the 3 most important charecteristics of your TT to you

[JasoninSC]

For me here are my three so far while I am learning about

I want a slide for added room and comfort

I want one with a dinette and a couch with decent view of the television.

I want one with at least a queen bed for me and the wife and maybe even. Bunk system for my two boys.

Now I would love to hear from some of the veteran TRee's on what they like or looked for

[Empty_Nest__Soo]

It pretty much depends upon what you want to use the TT for.

We wanted a relatively small TT mainly for camping at remote Forest Service campgrounds. With that in mind, the main qualities we wanted were:

Good ground clearance for traveling unpaved Forest Service roads,

Good interior storage,

Generous water and waste tanks,

Walk-around queen bed,

No sofa or TV.

Oh, and it was also easy to pay cash for it new. 😉

We’ve been very happy with our entry-level Pioneer for almost 11 years. We’ve looked at a lot of other campers over the years and I can’t say that we’ve found another that would have met our needs better. My biggest complaint is that it doesn’t have thermo-pane glass and the windows sweat a lot when camping in late winter or early spring.

Wayne

[westend]

Three most important:

Running gear operates well and is reliable (if I can't move it easily, I might as well stay home).

The layout fits my camping style ( I don't need to feel uncomfortable when inside).

The TT can be self sufficient for the purpose of boondocking and I want that to be easily done (solar battery charging and the addition of battery capacity makes water carrying/disposal the only limiting factor).

[waynec1957]

Mike Up wrote:

Tim_W wrote:

Slides are a love / hate relationship "In my opinion", DW and I hated that most things cannot be accessed when slides are slide in. Cannot get to fridge or bathroom or bedroom etc.

We ordered ours without a slide because we wanted "turn key" access. We can now just pull over when needed "at a rest stop" and walk right in and access everything.

However, slides give you more interior room but we were willing to give that up for the total access anytime.


Tim

Exactly, we loved our our previous Jayco Jay flight 19BH and our new Jay Flight 26BH (19BH with front bedroom added).

We often pull over at rest sites or large parking lots to eat inside, change diapers, and use the bathroom. Having a slide in the way would make it as inconvenient as the old pop up. Plus all you see on the forums are complaints with leaking slides, torn seals, and bound up slides. I don't want that headache now or in the future, if I can avoid it.

Plus the slides are heavy requiring a bigger truck with more payload for the additional hitch weight.

The 26BH fits all of our wants. The 19BH came close but had a smaller, enclosed double bed. The 26BH adds to that, a front walk around queen with tons of dresser storage and under bed storage. The wife and I looked at everything, and there was give ups with most slide configurations. Superslides have short 60" sofa and half slides offer barely any extra room with all the shortcomings of a slide and lack of storage under the sofa.

My brothers none slide 31' TT has an excellent floorplan like ours but with the sofa on the wall length wise to offer even more room. Not to many offering this floorplan anymore.

We have an 06 StarCraft 2700bh that's very similar to this (same layout--little less cabinet space) and it's served us well for the past 5 years. But the grandkids are bigger now and it tends to get a little crowded at night and on rainy days so we're looking for something with more room that's better suited for extended trips.

This was our first TT and I'll hate to see it go...lots of good memories in it.

[waynec1957]

Quality construction goes without saying.

Double slides in the living room (comes from being cooped up in our current TT for 5 years)

Large window in the rear

Walk around queen size bed

We're shopping now and those are the three "have to haves".

[mdcamping]

reliability: ( though I'm not sure my present Jayco it fitting that description )

Floor space: this is what we enjoy most with our trailer.

economical/practical: trailer fits our life style where it's NOT a burden on our life style.

Mike

[dadmomh]

Noted TrishaR1970's post re the large dogs. Have found that many folks count human bodies in their camping needs, but forget the pooches. Our DFs had a ROO19, which had no slide. Even just adding their small/medium size dog made for really tricky navigation getting meals ready and moving around comfortably. We had a ROO 23 with a slide and for some reason, when evening and time for cut-throat Dominoes rolled around, we ended up with all 4 of us + their small/medium pooch and our 80# World's Best Yellow Camping Lab all spread out with plenty of room for everyone. Need to keep in mind the dog's comfort, lol. Truly, if you plan on taking a dog(s) along, personally wouldn't even take a second look at something without a slide. Dogs don't like being stepped on.

[Mike_Up]

Tim_W wrote:

Slides are a love / hate relationship "In my opinion", DW and I hated that most things cannot be accessed when slides are slide in. Cannot get to fridge or bathroom or bedroom etc.

We ordered ours without a slide because we wanted "turn key" access. We can now just pull over when needed "at a rest stop" and walk right in and access everything.

However, slides give you more interior room but we were willing to give that up for the total access anytime.


Tim

Exactly, we loved our our previous Jayco Jay flight 19BH and our new Jay Flight 26BH (19BH with front bedroom added).

We often pull over at rest sites or large parking lots to eat inside, change diapers, and use the bathroom. Having a slide in the way would make it as inconvenient as the old pop up. Plus all you see on the forums are complaints with leaking slides, torn seals, and bound up slides. I don't want that headache now or in the future, if I can avoid it.

Plus the slides are heavy requiring a bigger truck with more payload for the additional hitch weight.

The 26BH fits all of our wants. The 19BH came close but had a smaller, enclosed double bed. The 26BH adds to that, a front walk around queen with tons of dresser storage and under bed storage. The wife and I looked at everything, and there was give ups with most slide configurations. Superslides have short 60" sofa and half slides offer barely any extra room with all the shortcomings of a slide and lack of storage under the sofa.

My brothers none slide 31' TT has an excellent floorplan like ours but with the sofa on the wall length wise to offer even more room. Not to many offering this floorplan anymore.

[Tim_W]

1. Walk around bed
2. No slides
3. Four seasons (Starcraft calls it "Arctic Package")

Slides are a love / hate relationship "In my opinion", DW and I hated that most things cannot be accessed when slides are slide in. Cannot get to fridge or bathroom or bedroom etc.

We ordered ours without a slide because we wanted "turn key" access. We can now just pull over when needed "at a rest stop" and walk right in and access everything.

However, slides give you more interior room but we were willing to give that up for the total access anytime.


Tim

[profdant139]

The three most important things about my trailer:

1. DW likes it and wants to go camping all the time.

2. DW likes it and wants to go camping all the time.

3. DW likes it and wants to go camping all the time.

Other than that, I agree with what other folks have said.

[the_happiestcam]

1. Slide
2. Replaced crappy mattress
3. Ventilation from all 4 sides.

We have 1 and 2. Since we went from the hybrid to the current TT, we now only have ventilation (windows) on 2 sides - really miss being able to get the breeze from any angle.

Not sure if the one that said bathroom was no big deal meant no bathroom at all - I don't care about the SIZE of the bathroom, shower, etc. They are there, but it mainly just gets used for middle of night trips (which I sometimes still go to bath house so as not to wake others).

[Road_Ruler]

Low to the ground as possible for better aerodynamics

Towability

Bathroom

Comfy bed

[Tvov]

3 most important characteristics of a TT for me was (well, actually 5 things):

1. cost - did not want to be paying off a loan years down the road.

2. size - short enough to get into our driveway and allow maneuvering at various types of campground.

3. Bathroom with shower - did not need to be big, but usable.

4. Awning! As big as possible.

5. simplicity - no slide outs or extra electronics



Out 21' TT has been great. The kids use the bed and bunk in back, mom and myself use the drop down dinette for sleeping - it basically becomes a queen size bed.

Now that we've had it for awhile, I honestly wouldn't change much. A larger refrig with separate freezer would be nice. YES, a slide out (or two) would be nice for the extra interior room, but really we spend most of our time outside the camper anyways. Which leads us to the awning - I wish there was more room under it! But it works great for sitting out on those rainy days!

See you on the road!

[atreis]

1) Comfortably sleeps 5, and can sleep 6 in a pinch (it can sleep 7).
2) Fully loaded weight of 3300 lbs or less (it's ~3100 according to a Cat scale).
3) No more than 22 feet in length (it's 21).
4) Not a PUP.

2 and 3 really amount to: Towable by a minivan. 🙂 I really wanted a fiberglass egg type trailer, but haven't ever found one that meets the first three requirements.

[richk88]

walk around bed
recliners
large corner shower

[river_bravo]

* Outdoor kitchen
* Double wide bunks (3 kids)
* Length that would fit well in my driveway