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billy1davis's avatar
billy1davis
Explorer
Nov 26, 2020

Long trips

On long trips do you wish you were driving or pulling a different rv than what you have. If so what would it be? Or do you have just the right rv for traveling up to 4000 miles over 4 to 6 weeks.
This summer we would like to take a trip from Utah over to the Atlantic seaboard. We have a 30 foot 5vr weighing about 15000 pounds.
  • Welcome to the right coast, have a great visit. As long as your truck is well suited to the load, you should have no problems.

    I have dragged our trailer on 4,000 to 6,000 mile journeys four times around this wonderful country and had a fifth such planned before the current plague messed everything up. Wonderful experiences all four times. Our rig suits us well, and if money were no object, maybe we’d upgrade to newer versions of what we already have. YMMV of course.
  • I have good long drives in my 20' Class B Xplorer 230XL. And I get 14 mpg. As a bachelor most of my drives are solo.
  • As long as it's matched with an appropriate truck, should be great and wouldn't expect a different style rig to be any better.
  • Bought our first pop-up tent trailer in 1988 and have owned three pop-up trailers, a 28' Sunline travel trailer, 26' Winnebago Minnie trailer and now the 2012 Bay Star motorhome 9 (gas engine). Every rig we've owned has been perfectly fine for traveling 400 miles or more per day. But, you do adjust your traveling style based on what you are towing. Back in the days of the pop-up trailers and traveling with our two sons, you had to find places to eat and rest rooms. With travel trailers, you can stop and use the trailer, but with some possible restrictions such as having to deal with slide-outs blocking the walkway. A motorhome makes it much easier to pull off into a rest area, use the bathroom, have a meal, etc.

    Another factor is how often you have to stop for gas. When we pulled the Winnebago with a Tundra, which had a relatively small gas tank, gas stops were required at about 200 miles since I don't like to gamble with a tank getting too low. With the motorhome, we can easily do a day's worth of driving but at our age, we never go over 400 miles in one day, and prefer to stay around 300 miles per day.

    If $$ were no issue, the only change I'd make at this point would be to move up to a diesel pusher with a better ride than the F53 chassis ride quality found on gas motorhomes. And, if we really wanted to do 500 miles a day, I'd either move up to a diesel pusher and consider a fifth wheel trailer with a nice truck.
  • We have a 16,000 lbs 5th wheel and a 2019 Ram 3500 dually. I feel it's perfect for us. Traveled from coast to coast in all terrain. The truck is new but always had a dually for the last 10 years