# Any RV or travel trailer people out there?



## Bean4Me (May 13, 2020)

We've been talking about getting something now that the kids are older and can sit in the vehicle for extended periods of time. I've been looking here n there and watching some youtube videos. We may rent one to try out for a short trip.

My primary concerns right now are I don't have a tow vehicle. I have experience towing smaller trailers and boats in the past and have minimal concerns towing although I know its going to be different with all the additional weight. I don't know where I'd store the thing because my HOA doesn't allow on-site parking of these types of vehicles - maybe a good excuse to add a 4th stall and expand the garage :lol:.

I'd be curious to hear people's experiences they've had? Any thing to watch out for?


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## Shindoman (Apr 22, 2018)

RVing and camping is a great way to spend time together as a family. 
We just sold our motorhome last year after having an rv for over 16 years while the kids were growing up. We did dirt biking and did a ton of traveling.
Start out by deciding on a budget and what kind of trips you think you will take. 
Renting one a couple times is a great idea. 
Keep in mind that any type of rv will need repairs and maintenance. It helps if you are 
Handy fixing things. I always had a list going of things that needed attention. 
Be wary of tow ratings. They say new 1/2 ton pickups can tow up to 12k lbs. I would never tow anything more than 8k with a 1/2 ton., 
I think RV's are in short supply right now so maybe take your time deciding and hopefully prices will come down a bit. Buying slightly used will save you a fair sum. 
Good luck!


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## corneliani (Apr 2, 2019)

What kind of trips/adventures are you thinking you'll be making? And is this something that you guys are actively doing now, or just hoping the addition of an RV/TT will facilitate that? I've struggled with utilizing our TT when we had ours, & justifying the need/value for it. It served as a great construction trailer/weekend retreat while we were building our house though so that was cool :nod:

Mind you the mistake I made when I bought our travel trailer, shortly after our first-born arrived, is that I didn't really take into account that my wife is not THAT into camping/outdoor adventures - and doing so with a newborn was not the time to get her to try! :| (She's a Florida beach girl so that's what our vacations leaned towards). The idea of taking the family out on outdoor adventures was more my thing.. and even that, it was more an idea/wish/desire than an actuality since it just has not been our lifestyle, no matter how much I desired it. 
Now that the little one came along and seems to be outdoorsy, I'm getting the itch again. But maybe a toy hauler-type if his ATV passion grows (?). I dunno.. it's still hard to justify the cost/value of using it a handful of times per year. Unless you're going off-grid a hotel/vacation rental is probably cheaper & less demanding!?

Curious to see how everyone else uses theirs and how they derive value from it. It may motivate me to jump back in (hopefully there will be plenty of used ones available once the pandemic buyers get their itch scratched and realize the expense of owning/storing one)


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

Bean4Me said:


> We've been talking about getting something now that the kids are older and can sit in the vehicle for extended periods of time. I've been looking here n there and watching some youtube videos. We may rent one to try out for a short trip.
> 
> My primary concerns right now are I don't have a tow vehicle. I have experience towing smaller trailers and boats in the past and have minimal concerns towing although I know its going to be different with all the additional weight. I don't know where I'd store the thing because my HOA doesn't allow on-site parking of these types of vehicles - maybe a good excuse to add a 4th stall and expand the garage :lol:.
> 
> I'd be curious to hear people's experiences they've had? Any thing to watch out for?


I agree with renting for a couple trips.

You probably want to engineer this thing from the top down. What do you want to do, lakes/boats? ATV's? Hiking? Resorts/Themeparks? Is the whole family going on each trip? Then build your use case for the RV. Storage, Fuel, tow vehicle maintenance (thinking about a diesel pickup? They are not cheap vehicles to run for personal use.) and maintenance of the RV itself are all factors. Unfortunately, RV storage lots experience a fair amount of theft. Everything from the RV itself to your camp chairs. :roll: :evil: There's the time factor too. Setup/Tear-down, drive time vs flying, how flexible is your vacation time policy from work? My wife is not really a fan of spending 4 out of 9 days on the road for a longer distance vacation. Might be ok with me however. :lol: My neighbor has to retrieve his TT from storage, park it at home, load up for pre trip, and then reverse all of that post trip. His son races dirt bikes, so they do this quite frequenty for weekend trips that are fairly local.

For me, the pickup, the RV, and the road trip are all part of the fun, (I'm a farm kid and grew up towing large trailers all over the eastern US) but these are all things that cost money and aren't necessarily central to the trip/experience. So far, we've been renting cabins at campgrounds or AirBnB/Vrbo rentals at destinations and travelling via minivan. There's a DVD entertainment system in the vans (we often travel with her parents), and that keeps my 6, 8, and 10 year old sufficiently anesthetized (I know, we're terrible :lol for long trips. Even multi-day jaunts. We're only out for 1-2 trips a year so having an RV/TT sitting in storage depreciating, taking a beating from SC sun, and having a HD pickup that costs more to drive, makes little sense for us. Maybe it would be different if we could do a long weekend on a monthly basis with 1-2 longer trips a year.


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