Got it down to two
Me: 37yo single male city slicker, total RV newbie, traveling a lot for work, tired of hotels. Will likely be living in RV about 25% of the time. Will drive around country 6 weeks/year, otherwise wi...
Forum Discussion
Which layout works better for your single lifestyle? I have a C that my wife chose for us to live in and travel together, without converting anything day to night. But the overhead bed, and convertible living/sleeping space, made it useful for six people also, more if some were small children. For short periods of time, because there really is no room for that many people to move around and get ready for the day.
This still works for me, single since my wife died, but I rattle around in that much space, thinking I'd be cozier in something smaller. Still, whether a motorhome, conversion van, or small trailer, my standard is that I do not want to convert the space in which I work and relax into the space in which I sleep. That's a tedious job, twice a day, when I am in no mood or condition to do it. No Pullman porters came with my RV, taking care of this task while I am in the dining car or lounge. Avoiding this conversion is the first consideration looking at any RV alternatives.
I think it is a good one for you to think about.
The Chateau Sport has an overhead bed, are you going to use it? Then you are not having to meddle with conversion of space for different functions. But if you don't sleep in the overhead, is there another bed to use without converting some living space? Give me a model number, I'd know the answers, have brochures for that line and looked at all of them shopping in 2004-2005.
Similarly for the BT Cruiser, does this model have a place to sleep, without converting your living space? One of my friends, passed about a year ahead of my wife, had a BT with a dinette and sofa, one of which had to be converted to a bed. But she ripped out the sofa, replaced it with her recliner, and slept in the recliner. Slept in a recliner at home, she couldn't breathe sleeping flat in a bed. Same for my wife, the last seven months of her life, lay flat and the tumor cuts off breathing.
Secondary considerations will be the bathroom and the kitchen. Do you fit in the bathroom? Are you comfortable with the space for the amount of time you have to sit there? Is there room in the shower for what you do in the shower?
Consider the kitchen. Do you cook, or do you just zap frozen dinners? If you cook, is there room for preparation of ingredients (cutting space is a big thing with me) and juggling pots, pans, griddles, dishes. I find my kitchen a little too small most of the time, and take that activity outside to a big table where I set up a campstove. After you are all done, do you have facilities for cleaning up cookware, washing dishes.
Note that I have no concerns about age, mileage, size (though I prefer smaller, it is a getting around issue). I'm in a RV club including a bunch of folks who have been doing this 10-20 years longer than I have, and I've been doing it for almost 50 years. Nobody in the club ever traded or gave up on a RV because of how old it was, or how many miles, or because it was the wrong brand and they wanted more "quality." People got rid of one RV in favor of another because it was no longer suited to the way they wanted to live in it. For most, after a few RV's worth of experience, this was because their life and their needs were changing. But for an unfortunate few, we would watch them buy and sell three RVs in five years because once they got the thing and tried to use it, they found that they couldn't live in it, something about the organization of the space didn't work for them.
This is the part you have to work through for yourself, because your needs are your needs, and somebody else's preferences (bigger is always better?) are based in different needs.
My wife and I RV shopped for 16-17 months, going to every show, revisiting dealers, going through two exercises. How do we want to use this thing? At least three answers to that one. Can we live in this space? That was a lot of role playing in a lot of RVs of different types: TTs, fivers, C motorhomes, small A motorhomes, big full-timing motorcoaches (had a house-sized budget for that case). My wife ruled out van conversions after trying on a few (no room for the kids and grandchildren) and tent campers (the whole idea of getting a RV was so we no longer had to sleep in a tent and live outdoors).
For what you want to do with it, you maybe need to think about how you are going to get around, once encamped for a work location. Are you going to unhook the C (or other type motorhome) every day and drive it to work? Then you want the smallest thing you can comfortably live in, for mobility.
Are you going to tow a second motor vehicle for mobility when camped? I've done this, and the trade off is greatly reduced mobility (somewhat less than a travel trailer since you can't back up) compared to the motorhome by itself. We got our motorhome with the idea of continuous travel most of the time, towing nothing. Shopping and sightseeing done enroute, stops are just overnight. For the few times we are going somewhere to stay for a few days, usually someone else brought the transportation. Now most of my use of the RV is to take it out
to the lake for a week, which means towing out a car so I can get around.
That's why I'm looking at RVs I can tow, and leave on site. That was one of our alternatives when shopping, my first preference, but did not fit as well for what we figured out we were going to do, as a motorhome towing nothing.
One son-in-law's father has a working situation similar to yours, but not really the same. He is in power plant maintenance, jobs 2-3 months, working at least 10 months a year away from home. Getting tired of the cheap motels, he thought he wanted a motorhome, but figured out what really worked well was a travel trailer to live in for length of time on site, tow vehicle for getting around. He got a trailer big enough to sleep and house a second person, and rents space to a co-worker (duration of the job) also fed up with how little you get for the price living in cheap motels for several months at a time.
Father of other son-in-law is also a travel trailer guy rather than a motorhome guy. The way he uses a RV is to take it to a vacation destination for a stay of a week to a month, maybe a couple of months. He sets up for the convenience of his children and grandchildren, who come to the location to have their vacation at the place he has parked the RV.
Yes, you can do this with a motorhome, but it is much less costly to do it with a travel trailer of appropriate size. For less than the cost on owning and maintaining a motorhome of equivalent living space, he buys a new trailer every 3-4 years, and a new truck every alternate year.
This still works for me, single since my wife died, but I rattle around in that much space, thinking I'd be cozier in something smaller. Still, whether a motorhome, conversion van, or small trailer, my standard is that I do not want to convert the space in which I work and relax into the space in which I sleep. That's a tedious job, twice a day, when I am in no mood or condition to do it. No Pullman porters came with my RV, taking care of this task while I am in the dining car or lounge. Avoiding this conversion is the first consideration looking at any RV alternatives.
I think it is a good one for you to think about.
The Chateau Sport has an overhead bed, are you going to use it? Then you are not having to meddle with conversion of space for different functions. But if you don't sleep in the overhead, is there another bed to use without converting some living space? Give me a model number, I'd know the answers, have brochures for that line and looked at all of them shopping in 2004-2005.
Similarly for the BT Cruiser, does this model have a place to sleep, without converting your living space? One of my friends, passed about a year ahead of my wife, had a BT with a dinette and sofa, one of which had to be converted to a bed. But she ripped out the sofa, replaced it with her recliner, and slept in the recliner. Slept in a recliner at home, she couldn't breathe sleeping flat in a bed. Same for my wife, the last seven months of her life, lay flat and the tumor cuts off breathing.
Secondary considerations will be the bathroom and the kitchen. Do you fit in the bathroom? Are you comfortable with the space for the amount of time you have to sit there? Is there room in the shower for what you do in the shower?
Consider the kitchen. Do you cook, or do you just zap frozen dinners? If you cook, is there room for preparation of ingredients (cutting space is a big thing with me) and juggling pots, pans, griddles, dishes. I find my kitchen a little too small most of the time, and take that activity outside to a big table where I set up a campstove. After you are all done, do you have facilities for cleaning up cookware, washing dishes.
Note that I have no concerns about age, mileage, size (though I prefer smaller, it is a getting around issue). I'm in a RV club including a bunch of folks who have been doing this 10-20 years longer than I have, and I've been doing it for almost 50 years. Nobody in the club ever traded or gave up on a RV because of how old it was, or how many miles, or because it was the wrong brand and they wanted more "quality." People got rid of one RV in favor of another because it was no longer suited to the way they wanted to live in it. For most, after a few RV's worth of experience, this was because their life and their needs were changing. But for an unfortunate few, we would watch them buy and sell three RVs in five years because once they got the thing and tried to use it, they found that they couldn't live in it, something about the organization of the space didn't work for them.
This is the part you have to work through for yourself, because your needs are your needs, and somebody else's preferences (bigger is always better?) are based in different needs.
My wife and I RV shopped for 16-17 months, going to every show, revisiting dealers, going through two exercises. How do we want to use this thing? At least three answers to that one. Can we live in this space? That was a lot of role playing in a lot of RVs of different types: TTs, fivers, C motorhomes, small A motorhomes, big full-timing motorcoaches (had a house-sized budget for that case). My wife ruled out van conversions after trying on a few (no room for the kids and grandchildren) and tent campers (the whole idea of getting a RV was so we no longer had to sleep in a tent and live outdoors).
For what you want to do with it, you maybe need to think about how you are going to get around, once encamped for a work location. Are you going to unhook the C (or other type motorhome) every day and drive it to work? Then you want the smallest thing you can comfortably live in, for mobility.
Are you going to tow a second motor vehicle for mobility when camped? I've done this, and the trade off is greatly reduced mobility (somewhat less than a travel trailer since you can't back up) compared to the motorhome by itself. We got our motorhome with the idea of continuous travel most of the time, towing nothing. Shopping and sightseeing done enroute, stops are just overnight. For the few times we are going somewhere to stay for a few days, usually someone else brought the transportation. Now most of my use of the RV is to take it out
to the lake for a week, which means towing out a car so I can get around.
That's why I'm looking at RVs I can tow, and leave on site. That was one of our alternatives when shopping, my first preference, but did not fit as well for what we figured out we were going to do, as a motorhome towing nothing.
One son-in-law's father has a working situation similar to yours, but not really the same. He is in power plant maintenance, jobs 2-3 months, working at least 10 months a year away from home. Getting tired of the cheap motels, he thought he wanted a motorhome, but figured out what really worked well was a travel trailer to live in for length of time on site, tow vehicle for getting around. He got a trailer big enough to sleep and house a second person, and rents space to a co-worker (duration of the job) also fed up with how little you get for the price living in cheap motels for several months at a time.
Father of other son-in-law is also a travel trailer guy rather than a motorhome guy. The way he uses a RV is to take it to a vacation destination for a stay of a week to a month, maybe a couple of months. He sets up for the convenience of his children and grandchildren, who come to the location to have their vacation at the place he has parked the RV.
Yes, you can do this with a motorhome, but it is much less costly to do it with a travel trailer of appropriate size. For less than the cost on owning and maintaining a motorhome of equivalent living space, he buys a new trailer every 3-4 years, and a new truck every alternate year.