Advice Needed: Class A for a large family

[kjmedwards]

Hi,

My family and I are starting to plan to live on the road for an extended time (1-2 years) around the county. My issue is that I have 5 kids and my wife. We are pretty certain that a class A is the right way for us to go.
I am looking for some advice on makes/models of coaches that might be good for a large family moving around, home schooling and trying to give our kids a great experience.
I know that there are alot of options but I thought I would ask some of the experts here for some advice.

Thanks for any knowledge you can share.

[learningacrossa]

We are a family of 2 adults and 7 children age range from 8 months to 13 years. 3 boys and 4 girls. We want to full time next year in June and just returned from a 6 week trial run in our state. We have a 38 foot Travel Queen that we turn into a bunk house at night. Our budget was pretty small and that is why we purchased vintage and used. We have a 15 passenger Ford E350 van that we drive when we travel. We do not tow. I know our gas consumption is higher but it fits for our family. We also try and limit our travel times to 2-4 hour on moving days. Our 6 week experiment turned out very well for us. It was tight, there are no slide outs on our rig but still good. We also home school and we utilized the facilities we were camping and for the most part it worked very well. We bought our rig on Craigslist and while I did get some surprizes that were not disclosed to me, we had budgeted a cetain amount for repairs. We are looking forward to June.

[wny_pat1]

slumberguy wrote:
Or older tour bus from the entertainment crowd on a mci or prevost ..

In all reality, that is the only safe route for a family, when you consider safe seating. And a monocoque of semi-monocoque bus chassis is much safer in surviving a accident then the rail chassis found on so many Class A motorhomes. A class A motorhome does not have safe passenger seating behind the cockpit area. The only two safe seats are the drivers and passengers. Proper approved safe passenger seats can be installed in conversion buses much easier than in a normal class A motorhome. And seats are removed from busses for many reasons and are available on the used market.

[wny_pat1]

slumberguy wrote:
Or older tour bus from the entertainment crowd on a mci or prevost ..

In all reality, that is the only safe route for a family, when you consider safe seating. And a monocoque of semi-monocoque bus chassis is much safer in surviving a accident then the rail chassis found on so many Class A motorhomes. A class A motorhome does not have safe passenger seating behind the cockpit area. The only two safe seats are the drivers and passengers. Proper approved safe passenger seats can be installed in conversion buses much easier than in a normal class A motorhome. And seats are removed from busses for many reasons and are available on the used market.

[wny_pat1]

slumberguy wrote:
Or older tour bus from the entertainment crowd on a mci or prevost ..

In all reality, that is the only safe route for a family, when you consider safe seating. And a monocoque of semi-monocoque bus chassis is much safer in surviving a accident then the rail chassis found on so many Class A motorhomes. A class A motorhome does not have safe passenger seating behind the cockpit area. The only two safe seats are the drivers and passengers. Proper approved safe passenger seats can be installed in conversion buses much easier than in a normal class A motorhome. And seats are removed from busses for many reasons and are available on the used market.

[wny_pat1]

slumberguy wrote:
Or older tour bus from the entertainment crowd on a mci or prevost ..

In all reality, that is the only safe route for a family, when you consider safe seating. And a monocoque of semi-monocoque bus chassis is much safer in surviving a accident then the rail chassis found on so many Class A motorhomes. A class A motorhome does not have safe passenger seating behind the cockpit area. The only two safe seats are the drivers and passengers. Proper approved safe passenger seats can be installed in conversion buses much easier than in a normal class A motorhome. And seats are removed from busses for many reasons and are available on the used market.

[wny_pat1]

slumberguy wrote:
Or older tour bus from the entertainment crowd on a mci or prevost ..

In all reality, that is the only safe route for a family, when you consider safe seating. And a monocoque of semi-monocoque bus chassis is much safer in surviving a accident then the rail chassis found on so many Class A motorhomes. A class A motorhome does not have safe passenger seating behind the cockpit area. The only two safe seats are the drivers and passengers. Proper approved safe passenger seats can be installed in conversion buses much easier than in a normal class A motorhome. And seats are removed from busses for many reasons and are available on the used market.

[tderonne]

Note that the original poster posted this question 8 months ago. He last posted here at these forums about 4 months ago asking about 5th wheel trailers...

[willald]

JMO, and you as well as others may disagree, but:

..With 5 children, wanting a rig for full-timing use, and a $125k maximum for your budget....Your best bet is to stick with a towable RV of some kind. Spend that $$ you have on a nice, powerful E350 conversion van that has a good drivetrain for towing (V10 or diesel) and an RV trailer big enough for you to all live in comfortably. Something that will give everyone their own bed/"space".

With a total of 5 kids, you're going to have serious 'space' issues with just about any Motorhome short of a 45' 'entertainer' type bus, which would be way out of your price range unless you went with one extremly old/used. Motorhomes other than that, are just not going to be designed to handle that many people very well. Will be extremely crowded.

Others obviously will disagree, but there really is no MH floorplan designed to handle what you want very well. Yes, many could work OK for temporary use, 'camping'. But, for something you're going to live in full time for a year or two, I really, really think you'll be much happier in a towable RV that will give the adults one room to sleep in, and another, separate quad bunkhouse or larger on the other end for the children.

Unless you get a big 'entertainer' type bus mentioned previously, just about any other MH you get, you're going to be making up sofas and/or dinettes into beds every night. Here again, thats fine for some folks, for camping and other temporary use, but it will get old very, very quickly if you're living in it full time. And thats before we even get into the challenges you could have seating everyone when on the road.

My vote is, use that $$ to trade up to a bigger, more comfortable tow vehicle (one ton van) and maybe a nicer, bigger TT thats more suited for full time use with a family like yours. Thats what I'd do in your situation.

[JimM68]

Look at Jayco Seneca, a few years old. This is a "super C" on a chevy kodiak 5500 chassis with a duramax diesel engine and allison trans.

Plenty of power, 10 k towing, and there was a 3 slide bunkhouse floorplan.
I looked at them very close before deciding to go with a class A.

[J-Rooster]

I would set a price that I want to spend and stick to it! Second a floor plan that suits your family. Third colors and engine and transmission. Good Luck on your journey!

[ds2659674]

Kjmedwards: We were faced with similar dilemma. We have 5 kids (4 boys and one girl) still at home (plus my oldest son and his wife living in a different state). We ended up purchasing a new 3920 Newmar Canyon Star toyhauler RV with optional queen bunks in garage. Our configuration gives us 4 queen beds and with dinette in sleeping position will allow us to sleep 9 comfortably or 10 if 2 sleep on dinette/bed. I also purchased a “toyhauler tent” that mounts on the back ramp giving us an additional sleeping space (air mattresses on the back ramp parallel to ground). Our tow vehicle is our Sienna Van, however we have to tow that on our trailer (an ultra lightweight all aluminum trailer)… We would prefer to tow 4 down, but the Sienna VAN is not designed for that. I was a little concerned with added weight and performance in hills of PA. The v10 is a pretty good engine and I do not see much of a performance difference towing or not towing. Either way the 40ft motorhome is somewhat a “dog” in the hills but performs wonderful on the level. NOTE: With engine/tranny tow mode you get additional engine brake on downhill. (I actually prefer towing the trailer as the additional braking from the trailer comes in handy as coach is pretty heavy). Don’t expect to win any races in the hills and don’t expect to be able to get past many gas pumps but with 80 gals you can go 600 miles on a tank. Our kids all have had wonderful memories of cross country journeys and we feel the experience of RV travel has made them more “Worldly”… All in all a very worthwhile rewarding experience… best of luck in your journey.

[bob_b1]

michelb wrote:
Best option, if you can find it, might be the Newmar AllStar from a few years ago with the 'Imagination Room' in the back (basically a pretty large, unfinished room at the back that you can set up however you want).

X2 on the Newmar AllStar.

It is a mid-engined diesel coach. Since there is no engine in the rear, there is room for an upstairs bedroom and a downstairs bedroom.

The upstairs bedroom has two twin beds and the downstairs bedroom has a queen bed. The front living area has a fold-out couch and the dinette folds out too. That would do the job.

[7ofus]

We travel with 7 kids; ages from 6 months to 13 years old. We have a 33' Georgie Boy Landau. 2 sleep on the dinette, 2 sleep in cots that install at night over the dinette, 2 sleep on the couch, and the baby sleeps on the desk in the bedroom. We have done this for up to 23 days at a time. No one ever complains - they all agree that cramped camping is still MUCH better than staying at home.

A toyhauler with beds in back would be utopia for us. I really think that is the best answer and if I were starting over would go that route. But what we have is paid for and I would rather spend money and time camping than setting up a new rig.

[kjmedwards]

I might have caused confusion, what I am trying to say is that we would only be pulling one thing behind the Motorhome, our mini-van. We are open to different types of towing options. Wouldn't pulling a trailer, with a van on it be considered towing "one" thing? Or are you saying that each would be considered a seperate vehicle?