Advice on Truck Campers

jefe 4x4 wrote:
Susan,
Go to craigslist CO and search for 'camper'. There are a lot of TC's around the Denver Metro area (and north and south). Widen the search to include anything within 500 miles of Denver. Go through each area. Yes, there will be a lot of tent campers and camper shells on there but hardsides will appear on the listing. The good part is; most of the rigs will be insulated for CO winter use. Also, any local 'Recycler' type paper adds would be helpful. In 2001, I opened the Recycler (an LA used item rag) and found a TC that fit my short bed truck. Within that day, the deal was made, paid for, and I picked it up a few days later after I got the tie down hardware on. The secret is, widen your search area. In addition, peruse the RV trader and truck trader for potentials. Do not be afraid to travel some distance to find the right rig for your needs. If you have no expertise in inspecting an RV for potential problems, take a knowledgeable RV mechanic/inspector type with you, someone who also can negotiate down the price because they have no dog in this fight. Right now is probably the best time to SELL an RV. I would try to sell your 5-er right away to take advantage of that and be in a better position to snap up a good TC if it becomes available. The end of summer is probably the best time to BUY an RV.
On here, you are floating in a sea of people who like truck campers. Also on here, you are surrounded by a myriad of opinions on truck camping, for better or for worse. Good luck and let us know what happens. BTW, I'm still running the 1998 Lance Lite that I bought for $6500 in 2001.
regards, as always, jefe
Winter camping?

That's some serious winter camping! We have an automatic search set up for Craigslist on truck campers and go up to 700 miles out, but I'm sure we'd travel farther for the right one. Maybe we should take the word truck off of our search? We have a publication here like that (I think it was Pennysaver in LA when I was growing up). We do have our 5th wheel for sale. We have someone interested but if he doesn't buy it we'll put it on RV Trader. Our dealer said we can put it on their lot on consignment too if we don't sell it. They sell pretty fast there and we did talk numbers with them already. I know we're planning to buy at the worst time! So we'll see.

I will say that a very large Colorado dealer tried to steer us away from truck campers asking why we would want that if we can get "this". They only sell a few. We were just looking, but found it interesting. He's a new salesman so I'm not sure if it was that or if that's typical.