to toad or not how about you?

Convenience,
Priceless
bumpy

To each his own but we do not have a toad. We do not eat out that is why we have a 26" Class C if we need groceries we will stop on the way and pick them up. We very seldom spend more than five days at any one location.
We toured Yellowstone and many other places in the RV and had no problems. We do have a tendency to take tours of areas it allows us both to gawk and look and we plan accordingly and will stay at places that have tours pickup at the campground example San Antonio and Nashville . We also avail ourselves of public transportation examples would be Saint Louis and Colonial Williamsburg.We did rent a car once in Branson.
Will be using a limo service this year,,a sedan not a limo to take us from the campground to where we want to go and bring us back, surprisingly affordable.
The original poster stated that he would have to purchase a vehicle to be used as a toad and all of the equipment needed to tow. For us we spend less each year for rentals ,tours, public transportation, and taxies/limos than just the cost of insurance, registration and upkeep of a toad not counting all the other expenses.

Interesting...I didn't read all the replies, but from what I skimmed it appears to lean toward +toad.

We have a 25'9" Class C. Our style of travel, at the moment, is ~3 week loop trips covering a lot of miles where we rarely stay in one place more than 2-3 nights. There's usually plenty nearby to explore in the state/national parks such that we don't always need to drive somewhere to do things. Also, it's just not that hard to drive out of camp, even if we have hookups. We don't tend to set up a huge "camp" unless we plan to be there a while, so we stay quite mobile. We grab groceries on the way to the next stop - sometimes a meal, too. It's been great! We feel like we can go anywhere with the RV and pretty much park in a normal parking spot (two in a row or one with overhang over grass).

We also now have a toad. We hadn't thought about it until meeting some people towing a Geo Tracker (my dream car as a teenager :) ). DH decided it would be a nice option. I agreed that for trips where we would stay in one area and explore (including light/medium 4x4 roads), it would be nice. So, we got a 1996 2-door RAV4 (bummer...no Tracker for me!) and set it up to tow about 4+ years after buying the RV. It's been easy to drag around and handy when wanted.

I think deciding whether to bring the toad with us will be a trip by trip decision, depending on where we're going and what we plan to do. Having the option can be nice, but I really didn't feel like I was missing anything pre-toad. In fact, I loved having the RV at the trailhead or wherever else - having your whole house everywhere can be really convenient! Especially when traveling with dogs or getting caught in rainstorms. :)

noe-place wrote:
Dog stays in our MH with the AC on so no issue.

Are you the one whose dog barks constantly all day long while you are away? :h

For me, I don't travel in my RV with my pets with the expectation of leaving them in the RV while I see the sights. My RV style is to go places where the dogs can be out and about and enjoying the outdoors right along with me. This means I haven't had to worry about the temps inside the RV when I'm not there, because if I'm out, the dogs are out.

Now, I have the parrot camping with us also. Because he stays in the RV at all times (in his travel cage), I have to be more careful about the weather and the RV temps. Birds are extremely sensitive to fumes, etc., so running a generator while I'm not around to ensure his safety is not doable.

Sooooo .... you'd leave your pet alone in the motorhome at a drycamping spot with the generator running?

A lot of folks would not do this.

We do this with our pet when out and about away from the motorhome walking or riding with someone else (we don't tow). However, there are safe ways and taking-a-chance ways to do this. We use one of the safe ways.

We do both. It depends on what we are doing on that trip. Last two trips we had the toad and didn't use it.

pnichols wrote:
"Dog stays in our MH with the AC on so no issue."

What if the camping site you leave your RV in does not have hookups?bb:h

Generator ;)

"Dog stays in our MH with the AC on so no issue."

What if the camping site you leave your RV in does not have hookups?bb:h

pasusan wrote:
I didn't see where anyone mentioned pets. We keep dreaming of a B or C- and going without a toad. But - we have 2 camping cats and we are sightseers. When we went to Boston we had to leave our truck in a large open parking lot for hours when we took public transportation into the city. Same thing when we did Philly and NYC. Even when we drive our truck to the non-city sights we often leave it alone in the sun for hours. Can't leave our cats in such a situation.

That's why we couldn't do it. :(

We leave the AC on of course and our Puggy goes on a pad if he needs to potty while we're out.