Renting an RV for an extended time

Like many here, we wanted to make sure we liked camping before we took the plunge into ownership. We rented three years in a row ('04-rented for one week, '05-rented for 10 days, '06 rented for 2 weeks). All coaches were new with less than 8,000 miles as the rental company replace their fleet every year.

First rental was a 31 ft. Fleetwood Tioga class C, second was a 38 ft. class A Fleetwood Excursion 3 slide and lastly, the third was a 38 ft. class A Fleetwood Excursion 4 slide. Well, we really liked camping/traveling so we ordered a new '08 Monaco Dynasty, 42 ft., 4 slide in January of 2007. Drove that unit for almost 70K in 7.5 yrs.

Then, we upgraded to a 45 ft. Liberty Coach, 1.5 baths, 4 slide.

In the future, I can see maybe going to a class B in our later years.

So, I would say rent first before you decide to buy.

Safe travels and good luck!
MM.

Moving from a pop-up to a MH after 31 years.
Wanted to rent a class B but seemed way too expensive.
We did rent a 29 foot class C in Alaska for three weeks years ago and thought it was too big.

Took the plunge and bought a 22 foot class C (B+).
A year later and > 16,000 miles coast to coast and we are very happy.

Still think everyone should rent for a few days to a week to make sure.

Be careful. We bought ours thinking that we would keep it for a few years, do a once around the the US & Canada then sell it & come back to our boating in Bermuda.

HA! Eleven years & almost 200,000 miles later we have not satisfied that travelling itch.

My take is it all depends on when you plan to start this grand adventure, if you plan to do a week long test trip now, and then not travel for 9-12 months you may likely be better off renting, particularly if you can find an off season deal from some place like RVShare. I quick search of their site using booking dates in March for Florida, shows numerous less than 10 year old coaches available for under $1,000 per week. Which really is a deal compared to the cost of ownership of a 25+ ft class C of similar age if you are only going to use it a couple of weeks in the first year as just the fixed costs of ownership like insurance, registration, and storage fees can easily run over $1,000 per year before counting maintenance, depreciation, etc.

Judging from your intended purpose and time of use, you seem like you may be a good candidate to purchase a former rental class C.

Renting for 1 year from say Cruise America will cost you more than double what it will cost you to just buy one from Cruise America. Plus, they come with a 1 year warranty for free AND they will credit you the cost of renting if you choose to rent first before you buy from them. I owned a former Cruise America RV for 4 years that was VERY good to me and it cost less than 20k.

This isn't a good option for many, but for you, it may work well.

We looked at the same issue when we were trying to figure out how much motor home we'd need for retirement. The plan was several multi-month trips on the road and week-long and weekend trips locally. We looked at renting a class C for 5 weekends and a 2 week trip and quickly came to realization that it was money down the drain.

Instead we bought a 20 year old gasser, put a few thousand into getting it right and kept it for 2 years. We got a lot of use out of it and sold it for more than we paid for it.

It also fulfilled its purpose' we decided we didn't want to do multi-month road trips in a 28 foot gasser.

Rent before you buy and if you enjoy the experience consider buying a rig that is about 5 years old - should be able to own it for a year and resell it for about what bought it for. Just my 02.

Seems to me that renting anything for a week will give you a good idea if the RVing lifestyle is to your liking. Spend that time talking to any campers that have the type of rig you might be interested in. Owners love to talk about on what they decided to spend $$.

Renting would be a good idea even though expensive. Instead of buying then quickly finding it's not for you and getting killed by depreciation. Although, you don't have to buy new. We purchased a 10 yr. old Class C for $23000(originally $80000) and it's worked out well now for 4 years. Another twist, our son and family were going to rent to go see the West from Florida. When they found out how much they decided might as well buy a used one even if we sell right after the trip. Didn't work out that great though because of mechanical problems.

Go rent an econobox car for a week and $250 is not out of the ordinary (specials are different).

Your basic Class C new runs 4-5 times what an econobox car costs and has a lot more systems to keep up....So $1000-1500 for a weeks rental really shouldn't surprise anyone.

As suggested, buy a good condition used RV and even if you don't like it, odds are you will only lose a grand or two.