Interested but have zero experience...

Beast-of-Burden wrote:

I like the idea of the smaller hi-low or pop-up (hard side) trailers that could be dragged by a smaller vehicle. The less gas expense the more places I could go see.
I do want an indoor toilet & shower along with a mini-kitchen & refrigerator. AC & heater are also a must.

Thanks

Couple of things to note about your post. One is the fuel economy. You really need to forget about this part or just quit now. Or buy a Prius and sleep in a tent.
My Rav4 gets great economy on its own but when I hook my 10' pup that weighs 2000lbs the economy drops like a huge stone. Fuel costs are huge when traveling. Our last trip was to Bar Harbor. About 6 hours round trip with some driving while there and the fuel bill was almost 200.00

The indoor toilet and shower request is not recommended either by me.
I will start with no one has died from using CG bathrooms. Small trailers generally have very small holding tanks. Unless you have full hook ups the tanks fill up after a couple of showers.

Now if you need a shower,you will need full hookups. Most places we have stayed these sites range from 35-110 a night. This is not the cheapest way to travel. You could get a motel room for a lot less cost traveling the US. Unless of course you need a campfire, I believe motels frown on those.

It is a very very expensive way to travel. Unless in a tent, dragging any trailer will likely have you disappointed with all the costs. We do not RV because it is cheap, we do it because it is fun and we sleep in our own beds.

If you are set on doing this, my recommendation would be the R-Pod line of trailers http://www.forestriverinc.com/rpod/. Of all the smaller trailers they have the largest holding tanks and are fairly aerodynamic. Depending on your need for a TV you could get a small truck(Canyon,Tacoma,Dakota) or a SuV (cherokee,pathfinder,4runner,explorer) but all of these are going to like the gas.

Good Luck

AC, shower, refrig, kitchen, toilet... that's a lot for what you seem to be asking.

What about Class B? "Van campers". Pretty compact, but seem to have most of what you are looking for, if a tight package. As previously posted, you may have to plan on not having large holding tanks for water and shower/toilet.

Have you looked (or thought about) a Truck Camper? You'll want to look at 3/4 or 1 ton trucks, but it might work for you.

First thing I thought of when reading your original post is a bit bigger - what about a Class C? Like mockturtle has in his signature picture.

We have a 21 foot Travel Trailer which we tow with a pickup truck. Works fine for our 4 person family, and for 1 or 2 people it is really nice. Disconnect the truck from the camper at a campground, and we drive around / sightsee with the truck.

You have a lot of options. As a couple people have mentioned, this is not really a fuel mileage friendly pastime.

I agree that doing your homework will be beneficial. There are so many options and what you think you want may not be what you need.
Check out everything from the height of the shower to the cost of running your choice.
Over the years I have gone from using a tent to a T camper, a 5 wheel, a TT back to a tent and now a TT.
When we bought this time we went looking at every option from a conversion van (locally made) to a larger unit, then we settled on a TT.
The best unit for you , depending on your height and ability to have a smaller space may be a conversion van.

Good luck in your search. Take your time and ask questions.

Do your homework as mentioned. The RV campground memberships do work very well. There is passport america @ 50% discount, of course many times there are restrictions about how long, an certain times (holidays) that the discount might not be honored. I think you will be very limited in your search for good gas mileage. Look at the vehicle you have now or what you can afford an match it up then too, what your options are as far are towables.

Much will depend on what can manage as an intial outlay. You might see 16-20 MPG in a van conversion of a Mercedes Sprinter, for an intitial expense up to $100,000. 12-16 MPG on a Ford or Chevy van for 50-80% of that cost up front. 8-12 MPG for a modestly sized trailer at.$12,000 to $15,000 that can be pulled by a minivan or medium size SUV.

There are folding trailers that might do slightly better with a minivan/SUV tow vehicle, but I am not sure their toilet-shower package will meet your expectations, asvthey are not usually 'self contained,' a standard with specific meaning in the RV commmunity.

What it costs to stop for the noght depends on what services you expect, what services you require. The more you are self contained, the fewer services you need to buy. You can park many places at no cost, but you will not be running air conditioning, unless you bring your own electrical power supply, which will have a fuel cost. If you need electrical power, I've found that I can usually get a parking space with that connection for $5 to $12 a day in the middle of the country, rural or small town. As I go metropolitan, I might be paying $30-50 for the same parking and hookup, approaching budget motel rates for the same area.

If your equipment and lifestyle does not require hookups, and your mode of travel is sufficiently stealthy, you need not pay anything, you just park and sleep.If your lifestyle requires a house with utilities, you could be paying substantial rents for parking and utililites, $20-30 a night in the rural midwest, a whole lot more in populated areas .

Clubs, memberships, discount programs are not scams. They provide good value if the program meets your needs and fits your lifestyle. You have to look at the terms and figure that out. Nothing other than the 10-15% AAA/AARP/GoodSams discount works for me, because I usually use less expensive government facilites. But park memberships, 50% discount programs, work well for the people who use them.

I've used the Woodalls and Trailer Life directories to find places to stay, and tentatively plan, but mostly I playnit as I go. If I see a likely place to stop, whenI am thinking about stopping, I stop.

I am in a C motorhome, so there is no "stealth campimg," when I stop it is pretty obvious what I am doing. The same for any large motorhome, or towable RV of any size, A van conversion, not necessarily a commercial B motrhome, offers more free parking opportunities, but not if you "need" hookups to provide home omforts.

Economics overall, a lot depends on how far you intend to travel. My RV costs $0.50'a mile to move, $8 to $30 for an overnight stay (well outside metropolitan areas). My subcompact car costs $0.10 a mile to move. If I'm moving 400-600'miles a day, I can save $100-200 over RV travel by staying in $30 to $80 motel rooms. But if I'm moving 100-200 miles every week or two, and staying in campgrounds for a couple weeks each stop at $10 a night, RV travel is a whole lot less expensive.

You have to figure out just what it is that you want to do. RV might be your travel anwer, or it might not. Cheapest way to travel might be a sleeping bag on the floor of a gutted minivan, checking into a cheap motel when you have a compelling need for a shower, Imknow people who have done it this way, have cosidered joining the lifestyle. But if your minimum requirements are your own toilet and shower, you are well past that, looking at 8-20 mpg for movements, $5-20 a night (or much more in urban areas) for parking fees and utility hookups.

Think about just what it is you want to do, how much you think you can spend, and adjust your plan and expectations.

Some folks will rent a trailer first to see if it going to work for them before they buy them...

I am a OFF-ROAD POPUP guy and have traveled all over the East Coast and Gulf areas and as far West as TEXAS/OKLA

The beauty of the POPUP is there is minimum wind drag so my F150 truck doesn't know the trailer is behind it. We get the about the same 18-21MPG whether we are pulling the POPUP or not. Its the wind drag that hurts the worse. Even pulling a 24-foot long small travel trailer will only get 10-12MPG...

This will be what you want to do. The tent camper trailer is not for everyone. My POPUP has all of the modern things the big trailers have but there is not much move around room inside the trailer. Makes you do alot of living on the outside which is what we like to do anyway...

We are quite comfortable living in our OFF-ROAD POPUP tent trailer.


Roy Ken

Beast-of-Burden wrote:
Hello all... The concept of traveling around to many different places in this great country of ours is very tempting...

Thanks

Seen a number of folks come thru the door wanting to RV at the bargain basement level...isn't gonna happen.
Operating an RV in any form IMO is just not going to be a low cost activity.
Either budget for it and love it or walk away and have a nice dinner out somewhere.

You might enjoy this woman's blog: RV Sue. She has a Casita, as small fiberglass trailer that can be towed with a medium-sized SUV or pickup.

Sounds as though you are a candidate for a hybrid or pop up camper. What you need to do is start going to a lot of rv dealers or shows and checking out what is available. Learn about towing weights and figure out what you want to tow a small trailer with and then, what type of small trailer would work best for you. You have to do your homework before you can even evaluate the advice you will get here.

Good luck!

I can't give you a lot of advice on the smaller trailers, but one thing I can tell you is that if gas consumption is a major expense be careful of the combination of vehicles you get. I have a 35 foot diesel motorhome and I get about 8 mpg. That means it cost me about 50 cents for every mile. The reason I bring that up is because I have known of people who got similar mileage by going with too small of a tow vehicle. I have a friend who has a Toyota Pickup with a 6 cylinder engine and tows a light weight trailer with it. Even though it's light, it still weighs up near the towing capacity of the truck. As a result he gets about 10 mpg when towing the trailer. He could tow a bigger trailer with a one ton full size diesel truck and get much better mileage than he does with his smaller truck-trailer combo. You could see the same results by using a car to tow something like a pop-up.