John King is a Country Music Artist and Songwriter who found a way to blend his love for camping and family life with his career. When he’s traveling to shows, he and his family use their Shadow Cruiser 325 BHS as a home away from home and an oasis for creative inspiration.
One of the earliest memories I can recollect consists of my mom, dad, and three-year-old me, packed in the back of a Chevrolet pickup truck with a hard-shell camper top, trying to sleep on a muggy summer night in Georgia at a federal campground. We had a blowup air mattress, a tarp that we used for shelter over a picnic table, and a little green boat that my dad would tow behind the truck.
We spent our summers in the woods or on the water. For our family, camping was never a hobby; it was a way of life. Throughout the years, my dad saved up enough to buy a pop-up camper, then a travel trailer, and finally a Class A motorhome.
A vacation that will forever go down in history for our family was an unforgettable Thanksgiving trip to South Florida. My dad planned the trip for a whole year and was meticulous about every detail. My grandpa still laughs about pulling out of the driveway and hearing a funny noise under the hood of the RV. When he asked my dad about it, he looked at him and said, “Just pretend like you don’t hear it, Sam.”
Everything was fine and dandy until we got halfway back up 75 North out of Florida and a billow of black smoke came pouring out from under the hood. My mom, grandparents, and younger brother had to drive our tow vehicle home while Dad and I waited a week in Florida for the camper to be repaired. You wouldn’t find me complaining. I got to miss a whole week of school!
Like his dad before him, my dad loves the outdoors and wants to share the joys of camping with his family. Like most kids, I never knew what values he was trying to instill in me until much later on. Now that I have kids of my own, it all makes sense.
In 2020, with the pandemic lockdown in full swing, my family had a terrible case of cabin fever. Our oldest daughter had just turned three, and my wife and I felt it was time for our family to embark on new adventures. We were ready for a change. I was also looking for a unique way to showcase original music since concerts weren’t happening at the time.
One night we were sitting in our living room talking, and my wife said, “You should record some of these songs around a campfire, you know? The way you started.” She was right; at a young age, I began writing songs around the campfire. After a long day of riding bikes or skiing, I would grab my guitar and entertain my family and fellow campers by firelight, and I felt like it was time to show my fans that side of me.
I bought some really cheap recording gear online and watched hundreds of YouTube videos on “How to Record and Edit Live Audio and Video,” but we were still missing a key piece to the puzzle... an RV!! We spent hundreds of hours researching different styles of camping, RV brands, floor plans, etc.
I happened to stumble upon the Cruiser RV page one night and stopped scrolling when I found the perfect layout. It was just what we had been looking for. I ran into the living room and showed my wife. We knew we’d found our camper! I reached out to the team at Cruiser and told them about my vision for a virtual concert series that featured all things outdoors and country music. They were so supportive, and within a couple of months, “Campfire Sessions” was born!
We’re going into year four of the outdoor series, and it’s been amazing to watch it grow. We still love our Cruiser RV, and the team there has become like family. We’ve also had amazing partners like THOR Industries come on board and help us continue to spread our message of family, the outdoors, and music to a new audience.
Our family has grown over the past couple of years, and we made the decision to start taking our RV with us on tour. In the past, my band and I traveled in a van and stayed in hotels. I was performing at these venues but never really experienced the beauty of where I was. Taking my camper on tour has enabled me to have my girls with me on the road and truly witness the magic everywhere we travel. I hope that my girls, now the fourth generation of campers in our family, will look back and see these as some of their greatest memories.
Travel trailers are the most popular type of non-motorized RV. No doubt you’ve seen one pulled down the highway hitched to a car or pickup. Travel trailers come in all sizes including tiny jellybean-shaped models with a chuckwagon kitchen in the rear to the massive house-on-wheels with picture windows and a sliding glass patio door.
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