Leaving the RV World for a while

[LIKE2BUILD]

This past weekend I made a deal to sell our 5er. A good and sad day at the same time and I know the wife will be really bummed when the new owners get it next weekend. Unfortunately we're at a stage where we are chasing our teenage and college kids to every event under the sun. Our free weekends are very few and far between and it's honestly more work and energy to prep the 5er and go somewhere than it's worth. We greatly enjoy camping, but instead of being relaxing it turns into work. We just made the decision that it's not worth having a valuable RV setting beside our house when it gets used a couple of weekends a year at the most.

So, until we get our youngest graduated we are going to be out of the RV game. We definitely plan to buy another 5er in about 5 years when it's just the two of us and we'll have the freedom to come and go more often. I'll probably pop onto the forum from time to time just to keep up on trends.

Adios!

KJ

[Mickeyfan0805]

WTP-GC wrote:

IMHO, these year-round sports cycles and constant activity-driven lifestyles are a true detriment to our families. But again, MY opinion...

This is precisely why we have not, yet, made any moves on selling ours. While our kids have become very active in things, our family time away from it all remains a high priority for us. Having the camper pushes us to make time that we otherwise would not. After having to cancel a trip later this month due to a conflict, we shoe-horned a trip into this last weekend. It was a lot of work for a couple of days, and our daughter still needed to be brought back into town for a practice on Saturday, but it created some dedicated family time that would have never happened if the trailer weren't sitting there begging to be used.

[Dave_H_M]

Sigh, my baby daughter will turn 47 this year. :E

However come 1 Oct we will be heading for that full hook up she has for us beside her house in SC. 🙂

[pyoung47]

We sold our RV when the kids were too involved in school stuff to want to camp. Then, when they were 13 and 16, we threw a couple of dome tents in the van and took off on a 5,000 mile trip that they will never forget.

[WTP-GC]

In this regard...to each his own...
My wife and I made a firm decision when we started having children. We were watching parents ahead of us chase their children’s activities from one end of the earth to the other. They enact a carefully orchestrated circus of shuttling kids and shuffling activities so that everyone can “do their thing”. We said...not us. When we were children, you played one sport in the fall, another sport in the spring, and that was it. Nowadays, single sports (ie baseball) runs year-round. We put our kids in baseball for one season then waited for it to cycle around again the next year, but what we found was that all their peers never quit playing so they were far ahead in terms of developed skills. The only way for our children to keep pace and not be constant bench warmers is to run the same year-round cycle...which we’re not going to do.

IMHO, these year-round sports cycles and constant activity-driven lifestyles are a true detriment to our families. But again, MY opinion...

[wowens79]

I feel your pain. I've got a freshman in college and a junior in high school. Both are/were travel lacrosse players, and we just used the TT as a rolling hotel. We are going to see my oldest in college this weekend, and we are taking the camper. We stayed at a hotel the last time we visited her, and hated the hotel.
Our camping has changed some, but we still get a couple of actual camping trips in each year. Now with the kids older, I try to make sure they are learning things on the trip. I have them drive in less busy areas, and they are learning to back the camper. We talked about selling, but decided to keep it, and enjoy as we can. When both are in college we may sell the bunkhouse and get one more suited for a couple.

[mtofell1]

Yeah, it's tough with all the sport and other school activities. I get bummed about this time each year as I see my RV sit in the driveway as I go to/from soccer practice, volleyball practice, school conferences and everything else BUT using my RV. For some reason I don't remember my parents hauling me around and doing all this when I was young (maybe it was just my parents :))

Don't worry... we'll all still be here when you come back!

[LIKE2BUILD]

garyp4951 wrote:
Good decision, support the kids in their activities as long as you can, and maybe a few years to rv before the grand kids come along.
Then you can bring them with you in your new bunk house 5th wheel.

Funny, it’s a bunkhouse 5er we sold :B. But yeah, we’ll have grandkids at some point to tag along with us. Then we can spoil them and send them home for the parents to deal with. Sounds kinda fun!!!

[garyp4951]

Good decision, support the kids in their activities as long as you can, and maybe a few years to rv before the grand kids come along.
Then you can bring them with you in your new bunk house 5th wheel.

[LIKE2BUILD]

laknox wrote:
Well, if you're keeping the truck, you could always rent a TT (or FW, if you're keeping the hitch).....

Lyle

That thought did cross my mind. I'm definitely keeping the hitch because it fits in my OEM 5th wheel prep kit. The buyers are going to convert to a Reese Goosebox because they tow a lot of livestock trailers and don't want to mess with inserting/removing a 5er hitch.

The RV dealers in my area are pretty sparse but I'm sure there's some place to rent one within a reasonable distance.

[laknox]

Well, if you're keeping the truck, you could always rent a TT (or FW, if you're keeping the hitch) if/when you get the chance to go camping. Don't know about IL, but here in AZ there are several "RVRBO" places around that have some really nice rigs available.

Lyle

[LIKE2BUILD]

Mickeyfan0805 wrote:
.... at 10, 13 and 14 we are discovering the same reality and asking the very same questions...

We were in pretty good shape at those ages but it quickly snowballed. Right now we're head long into football with the middle one, the youngest starts basketball soon, they are both in traveling show choirs that started this fall and extends into April, they are both in Boy Scouts which is a tent campout one weekend a month, and the middle one is also on the HS bass fishing team. We also like to occasionally visit the oldest one that's 6 hours away at college. Oh, and we're also officially 'tweeners' because we have a number of things we have to do assisting our parents as well.

Another driving factor is simply finances. We have a little debt hanging out there but we have a paid-off camper. The financially prudent thing was to sell the unused asset(camper), pay off the other debts, then put the remaining money in better places.

This is definitely the sensible thing to do, but it sure yanks on the heart strings. I'm 100% certain the wife will be in tears as it goes away this weekend (quote possibly me too). But, as Bpounds said, the day we're back into a camper will most definitely get here way faster than we realize.

[Mickeyfan0805]

LIKE2BUILD wrote:
This past weekend I made a deal to sell our 5er. A good and sad day at the same time and I know the wife will be really bummed when the new owners get it next weekend. Unfortunately we're at a stage where we are chasing our teenage and college kids to every event under the sun. Our free weekends are very few and far between and it's honestly more work and energy to prep the 5er and go somewhere than it's worth. We greatly enjoy camping, but instead of being relaxing it turns into work. We just made the decision that it's not worth having a valuable RV setting beside our house when it gets used a couple of weekends a year at the most.

So, until we get our youngest graduated we are going to be out of the RV game. We definitely plan to buy another 5er in about 5 years when it's just the two of us and we'll have the freedom to come and go more often. I'll probably pop onto the forum from time to time just to keep up on trends.

Adios!

KJ

I so understand your circumstance. Our kids aren't quite as old, but at 10, 13 and 14 we are discovering the same reality and asking the very same questions. Congratulations on making the right (albeit difficult) decision for your family. Good luck on this next chapter as it unfolds!

[bpounds]

Sounds like the right move at this time in your lives. We went through a similar period where the kids were too busy to camp, which made us too busy too. Someday, sooner than you expect, you'll be ready to start up again.

[ppine]

If I had kids to follow around it would be in an RV.