I was curious about your RV since an extended road trip is something we may want to do. I believe you had bought one in the past and now you’ve gotten another one. Do they hold their value pretty well? Was it financially better to buy and sell when done with it, or did you buy because it wouldn’t be possible to rent the kind of RV you wanted?
We bought new for ~300k and sold ~1.8y later (out of warranty) for 235k. We were only interested in a couple of brands because of quality/resale, and we wanted a bunk model. In those brands, only a few percent are made with bunks, so the pickings were slim in the used department. For that matter, there were only two new ones on the market in model we wanted in the entirety of North America at the time.
The RV market has gone from warm to white hot since then, so we probably did about as well as one could expect on new-rig depreciation. (I'd planned for ~$80k.) There are also now waitlists and long backorders for custom builds from the top manufacturers, and I imagine little to no price concession to be had.
For our new RV, we have had time to shop, we know a lot more about what we want, and we are treating this as an our permanent home for an indeterminate number of years. So, we actually bought an even higher end make, but a 10-year-old used model. I am gutting and replacing much of the interior with new appliances and electronics. I'm a sucker for quality, and the way they build these (just a few dozen a year) is hard to pass up. I am planning for ~30-40k/y depreciation+maintenance on this "new" RV.
No, unfortunately there is no way I'm aware of to secure any RV for a year or multiyear trip in a rental scheme. Most of the rentals are lower-end anyway, so I suspect they'd be tough to live in long term. (Poor insulation, both acoustic and thermal, gets old quickly. Flimsy infrastructure creates lots of maintenance. Small tanks/capacity restrict stay options. These things are just about perfect for a two- or three-week camping adventure, but not an extended trip.)
If you have time and/or don't have to be too choosy, you can find good quality used rigs with solid bones. Many (most) of the higher-end motorhomes are driven gently and taken care of very well. There are lots of motivated sellers as the owners age out of the RVing lifestyle or as the motorhome ends up in an estate and needs to be liquidated. There is a fairly robust online marketplace, although a ton of selling is still facilitated through dealers because of trade-ins and financing considerations.
The plethora of great content on Youtube makes it easy nowadays to get a sense of what it would be like on the road long term. You can find a family that's just like yours and follow them around to get a feel for the lifestyle. The whole thing is pretty fun, plus stuff breaks constantly so the rig always makes for a great antidote to boredom.
