I would say rent, based on practical issues like import/export, licensing, documentation, rather than cost. 90 days or less is easy, any longer and you are dealing with EU/Schengen immigration law issues. There are ways to work around the immigration laws, leaving the EU, leaving the Schengen countries within the EU, but you need to be careful to stay legal to avoid fines or deportation.
My experience with camping in Europe is that it is very different from how we RV in the U.S. Most RV parking or campgrounds are primitive, makes our RV style look like "glamping" which is mostly what it is. There are plenty of places where you can park and camp, but electrical hookups are a maybe, our expected full hookups mostly don't exist, European RVs don't hook up to the residential utility systems we expect. Thus a U.S. RV is a bad fit, no place to dump, because you take your toilet cassette to the restroom to dump it.
For six months to a year, EU immigration laws will be much more of an issue than anything to do with differences in RV lifestyles. I've mostly limited my visits to 60 days or less per trip, no more than two trips a year, some of them in and out of Schengen, even in and out of the E.U. with additional visas. It gets tricky, but I've mostly depended on my tour managers to keep track of the nitty gritty. On your own, you have to know the immigration laws, keep track of the details. Going from country to country is not the same as going state to state in the U.S., even with E.U., when you are not an E.U. citizen.
Tom Test
Itasca Spirit 29B
