Towing uhaul cargo trailer with 26' Class C

OldHippie53 wrote:
I really don't want to tow anything but I don't know how safe it would be to cram everything I own into the RV like its a moving van...

One of the first things you should consider doing is weigh your motothome on a truck scale. Usual cost is about $10 to $20. This will give you a better idea on how much more you can haul with your motorhome before you exceed the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR). From the sounds of things, your best bet might be to put a lot of things in the motorhome and then only rent a small trailer for the stuff that just don't seem to fit. The motorhome will handle better carrying the load versus pulling the load.

I really don't want to tow anything but I don't know how safe it would be to cram everything I own into the RV like its a moving van...

OldHippie53 wrote:
My hitch does not appear to be the same age as the RV--it looks to be newer and the bumper also appears to have been reinforced, but I will take it next week and have them take a look at it. I may end up just throwing away my entire life's belongings instead. I checked the price of the "U-Box" and $1100 may be "reasonable" to you but its more than a month's income for me so thats off the list. I have no home except the Midas and everything I own in storage. I'm just trying to salvage what I can of my life and start over somewhere where the health care I need is available to me.
Thanks for the info on the way around the mountains--I would rather buy some extra gas than go through that ordeal again....

Just meant it was worth comparing. I was comparing a one-way u-haul truck to U-Box/ABF and it was cheaper to use the ABF than drive a truck, pay the daily one-way, mileage etc. I guess with no mileage charge on trailer it's not close in price. I haven't priced U-Haul trailers in a long time.

I pulled a small covered UHaul from AZ to CO last spring with a 2000 Impala. It was relatively easy. I took a back way to 40 and then through NM to 285, not the expressways so didn't have to have traffic whizzing by at 80 mph. I did go over Wolf Pass, plenty of lanes, just took it slowly. Every brand of moving box I could find was at least $1000 while the trailer was something like $100. No contest even with more expensive gas.

The trailer is only $30 a day while the UBox was almost $1100 so yes theres a big difference in cost.

My hitch does not appear to be the same age as the RV--it looks to be newer and the bumper also appears to have been reinforced, but I will take it next week and have them take a look at it. I may end up just throwing away my entire life's belongings instead. I checked the price of the "U-Box" and $1100 may be "reasonable" to you but its more than a month's income for me so thats off the list. I have no home except the Midas and everything I own in storage. I'm just trying to salvage what I can of my life and start over somewhere where the health care I need is available to me.
Thanks for the info on the way around the mountains--I would rather buy some extra gas than go through that ordeal again....

An idea, U-Haul has it's own version of pods now and they are reasonably priced - much better than Pods brand. You don't say what size trailer but the U-Haul pods are probably the size of a smaller trailer. You can get as many as you need. I've made multiple cross country moves and used U-Pack/ABF and it was cheaper than driving a rental truck.

worth getting an estimate. I bet you will come out ahead financially and it will definitely be less stressful. Do you need anything in the trailer in route?

Take care to be sure your trailer and load don't exceed your hitch capacity and other limits of your motorhome. It would not be a bad idea to have a reputable truck shop check out the hitch and mounts and so forth before you set out, as things may have deteriorated over the course of forty years. The U-Haul trailers pull decently, but are not lightweight.

You can avoid the mountains (at least the worst of them) by going west before heading north. Taking e.g. I-65 to I-69 should be rather flatter than I-77. If you look at a topographical map of the US, you'll see that there's a bunch of mountains in the east, a bunch in the west, and a more or less flat space in between them. The idea is to get to this flat space by going around the southern end of the eastern mountains.

The biggest key to driving a trailer down the road is to take it easy, bearing in mind that your stopping distance (and acceleration and most everything else) is worse than without the trailer. This means going more slowly, leaving bigger gaps around you, and so forth. There's nothing wrong with puttering along in the righthand lane of the Interstate not nearly as fast as the rest of the traffic; they build them with passing lanes precisely so the traffic can get around slower vehicles, after all.