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I had thought of RVing and while looking about what interested me, was a Class C with a small, inexpensive tow along car. I was concerned about towing a 5th wheel then using the truck to run around when hooked up somewhere.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
There are a lot of options in all classes. The fifth wheel is the most bang for the buck, but, most are set up for a camp ground with all the facilitates( no gen set ). Many of the snowbirds leave them in Florida, Tex, AZ etc; year around and just drive their car back and forth..trailer parks can be dumps or very expensive, like in Key West. You will need a 3/4 ton pick up truck with an 8 foot bed for the fixed mounted fifth wheel. Some do it upside down, where the fifth wheel is on the trailer and the pin or post is in the truck bed. They are easy to pull, as long as you don't go overboard, and you can. Some of the big bucks ones require a medium duty tractor, mostly diesel
To me ( thats what I did) the class A motor home is the only way to go. They are not all expensive coaches ether. Lots of low miles used one out there. They all have a Gen. set holdng tanks, etc. and are set up for dry camping, which is the most fun anyway..You can pull a car behind on trailer or on ground. An enclosed trailer is best if you want to keep the car together. Most are trashed after a couple of years behind a coach getting all the crud from the highway, then there is gravel roads in a lot of fun remote places, so , its your choice.. I had a retired couple , good frinds, that did it all on the cheap. They went out and bought a used Winnebago, say 23' for about 4,000.00 in good cond, but old. They had a blast traveling all over the west, for very little cost. ( no insurance needed ). Yes sometimes things would break, that was the fun part, the challenge. You would be surprised how many people, friends, relatives, you can get help from around the country, like a water heater, simple things like that. Even the RV shops will work out something for you if money is important. RV ing is not rocket science, it mostly a lot of fun as long as you do not get in too deep, unless of coarse you are a 1 per center lol
I see there is a post debating 5th wheels to class A's and which one is best to live in ...
Visit most any RV forum and you will see a post like this pop up almost daily.
After 20-30 pages and a hundred replies nothing is never settled but everyone loves to give their own advice, just like I will here....lol
Bottom line is buy what is right for you.......everything else I am about to add is nothing more then my opinion based in my personal experience of full timing over the last several years.
I have owned just about every type of RV made including 5th wheels and class A's.... Now that said, CAMPING in one and LIVING in one are two totally different things. If you take nothing away from this post except one thing... Make it that statement.
Just like every materialistic thing out there, the more money you have to spend on it the nicer and/or more comfortable it becomes. With fulltiming becoming the fastest growing portion of the RV'ing market today, manufactures are following suit and offering new units that have many more "residential" items that the same units did not have just 2-3 years ago..... Now what do the new residential items offer... Most offer nothing more then just "ease and comfort".
Now that said based on your age, health and how deep your pockets are these new additions can make RV'ing full time much more easier and more "home like".
Full timing is not any cheaper then living in your stick and brick home for many full timers unless you are willing to change your lifestyle....in fact if the proper planning has not been completed many people quickly find out that to maintain the lifestyle they are used to it actually cost more in a RV then it did in a regular house, you can find many horror stories on the net of people saying just that because they did not truly understand what they were getting into based on poor planning or allowing their dreams to over power their bank accounts.
Now the first step you have to look at and finalize before you go any further then just dreaming about buying some type of RV and going into the full timing lifestyle is your future income. There are about a thousand questions that needs to be answered by each and every person thinking about full timing and most people that have this dream have not thought of about 900 of them yet. Now I am not going to go into them here as it would take several pages but that info is easy to find in the net, there are many full timing web sites and just as many blogs that will have many of the questions that need to be answered by you.
There are as many different ways to full time as there are people full timing. Full timing is a great lifestyle for the wife and I and this is something we had planned to do dating back 15-20 years ago. So I guess you could say we planned to full time before full timing was cool.... Lol
So after all if that, where does that leave you..... 99% of the people out there that seriously want to full time will know right away (after answering those 1000 questions I talked about) what type of RV they want (class A, B, C, 5th wheel etc)....then it is just the matter of finding the manufacture and floor plan you want......good luck and see ya on the road.
I see there is a post debating 5th wheels to class A's and which one is best to live in ...
Visit most any RV forum and you will see a post like this pop up almost daily.
After 20-30 pages and a hundred replies nothing is never settled but everyone loves to give their own advice, just like I will here....lol
Bottom line is buy what is right for you.......everything else I am about to add is nothing more then my opinion based in my personal experience of full timing over the last several years.
I have owned just about every type of RV made including 5th wheels and class A's.... Now that said, CAMPING in one and LIVING in one are two totally different things. If you take nothing away from this post except one thing... Make it that statement.
Just like every materialistic thing out there, the more money you have to spend on it the nicer and/or more comfortable it becomes. With fulltiming becoming the fastest growing portion of the RV'ing market today, manufactures are following suit and offering new units that have many more "residential" items that the same units did not have just 2-3 years ago..... Now what do the new residential items offer... Most offer nothing more then just "ease and comfort".
Now that said based on your age, health and how deep your pockets are these new additions can make RV'ing full time much more easier and more "home like".
Full timing is not any cheaper then living in your stick and brick home for many full timers unless you are willing to change your lifestyle....in fact if the proper planning has not been completed many people quickly find out that to maintain the lifestyle they are used to it actually cost more in a RV then it did in a regular house, you can find many horror stories on the net of people saying just that because they did not truly understand what they were getting into based on poor planning or allowing their dreams to over power their bank accounts.
Now the first step you have to look at and finalize before you go any further then just dreaming about buying some type of RV and going into the full timing lifestyle is your future income. There are about a thousand questions that needs to be answered by each and every person thinking about full timing and most people that have this dream have not thought of about 900 of them yet. Now I am not going to go into them here as it would take several pages but that info is easy to find in the net, there are many full timing web sites and just as many blogs that will have many of the questions that need to be answered by you.
There are as many different ways to full time as there are people full timing. Full timing is a great lifestyle for the wife and I and this is something we had planned to do dating back 15-20 years ago. So I guess you could say we planned to full time before full timing was cool.... Lol
So after all if that, where does that leave you..... 99% of the people out there that seriously want to full time will know right away (after answering those 1000 questions I talked about) what type of RV they want (class A, B, C, 5th wheel etc)....then it is just the matter of finding the manufacture and floor plan you want......good luck and see ya on the road.
Good post, but, some people will still be confused, not everyone has practical, common sense, approaches to living on the road . I did not do it , but did travel about 20,000 miles a year and lived in the coach, going to vintage car events all over NA. I could fix about anything there is on a Motor home, because , We lived full time on a Sailboat five years ,sailing the Gulf and part of the Islands. Sailboaters that are really into it must learn to be a jack of all trades, cause thats what a Boat, and a Motor Home actually is. Its a lot of parts, several of the trades, and a whole lot of challenge. It was a wonder full part of my life in my 30s and 40s. Would not trade the experience for anything.I am or was a Car Guy, sailboater Guy, A motor coach Guy. The bottom line the best part of living on the road and the sea was the travel part. The going not necessarily the getting there !We had to look at it that way or we would go nuts. Example, I was sitting in a Starbucks in down town Anchorage, AK. sipping my Latte,and thinking, I needed to drive 500 miles everyday for 9 days to get home to Mi. Over 50 per cent of that was in a 75 year old car too !
I never want to own something I can't sell. My ex-husband bought "7" "cheap" timeshares. Yes, well, he is paying management fees on these things and now, due to the economy, can't go anywhere and they are worthless on the open market. You can make money on anything but you make money on it the day you buy it, not the day you sell it and thus, you have to buy everything, from real estate to motor homes, right.
I see there is a post debating 5th wheels to class A's and which one is best to live in ...
Visit most any RV forum and you will see a post like this pop up almost daily.
Bottom line is buy what is right for you.......everything else I am about to add is nothing more
then my opinion based in my personal experience of full timing over the last several years.
Most 5th wheel people go that route because they already own the "big dam truck" needed to pull it.
When not pulling the RV it'll get used to pull power boats and trailers and they'll often have a way to
write off most of that vehicle expense for their business (construction, etc) as well.
Once you're where you're going and set up... which type of RV you have won't make much difference.
Where the difference WILL show up is when you're on the road going to the next place where
you'll then set up for X days/weeks/months. If you expect to be doing a lot of traveling around the
country then the A will probably serve you better. (which A is a whole other set of issues)
The small car for day trips in and around strange cities (that the A pulls) will also be more convenient
than using that "big dam truck" every time you want/need to go somewhere.
Most 5th wheel people go that route because they already own the "big dam truck" needed to pull it.
When not pulling the RV it'll get used to pull power boats and trailers and they'll often have a way to
write off most of that vehicle expense for their business (construction, etc) as well.
Once you're where you're going and set up... which type of RV you have won't make much difference.
Where the difference WILL show up is when you're on the road going to the next place where
you'll then set up for X days/weeks/months. If you expect to be doing a lot of traveling around the
country then the A will probably serve you better. (which A is a whole other set of issues)
The small car for day trips in and around strange cities (that the A pulls) will also be more convenient
than using that "big dam truck" every time you want/need to go somewhere.
I understand what you are saying but I think if you ask most full timers 95% of them will tell you that what they are sitting in for days/weeks/months at a time is Just as important as what they are traveling in for a few hours at a time
I never want to own something I can't sell. My ex-husband bought "7" "cheap" timeshares. Yes, well, he is paying management fees on these things and now, due to the economy, can't go anywhere and they are worthless on the open market. You can make money on anything but you make money on it the day you buy it, not the day you sell it and thus, you have to buy everything, from real estate to motor homes, right.
Not sure what you are talking about ? You don't make money on anything the day you buy it, especially with such very low interest rates we have. During the housing bubble days many people were flipping houses and when rates were 18 percent you buy today sell tomorrow for more, thats common with the times. I do not know of any deals that "make money" when you buy these days. I guess that could happen at an auction, but its rare for the average person.
I understand what you are saying but I think if you ask most full timers 95% of them will tell you that what they are sitting in for days/weeks/months at a time is Just as important as what they are traveling in for a few hours at a time
That would be called biased ownership. I doubt the average person would buy the same Motor Home if they were just going to the lake for the week-end.
but I think if you ask most full timers 95% of them will tell you that...
that they aren't doing it with the first RV they have ever purchased.
In summary...
If you don't already own that "big dam truck" don't buy anything that needs to be pulled by one.
If you're considering the full time RV life don't buy anything expensive until you have experience.
Buy what you want based on your own accumulated experience and direct observation.
Most 5th wheel people go that route because they already own the "big dam truck" needed to pull it.
When not pulling the RV it'll get used to pull power boats and trailers and they'll often have a way to
write off most of that vehicle expense for their business (construction, etc) as well.
Once you're where you're going and set up... which type of RV you have won't make much difference.
Where the difference WILL show up is when you're on the road going to the next place where
you'll then set up for X days/weeks/months. If you expect to be doing a lot of traveling around the
country then the A will probably serve you better. (which A is a whole other set of issues)
The small car for day trips in and around strange cities (that the A pulls) will also be more convenient
than using that "big dam truck" every time you want/need to go somewhere.
The difference between the two ways to travel, is...a fifth wheel you are pulling it. A big Motor home, you are driving it. You have to be there to understand this fully.
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