Hi Newatrvingohio,
We may actually be neighbors! By your screen name I’m making the assumption you are in Ohio and we are also. Also by your post, you have been associated with the Boy Scouting program. Great! My wife was with the Girls Scouts as a troop leader and I was with the Boy Scouts as a troop leader. After the kids left the nest, we fell into RV’ing and truly still love it to this day. See under my screen name for a little write up under my profile. You may get a kick out it.
First off, you have the camping in the “woods” thing down pat from the tent days. That is a major step in RV’ing. You enjoy the great outdoors and well, you can deal with some bugs and other inconveniences that come along because all the upsides outweigh the down sides.
Now you are entering the RV world. Last year we helped a friend who wanted to start into RV’ing. She was by herself and wanted to go full time and do cross country RV’ing and had never towed a TT. But she did have a motor home for a short time and a popup long ago. She wanted to find a good used camper and then needed to buy a truck to pull it. It took a lot of helping to get her through a good used TT and truck, but she made it. My wife and I kept saying to ourselves how long it took us to learn what we have and how is she going to do all this by herself? She is also 15 years older than we are… and I am retired… But she is off and running. Point being, the learning will take a good amount of time. Doing good research in advance does help lower the learning and you will learn from your mistakes no matter how much you research. We all made mistakes.
You have had 6 pages now of a lot of very varied experiences. There is much truth in them from many different points of view. Now you have to sort this out for what fits you and your hubby. I will try and not repeat all the good they said, I’ll add some different things about your quest.
Your plan of renting a TT for a week to try it out is a good plan. Here in Ohio we are blessed with a lot of nice State Parks that offer camping that a TT or 5’er will easily fit in. Most all have electric hook up and a few have ele, full water and sewer. Since we came from a tent background we have no issues with using onboard water tanks and just having ele. which we feel is high end camping to us. Find those state parks with campgrounds and fill your week. From the north end of the state to the bottom is about a 6 hour tow, from east to west is about a 5 hour tow. You can do 2 or 3 of state parks across that week and gain a lot of valuable experience. A 2 to 3 hour tow per day starting out is plenty enough to learn from. You’re going to learn, how do I get gas with this camper attached? How do I back this thing up into a campsite, how do I go to the dump station, wow some of those people in cars out there driving with us are nuts… (no one wants to get stuck behind a camper and they do dumb things) and the list goes on.
I would suggest you start renting with a smaller TT (20 to ~27ft) as it is easier in many cases dealing with campgrounds with trees and low bridges. You can learn all the right things in a TT that will easily apply to a 5’er later on if that is what you want or a larger TT. Both the TT and the 5’er have different learnings about turning and backing up. Both will be a learning curve and the length of the truck and camper also greatly affect the learning. Many/most campers today are 8 feet wide in the range I suggested. And since your talking about a 5’er then I’m assuming you are thinking of a larger TT. Not a small 16 foot TT. Backing up has to all be done with door side mirrors. And backing on your blind side is even harder, but there are 2 of you, so one can help spot the other to not hit something when backing into the campsite. Renting the U haul trailer can be a good start, but they are not 8 feet wide at the body of the trailer. Most are 6 ft wide and some less. And they are not as long. But it is a good start if you want to practice before a camper. There will be a good qty of nervousness until the skill of turning and backing becomes natural, but it will come in time. Practice, practice, practice. Find a big open parking lot with no one in it to practice in. Out on the road, keep the speed down. In the state of OH, there is a 55 mph towing speed limit for non commercial which is a camper and the tires on the camper most likely ar not rated above 65mph. Hang out in the right lane and let others pass.
It is really hard to figure out what floor plan camper fits “your” needs and wants before you ever start camping. It is just natural to have preconceived notions about your likes and dislikes. You may want to rent a few campers, maybe different sizes too to get a better feel for the real wants that matter to you. You have to use the camper long enough to know. The smaller camper is easy to get around with and fits in very remote areas easy. The larger camper has more space and room inside. And the larger it is, the longer the learning for backing and turning may take, but in time it will be overcome. However the longer camper can limit you to only certain campsites or campgrounds.
A question, are you or your husband somewhat handy with ordinary home repairs? Or working on cars? Or any other kind of mechanical anything fixing? There is the reality of owning a RV… While these things cost a lot of money, they all have issues. The required maintenance to keep them from leaking water in over the years is non-stop. Things are going to go out of adjustment or just plain not work. When these times happen, you will need to fix it yourself or take it to a dealership. The cost to pay for all this repair/maintenance at today’s shop rates is high. Some can afford it, others have a harder time hiring all that labor out. If you can deal with fixing most things yourself, the costs will be much lower but the time to spend doing it, higher.
Your comment about towing stability issues with TT’s. Where you heard that comes from someone who does not have their rig setup correctly or does not have a good match of the truck to the camper. There will need to be a learning for you and your husband about what it takes to adjust the trailer hitch correctly and how to find the correct size truck to go with the camper. That is a full topic in itself. If you are going to buy both a truck and a camper eventually, you need to figure out first, what kind of camping are you going to do and what kind of camper? Do you want the luxury of a 30 foot or longer camper with a slide, a 25 foot non slide camper, a 15 foot non slide camper or the larger room and space a 5th wheel can provide? It may take you many camping trips to figure this out. Many may even 2 or more years and 2 or 3 campers along the way to. The truck then has to match the camper needs. We do a mixture of State Park camping, and more remote boondock camping with no electricity. We are after the wood’ie feel of camping. And the wife enjoys her luxury while still being able to enjoy the simple life of tent camping without the tent. We found 30 -32 foot with a slide fills "our" need. This is now our 3rd camper and 3rd truck to get to this… You can see it in our signature. I have other friends who started with a 15 footer, worked their way up to 34' and then sold it and went back to a 15 footer...
Theft in the campground or Walmart. I myself would not unhook my camper in a Walmart parking lot by habit and go for a day trip. Nope, there are way too many things that can happen. Not a good idea. But, at the campground, we always leave the camper at the campsite locked up and leave for the day to explore and have no issues with this. Out of site is out of mind for some kid or other person wanting to get something of value, so do not leave much of value left unattended for hours on end when you leave. I have found 98% of everyone I ever met camping in the CG to be very respectful and will help you with most anything just because you asked. The other 2% usually has something to do with too much alcohol or other affect over them. Our world would be a lot better place if we all went camping.
Good luck, keep researching and most of all, have fun at it.
Hope this helps
John
