on the phone trying to persuade our thieving UK banks to let...

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Holden Beach, North Carolina

We stopped at Holden Beach out of convenience as we'd done about as much driving as we wanted to that day.  It turned out to be one of the most stunning and relaxing places we've visited. It's a small town and, living up to its name, is based right on the coast.  In fact, this was our view from the RV while we were there: We started admiring the view as soon as we drove over the tall bridge that led onto the peninsula: The...

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The Matrix: RV-lutions

When we started planning this trip,  part of me thought "Get out there and leave it all behind for a while, it will do you good!".  Then the little voice on my other shoulder said "A year without the Internet ?  LOL". I proceeded to spend the next week of my life figuring out how to make sure we could stay connected as much as possible while we're out here. To be fair, we needed constant web access when we were looking...

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Charleston, South Carolina

After leaving Savannah we followed the coast up to Charleston in South Carolina. There are quite a few parallels with Savannah here:  Charleston was the first settlement in its region, the Carolinas; it has a historic district lined with the same live oaks draped with Spanish moss; and features similar architecture. Our feet were still pretty ruined from the long walk the day before so we weren't really up for doing much exploring....

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Savannah, Georgia

One of our first stops as we headed out of Florida and up the coast, historic Savannah is Georgia's first city. We parked up in the visitors' centre, where we would stay the night.  There's free public transport in the form of classic buses like this one: We weren't in a hurry so we opted to walk. Although its grid-based road system is familiar to anyone who's visited an American city (or Milton Keynes!), Savannah's...

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Electric Dreams

When you're camping out in the wild away from civilisation, there are only really a few things you need to worry about, apart from having enough petrol to get around and not getting shot by rednecks who want to wear your skin. Water Our RV - any RV, in fact - has 3 water tanks:  Fresh water, grey water and black water.  Fresh water is obviously what comes out of the taps and shower. Grey water is basically anything...

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