RV newbies: Hitting the road Spring 2017
Help!!!! We are a family of 5 (kids are 7,7,9) from Seattle who are heading out on a 6 month road trip to see this beautiful country in the Spring of 2017. We plan to spend time alternating betwee...
Forum Discussion
My approach, past ten years, has been Class C without a towed vehicle. This has worked quite well for up to six occupants, trips of 3000 to 5000 miles, for which stops have been overnight or just a couple of nights. You will be surprised how well a C (particularly under 30 feet) can get around.
But I do not go RVing into big cities (if you mean places like Boston, DC, NYC Metro Area, Chicago that have extensive high-density cores from before the mid-20th century). You don't even want to drive a towed vehicle into a city like than and try to get around, particularly try to find places to park. These are places when you use public transportation, whether it means parking on the fringes or flying in. The RV approach requires either a RV park with access to public transportation, or moving the RV to commuter parking for the transit system.
There is another class of "sort of big" cities that are really huge areas of sprawl (my experience includes Houston, Kansas City, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Detroit) where you are dealing mostly with moderate population density even in the core, and streets and parking are sized on the assumption almost everyone drives a car everywhere, almost all the travel is from suburb to suburb, and most of the interesting places are in one suburb or another, not the city center. Most of these cities don't have a transit system beyond putting buses on the streets. You can usually move a C around without a towed vehicle (any towed combination starts to be a problem), and find parking in big lots outside the CBD, and especially at the tourist destinations which will have RV and bus parking (which might be back-in).
I do tow a vehicle for other uses, such as going someplace to stay a week or more. Then the C doesn't move, and if I am anywhere near a city, the place the C is parked is usually outside the city.
Larger motorhomes, and any towed combinations, will usually mean going from RV park to RV park, then separating the combination to go see anything. This works too, and often you can find suitable parking at rural attractions enroute. My experience with this was a small TT towed by a station wagon, 6000 mile one-month trip. Sort of like you Pilot and what it might tow today.
You are not likely to do very well trying to live six months on any TT that will pull well behind a Pilot. Not only does the TT have to be built as a lightweight, you will find that it also has to be small, as there are frontal area limits as well as weight limits for mid-size SUV towing.
What you should probably do now it try some RVs by rental, trips of a week or more, find out what life is like in a fairly small C (which is similar to a small TT with respect to space), and a larger C or TT (something big enough to have permanent beds for everybody). My 29 foot C is really nice for long term one or two people, but as soon as we get more it becomes sort of crowded, when we have to start converting living areas to sleeping areas, getting people to bed at night and getting going in the morning becomes quite complicated. I think you might find that for six months you need something in the "bunkhouse" category, which shows up in Class C around 32-34 feet, travel trailers at 28-30 feet, and not easy to find in fifth wheels even at 30-feet plus because that is a different market.
But I do not go RVing into big cities (if you mean places like Boston, DC, NYC Metro Area, Chicago that have extensive high-density cores from before the mid-20th century). You don't even want to drive a towed vehicle into a city like than and try to get around, particularly try to find places to park. These are places when you use public transportation, whether it means parking on the fringes or flying in. The RV approach requires either a RV park with access to public transportation, or moving the RV to commuter parking for the transit system.
There is another class of "sort of big" cities that are really huge areas of sprawl (my experience includes Houston, Kansas City, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Detroit) where you are dealing mostly with moderate population density even in the core, and streets and parking are sized on the assumption almost everyone drives a car everywhere, almost all the travel is from suburb to suburb, and most of the interesting places are in one suburb or another, not the city center. Most of these cities don't have a transit system beyond putting buses on the streets. You can usually move a C around without a towed vehicle (any towed combination starts to be a problem), and find parking in big lots outside the CBD, and especially at the tourist destinations which will have RV and bus parking (which might be back-in).
I do tow a vehicle for other uses, such as going someplace to stay a week or more. Then the C doesn't move, and if I am anywhere near a city, the place the C is parked is usually outside the city.
Larger motorhomes, and any towed combinations, will usually mean going from RV park to RV park, then separating the combination to go see anything. This works too, and often you can find suitable parking at rural attractions enroute. My experience with this was a small TT towed by a station wagon, 6000 mile one-month trip. Sort of like you Pilot and what it might tow today.
You are not likely to do very well trying to live six months on any TT that will pull well behind a Pilot. Not only does the TT have to be built as a lightweight, you will find that it also has to be small, as there are frontal area limits as well as weight limits for mid-size SUV towing.
What you should probably do now it try some RVs by rental, trips of a week or more, find out what life is like in a fairly small C (which is similar to a small TT with respect to space), and a larger C or TT (something big enough to have permanent beds for everybody). My 29 foot C is really nice for long term one or two people, but as soon as we get more it becomes sort of crowded, when we have to start converting living areas to sleeping areas, getting people to bed at night and getting going in the morning becomes quite complicated. I think you might find that for six months you need something in the "bunkhouse" category, which shows up in Class C around 32-34 feet, travel trailers at 28-30 feet, and not easy to find in fifth wheels even at 30-feet plus because that is a different market.
