Maximum length rig considerations

[davelinde]

After a few years hiatus from camping and finally getting our RV sold, DW is getting the bug again and we are shopping for a chapter 1 of retirement rig. Still a couple years in the future but planning is fun. The idea would be to go on a travel binge for maybe 3 years with at least one long trip and lots of bucket list trips. So the rig would need to be livable for months at a time, able to carry enough cargo for months, and still small enough to get everywhere.

DW has a 30' number as the max and I'm finding a few 33' motorhomes that could work.

We've had a triple axle hauler with an HDT tow vehicle and always found a place for everything, though some times it was tight. Only once we were stuck trying to maneuver the rig to back into a one lane access over a culvert from a narrow road with soft shoulders and a brick mail box in exactly the wrong place. For sure then a few feet shorter would have made it and we never got in and ended up camping dry instead.

So... for the US bucket list stuff, national parks, the keys, etc - is 30' really a hard limit? Can we push it to 33? 35? When is the rig just too big?

[blt2ski]

If wanting to do more off road camping, something to be said of a reg cab SW 35 series truck, with a 9-10' camper in bed. Granted, not as luxurious as a pusher, high end 5w, but you can get into, or up and down bad terrain with a 4WD rig.
Or have a type B van from MB in the 4wd made up. I know of two really keel customizing shops here in WA state. About as far from you as can be in US. Buttwi other options if you want to see some real off the beaten track sites.

[PastorCharlie]

In traveling coast to coast twice and in over 40 states I have not been in a park where I could not park my 40' coach and Jeep. Yes some had a few sites that would not accommodate but they did have some that would do so.

My only problem was in a KOA in northern CA that had to cut limbs ahead of me to give me height clearance which they did very quickly. Height clearance is a concern for some RV. I have had to go under some 13'6" clearances to reach a few parks. I have had to replace a few stationary antennas (not TV) due to beating them on low clearances. 13'6" gives very little extra room.

[bukhrn]

National Parks/ National Forests, COE and the rest, are like people, they're not all the same, At Madison CG in Yellowstone we put our 29' class C w/dolly & toad in a 30' spot with no problem, also did the same in Rocky Mtn. National Park & many others, we've seen longer rigs than ours in national parks.

[davelinde]

prichardson wrote:
For National Parks 30' is pretty much the limit especially in the dry camping areas. A few have some larger sites with hookups that accept longer. Quite often it is the road accessibility as much as the site size that creates the length limit.

I had not thought about the access roads but that does make sense. In our really long rig we had some issues with a winding road through the woods to get to a site in a county park. Once we got to the site it was more than long enough.

Since seeing a lot of NP is "the plan" this does argue against any Diesel Pusher and in favor of one of the 28 or 29' motorhomes we've seen.

[Veebyes]

HA! Everyone seems to get something larger than the target max length. Ours was 32' & we finished up with a 34 model number. That was 2007. Still have it. No regrets. Have not seen anything practical for our style of travel that we like better.

Our travel year is divided into 2 trips. First one is 4 months. Second one is 2 months. Most years we cover 12-15K miles. CG preference is state, COE, county & NPs so size does matter. At 34' we think we have a Goldilocks length. We are well setup for dry camping in comfort with plenty of the 2 most important items, water & battery bank power. These are 2 items that are hard to find, especially decent water capacity.

Do the research. When you think that you have done enough do some more. Narrow it down to a few models then go hunting.

[prichardson]

For National Parks 30' is pretty much the limit especially in the dry camping areas. A few have some larger sites with hookups that accept longer. Quite often it is the road accessibility as much as the site size that creates the length limit.

[craig7h]

My story, I had a 36' 3'5thwheel with more storage than I needed. So DW and I thought it was time to downsize. We looked and looked found a 30 Class A that we liked. After a little more than two years and some both long and short trips, found it lacking stuff. We just this past year went to a 37' MH. We have storage (tons) we can walk around each other, we feel comfortable on the rainy days. The 30 was just to much of a down size for us.

We stay at private parks outside of the National parks. Trying to find a spot has not been a problem. For us the 30' just did not work

[Terryallan]

Like every thing else. You have to give to get. You want a longer RV, you limit the number of sites you can use. Want a larger choice of site. You limit the size of the RV. Life is full of choices. In our favorite CG on the Blue ridge Parkway. There are a very few sites our 30' TT will fit into.
Next Tt if there is one. will be shorter.

[DrewE]

The longer the rig, the fewer sites there are that will fit it. It's a continuum, generally speaking, and not a hard and fast cutoff where suddenly you go from all sorts of sites to none. However, with every increase in length and corresponding decrease in the pool of suitable sites, your chances of finding a site go down by at least a tiny amount.

My motorhome is just about exactly 32' bumper to bumper, and I have yet to have a night where I couldn't find a place to camp. I have had to be a little flexible sometimes, and for instance select which Vermont state park I would visit for the weekend on a whim based on what ones had an available suitably sized site. (Vermont state parks, incidentally, have a much lower percentage of sites suited for large rigs than most any other state. A fair few of the campgrounds are not all that much changed from when they were built by the CCC.)

Some campgrounds, especially public campgrounds, have maximum lengths listed that don't seem to bear a lot of relation to how big a rig could actually get to and fit in the site. Some others are precisely accurate.

[PastorCharlie]

As you have experienced in your past adventures the rig is never too large, it is rarely one will find a lot too small to accommodate it; but rarely.

Dry camping is good if one has the proper equipped rig.

[Lwiddis]

Yes, when a campground, be it public or private, says “blank” is their max length, that’s what you honor. It’s “too big” when you exceed the stated limit.