YouTube video I mentioned earlier:
Brian
True that and what squeegee said. The truck and chassis will last for quite a long time, but the box that’s mounted on it requires preventive maintenance on an annual basis or it will disintegrate into a rolling wreck. The more cheaply made an RV is, the faster it will turn into a piece of junk, regardless of how careful you are. IME, Class B motorhomes hold up better than Class C, primarily because they are often just converted vans rather than a chassis with a box mounted on it. In all cases, repairs are costly and inevitable. Just getting the toilet replaced was about $500, and so was resealing the windows. You learn to do a lot of the maintenance yourself.
An extreme example is when my son went on a camping trip with neighbors in their RV. A tire disintegrated, the debris got caught in a propane line, and sucked the kitchen cooktop under the vehicle. Everyone was fine, and they continued the excursion (with a new tire) and cooked on a grill. But yeah, rolling down the road driving an apartment gets interesting.
Ok, here is the site: They are called Harvest Hosts.com.
The idea is you can stay for free at some places. It might be worth checking out.
I dont think I would ever get an RV but I might get a trailer. They are cheaper, easier to store. require less maintenance, and you can park them somewhere and still drive around in your vehicle. So lets say you park it somewhere in Colorado and that is your home base while you drive around to attractions within say 100 miles.
I know my parents have really, really enjoyed theirs. However, as has been said, it’s not a cost-saving measure. It’s just a different thing. For them, it’s that hanging out in the RV is like hanging out at home. It’s their (tiny) space. But now home is magical, because there is a different view outside whenever they want. This is especially nice because my mom is a lot more high energy than my dad, so they can travel together and she can literally leave him at the trailhead while she hikes, and he can hang out like he’d be doing at home.
Grilled cheese sandwiches and scrambled eggs on the RV stove may honestly be more expensive than eating at restaurants 3 meals a day, once you figure in the cost of the RV and maintenance . . . But they like what they make better. And they are too old.to want to set up camp kitchens each night.
Not a “value” aspect, but a couple different considerations for me: I love the idea of cruising around America in a nice A or C class with a dry bath, staying in parks and having a fantastic vista waiting for me when I step out the front door. I’ve taken a couple of trips with a friend with who has big Class A and they were pretty enjoyable.
But the trade off that kills the deal for me is having to drive the thing. While they aren’t really hard to drive, they aren’t FUN to drive (like on a winding mountain or coastal road), you can’t park them just anywhere, and you have to have a tow vehicle if you want to go different places when staying at a base camp. somewhere. With all the talk about self-driving vehicles, my fantasy would be a self-driving RV that could drive itself to the campsite while I was cruising there in a smaller, more fun to drive vehicle.
The other thing is, while staying a nice RV campsite with space in between you and your neighbor is great, there are places where you’re wedged in a couple of arm’s lengths from the RV next door. That doesn’t appeal to me at all.
Or pay extra to have the rental company deliver the vehicle to the site then pick it up afterwards?
The RV rental delivery solution is a good option – I know there are companies that will deliver a camping trailer to campsites. But that wouldn’t really work on a long cross country road trip. I suppose you could hire someone to drive the rig from place to place if you had the money, but that would mean you’d have to hang out with them every night.
I want to thank everyone who has responded so far (and I don’t want to discourage more responses).
I have learned a lot, mostly that I am asking the wrong question. The question should be, “What can I do in an RV that I can’t do any other way?” and I have seen some good answers here.
I just talked to a friend who just got back from an RV vacation with his wife and son. They rented a 31’ through RVShare much cheaper than the one I priced. It was an old model, but functionally just as good as a brand new one.
Buying one is out the of the question. We are just considering taking an RV vacation, and if we like it, maybe more in the future. But this is a once-a-year or once-in-three-years deal, because we take a variety of types of vacations.
The trailer idea is interesting but I don’t have a vehicle suitable to tow a trailer.
It also sounds like I would need to tow a vehicle for local trips. I haven’t looked into the logistics of that. I could even see renting a SmartCar for that. When you tow a car with a towing dolly, does it rack up miles on the odo?
An alternative is to rent a Class B motorhome–which is basically built on a van chassis. This way you don’t need an extra vehicle you tow behind; you drive the Class B everywhere. Here is what some of them look like:
https://www.google.com/search?q=class+b+motorhome&client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=ALeKk01BHne8JorhS64nplpSUcPRcpeFsQ:1597854848663&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiCsaCV2afrAhVPa80KHTmQBqEQ_AUoAnoECDYQBA&biw=1280&bih=601
Yeah, pulling a 20ft trailer is a pain, and getting them in and out of tight RV spaces requires real skill. Also, you need a large vehicle in its own right to tow them. Our neighbors pull a large trailer with a Suburban. The gas mileage must be awful.
We are considering a truck/camper. A big Class A rig is only useful while vacationing, but you can drop the camper and drive the truck all year round, and at your destination as well. They are much easier to drive, you can park them in standard parking spaces, they are more fuel efficient than most big trailer/truck combinations, etc.
They also have a surprising amount of room in them, because of the cab-over bed. I’ve seen truck campers with popouts than look like little apartments inside, complete with showers and bathrooms.
Another easier-driving alternative would be a Sprinter Van conversion, but nice examples of those get very spendy. The Mercedes sprinter van RV’s start at about $100,00 and can easily go over $150,000.
Remember buying one, they depreciate about 10% a year even if sitting in storage and that alone is pricey.
We did one trip with grandparents. While most of the family (kids) I mostly drove the car. The motor home easily slept all of us and was cheaper than the 2 hotel rooms.
I guess I should be more descriptive. I use the term “RV” to refer to any camping vehicle, from tiny pop-ups to giant motorhomes. I have a travel trailer, here’s a pic from an overnight stop.
I guess it’s a matter of experience, but it becomes second nature after a while. Our trailer is 36’ (from hitch to spare tire in the rear) and the whole rig with truck is 58’ long. The rig prior to this one was 67 feet end-to-end. I don’t encounter that many places where large rigs are a pain. Mostly in older parks and some tight national park sites. RVs have gotten so big that commercial parks have adjusted to accommodate them. I get about 12 mpg consistently, which I think is pretty close to Class A and Class C motorhomes. And since you’re gonna tow something, I figure I might as well have a 4WD pickup to explore with.
I’ve watched people unhook (or get out from under) those in campgrounds. It’s a waaay more elaborate process than unhitching from a trailer. Even with the remote controlled lifts to help reposition the camper, it still looked like an ordeal. We’ve camped a few times with no tow vehicle (rented motorhome). Trust me, reconfiguring for driving (unhook utilities, slides in, prep interior for travel) each time you want to go somewhere became a real PITA. We ended up feeling trapped at the campsite when our only vehicle was also the camper.
Well, I’ve raised and lowered campers, and didn’t find it that bad. And that was with the old manual jacks that you’d have to go around and lower one at a time. Now they have auto-leveling electric jacks that can lift your camper at the touch of a button.
No, I wouldn’t want to hook up every time I had to leave the campsite to get groceries or go golfing or whatever. But if your use-case isn’t so much formal campsites with hookups, but remote streams, lakes, or roadside turnouts while driving cross-country, a camper is fine. A diesel truck with a generator, coupled with maybe 800W of solar panels on the roof of the camper would let you live off-grid just about indefinitely, no hookups needed.
It all depends on what you want to do. If I were traveling to an RV site where I wanted to park for two weeks, I’d definitely want either a trailer that can be unhooked, or a big motorhome pulling a small car.
But if you are more adventurous, or have specialized uses, a truck/camper can be great. For example, a key use for us is driving out to dark sites and staying a day or two to do some serious astrophotography. For that, even a camper van would be fine. Another one is to travel around to abandoned towns and other old sites to do some metal detecting. We might drive to two sites in a day, and be gone for a week, never staying at the same place for more than one overnight. No hookups in sight. Again, a Truck/Camper is perfect for that - you can drive on unimproved roads, old fire roads, etc.
The bottom line is: Know what you want to do with your RV. One size defnitely does not fit all.
I was going to mention RVShare as a cheaper alternative to the commercial rentals.
Also, if you have a vehicle capable of towing, renting a trailer vs. a full on motor home is much cheaper again, ~$100 per day.
We’ve used RVShare a few times for travel trailers. But I already have a big-ass pickup truck that can tow a 35’ trailer.
I see your point, and the truck camper makes sense. More like a fly-fisherman seeking an isolated stream than an old couple who seek reliable 50Amp.