Newbie need help with purchase decision

95jersey wrote:
Yeah tow vehicle is not an issue...RAM 2500. Let me be clear on space. I have the space to fit a larger trailer and/or extend the bunks as necessary, I just don't want something that large in my yard on a permanent basis. I have no need for a huge luxurious 30ft trailer anyway. I am trying to keep the square footage and cost down. Also regarding the tent ends, I have no preference as to camping style. I have no romantic notion about camping under the stars. This is purely about space/function/value.

Let me be clear on my intention of use...should have done this upfront. I am not an avid camper, I am an expert off road enduro motorcycle racer and travel the regional championship circuit and would rather stay at the track then in some dirty hotel room miles from the race site. Getting sick of that racket. For those that may be familiar, think GNCC (Grand National Cross Country Racing). There are hundreds of these things at the events. I would be traveling in the warmer months (April-Oct), never in winter. I would only stay at the event 1 or 2 days max.

Please don't recommend toy hauler, hate them...bike(s) will go in the back of the truck and I am fine with that. I will occasionally be bringing my family/friends so I'd rather have the sleeping/living amenities of a dedicated travel trailer vs. toy hauler. We will also plan weekend group rides in the mountains/forests.

I have not made up my mind on a hybrid contrary to what other posters think. The only thing that sways me in that direction is the extra sleeping space of the pop out vs. the very cramp bunk style sleeping. I tried those bunks and they are cramped at best (5'11"). Not a big deal to me, as I will be sleeping in the largest bed, but I would like to consider the comfort of the people I bring along (family/fellow racers).

I just don't want to buy a Hybrid and after a year be like...man this sucks...what a PITA. But being limited in size...is a 21' travel trailer with bunks going to be comfortable? You can kind of hang out in the pop out tents of the Hybrid and use them as living space, whereas the bunks are cramp and only usable for nighttime sleeping.

This will be the trailer I will use for many years, so I want to make the optimal decision out of the gate. Thanks to everyone, I appreciate your recommendations.

This helps a lot. I think you should go with the standard trailer and not a hybrid. I say this as a fellow dirt biker. With a hard sided trailer, when you get to the race, you will have more time for bike prep, jetting (if you aren't EFI) tech sign up, visiting with friends and telling lies. On average, it takes me twice as long to settle in. You have to set up the tents, make and unroll your bed. etc. Now when you are done with the race, do you really want to have to go through all of those motions. What if you high sided and your ribs are killing you. Do you really want to mess with a bed roll and folding up tent ends? I do speak of from experience. Have you ever heard of the Idaho City 100. We have been an ISDE qualifying race for the past 30 years. We prep the 120 mile single loop most of the spring for our race. After a long weekend of trail work, the last thing I want to do is fold up my trailer. www.boiseridgeriders.org

The dealer wants you to buy what he sells so of course those are your choices. We are looking at floorplan and price and have many choices. Most are about the same price and quality overall in the price range you are looking at. Do look at things like porcelin toilet, ducted heat air, screws vs glue and staples and most important is black tank flush. I presently tow a pop up and live in Montana so the significant other wants walls instead of fabric for certain areas of the state. Hybrids appeal for space etc., but when we go TT, set up time will be a key factor also. Park, unhook, camp.

DutchmenSport wrote:
A Murphy bed flips up and out of the way, providing more living room space. They still come with bunk ends (not canvas), slide-outs, but in a much shorter length, comparable to the length you're looking for.

When we were looking to downsize to a shorter couple's trailer from our triple bunk bed KZ Spree I investigated Rockwood travel trailers with a front Murphy bed. It's an interesting solution to having the convenience of a sofa for day use and a queen bed at night in a floor plan that would otherwise be too short to accommodate both. However, there's a glaring drawback to this design - very little cargo storage capacity. That was a deal breaker so we passed on the Murphy bed design and stuck with a conventional design with storage under the bed itself and this huge front pass through storage compartment. :B

I've re-reread all the posts on this thread and still favor a TT over a hybrid. But, a thought hit me, an alternative you may consider.

Recently, on RV.net there have been several threads going on about travel trailers with a Murphy bed in the front end. A Murphy bed flips up and out of the way, providing more living room space. They still come with bunk ends (not canvas), slide-outs, but in a much shorter length, comparable to the length you're looking for.

Before settling on a TT or a Hybrid, take the time and look at some of those models with the Murphy bed.

Here's a couple YouTube videos, these are in the 15-24 foot range. Do a YouTube search "Murphy Bed Travel Trailer" and you'll get more videos. It seems they always feature the Murphy bed near the very end of these videos, so be patient watching the videos.

Click here

Click here too

RVhavingfun?....I think you've got a great perspective on what you are planning to do, and kids will really like sleeping in the bunkends and hearing all the sounds of the night. Good luck and please post some info about your rig when you get it, and let's hear about the first family trip!

wing_zealot wrote:
Sorry you had such a bad experience with your Hybrid, mine was a very positive experience. Over 10 years and lots of good memories, no regrets. Guess you picked a lemon, it sure did leave you bitter.

Hardly, it's just a constant reminder that when we had the opportunity to go with the exact same floor plan in a travel trailer we should have. I had researched the subject pretty well but my wife was convinced that what she perceived as "extra space" provided by the hybrid was what SHE wanted, and since she always seems to get 2 votes to my 1 we went with the hybrid. :R It didn't take but two seasons for her to finally agree the negatives outweighed the positives and we should have gone straight to a travel trailer. If I'm at all "bitter" it's because of the thousands lost in depreciation on the hybrid that didn't have to happen. It was a costly lesson but I'm willing to talk about it so others considering a hybrid go into the purchase realistically, with their eyes wide open.

SoundGuy wrote:

RVhavingfun? wrote:
I posted a thread asking about the drawbacks of owning a Hybrid in the Hybrid forum and received many very helpful replies from experienced owners.

And here's that discussion. As one would expect because it's posted on the Hybrid Forum most respondents are current hybrid owners and predictably view hybrids favourably, unlike many of us who once did have a hybrid but now have moved on to a travel trailer or 5th because we're so done with tenting and have no interest in ever owning a hybrid again. :R

This discussion however has caused me to think of the hundreds we've met over the years here in Canada and across the US who are avid campers, quite a few of whom we still camp with ... of that group I can only think of two couples who have owned a popup or hybrid (i.e. a camper with tenting) and still have it - one here in Ontario with a hybrid and the other couple in NY state with a popup ... virtually everyone else has long since moved on to a travel trailer, 5th, MH, etc. The reason? ... eventually reality sets in and the romance of "camping under tenting" or the illusion that you get something for nothing - i.e. the convenience of a 30' trailer in a 20' package - proves to come at the cost of inconvenience in other areas. Some smarter that I saw the light before the fact and saved themselves the aggravation and a lot of $$$$$ in lost depreciation by simply skipping the hybrid entirely, moving from the most common trailer with tenting - i.e. a popup - directly to a trailer without any - i.e. travel trailer, 5th, etc. Wish we'd done that! :R

I fully expect that at some point we'll be ready for what basically amounts to a rolling vacation home, but for now we've realized that we really want our kids to feel like they're camping—a real departure from life at home, not just a new location to live it in. I wanted to minimize the set-up involved in tent camping, but didn't feel the need to eliminate it completely. Reading some of the replies here actually helped me come to the realization that for now, while we're young and healthy, I want there to be a little work involved in camping. I'm sure that makes me a bit of a weirdo, but when I think back to those childhood memories that have my brothers and I doubling over with laughter, it's not the luxurious vacations that I recall, it's times like when my Dad and his buddy took us survival camping and we ate biscuit root and drank pine needle tea while they snuck off to the cooler they had hidden in the woods and shared a beer and some laughs over our misery. Or, when my cousin (who is used to the finer things) accidentally reserved a dump of a vacation rental for our big family winter vacation and hilarity ensued, including my Grandma wandering around offering everyone truffles at 2:00am and the boys wiring a very complicated antenna out of wire coat hangers and trying in vain tto get the Super Bowl on tv.
We've been lucky enough to stay in some posh places, and they are lovely memories too, but there's something about "roughing it" that really makes the memories stick and insure future belly laughs. In my experience anyway.
Basically, total ease and comfort is not what I'm after. Just enough to encourage us to venture out more often.
For now. I'm not opposed to future rolling luxury. :C


Anyway, I'm sure you're right that most hybrid owners come to regret their purchase, and maybe we'll find ourselves in that group as well, but in our minds we have good reason to be choosing a hybrid at this point in our lives. I've been tent camping for 37 years, and my parents have spent over 60 years hauling their tent camping supplies (and for many of those years they hauled young kids too) into the woods. Heck, my 88 year old grandma still sets up her tent and camps in the wilderness with my parents. If they can do it, I feel like I can deal with some canvas tent ends for a bit.
But I am going to enjoy a lot less prep involved in our next family camping trip! Maybe I'll use the free time to fry up some biscuit root and chill some pine needle tea for my dad to enjoy when he's done setting up his tent.;)

Sorry you had such a bad experience with your Hybrid, mine was a very positive experience. Over 10 years and lots of good memories, no regrets. Guess you picked a lemon, it sure did leave you bitter.

RVhavingfun? wrote:
I posted a thread asking about the drawbacks of owning a Hybrid in the Hybrid forum and received many very helpful replies from experienced owners.

And here's that discussion. As one would expect because it's posted on the Hybrid Forum most respondents are current hybrid owners and predictably view hybrids favourably, unlike many of us who once did have a hybrid but now have moved on to a travel trailer or 5th because we're so done with tenting and have no interest in ever owning a hybrid again. :R

This discussion however has caused me to think of the hundreds we've met over the years here in Canada and across the US who are avid campers, quite a few of whom we still camp with ... of that group I can only think of two couples who have owned a popup or hybrid (i.e. a camper with tenting) and still have it - one here in Ontario with a hybrid and the other couple in NY state with a popup ... virtually everyone else has long since moved on to a travel trailer, 5th, MH, etc. The reason? ... eventually reality sets in and the romance of "camping under tenting" or the illusion that you get something for nothing - i.e. the convenience of a 30' trailer in a 20' package - proves to come at the cost of inconvenience in other areas. Some smarter that I saw the light before the fact and saved themselves the aggravation and a lot of $$$$$ in lost depreciation by simply skipping the hybrid entirely, moving from the most common trailer with tenting - i.e. a popup - directly to a trailer without any - i.e. travel trailer, 5th, etc. Wish we'd done that! :R

I wouldn't think there is any HTT that wouldn't be able to be set up while still hooked to the TV. The bed can't come down any lower than the propane tanks, and I doubt it would extend past the hitch. I overnighted in mine numerous times w/o unhooking when we had a HTT.

Also, if the OP is looking at bringing adult guests I would think they would be infinitely more comfortable in a HTT bed than in a TT small bunk bed or dinette.