Newbie need help with purchase decision

SoundGuy wrote:

RVhavingfun? wrote:
I posted a thread asking about the drawbacks of owning a Hybrid in the Hybrid forum and received many very helpful replies from experienced owners.

And here's that discussion. As one would expect because it's posted on the Hybrid Forum most respondents are current hybrid owners and predictably view hybrids favourably, unlike many of us who once did have a hybrid but now have moved on to a travel trailer or 5th because we're so done with tenting and have no interest in ever owning a hybrid again. :R

This discussion however has caused me to think of the hundreds we've met over the years here in Canada and across the US who are avid campers, quite a few of whom we still camp with ... of that group I can only think of two couples who have owned a popup or hybrid (i.e. a camper with tenting) and still have it - one here in Ontario with a hybrid and the other couple in NY state with a popup ... virtually everyone else has long since moved on to a travel trailer, 5th, MH, etc. The reason? ... eventually reality sets in and the romance of "camping under tenting" or the illusion that you get something for nothing - i.e. the convenience of a 30' trailer in a 20' package - proves to come at the cost of inconvenience in other areas. Some smarter that I saw the light before the fact and saved themselves the aggravation and a lot of $$$$$ in lost depreciation by simply skipping the hybrid entirely, moving from the most common trailer with tenting - i.e. a popup - directly to a trailer without any - i.e. travel trailer, 5th, etc. Wish we'd done that! :R

I fully expect that at some point we'll be ready for what basically amounts to a rolling vacation home, but for now we've realized that we really want our kids to feel like they're camping—a real departure from life at home, not just a new location to live it in. I wanted to minimize the set-up involved in tent camping, but didn't feel the need to eliminate it completely. Reading some of the replies here actually helped me come to the realization that for now, while we're young and healthy, I want there to be a little work involved in camping. I'm sure that makes me a bit of a weirdo, but when I think back to those childhood memories that have my brothers and I doubling over with laughter, it's not the luxurious vacations that I recall, it's times like when my Dad and his buddy took us survival camping and we ate biscuit root and drank pine needle tea while they snuck off to the cooler they had hidden in the woods and shared a beer and some laughs over our misery. Or, when my cousin (who is used to the finer things) accidentally reserved a dump of a vacation rental for our big family winter vacation and hilarity ensued, including my Grandma wandering around offering everyone truffles at 2:00am and the boys wiring a very complicated antenna out of wire coat hangers and trying in vain tto get the Super Bowl on tv.
We've been lucky enough to stay in some posh places, and they are lovely memories too, but there's something about "roughing it" that really makes the memories stick and insure future belly laughs. In my experience anyway.
Basically, total ease and comfort is not what I'm after. Just enough to encourage us to venture out more often.
For now. I'm not opposed to future rolling luxury. :C


Anyway, I'm sure you're right that most hybrid owners come to regret their purchase, and maybe we'll find ourselves in that group as well, but in our minds we have good reason to be choosing a hybrid at this point in our lives. I've been tent camping for 37 years, and my parents have spent over 60 years hauling their tent camping supplies (and for many of those years they hauled young kids too) into the woods. Heck, my 88 year old grandma still sets up her tent and camps in the wilderness with my parents. If they can do it, I feel like I can deal with some canvas tent ends for a bit.
But I am going to enjoy a lot less prep involved in our next family camping trip! Maybe I'll use the free time to fry up some biscuit root and chill some pine needle tea for my dad to enjoy when he's done setting up his tent.;)