What to Look For in a Rolling Home?
/In the fall of 2017, Scott had started to show some openness to RV living but before he officially said yes, I took off with researching and planning and daydreaming about floor plans. I knew nothing about RVs. From my travels as a kid, I had an idea of smaller spaces, but to pick between a truck camper, travel trailer, 5th wheel, Class B, Class C, or Class A... where do I even begin?
Scott wasn’t ready to scour over floor plans with me, so I forged ahead solo to present a refined plan to him down the road. ;) I was able to pretty quickly narrow down the RV style.
Not for us:
* Class B - For those who aren’t familiar, a Class B is basically a sprinter van that has been outfitted with the basic house needs. They can be very beautifully done with amazing space utilization, but they are not inexpensive. On the plus side, because they are smaller, they fit into more spaces with ease. For us, with the 4 animals to consider, a lack of slides would make this too small of a space.
* Class C - This is a step toward a Class A (the naming from B to C to A is a little out of order). Typically, this type of RV will have a truck/van shaped nose with an overhang above the cab. Many will have slides, so space wise, this would be a little better. But I think we would lean toward a larger unit, and the length that would hang past the rear axels was concerning to me. On top of that, we would probably need to bring a tow-vehicle with us to travel around once we find a place to stop.
* Class A - The motor home - the largest of the self driving RV options. This would allow for the animals to be wherever they want as we travel, but from a crash perspective, Class As are not necessarily built with the same safety cage protection that a truck/SUV would have. Like a Class C, we would need to bring a tow-vehicle with us, which means two engines/drivetrains to maintain. And the price point - we could get into one for under $50,000... but I don’t know that it would necessarily be of a style that we like or an age/condition that we felt comfortable traveling full time in.
* Truck Camper - This would mean our entire house is in the bed of the truck. And while they can have several slides to maximize the space... with 4 animals, this would just be insane.
In general, I figured that if I was going to really get Hubbie on board, there would be a limit to how much we could downsize and I would need to find something that was affordable while still feeling homey.
Towable homes!
I started evaluating travel trailers and 5th wheels for their livability. While there is only so much variation when dealing with a tiny space, I wasn’t finding the perfect combination of creature comforts. I began to feel overwhelmed with the different floor plans and brands, so I created a spreadsheet (with an exorbitant number of columns) to assign point values to various features in an attempt to keep the decision on the unemotional side. Believe me - I found plenty of units that would fit our needs… just not our budget.
I had columns for interior amenities; things like number of living area seating options, counter space, and whether or not the shower had a glass enclosure (something Scott initially didn’t have a preference on, but quickly changed his mind after showering in our house’s hall bath for a week that had a traditional shower curtain). There were also columns for more practical pieces; tank capacity, unloaded vehicle weight, cargo carrying capacity (how much stuff we can bring with us), etc.. I gave rankings of 1-3 based on if it was an option on the particular unit being evaluated and what the size or quality was. Then all of the values were added up to give an overall score with the hopes that it would narrow down the units we should consider.
I discussed with others that have more towing experience than me (basically, I have none) and found that if we went the route of a 5th wheel, we would probably never want to go back to a travel trailer. But, when I pitched a 5th wheel to Scott, he tended to be more interested in a travel trailer because that was where the bulk of his towing experience landed.
Through all of my research, I still hadn’t been able to convince Scott to join me on a tour of RVs to get a feel for what we liked. Then, in late November, he agreed to walk through some rigs. It ended up being a very successful outing. Because the dealership was short staffed, we were given the master keys to the travel trailer/5th wheel side of the lot and had the freedom to tour as many as we wanted, at our own pace. Hubbie was pleasantly surprised at the amenities available; his prior experience was more along the lines of a hunting camper. He was appreciative that I wasn’t looking to rough it that much.
Desired Amenities
Unfortunately, my spreadsheet did nothing but channel my obsession with looking at RVs into some form of note-taking. It didn’t narrow down brands or models because we weren’t going to buy brand new. So in reality, we were limited by what used options were available when the time came to make a purchase. And that was still a long way off…
I was able to determine the key features:
Must Have
Low unloaded vehicle weight (UVW)
High cargo carrying capacity (CCC)
High fresh/gray/black tank capacity
Glass shower enclosure
Large living area seating
True queen sized bed or larger (not an RV queen, which is actually smaller)
Would Love if it Had
Lots of kitchen counter space!
Outdoor kitchen
Two entrances
Otherwise, because we didn’t know what truck we would end up with (and all of my research indicated you should purchase the trailer before the truck so you can be adequately paired), I was narrowing our focus to half ton towable units. I expected we would purchase a 3/4 ton truck, but I wanted to make sure we would be well within the towing capacity of the truck.