JimK-NY wrote:
Yup, to each his own. When I retired and took off with my wife and cats as full timers we picked a truck camper. We did not have any interest in sitting in RV parks or spending long periods of time in one place. Our goal was to do photography and visit the grand and beautiful areas of the West. We rarely stayed where there were hook ups. We rarely spent more than a few days or at most a week or so in one place. The truck camper proved to be a good choice. I remember a couple of times being envious of the campers in the big rigs. One of our first stops was Yellowstone. Most of the big rigs were either at Fishing Bridge or staying outside of the Park. During the day, they would drive their toads often long distances. One of the first days in Yellowstone we went to the Lamar Valley. One of the big rig owners told me how great it was to be in a nice RV park nearly 2 hours away in Livingstone. Of course they carried a sack lunch, had long drives, and used the stinky outhouses. We pulled our camper to the side of the road, looked out the window while we ate a hot meal. We had our own rest room and took a nap on the queen sized bed. Early afternoon the big riggers took off for the 2 hour drive to Livingstone so they could arrive for dinner. We took our time and drove back to the Mammoth campground while the sun was setting. The road was empty except for the wildlife.
Great comments on the merits of going small! I agree completely.
When we visited Yellowstone in our non-towing, non-slide, 24 foot Class C our experience was the same. We stayed right inside Yellowstone at an intimate little campground without hookups in a campsite that would not have held a big rig. We had our restroom, refrgerator, food, and comfortable chairs right along with us at all times as we stopped and parked throughout the park to view the sights.
The two of us and a small dog have taken a few long trips in our little self-contained RV - with our longest so far being for 10 weeks and around 10K miles. We could have kept on going, too, when we started home at the end of this trip.
I'd like to see a discussion thread along the lines of "What size and type RV do you use to full-time or take long trips in without towing?"
I kindof consider towing another vehicle as "cheating" ... in that you're in the strictest sense not really taking a trip and living in only an RV when doing that. We sometimes even take our small Class C RV off-highway to explore and overnight camp way out there, and it's great having everything right along with you at all times. Even though it does have pickup type ground clearance all around 4WD on it would at times be better, however.
