Full-Time with no toad

[Sourdough_Biscu]

I know I've seen this discussed a while back, but can't find it, so here goes. We plan to go full-time next year. We have a 34' Class A and plan to start out with no tow vehicle. I'm interesting to hear from others who have done this and how it worked out for you.

To further clarify, we plan to be fairly "nomadic" for several years. Traveling to national (and state) parks, bluegrass festivals, amusement parks, etc. We do not plan to drive to one place and be parked for months at a time. When we reach a point where we plan to be in one place for an extended time, we know we'll want one.

We are in our mid/late 50s and in decent shape. We can walk and ride bicycles for "close errands".

Shopping/haircuts/laundry/banking can be done on "travel days."

For several of the national parks, we know we'll want to rent a car to further explore.

We've done several 3 month long trips and one 7 month trip with no toad (in a 24' RV). So, we have an idea how it works. Sure, there were times a car would have been handy. But, with bikes, buses, cabs and rental cars, we still think it's a much cheaper option and really not that inconvenient.

We'd love to hear from people who are DOING it. Or HAVE done it.

[BarbaraOK]

JimX, we don’t spend time in a park, rather we are out and about exploring an area, geocaching, visiting small boutique wineries, all sorts of things where are small car just fit in. Even 24’ Class C would be too big.

[jimx200]

We were in our 24' Class C for 2 months in N California and they into S Oregon and never needed or wanted a toad. Absolute pain in the rear to park, especially at parks. Our cheap and efficient solution: Lyft or Uber. We use them often and it averages out around $12-$15. a ride. We also have folding bikes in bags.

[2gypsies1]

It depends how you travel. We liked to stay in the boonies and travel secondary roads. We were never within walking/biking distance to a town. We also had a Jeep which gave us great fun exploring the two-tracks. We boondocked on forest/BLM lands a lot. We didn't do commercial activities. We enjoyed nature. We would never have lasted 16 years of full-timing if we didn't have a vehicle for exploring.

[Sourdough_Biscu]

darsben1 wrote:
We did it for 2 years and rented from Enterprise when we needed a car for a few days.

Enterprise delivers 🙂

We'll end up being part of their ad.

[mockturtle]

Did it easily with my Tiger but anything bigger would be difficult. Even with my 24' Born Free I towed. Parking is often an issue as well as road clearance. Actually, though I now have a park model, my Tiger is my only vehicle.

[BarbaraOK]

Come back when you have figured out that it really isn't working well and let us know what toad you are thinking about getting.

Barb

[Trackrig]

Get a toad.

What are you going to do when:

1. You need to work on the awning, have it out and you need a few additional parts.
2. You go to make salad with dinner, and oh yes, the store that we went to with the MH on shopping day was out of the dressing we wanted so we were going to go to another store, but then didn't want to go to another store with the MH.
3. Well, guess we can't go downtown to the museum because there's no room for the MH.
4. OH OH, we're out of beer, soda pop, or garlic powder for the steaks we were going to grill, guess we'll have another day of doing without something.
5. Honey, I don't feel like cooking tonight, let's go out and have Mexican - be quiet and eat your can of beans.
6. The MH needs to stay in the shop for two days, guess we'll be using taxies or rental cars.
7. Let's go off and see the Presidential Library, oh that's right, they don't have parking lot large enough for the MH. Let's rent a car, nah, too much hassle, let's just pass it up.
8. Let's leave the MH here in the RV park and go down to Bisbee and stay in one of the neat little B&Bs there and go the Queen Ann Mine - oh yeah, no toad and we'd have to rent a car for a couple of days.
9. The rubber gaskets in the water hose are leaking water all over and the RV park person suggested you replace them. You don't have any extras because you didn't want to the hassle of parking the motor home at Home Depot just to buy hose seals. Now, you have to put away everything in the MH so you can make the trip.
10. That neat place was up a ten mile narrow, twisty road we wanted to see but had no way to go.
11. Let's go over to Joe's salad bar on the bikes, it's only two miles away which is no problem on the bicycles. And as you come back outside after eating, it's pouring rain.

Can you do it without a toad, sure you can. It will just be a PITA and that's not what RVing is about.

Bill

[Jayco-noslide]

Just wouldn't work for us even though not full-time. We always want to run around the area, go for groceries, etc. It could work if you are just going one place and know what's available within walking or biking distance and a rental car would be available. You can't even explore a lot of parks driving something that big.

[Ivylog]

As Full Timers, sooner or later you will be towing a car 4 down...might as well be sooner. We put as many miles on our toad as the MH when we do three months out West moving every week. The toad gets 4X the MPG of the MH.

[Downunda]

Friends of ours do just that, no bikes or anything. A little bit of planning around shopping goes a long way and in some locations where they might stay a week or more and want to sight see they sometimes hire a car.
It works for them.

[darsben1]

We did it for 2 years and rented from Enterprise when we needed a car for a few days.

[accsys]

We have traveled a lot in the last 10 years. You can look at the blog in our signature if you wish - no advertisements! We have always had our 2004 Jeep Liberty along on all of those trips. We would go about 200 miles between stops and then use the Jeep to explore a 100 mile radius. We have never traveled without the Jeep and I cannot imagine doing so as there is so much to find and do that is impossible in an RV and trying to get a rental would be next to impossible or way too much trouble.

[gafidler]

get a cheap toad (4 down) will not affect gas mileage on MH , if it is cheap you can have libably only insurance ( SD insurance is cheap on MH and car ) , you will like the flexibly of having a car.

[Sourdough_Biscu]

To clarify, we've already done 6 weeks and a separate 3 months in the 34'. So, we know it's bigger.