Choosing the Right RV can be a Huge Challenge

A short trip that my husband and I had thought would be a simple to and from to accomplish a goal had turned into something else entirely. It turned into a mountain of exciting plans we didn’t expect. During our trip to Florida to help my husband’s mother move to Arizona, we made unexpected plans to travel full time. We made a plan on how we would be able to pay off our debt in a short time and move forward with our goal. In three years time, we chose to begin our journey. The question now was how would we start.

We wanted to begin with traveling across the United States. Eventually, we will see other countries but have chosen to discover our own back yard first. We decided the best way to do this was by RV. So we began by going to different RV dealerships and a whole bunch of RV shows. And there are so many types of RV’s!!!! Did we want a driver (motorhome) or a travel trailer to pull behind a truck. We went back and forth on what to do.

With a motorhome, there are great benefits like having everything all in one. If you are hungry or need to go to the bathroom, you can get up and go without leaving the vehicle. One negative we found was the size of RV’s and possibly not being able to fit everywhere. There are some smaller ones but then there is a sacrifice on space. There is the worry of clearance. Will the RV fit under that bridge coming up? Also, it is more convenient for small day trips to tow a car, but then you are more limited on campsites if you have an RV and a car. We also had the concern that if the RV ever broke down, we would have to leave our home at the repair shop and find a place to stay while it’s being fixed. Regardless of the negatives, we did consider this as an option we were willing to take.

We decided that we would want a separate vehicle no matter what. It would be much more convenient to our plans. If we were going to do this, why not take out some of the negatives we didn’t like from the motorhome and go with a travel trailer.

If our car or truck broke down, we could still have our home towed to a campsite or RV park. We could take day trips and leave our trailer behind if we wanted. There are many more positives in our eyes with this choice. The negatives we found were that ironically enough, it was a separate thing that had to be towed. We were concerned on the sway while driving and if there would be issues with maneuvering. Again, we were in the same situation with size and possibly limited camping spots. The limitation on camping spots would not be terrible but we preferred to be as compact as possible to have the option of a tent spot if we chose. Overall, this was the best choice for us from what we found. It was likely going to be our future tiny home.

Around the time of our search, Daniel went on a retreat with his company. A coworker of his brought something that ended up changing our views completely. He had what is known as a truck camper. It sits in the bed of a pickup truck. We’ve seen these before and did not think anything of it. They seemed so small and not very attractive. Little did we know… Daniel was curious about it since he had never seen the inside of one and asked if he could take a look. He was very impressed with what he saw. When he came home, he told me about it but I wasn’t very interested. The ones I had seen looked so tiny and we wouldn’t be able to fit anything in it. We also had to consider that we had two small dogs. Either way, he convinced me enough to be curious.

One negative on our search was that in Phoenix, we only found one dealership that has truck campers. We found them at Tom’s Camperland and headed over to one of their locations. The first few we checked out were tiny and definitely a no go. We decided to stick it out and continue pushing through the lot. The 1st one we fell in love with was called a Host Mammoth. This thing had 3 sliders and seemed huge! I could not imagine this camper sat in a truck bed and was so big. Amazing is all I can say.

We went back to that dealership so many times to see it again and again forming ideas. The one negative about this particular model is that the seating inside it wasn’t very comfortable. Otherwise it was amazing. We still loved everything else about this choice of RV. It was a good size for us to live during our travels. With the camper sitting in the truck bed, it was a compact size which would enable us to fit in more camping spots. We could separate from it and just take the truck on a day trip if we wanted or keep it all together. The storage was surprisingly large and the water tanks were bigger than many of the other types of RV’s we saw.

One day, we were looking up camper tops on YouTube and found one from a company called Eagle Cap. It was really nice. It had 3 sliders as well and had more of a modern feel. There were none in the area so we kept an eye out. Finally, one of the Tom’s Camperland locations received some new ones in. We looked at an Eagle Cap 1165.

From the moment we set eyes on it, we were done looking. It was perfect. There was a nice kitchen with an island, plenty of storage inside and out, the seating was super comfortable, and good sized water tanks. It can even come solar solar ready if we choose that option. The only thing we will have to decide when we’re ready to purchase is if we’ll get it new or used.

So one more bit of our plan was forming. All we had to do at this point is figure out what kind of truck we needed. That will be left for another post. As always, thanks for reading!!