Planning to RV full-time this spring

. . . Yrs to Go said:
Interesting. I kind of thought my days of ordering from Amazon were over. I didn't realize you could have stuff shipped to campgrounds.

Good tip.
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Amazon kicks ass. Just ordered the following items in the last week in two separate orders: a car charger for my phone, an Emmanuel Ungaro shirt, a Salsa video recommended by Haha and a Merengue video just for kicks. I can't imagine the hassle of having to find all of these items in meat space.
 
I am still reading up on RVs and blogs of full-time RV'ers.

I cannot see myself becoming a nomad. However, I can see that it is difficult to travel light when you become a full-timer. Even the largest RV cannot hold the contents of an ordinary small home. For treks of 1 to 2 months, it is easier to travel in a smaller arrangement that allows you to stay in more places than just RV campgrounds. If Steinbeck were to do his Travels with Charley today, he would have more comfortable vehicle choices than he had.
 
REWahoo said:
84 feet!!! Wow, that is some train you're pulling down the road. I thought my 62' motor home and toad were pretty long, but you guys are getting to the point you can turn in a circle and check your own brake lights...
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Oh man! My motorhome plus tow is only 53ft long!

Audrey
 
NW-Bound said:
I cannot see myself becoming a nomad. However, I can see that it is difficult to travel light when you become a full-timer. Even the largest RV cannot hold the contents of an ordinary small home. For treks of 1 to 2 months, it is easier to travel in a smaller arrangement that allows you to stay in more places than just RV campgrounds. If Steinbeck were to do his Travels with Charley today, he would have more comfortable vehicle choices than he had.
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The only reason we are in a diesel motorhome monster is because we are fulltimers and need all the storage for all-weather/all-season living. Otherwise I think we would have worked really hard to keep it 28 feet or less for the ability to stay in far more cramped spaces. As it is we are on the "shortest possible" for us at just under 37 feet. Still, we are able to fit motorhome and tow (parked sideways) in a 50 foot back-in space and that means we still fit a lot of places.

Nope - can't carry the contents of a small home. Still need to cut way back, double/triple duties for most things, minimum clothes, books, cut way back on kitchen stuff, etc. I think of us as living in a small efficiency apartment, but I guess it's smaller than that. Maybe a college dorm room.....

Except we do have a basement!

I've noticed that plenty of the bigger rigs pull their "garage" behind them - you know, a tall enclosed 25+ ft trailer.

Audrey
 
NW-Bound said:
However, I can see that it is difficult to travel light when you become a full-timer. Even the largest RV cannot hold the contents of an ordinary small home.
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Storage space will be a challenge, but I think it will be OK. We've learned to travel essentially indefinitely with just the contents of our carry on luggage. I'm assuming our rig will allow us a few more things than that.
 
My SO just sent me this photo of his idea of the perfect RV. Maybe it should be called a Class G.
guiness11.jpg
 
audreyh1 said:
Now, one question is - why do you want to get rid of/move out of your current abode?

For John and I, we had been planning to move out of Austin (lovely city, but we really didn't want to live in a city anymore) for a long time, but we couldn't figure out where, and didn't want to interrupt our heavy traveling schedule to set up a new permanent abode somewhere else. So the fulltimer thing solved that problem neatly.

But we run into lots of couples who have a home somewhere but still go on extended 6 month RVing trips. They feel like they have the best of both worlds. They do! They also have the expenses of both worlds, but obviously they can afford it. Many of these folks live somewhere they really love, or have a beautiful home they adore, or live near valued family and like to be there for many months a year as well.

Audrey
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Okay, here is the situation my DW and I will retire in very early 2012 and we had been studying places we wanted to move to as well. And then all of the sudden I say to her last week what about not having a house and RV'ing it for several years to get a lot of quality traveling in while investigating places to live at the same time. .. and she says Great Idea! :ROFLMAO: so now I am also investigating this life style. We too currently live in Texas at the other schools location but are ready to move on...
 
heyduke said:
Okay, here is the situation my DW and I will retire in very early 2012 and we had been studying places we wanted to move to as well. And then all of the sudden I say to her last week what about not having a house and RV'ing it for several years to get a lot of quality traveling in while investigating places to live at the same time. .. and she says Great Idea! :ROFLMAO: so now I am also investigating this life style. We too currently live in Texas at the other schools location but are ready to move on...
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Yeah if you want to move from where you currently have a house and you don't really know where you want to move to, and you want to spend a bunch of time traveling anyway (moving would definitely cut into traveling time!), then living in an RV is a great transition plan.

That was definitely part of our motivation!

BTW - if you suggest it, and spouse says "Great Idea" then you guys have got it made. My husband had the same reaction - "That's It!" when I pointed out that we really didn't need a house.

Of course he had also been griping for years about the house and yard maintenance chores that always awaited us upon return from one of our trips, so he had a lot of incentive to get rid of the house too!

Audrey
 
Rich_in_Tampa said:
We own a 2009 Itaska (Winnebago) Suncruiser. It's great and ample at 36'.

Most full-timers have > 33 feet. Space contracts with time, so research that carefully. I am impressed with the quality of our rig so far.
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We have never owned an RV, but we lived for a couple of years in a 39' sailboat. Talk about itty-bitty spaces. These pics from the maker's website.
tn_C387SlnTble.jpg
tn_387SlnFwd.jpg
tn_387SlnAft.jpg

tn_C387AftBrth.jpg
tn_C387galley.jpg

tn_C387FwdBrth.jpg
tn_C387head.jpg

Despite the Lilliputian living areas, we never felt cramped. I think there are two reasons for this. Really good design, including closing doors that allow the sleeping areas to be isolated from the living areas; and a large covered cockpit that functioned as and outside living and dining room.

I'd want to walk around in it first, but a 33' or 36' sound good to me.

As they say, it's not the size of the deck, it's how you sit on it. :LOL:
 
Looks nice. Have enough storage space? Cargo carrying capacity?
 
RVing full-time intrigues me and maybe I will do it some day. I will need to test the waters first by renting an RV and doing a lot of research.

I've been reading Tioga and George for a while which has helped take away some of the fear of RVing.
 
Rich_in_Tampa said:
Most full-timers have > 33 feet. Space contracts with time, so research that carefully. I am impressed with the quality of our rig so far.
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Looks like the dealer site has the specs wrong. It's 34' 3" according to Winnebago. So a little bigger than 33', but not much.

This is actually the largest rig we seriously considered, and one of the best layouts we've seen. We really like that the TV sits at eye level directly across from the couch, creating a real living room. It makes the whole space feel bigger. At the RV show, they had about 10 people pretty much camped out in the thing watching the tube.

At the moment I feel like I'd actually deep six one of the living room slides in exchange for more storage space. That feeling might change once I start living in the thing, but right now I think we'll have more than enough living space for just the two of us.
 
brewer12345 said:
Looks nice. Have enough storage space? Cargo carrying capacity?
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CCC is about 4,100 lbs. which I think will be enough. Interior storage space is pretty decent, exterior storage space is a little lean. Ironically, in a lot of the models we looked at, exterior storage space was inversely proportional to the cargo carrying capacity. Pretty much whenever we'd find a model with a big basement, the CCC was so low that you couldn't actually fill all that space with anything other than balloon animals and packing peanuts. Seems like an issue with gas models and a good argument for stepping up to a pusher.

I can see storage space being an issue, but at the same time, we don't have a lot of large stuff we'll be taking with us. Besides, the motor home is about 1/3 the size of the place we live in now . . . and most of the additional space in our condo is a guest room. It's not like we're downsizing from a palatial estate.

The only way to find out, though, is to do it. I'll let you know how it turns out.
 
. . . Yrs to Go said:
At the moment I feel like I'd actually deep six one of the living room slides in exchange for more storage space. That feeling might change once I start living in the thing, but right now I think we'll have more than enough living space for just the two of us.
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That's the trade-off we made. It was a tough call but I think we made the right choice for us as we really needed the extra storage bins. And more slides = more weight, more mechanical things that can break.

However, I've been in a lot of other Alpines with two living room slides and they seem much larger inside.

Audrey
 
. . . Yrs to Go said:
CCC is about 4,100 lbs. which I think will be enough. Interior storage space is pretty decent, exterior storage space is a little lean. Ironically, in a lot of the models we looked at, exterior storage space was inversely proportional to the cargo carrying capacity. Pretty much whenever we'd find a model with a big basement, the CCC was so low that you couldn't actually fill all that space with anything other than balloon animals and packing peanuts. Seems like an issue with gas models and a good argument for stepping up to a pusher.
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4100 lbs is a pretty good number for a gas model. Our CCC was 4400.

I had read that fulltimers usually add around 2000 lbs of their personal stuff to an RV. It looks like we added around 1500 lbs.

After about 6 months we used a truck scale. Fully loaded our coach weighed in just under 30,000 lbs. With a GVWR of 33,000 we are nicely under any safety limit.

Audrey
 
. . . Yrs to Go said:
This is actually the largest rig we seriously considered, and one of the best layouts we've seen. We really like that the TV sits at eye level directly across from the couch, creating a real living room. It makes the whole space feel bigger. At the RV show, they had about 10 people pretty much camped out in the thing watching the tube.

At the moment I feel like I'd actually deep six one of the living room slides in exchange for more storage space. That feeling might change once I start living in the thing, but right now I think we'll have more than enough living space for just the two of us.
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I've seen it and it is a great layout. IIRC it does not have basement air like many other Winnies so if that's important, be sure to ask -- noise factor during conversation. The sliding doors are great - you might appreciate it if you ever travel with kids, grandkids, etc.
 
. . . Yrs to Go said:
CCC is about 4,100 lbs. which I think will be enough. Interior storage space is pretty decent, exterior storage space is a little lean. Ironically, in a lot of the models we looked at, exterior storage space was inversely proportional to the cargo carrying capacity. Pretty much whenever we'd find a model with a big basement, the CCC was so low that you couldn't actually fill all that space with anything other than balloon animals and packing peanuts. Seems like an issue with gas models and a good argument for stepping up to a pusher.

I can see storage space being an issue, but at the same time, we don't have a lot of large stuff we'll be taking with us. Besides, the motor home is about 1/3 the size of the place we live in now . . . and most of the additional space in our condo is a guest room. It's not like we're downsizing from a palatial estate.

The only way to find out, though, is to do it. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Click to expand...


Sounds decent. We lived in a 775 sq ft condo BC (before children) and a fair chunk of that was guest room, so I could pretty easily see it not being much of a challenge to get used to the small space. After cramming 4 people and two dogs into our 16 ft trailer, I think that DW and I could get away with extended trips in a class B if we were by ourselves.
 
Well after several days of discussion with the DW about the possibility of full time RV'ing she seems totally intrigued and excited about the possibilities. So we now have a plan that in the spring of 2011 (my daughter's last year in college) we will fly out to North Carolina and rent an RV for a month. My DD plays softball for a university and we will use the RV to travel to all the cities she plays in thus, killing two birds with one stone. We get to see all of her games in her last season and we get to practice retirement in an RV to see what it is all about... now if only 2011 would hurry up and get here...

I have a lot to learn before then...:confused:
 
Rich_in_Tampa said:
IIRC it does not have basement air like many other Winnies so if that's important, be sure to ask -- noise factor during conversation. The sliding doors are great - you might appreciate it if you ever travel with kids, grandkids, etc.
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You recall correctly . . . no basement air. I've heard mixed things about it. Some people claim its better, others not so much. In either event, it's not a big enough factor to be a decision maker for us.

But I gather you have it and prefer it to the rooftop units?
 
audreyh1 said:
And more slides = more weight, more mechanical things that can break.
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Heh-heh-heh-heh. We originally thought "no slides". Turns out, we'll likely have three. The extra one in the living room seems gratuitous, but it's the only option with that floor plan, and everything else fits us nicely.
 
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