Looking for advice on length

eipo wrote:
Howdy everyone...

My wife and I are in the market for a travel trailer while the kids are still young enough to not be into the high school scene and "to busy or to cool" to hang our with their folks.

A little background. I hold a Class A CDL in MI and have thousands of miles under my belt pulling all sorts of trailers hitched to various tractors. So the length and weight aren't an issue aside from Ive never pulled anything longer than 20' behind a pickup truck. Tow vehicle is a 2016 Ram 2500 with 6.4. 10,000 gvw, 19,500 combined, just over 3,000 payload and 1,250 dead weight on the class V hitch and 12,500 trailer gvw. 3.73 gears.

We went to a local RV show over the weekend and almost wrote a check for a 32' (35'+ including tongue) Jayco. But as we were standing outside the trailer looking at it, it seems awfully long for a bumper pulled trailer. We sat down and rethought our "needs" and believe we would be happy with a 26' trailer but we also do not want to settle. We anticipate keeping whatever we buy for a long time.

Family backstory... My wife and I are tall. Wife is 5'11, I am 6'4, our 12yo son is already almost 6' and our 9yo daughter is following suit. So we need a bunkhouse, but not the half sized bunks for normal sized people. We will also be traveling with 2 dogs, an Aust. Cattle dog and a Boxer/Beagle mutt.

The idea of a bunkhouse in the rear of the trailer with a door and a slide is VERY appealing to us not only for the dogs and kids, but for storage while in motion.

We contemplated the idea of going 5th wheel, but we really want to keep the bed free for misc. storage of items during our trips. Truck cap has been ordered and we would like to keep it on the truck all the time. BUT, the 5th wheel isn't ruled out. It will add not only additional cost in having the hitch mounted, but 5th wheels are also more expensive. We can get more bang for our buck going bumper pull so that is the direction we really want to go.

So my question... Is there a noticeable (As in unsafe, white knuckled feeling) between a 26' and 32' trailer? Will the longer trailer limit us in which campgrounds we can get into, etc?

Thanks in advance for reading my long winded post.

Kris

It's a balancing act for sure. A lot depends on where you live and how you camp. If you're mostly going to be traveling highways and staying in improved campgrounds, I don't think longer is a huge issue. If you're going to be getting off the beaten path and into the mountains where roads can get narrower and steeper and there are more trees to navigate, it can be a bigger deal.

After a lot of deliberation and discussion about the amenities/size we wanted balanced against the size of the combined load going down the road, we actually bought a fifth wheel. It allowed us to get a little bit longer trailer in a little bit shorter overall package. It's also very tall inside which helps make it feel more roomy, especially with the big slide. Our unit is 31' so it's probably equivalent to about a 27' TT. Fifth wheels inherently tow better than TT's and I'm amazed at how well our combo goes down the highway - absolutely solid with no sway and trucks and cross winds are a complete non-issue.

The tradeoff is losing a lot of the bed space, but our rail mount Andersen hitch isn't too much of a space hog so there's still room for the dog kennel and some other items back there. The cost of the hitch was $300 off Craigslist plus $200 for the rails from etrailer. I haven't priced weight distributing hitches recently but I doubt a good one would cost any less than that.

Going into it we thought we'd probably buy a travel trailer for the same reasons you brought up, but the more we considered our options the more obvious it became that a fifth wheel was a better fit for us. I would recommend at least looking at some before you write them off.

FWIW, with your truck I don't think you'll be white knuckling it whether you buy a 26' or 32' travel trailer or a fifth wheel. However, fifth wheels do tow better just by virtue of how and where the load is carried. A travel trailer can be dialed in to where it tows well, but with a fifth you pretty much just drop the pin on the hitch and are good to go.

As an aside, I use a Softopper for the times I need a canopy. It's a one-man five minute job to take it on or off so it's very easy to switch, and it works great as a topper in every respect aside from security (the one major tradeoff).