I call it full timing, although I'm still a year from my military retirement, then I plan on work camping off and on, but I still have kids with me and will for several more years. We looked at the RV shows and here were some of my thoughts, and trying to throw a couple of concerns about doing this as a single.
IF, you are by yourself (I know your daughter is there temporarily), it is very difficult to back any type of trailer into a spot or even hitch up without an extra set of eyes, although hitching a 5er isn't too hard by yourself. A motorhome may be easier for this as most come with backup camera's installed and you don't have a completely blind side when backing around a corner. A search on this forum will yield some results of people installing back-up cameras on the backs of the trailers with some success though. Hooking up a toad vehicle though with the new style tow bars with bars that can be adjustable during hookup can be a breeze as they lock into place once pulling forward.
My Father fulltimed for 15 years, and now claims that he would still be doing it if he had a motorhome just for the ease of setup and takedown.
When most people look to full time without keeping a sticks and bricks home base, they usually look at 5th wheels and Class A motorhomes due to the much larger storage capacities. Being single you probably could look at a class C, but be sure to watch your weights and tow ratings when you are looking at these as they are usually a little more easily overloaded, although as you read on this board overloading is still possible even on the big DP's. Tow ratings for some but not all class C's tend to be 3500lbs, which is a small car. The larger class C's and most class a gas motorhomes tend to have a 5000lb tow rating which is most cars and smaller to some mid sized suv's. On a class C you do lose some usable floor space to the cockpit but gain a bedroom area. On a class A you can turn the front seats around to add to the living area so loss there is minimal too.
My wife can drive our Class A quite well, and can even hook up our toad and pull it without any problem. She says she would probably be able to drive a truck and trailer but couldn't back it into a spot to save her life.
Most anything can be set up in the dirt, the jacks, even on trailers just need to be set on some type of pad like some wood blocks (I use 2x12's cut to squares, sometimes even under my tires to give them a bigger footprint and keep them cleaner). Motorhomes do require more maintenance too.
Lots of people chimed in about cold weather and gave advice of some things to look for like covered underbellies and heated compartments, these come pretty standard on most of the larger RV's but more of an add on in the smaller ones. Space heaters can help tremendously to lower your propane use but this winter we didn't even run the Propane heaters and had 3 space heaters going (1 to the bays) but had to keep them on separate circuits. We still used lots of propane cause the electric side of the water heater could barely keep up with the extra cold water coming in, verses the warmer summer water.
Some questions that you may want to ask yourself are...
What size of space are you thinking about having? Smallish like 25', medium like 30', or large like 35'?
Do you mind driving a larger truck every day?
Do you like the car you have now, and can it be towed easily (four down)?
Do you need lots of storage, or are you satisfied being more minimalist?
And obviously what's in your Budget.
