Traveling fulltime: Your choice of rig?

A full time rig has to meet your criteria, lifestyle, etc. Ours is 5th wheel and Dually truck. We move around a lot and ordered the floor plan to suit our needs. We have friends who do the same as we do, plus they also have a slide in truck camper for the times they travel lighter and do more boo docking in remote mountain areas. Another couple we just met yesterday here in Cody, WY full time for five years with a slide in truck camper on a SRW truck. They love exploring remote locations here and Western Canada. We've met full timers with Toy Haulers, Travel Trailers, Converted Greyhound Bus, custom vans, etc... I should mention boats too. We full timed on a boat for 2 years. So, decide how you want to travel and do it. What I do, or others, has no bearing on what you should do. Cost? Depends on how much you want to spend.

We have travelled 134,000 miles in 13 years. We travel 3 to 4 1/2 months a year. First rig was 34ft. Fleetwood Bounder with no slides. Bought used with 48k miles. Sold with 103k miles 5 years later. New rig was a new 33 ft. Fleetwood Terra with one slide, just turned over 117k with 10k to go in the next 4 months on our current trip. Both class A's. I thought I wanted a 32 to 34 foot Class C and found I could get the same floor plan in a Class A. I found the class C too crunched for the copilot when they upped the engine to a 10 cylinder and kept the front area the same size. Floor plan is the most important and then storage. For the last 3 years plus I have been going to RV shows struggling with whether I wanted a Big gas 37-38 ft. or little gas 28-30ft. or the same thing in diesel. Nothing jumped at us and I just kept looking. This January I think we found our next rig. A 37 ft. Winnebago Solie. Just came out in November of 2013. Full side slide on passenger side of coach. (I have always loved the room you get with a full side slide) Bunk beds that we can easily convert to an office, a 50" TV in living room and a 32" TV folds down from the ceiling in the bedroom. We are planning on stopping at the factory in Iowa next month to check it out and get their plans for the 2015 model. It is considered an entry level DP because it is on a rail chassis. We started out towing a Saturn and changed to a Jeep Wrangler when the Saturn died. Jeep for the same reason as others earlier in this thread. During our research I found that anything short of 32 ft. did not have the storage space we have come to conclude that we need. Some of the small MH's would have good closet space for clothes or good storage space for food but not both. I also like that the potty is only 20 ft. from the drivers seat and that the microwave and refrig. are even closer. We have been known to put on 500 miles a day or more for several days to get to our destination. That is a foreign thought to full timers who have no where they need to get to but we aren't there yet and your 1 year trip may include long days to get somewhere by a certain time. With the class A I can drive while the wife is still sleeping in bed or on the couch, wee can pull into a Wal Mart or rest area for a couple of hours rest or a full nights sleep. You might also want to check out Escapees.com and their Day's End Directory to save money on free or less expensive RV parking. I tell people I don't go camping. I go touring and have the MH with me so it is easy to sleep between touring days. Good Luck and Happy Travels.

Over the years we have had all the RV types. I have owned several class A coaches. Our current coach is an all electric 45' with four slides and aqua hot. Granite counter tops, marble floors, premium solid wood cabinetry, you get the idea. I would not want anything else. We have been full timing for ten years.

Ok here is my opinion, and its worth what you paid for it. If you are going to full time then a class A is what you need and here is why. Unless you have a lot of $$$ to keep on the move you are going to be stationary for periods of time. During that time (if you have a 5'er or TT) your daily driver vehicle is going to be a large truck that is not very economical for a daily driver. Also you are adding wear and tear to the vehicle to your TV which will reduce its life span. With a Class A, you can tow almost any vehicle that will work for you as a daily driver(my choice is a Jeep Wrangler). So while you are stationary you are not adding wear and tear to the rig that you rely on to move you safely down the road. Also as a full timer you WILL require more storage space. So a class A IMHO is the way to go for a full timer.

We have towed our current 5th wheel 30,000 miles in 3 years and have 80,000 miles on the truck that we bought new at the time. We rarely stay anyplace more than a week or so.
it takes us all of about 15 minutes to set up and about 20 to prep to leave. No big deal.
Everything has haeld up great. We are currently touring Alaska in a truck camper because we didn't want to tow our rig up here.

Sue

Francesca Knowles wrote:
... One of the reasons I signed up here at RV.net was our long time scheming about doing a year or two traveling around North America...

I would agree with those that say floorplan is one of the most important issues. That will dictate how large and what type of RV will best suit you. You also need to consider where you want to camp. In my experience a large motorhome or Volvo towing a large 5th wheel is not a good choice for remote Forest Service campgrounds many miles fron the paved highways on gravel/dirt logging roads.

If you are only planning to RV travel fulltime for a year or two, in my opinion you do not necessarily need a top of the line fulltime rated RV. We bought a trailer that many would consider a weekend/vacation model with a floorplan we liked in 2007. We traveled cross country East/West and North/South each year towing it over 60,000 miles. We try hard to avoid extreme heat and cold. In 2013, we traded that trailer for a new one. The investment income on what we did not spend on a Diesel Pusher or New Horizons etc, 5th wheel was more than enough to cover the cost of the new trailer.

There is no simple answer to your questions and only you can determine what is right for you.

Good Luck with your search for the right RV for you!!

If you're going to be drivers rather than parkers, be sure to get a floor plan where the bed, bath, and kitchen are usable with the slides in. Or avoid slides.

Any thing you choose will not be perfect. You will always have to put up with a certain amount of compromise.
We looked at everything and chose a 35' 5th wheel. I love my truck and find it very versatile for every day use.
Floor plan was the big thing. I can watch my shows and my wife can do her thing without interfering with one another. On a bad weather day we can still have privacy.

dahkota wrote:

However, we find that we really really like to travel off road a lot. And our truck is sometimes too big for some of the trails. And our tt is definitely too big to get around on some of the trails. So, we are currently considering a class C and jeep set up. But, we want a diesel under 30' (why we are looking at Cs rather than As). But, we really don't want to give up our downtime space either. I don't think a perfect set up exists, you just need to find what suits you best.

We full-timed for 8 years in a 33' 5th wheel pulled by a Dodge diesel. We always hated driving that diesel around. Then friends got us hooked on Jeeping. We went to a 40' motorhome pulling a Jeep Liberty and it gave us 8 years of awesome fun by being able to do 4-wheeling in some very rough areas - Silverton, CO and Moab are our favorites.

Our motorhome is driven on gravel roads but naturally, there's a limit. We find great boondocking spots and then take off in the Jeep. It works for us. Our Jeep has 200,000 miles on it and still takes us off-road. Our Newmar Dutch Star motorhome has 80,000 miles. It's been a fun combination.

Other than boondocking, public campgrounds are always our first choices. We have had absolutely no problems getting into national or state parks, national forests, COE, county or city parks. It does take research but it's totally doable.

Depends on how many miles you will put on I have put on over 350k miles in my Foretravels. Easy to set up and move. If I was driving mire then sitting I would look for a high end coach and no slides or a bus conversion. I edited thus to add I have 156,000 miles on this unit right now.