I've been camping pretty regularly for the past 30 years or so in tents (with family, and in boy scouts). And I never really understood why people would bring RVs to camp in.
Two years ago, my family of five (including 3 young kids) was camping for a few days in Greenbrier SP in MD, including a couple of nights in pounding rainstorms. We didn't mind the rain, but when it came time to break camp, it took more than 3 hours to pack up the wet gear and try to jigsaw it all back into the minivan and still have room for everybody to sit. The guy in the site next to me had a popup, and I watched him fold up his trailer with ease...seemed like he was gone in like 10 minutes! And I finally began to appreciate why someone would camp in an RV.
I spent the next six months looking at popups, but came to the conclusion that our minivan just wouldn't tow enough to make a popup work. And we started dreaming about cross-country trips that might be easier in a full travel trailer rather than a popup. Then came the search for a bigger tow vehicle. With the large(ish) family with two still in booster seats, I settled on a full size SUV to get the maximum towing possible--9200 lb! (I learned quite a bit later that this means very little, and the payload rating that I should have been paying attention to went completely unnoticed.) We rented a 24' trailer to "test out the concept" for a long weekend the following spring, which went well. Rented the same trailer last summer for a 2-week trip around New England, and we were hooked!
So we started looking at purchasing in earnest last fall. We spent many months looking at 30-35' trailers (hey, their dry weights are more than 1000lb less than my max towing capability, so we should be fine, right?), but then I started getting familiar with what the weight ratings all really meant. My wife started to get frustrated with me as I had to keep dialing back her expectations every few weeks as I learned more and more about how limited our tow vehicle really was (1400 lb payload). Finally a few months ago, we finally were able to settle on a model that seemed to fit what we were looking for and that we could tow--the KZ Spree 240bhs. Unfortunately, not many dealers stock that model, so we had to get it ordered from the factory. It should be delivered in a couple more weeks. THEN I'll get to spend my first night in *my* first trailer. :)
