How often are you going to uise the tow vehicle? Is it going to be a daily driver? How often are you going to take the TT out? How far away are you planning to take it?
I see that you just registered online and have no idea what your experience is with campers. I can offer some suggestions from my experience and owning a 31' bunkhouse (35' total length).
First qestion about selecting a trailer, would be how many people will be camping in it? Most of the time. Not when little suzy may bring a friend or two, but when you go out the majority of the time.
What type of camping will you be doing the most? Full hook ups (water/electric/sewage)? Dry camping with no hook ups? Water/electric only?
The reason I ask these questions is from experience. When we bought our camper, we were planning on full hook ups. Resort type camping. At the least, we would go to the state park with only water and electric. Never planned on dry camping and our camper was not really set up for that. We've had it 3 years and in the last year, we had started to get the urge to do some dry camping. We are fortunate to live at the foothills of the NC mountains and there are some great places to go and dry camp. Like on the Blue Ridge Parkway for example. But we have two issues. One, we can not get our camper in many of the places on the parkway. If you were under 29' or 25' (even better), then it would be easier. One of the places we liked that we could fit in a few spots was Julian Price. But most of the spots we might fit in were kind you just pulled over to the side and our slides would extend out within a couple feet of the road. We didn't like that idea. We would prefer a spot that we could back into, but with the size of our camper it would not be as easy to find a spot to do. Our second issue was we are not really set up for dry camping. Sure, we could do it. but we might as well be in a tent. We only had one battery (and that would need to be upgraded), we have no 12 volt outlets for something like a breeze fan and we only had one vent fan in the entire camper and that is in the bathroom. So we would have to do some alterations and/or rigging to get where we want to be.
We ended up taking the TT and put in storage at a campground at Myrtle Beach. We don't have to tow it and they put it on and take it off site for us. The cost is pretty close to the cost of storing it in storage in our hometown. We then went and spent a couple thousand on a used pop up camper. We haven't been able to get it out yet, but hopefully in another couple weeks or so. It's pais for in full and is better inclined for dry camping. We also traded in our F250 on a Ford Explorer. We don't feel as guilty driving it around as we did the F250. It can tow the pop up and our utlity trailer if needed as well.
Just some food for thought. Seriously think what your needs are, what your wants are and then be ready for those ideas to change. If a family member or friend asked my advice, I would tell them to go with the smallest they can deal with, use it for a year or two and then take a look at it again and see what you want or could do differently.
Brian
2013 Thor Chateau 31L
