We’ve owned three types of RV’s in the last ten years. A 40 foot class A diesel pusher, a 16 foot travel trailer, and a 37 foot fifth wheel. And before we bought are first RV we rented a 26 foot class C camper and a 40 foot class A diesel pusher just to do some due diligence before dropping some big bucks. So what’s the right rig for you? Class A, B, C, or travel trailer? The answer is…it depends!
I think the questions you have to ask yourself are these (in no particular order - except the last one!):
How many nights a month and year are you going to use the RV?
How many people are sleeping in the RV and how many beds does that mean?
Do you need a storage facility, or can you store it on your property?
How much ‘luxury’ do you require?
Do you plan on boon docking (i.e. no services) at all?
Do you plan on working in your RV?
Do you plan on living full-time in your RV?
Do you need multiple bathrooms for the rest of the family?
Do you want to bring along ATV’s, motorcycles, or other powered equipment?
Do you have a vehicle big enough to haul the RV?
Do you have a vehicle that can be flat-towed or towed via a dolly?
Do you cook outside with a griddle or grill or inside with an oven?
Are you and your spouse in agreement on all of the above questions?
If you are wishy-washy on the answers to these questions that I recommend that you try out a few different types of RV’s. Most metro areas have an RV dealership that does RV rentals and there are several websites that do this nationally (we rented our travel trailer for about a year). This way you can try out a travel trailer, a Class B or C, and a the various types of Class A’s (diesel pusher where the engine is in the back or a front end diesel or gas engine). In each case there is a vast variety of floor plans so you might want to do some research on what you think you might need. RVTrader.com is a good place to research the various types and prices.
RV’ing can either be a vacation or a lifestyle. If it’s a vacation then it might be a different RV than if you’re planning on the RV lifestyle full-time or a few months a year. If you like roughing it (boon docking) that’s a completely different set of things you need than if you enjoy your hotel room on wheels.
Some Generalities:
Travel Trailers come in all lengths and configurations. Some are pretty spartan and some are big enough to have a bedroom and a separate bunk room in addition to a fairly good sized bathroom. The limit might be what your current vehicle can tow. For example, the 16 foot travel trailer we had could be towed with our Jeep Cherokee (just barely).
Class B’s are van like and you generally don’t tow a vehicle behind it (though we’ve seen some!). They are very maneuverable and you can take them anywhere the roads go. Would I use them with two people? Maybe if we spent a lot of time outside and really liked each other. We do have a friend that goes on some wild adventures to very scenic places in her RoadTrek (but by herself).
Class C’s are bigger but tend to be a box room but there are other floor plans. Our experience (and others) is they’re pretty noisy while traveling on the road. There are various floor plans and you may find out that fits your needs. After our initial rental we never looked at these again but they might fit your budget and lifestyle.
Class A’s are the bus-sized RV’s. Lots of different floor plans depending on if you want a diesel (engines last forever) or gas (plan on < 100,000 miles) and if the engine is in front or back. It seems there is no upper limit for how expensive these can be and the more expensive they are the fewer people they sleep. Generally people tow a vehicle behind these rigs which means they have a small vehicle to roam about the area they are camped in.
Fifth wheels are towed by a truck. The hitch is in the bed of the trucks and generally these are big trucks. We have a Dodge Ram 3500 for our 37 foot RV and it has zero issues pulling it or stopping it (maybe even more important!). Fifth wheels come in all variety of lengths, floor plans, and build quality so I think this is the hardest one to figure out. My advice is to step inside as many fifth wheels as possible to find the floor plan that you like. The drawback is that you are driving a rather large and expensive vehicle around on a day to day basis which can be awkward in cities and historic sites. The price of fifth wheels is considerably less than a Class A but by the time you add on a truck appropriately sized it might be a wash for you.
Toy Haulers can be Class A, fifth wheel, or trailer RV’s. There is a room in the back of the RV to hold an ATV or motorcycles and is often a second bedroom. Everything in an RV is a tradeoff and usually a toy hauler means you have less living room or kitchen space. It’s a choice that needs to be made early on.
Since we’ve owned a number of different types of RV’s we’ve found that we like the fifth wheel better. We live it in full time and it has all the creature comforts we need. We love the floor plan and feel that it has way more space than the average Class A. But it is a pain, at times, to drive a big truck into metropolitan areas and find parking (you just don’t fit into a regular parking spot).
I could probably do a whole article on each class and type of RV and still not be anywhere close to complete. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!
We also own a fifth wheel as well
Ours is a "vacation home" so its not as big & luxurious as yours or my parents who also lived in theirs full time for nearly a decade.
But it still takes a big truck to haul decently
So I park my F 350 way out in the parking lots so I dont get boxed in by little cars and "small" trucks (anything less than an F350 crew cab long box is a "small truck")
Did you guys spend a lot of time looking at makers first and go with the mark you wanted ?
Or floor plans from all kinds of makers first and get the one that had the floor plan you liked ?