My grandma’s sister and her husband sold their house when they retired and drove around the US and Canada until they were into their mid-80s. They absolutely loved it. They had this gigantic bus-like RV that they would pull up to our house in once a year and blow whatever obnoxious horn-jingle they had. They were a slightly richer version of Cousin Eddie.
My wife has expressed interest one of those huge ass bus-like RV’s down the road. But what she leaves out of the discussion is that it’s me learning to drive a bus and her getting to chill and drink while watching tv while I sweat and white knuckle every on-ramp and lane change.
This is why I would love one of those massive RVs. Love driving, love traveling and exploring and seeing America. I don't need much to keep me happy, so this whole quarantine life is suiting my quite well. I would have no problem doing days on end behind the wheel. My wife would fucking hate it though. She freaks out when racoons come on the porch. The idea of camping is the beginning of a horror movie to her. She has never set foot inside a port-a-potty that I'm aware of. She needs her tv and netflix and the concept of "hiking" does not go together with the concept of "fun." We have two boys. She'll have to change her mind eventually.
Camping, more often than not, can seem like nature’s way of promoting the hotel industry. As you get older and it gets less fun, the idea is to balance it with the right amount of decadence. ....hence, the Airstream. Sleek, slick, sexy and everything you need in it. Personally i would rather have a trailer than a Winnebago (Or the like) because you can detach and not have to worry about driving a big, clunky vehicle around at ALL times.
Sure plenty of RV’ers tow their car, but I’m never going to own one of those giant things, even if I could afford it. Not necessary. If you frequent campgrounds you’ll eventually notice something cultish about the “Big RV People”. If you’re retiring or taking a year off... I get it. But owning one of those things to use only one week or two out of the year? I hope you’re spectacularly rich in that case. We’re still deciding on a cottage or trailer once that Disposable Income thing kicks in again. It will be one OR the other.
Yeah, I'm getting a trailer, not an RV... to be pulled by my pickup, with a fishing boat strapped to the top of it. It's about going to a fishing lake and setting up a comfortable trailer with ac/heat/stove/fridge/bathroom. No wife... no kids... maybe a cat and a dog, with a spare bunk on one end of the trailer for a friend or family member that may drop by to visit. I'm basically at that age where sleeping in a cot in a tent for a month is not what I consider "fun", but I do want to spend that month at a mountain lake. With a shower. I'm also a few years from retiring, so figured I'd invest in something that will last for a while.
I've always thought of RV'ing like that. But lately I've been poking through some of the smaller options, and there are some trailers out there that seem to strike a good balance between the go-anywhere convenience of a camper van and the limitations of staying in hotels/AirBnbs. I like to camp, but I can't work from a campsite. I like the AirBnbs we're staying in, but it's fairly expensive and sometimes we do a LOT of driving to get to trailheads because the AirBnbs are in the urban areas. I like camper vans, but if you want something with enough space to be comfortable in, they get fairly unwieldy and are way more limited in their offroad capabilities unless you spend a fortune. This applies a lot less to the occasional weekend warrior, of course.
I have no love for camping. We were a dirt bike family and spent countless weeks at National forests. One time is all I can remember staying the night to ride the next day. I never got the appeal of camping, or hiking for that matter, all the time spent in forest. Do love road trips and can peel off 8+ hour drives myself like nothing. Shit I was in my teens before we got a vcr tv combo for our yearly road trip to Florida. With iPhones and internet keeping occupied is a cinch. Still anything over the size of a converted eurovan would be too much work for me. Some of those have bathrooms in them but someone would fire off a gromper the first hour and I’d be over that.
To add my .02: I've driven 100K+ miles in a semi. I'd rather drive one of those than an RV, or even a pick up pulling a camp trailer. I know my limitations in a semi...I can stop at a truck stop or a rest area, and that's pretty much it. On the road you're kind of limited to the same places in an RV or pulling a trailer but you can add campsites or Wal Mart parking lots to your list. Sleeping in a Wal Mart parking lot has never appealed to me and camp grounds tend to be full of people that I'm trying to get away from in the first place. Add in the fact that places I'd want to be camping you'd have to have a death wish trying to take an RV or trailer into them. I get the whole comfort thing, but at least to me, getting away from it all means giving up some of the comforts you're used to and gaining not being around other people that are probably going to complain about your loud music, your shooting guns, what hours you keep and everything else. You can experience that at home. If you can get in to a campsite with your expensive RV/Trailer, so can the most annoying self entitled people who think they can dictate in the great outdoors like they do in their HOA. I'll take a tent, an air mattress, a light weight heater, and shitting in the bushes over that.
That use case makes complete sense, especially if you are planning to do some longer-term adventure and to have some ongoing productivity with a job. Before I got married and had a kid, a large chunk of my vacations I would take were one or two week-long backpacking trips, mostly on the AT. I got hooked by the hiking community elitism and I scoffed at RVs and the non-camping/hiking purists. Now with a kid, I get why people do it and why they would rather not sleep on the ground and wake up damp multiple days in a row.
They now have trailers designed with more ground clearance and all terrain tires, though I'm not sure how much that helps getting into rougher areas. Depending how much room you need though you can get them into a lot of spots a semi couldn't go. I have been pulling a 36' gooseneck for the last 26 years delivering farm equipment and while I can't stop as fast or turn quite as sharp as a semi I can and have gone places with those trailers (we also have a couple 28' tilt deck bumper pulls) that no semi could dream of going and those campers would be much lighter and can be fitted with cameras to help backing in. Edit to add: My only real point is that depending on size they are pretty maneuverable, though once you get into 40' trailers with slide outs you can forget all about that.
Yep, I was originally looking at a BaseCamp 20X for exactly that reason... small, great ground clearance, and would handle every logging road I ever fished from in the mountains of BC with ease. Then I thought more about having a longer, more comfortable stay with a bit more room, and it appealed to me.
Those things are the cat’s ass. The front window wraps around the bed/sofa so any place with a view can be enjoyed inside or out. I was talking to a guy in Point Pelee a few weeks back who had one, he says he’ll never own anything but. That is the EXACT trailer I want. Not tiny, but small enough to not need a big pick-up to pull it. And they just look sooooo nice.
I don't think you've comprehensively explored the areas where you can get to in an RV/trailer. Over the last 4-5 months I've put 500+ miles on my hiking boots, and a lot of those trails have been only accessible via dirt roads. There's a whole spectrum of roads out in the mountains with a range of accessibility and density of camping. I've been past many, many areas where one or two RVs are parked in little camp sites off remote roads that were accessible to decent size campers and trailers but are still pretty far out there. There's a lot of stuff in between, "packed like a sardine into a campsite" and "I need a Jeep with 40s to get there." If your goal is to go out there and shoot guns for recreation, then RV camping probably isn't for you. But I've never found much joy in just emptying my firearms into the great outdoors so perhaps this is just something I don't understand.
Yeah, I've travelled from Ontario to BC many times, camping/fishing in my Jeep for weeks/months at a time, and there are so many remote yet easily accessible locations that are in the middle of nowhere, without anyone around, it's insane. I think we're really lucky to have all this country with such a small population, that as long as you stay away from the international hot spots (Whistler, Banff), the options are pretty well limitless, even with a trailer as big as the one I opted for (30'). That's one of the reasons why I ordered the "double solar panel" package... a 400 watt solar panel package with double the normal battery capacity so that I can be well off grid, on the side of a lake, parked in a logging road pullout for days/weeks without worrying about any typical trailer hookups like power, water, cable, etc. And still enjoy my stupidly fancy toaster, espresso machine, and 3 burner stove/oven. By myself. Worst case, I pull out the generator if it's cloudy. I'm totally down for that. Never mind I've towed a 30' race trailer across North America for years, and haven't really had any problems... you just learn to look well ahead for exit paths before you pull in for gas. Needless to say, I'm quite happy with my decision.
Clouds. I've shot at clouds for not sharing their rain with my poor dying watermelons. Greedy fucking clouds.
Silly question but where do you dump? Does it have that large of a sewage tank? @toytoy88 - That makes it even better