US RV to EUROPE
Hello all, we have a small, 29ft Jayco Precept and we would like to bring it with us when we move to Austria for 3 years. I am very familiar with Europe and their tent-campgrounds, however I have no...
Forum Discussion
lane hog wrote:
I've been working extensively in France for the past couple years, and a US width RV would be a serious challenge in a lot of places. I've seen a few Silverados and F150's, and they're absolute monsters compared to just about everything else on the road. The half-ton pickups take up four parking spaces. A 9m class C? You'll never make the turns in most parking lots... Overhead clearances will also be an issue when you get beyond the Autoroutes.
You'd be better looking for something built for the market. The only place I'd consider taking a US built RV is Australia. Their roads are much closer to ours in terms of widths, and they have larger vehicles...
While I would not go so far as to say it can't be done, a U.S. size motorhome is going to be limited to the places a motorcoach or semi-trailer truck can go. That'sa lot more than the autoroutes, but quite restrictive for cities, towns, villages. To complicate things, professional drivers of oversize vehicles know where to go, where not to go, tourists in ovesize RVs may not know.
My S-I-L bought my 92 Ford Ranger when I moved to China, then took it to the UK when he was assigned there. On the motorways and A routes, the Ranger did OK, on B roads, country lanes, village streets, it was a behemoth, taking up more than half the width of the road, needing the whole road to get around corners. And that is a compact by our standards
While I find modern European motorhomes attractive, and like the space, when I consider the places I like to travel, I would choose something smaller, perhaps a van conversion, maybe on a MPV like the Espace or Multipla, certainly nothing larger than VW T4 or T5, e.g. what we call a minivan. Even Sprinter size vehicles are limiting, as I remember the places I've been taken in Europe.
But if you must have a RV the size of a bus or a truck, doesn't mean you can't get anywhere, just that there will be limits on where you can take it, where you can park it, before transferring to other modes of transportation. In many places, that will be on foot.
