Thinking about a camper.....(channeling Ted)

Mike Smith

Mike Smith

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I’ll soon have children in four different states and grandchildren in two. I still have one at home. I’m not necessarily trying to save money, I’m thinking more about the utility. Thinking about a pull behind that would just be somewhere to sleep and maybe take a shower. What are the pluses, minuses and gotchas?
 
If that's all you need, maybe a pop up trailer or a pickup bed camper would do the trick. Your bigger travel trailers have fridges, gas appliances, tv's, generators, and slide outs. If budget allows, a modest used motorhome would allow you to travel and not have to stay in hotels. In addition, you could stay in it while you visit relatives, giving you some private space.
 
Some of those teardrop styles are pretty compact and also can include a shower. If you're going to be camping in the driveway, maybe skip the bathroom (more things to maintain) and just use it for an extra bedroom?

Or a small A-frame, they don't weigh much and are easy to tow.
 
In my mind I see us traveling to California and stopping overnight and sleeping/showering and moving on. I think the bathroom is a must. I don’t see a lot of “camping” per se. So sleep 3 and have a shower. We wouldn’t need a ton of room. The RV doesn’t work because you can’t really go driving around town in it.
 
You probably want something that's more of a "park it/use it" that doesn't require a lot of time to set up.

What kind of vehicle will you be towing with?
 
The biggest problem I have with campers is that I can't tow one behind the Mooney.

Many people think positive and buy big campers, which then often sit unused. There should be a good supply of gently used ones available in most sizes, at significant discounts from new. My dad bought a 26' with one bedroom (plus dining table / bed and another folddown bed abive the sofa at the end) as a solo fishing trip camper, then made the mistake of letting Mom in. It worked well for both of them, going several weeks at a time.

Just don't go too small if you are planning to cross the country with it. But it sounds like you don't need a 5th wheel with slideouts, either. There're many choices in between. Have fun testing them out!
 
Maybe rent first and see if you’d really use it the way you’re envisioning.

I thought about a trailer for a long time (including use at OSH) but the logistics of storage, cleaning the black tank, etc. (thankfully no winterizing where I’m at) and it just made me take pause.

The (formerly Little Guy, now NuCamp) T@b S is what I was looking at. I wanted something that had a toilet, bath, galley, bed, and an AC unit that could possibly be powered off a Honda EU2000i generator. I had no interest to drag a bigger generator than that around. Still thinking about the T@b S (since it would make a great mini office at the hangar) but it’s fallen lower on the priority list.
 
Electricity and will be the biggest concern. You’ll need either a 30A to 15A adapter or a 50A to 30A adapter piggybacking a 30A to 15A adapter to use household power. The RV should be the only thing on that circuit and you’ll have to think about power management to keep from tripping the house breaker.

You’ll also need a pretty big (10 gauge) extension cord if you RV power cord isn’t long enough.

Some cities and many HoAs either prohibit or limit the overnighting on a street or in the driveway.

Rent before you buy, just try it for a week living out of your own driveway or go to an RV Park. Tons of gently used, depreciated units on the market.

Look at different floor plans; slideouts add more square feet, but stick out in the street or driveway. If the slides are in, can you still access the critical areas like bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.

Grand Design RV has pretty good product on the market right now.
 
Matthew said:
You probably want something that's more of a "park it/use it" that doesn't require a lot of time to set up.

What kind of vehicle will you be towing with?
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I have an F150 with the 5.0 and the towing package. You are exactly right about park it/use it.

TCABM said:
Electricity and will be the biggest concern.
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This is a concern for sure.
 
Don't get a pop-up. @jesse had a pop-up and brought it by my house once. He showed up and I helped him set it up, it took damn near half an hour of me watching him and trying to help, and it wasn't fun.

The next time he showed up with his ~30 ft camper it took 5 minutes to set up, and was way nicer. Obviously you don't need quite that big, but it was nice that it had a bedroom, living area, etc. Reality is if you just want a place to sleep and shower, it's a lot cheaper to get hotel rooms at whatever Hilton you happen to be driving or flying past. The advantage of the camper to me is in it giving you your own space wherever you happen to buy.

Buy a portable quiet generator to go with whatever camper you buy. They make ones now that are super quiet, super efficient, and that solves your electricity concerns if you aren't at a campground.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Reality is if you just want a place to sleep and shower, it's a lot cheaper to get hotel rooms at whatever Hilton you happen to be driving or flying past
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Yeah, I figure that’s a wash. My thought is, and I may be dreaming, we will be doing a lot of traveling all over the country. I figure over the next several years I can save some money over plane tickets and hotel rooms. Plus I want to believe that having the option to stop along the way, we might get to see some things we would miss if we fly over them.
 
asicer said:
Would a cab-over work?
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The problem with that is I wouldn’t want to drive around San Diego for a week with a slide in. I can unhook from a trailer. At least that what I’m thinking. Are they easy to slide on/out?
 
I'd think hard about a truck bed camper. for just a couple of people it offers a few advantages

1. can still have amenities (ac/sink/stove/beds/heater/etc)
2. leaves your hitch free for toys (boat/bikes)
3. lets you park in 99% of normal parking spots. no looking for "trailer parking"

For the record, I have a tow behind trailer (a 1973 airstream), but am now facing the dilemma of how to haul toys
 
if you want easy connect/disconnect, i agree with ted on the popup. they take a little doing, but are good for those with smaller cars, or smaller storage spots.

You can get a small tow behind and if you get the right options, you can have a little genny in it/etc. that said, I find living on camper battery for a couple of days isn't a big deal and we don't take a generator camping.

it does mean you have a propane fridge and a bathroom with you at all times. pretty nice on long trips to pull over anywhere, use the restroom, grab a snack, even take a nap if you want.

on the truck bed campers, I've heard that some of the nicer ones are really quick on/off and have strong power jacks and a good frame that allows you to undo a few chains, run the jacks up, and drive out.
 
Mike Smith said:
The problem with that is I wouldn’t want to drive around San Diego for a week with a slide in. I can unhook from a trailer. At least that what I’m thinking. Are they easy to slide on/out?
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As @MIFlyer points out, it depends. That said, would a popup cab-over make things easier? Or are you more worried about the added horizontal girth?

And Alabama to San Diego and back? That's a pretty long haul (30 hours each way according to Google), of which west Texas is probably going to be pretty uninteresting.
 
Think long and hard before going with anything soft sided. We had a popup that was super simple to store and use, but the fabric sides meant it was noisy on the inside and if the wind or rain kicked up it was impossible to sleep. Went from that to a 26 foot Winnebago. I love being self contained. Depending on where we're going we might pull a utility trailer with the motorcycle or golf cart on it. We've had this for 12 years and are now looking for something a little bigger.

If you stay on the small side, no worries about power. We keep ours plugged into the house always, using a normal outdoor extension cord with a converter plug to connect the 15A to 30A cord. It runs the AC and keeps the fridge cold. No problem there.

It's a great way to travel. Passengers can move around, make lunch etc without stopping.
 
We have a 5th Wheel rv that we full time in when working out of town. The chevy 3500 duramax pull vehicle is strong but a 38 foot 17000 lb rv is not relaxing to haul around. think smaller is better when traveling.

A generator is useful for dry camping but adds weight.

A winterized or arctic or full time rv is best if you plan anything in sub freezing temperature.

A motorized rv requires insurance. A pull behind rv is covered by the pull vehicle.

An electric Water heater is typically under 10 gallons and dramatically undersized for a wife's shower. much better is a rv 500 tank less water heater running on propane.

Rv fridges can be run on electric or propane when being pulled.

50 amp service allows for 2 ac's which are nice in hot weather.
 
MIFlyer said:
on the truck bed campers, I've heard that some of the nicer ones are really quick on/off and have strong power jacks and a good frame that allows you to undo a few chains, run the jacks up, and drive out.
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They do get really nice. I have one on order - a Host Mammoth. It has 3 slideouts and 180 square feet of interior space. King bed that's accessible from both sides, bathroom with shower, full kitchen, solar, lithium etc:
https://www.hostcampers.com/product-gallery-mammoth.html

These do indeed fit on the back of a pickup truck, but that pickup needs to be a F350 Dually or higher. A F350 DRW doesn't fit into 99% of parking spaces even without a camper...


NOTE: There are 2 distinct types of truck bed campers. Both are referred to as truck bed campers, but there really should have been a more formal designation (would have made my search a lot simpler):

a) The type where the camper floor is at truck bed level. When you go to bed, you climb onto/over some furniture to get to the bed. Imagine standing on the truck bed and trying to climb onto the roof of the cabin. e.g. Lance 825:

upload_2018-7-9_4-23-23.png


b) The type where the camper floor is at truck bed rail level, which makes the bed much lower of a step up. The truck bed in turn is used for storage. These have larger interiors since they're not constrained by the wheel wells. Of course, this means you have to take 1 or 2 extra steps to get into the camper in the first place. e.g. Host Mammoth:

upload_2018-7-9_4-19-38.png
 
A small class B would be easy to travel with. Something like this used is under $20k.

Not a camper I have a connection to, just something I found scrolling on the rvtrader website.
Screen Shot 2018-07-09 at 8.31.45 AM.png
 
Mike Smith said:
Yeah, I figure that’s a wash. My thought is, and I may be dreaming, we will be doing a lot of traveling all over the country. I figure over the next several years I can save some money over plane tickets and hotel rooms. Plus I want to believe that having the option to stop along the way, we might get to see some things we would miss if we fly over them.
Click to expand...

I definitely agree that if you have the camper you may check out places that you otherwise might not if you just drove or flew past, so it's a question of what the priorities are. My point was simply, don't do it because you want to save money, do it because it offers you some benefit to what you want to do or lets you do things you otherwise might not be able to.

To the points about getting a Class A/B/C above, that's a valid consideration. The nice thing about a camper you pull behind a pickup is you can disconnect the pickup and have a vehicle, whereas with a Class-whatever you need to tow a vehicle behind. In your situation, especially if you already have a vehicle that can tow, it sounds like a camper is the way to go. I could see my wife and me getting a Class A that we could tow the motorcycles with at a point later in life when we want to do similar travel, but then that would give us the combination of vehicles.
 
deonb said:
These do indeed fit on the back of a pickup truck, but that pickup needs to be a F350 Dually or higher. A F350 DRW doesn't fit into 99% of parking spaces even without a camper...
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This is a deal breaker for me. I don't want to upgrade trucks for this. Like I said, this may be a pipe dream anyway. This is good stuff though, given me plenty to think about. I even gave a brief thought to buying a plane....That just isnt in the cards, coast to coast in something I could afford would be grueling and I don't want to over the mountains or into super busy airspace.
 
Mike Smith said:
This is a deal breaker for me. I don't want to upgrade trucks for this. Like I said, this may be a pipe dream anyway. This is good stuff though, given me plenty to think about. I even gave a brief thought to buying a plane....That just isnt in the cards, coast to coast in something I could afford would be grueling and I don't want to over the mountains or into super busy airspace.
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Your current truck can still tow a decent sized camper. Nothing enormous like a giant 5th wheel but still plenty big enough to do more than what you need.

One thing to keep in mind is that the 5.0 will be straining a bit more, especially out west. A friend of mine just bought an F-150 with the 5.0 to compliment his F-250 PowerStroke 6.0. Hearing him talk about the F-150 towing his relatively small enclosed trailer through some of the southern hills out west (so nothing too tall) it sounded like he was at 3-4k RPM a lot. Now the engine will probably last long term just fine, but there is the question of what sort of driving experience you want. That would get annoying to me if it was too frequent.
 
My only suggestion is to buy the smallest camper you would be comfortable in. The bigger they are the harder they are to park in a camp spot, clean, pack, store, and pull.
 
I went through this not long ago. But ultimately I figured it would sit way more than it gets used, I could buy a lot of hotel rooms for many years on the same cost, and it would make my plane jealous.

But I looked heavily at r-pods but they are pricey and then followed by the wolf pup line. Trailers are made cheap and they don't weather very well either and for the cost of them it's not worth it to me.

But in your case with traveling long distance it would be worth it between plane tickets and hotels. But how often will you actually do it? How's the trans on the truck? I've driven to Alaska and those hills out west are no joke. Not to mention the time and dealing with traffic.
 
Grum.Man said:
My only suggestion is to buy the smallest camper you would be comfortable in. The bigger they are the harder they are to park in a camp spot, clean, pack, store, and pull.
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That was what I was thinking.

simtech said:
I went through this not long ago. But ultimately I figured it would sit way more than it gets used, I could buy a lot of hotel rooms for many years on the same cost, and it would make my plane jealous.

But I looked heavily at r-pods but they are pricey and then followed by the wolf pup line. Trailers are made cheap and they don't weather very well either and for the cost of them it's not worth it to me.

But in your case with traveling long distance it would be worth it between plane tickets and hotels. But how often will you actually do it? How's the trans on the truck? I've driven to Alaska and those hills out west are no joke. Not to mention the time and dealing with traffic.
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Thats the 64K question. We will have grand kids on each coast, San Diego and Augusta and a son in Virginia....I "think" 8-12 time a year....but I just dont know yet.
 
Mike Smith said:
Thats the 64K question. We will have grand kids on each coast, San Diego and Augusta and a son in Virginia....I "think" 8-12 time a year....but I just dont know yet.
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Frankly, if you're talking of traveling that much and thinking of having a camper of some sort, I'd be more inclined to find a diesel Class A or C and tow your F-150 behind it.

That's a lot of towing with an F-150, including long drives out west that will be much nicer with a diesel. Or at least an EcoBoost vs. the 5.0.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Frankly, if you're talking of traveling that much and thinking of having a camper of some sort, I'd be more inclined to find a diesel Class A or C and tow your F-150 behind it.

That's a lot of towing with an F-150, including long drives out west that will be much nicer with a diesel. Or at least an EcoBoost vs. the 5.0.
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You may be right, but part of the thought process for me is expense. I would just take the airlines and rent a car rather than upgrade the truck. I will disagree with you about the 5.0 vs the EcoBoost, I drive them both quite a bit at work, I'll take the 5.0 In the F150. If I were to upgrade to an F250/350 I would get the 6.2 as opposed to the diesel. The 6.2 is plenty of engine for my mission at at probably 50% of the maintenance cost. Heaven forbid you have an out of warranty repair on the 6.7......gets pricey quick.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Reality is if you just want a place to sleep and shower, it's a lot cheaper to get hotel rooms at whatever Hilton you happen to be driving or flying past.
Click to expand...

Back when gas was less than a buck a gallon and RV parks were only 8 bucks a night with EWS and Tv cable included, I bought a 5th wheel. It was really nice for traveling. I had my bathroom, bedroom and food for any meal right behind me. I drove until I was ready to call it quits for the day and pulled into a road side park. Then when I woke up I had a hot shower and a decent breakfast, and back on the road. If I needed to take a break, I pulled into an Rv park early in the afternoon. 10 MPG wasn't a wallet breaker back then like it is now.

With the money I am not spending on filling up with diesel at 50, 60 bucks a pop or more two or three times a day, I can afford a decent hotel and a restaurant. Most Rv parks around here are 45 bucks a night and more. Then the diesel rigs crank up at sunrise so they can let the engine warm up. It is just easier and just as comfortable to pull into a Hampton Inn or Hilton.
 
Mike Smith said:
You may be right, but part of the thought process for me is expense. I would just take the airlines and rent a car rather than upgrade the truck. I will disagree with you about the 5.0 vs the EcoBoost, I drive them both quite a bit at work, I'll take the 5.0 In the F150. If I were to upgrade to an F250/350 I would get the 6.2 as opposed to the diesel. The 6.2 is plenty of engine for my mission at at probably 50% of the maintenance cost. Heaven forbid you have an out of warranty repair on the 6.7......gets pricey quick.
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I think not towing, the difference is pretty minor. But towing, it's much more significant when talking to my friends with them.

From the gassers I've towed with vs. the diesels, the Ford V10 was the only one that actually did a good job towing, and even then my old 6.5 turbo diesel did better (until it threw a rod). But everyone's preferences are different, and I also get not wanting to upgrade the truck. The question to me comes down to at what point (especially on trips like that) does it become a more of a chore rather than increasing the enjoyment.

Meanwhile, people are telling me to buy bigger equipment than I think I need. I think I've got the sizes that I need figured out pretty well, so feel free to ignore my thoughts. :)
 
Might be worth considering a really, really nice highway driving car and skipping the trailer. 8-12 coast to coast trips each year is a lot of time on the road, so you might as well be comfortable. Most hotels really aren't that expensive when you start adding up the points you can get. Stopping somewhere in a camper to avoid a hotel stay can save some on meals - you can hit a grocery store vs a restaurant every night. Add the inconvenience of having to clean your "hotel room" yourself. And the hassle of towing something every single day of every single trip every single month might get old, unless you really are planning to live in it.

I towed a small utility trailer cross country, my only real towing experience. Traffic in some cities, lower fuel mileage, stress, whatever, meant I had to add extra days to that trip. Would that eat up the savings of spending those extra nights in a trailer? Dunno.
 
Zeldman said:
Back when gas was less than a buck a gallon and RV parks were only 8 bucks a night with EWS and Tv cable included, I bought a 5th wheel. It was really nice for traveling. I had my bathroom, bedroom and food for any meal right behind me. I drove until I was ready to call it quits for the day and pulled into a road side park. Then when I woke up I had a hot shower and a decent breakfast, and back on the road. If I needed to take a break, I pulled into an Rv park early in the afternoon. 10 MPG wasn't a wallet breaker back then like it is now.

With the money I am not spending on filling up with diesel at 50, 60 bucks a pop or more two or three times a day, I can afford a decent hotel and a restaurant. Most Rv parks around here are 45 bucks a night and more. Then the diesel rigs crank up at sunrise so they can let the engine warm up. It is just easier and just as comfortable to pull into a Hampton Inn or Hilton.
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When I hauled cars around the country for a living in college with my pickup, I spent a lot of nights in whatever Motel 6 or equivalent I found.

Matthew said:
Might be worth considering a really, really nice highway driving car and skipping the trailer. 8-12 coast to coast trips each year is a lot of time on the road, so you might as well be comfortable. Most hotels really aren't that expensive when you start adding up the points you can get. Stopping somewhere in a camper to avoid a hotel stay can save some on meals - you can hit a grocery store vs a restaurant every night. Add the inconvenience of having to clean your "hotel room" yourself. And the hassle of towing something every single day of every single trip every single month might get old, unless you really are planning to live in it.

I towed a small utility trailer cross country, my only real towing experience. Traffic in some cities, lower fuel mileage, stress, whatever, meant I had to add extra days to that trip. Would that eat up the savings of spending those extra nights in a trailer? Dunno.
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Towing is something that you do get used to. Once you get the hang of things and have appropriate equipment for what you're doing, it's not stressful, at least I don't find it to be, and I rather enjoy it. But if you have bad equipment then it can be very stressful. Thinking about the old days towing with a friend's lifted K-5 Blazer with 35s and no rear shocks on NYC area highways and construction zones. Oh, and about 120 degrees of play in the steering wheel.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I definitely agree that if you have the camper you may check out places that you otherwise might not if you just drove or flew past, so it's a question of what the priorities are. My point was simply, don't do it because you want to save money, do it because it offers you some benefit to what you want to do or lets you do things you otherwise might not be able to.

To the points about getting a Class A/B/C above, that's a valid consideration. The nice thing about a camper you pull behind a pickup is you can disconnect the pickup and have a vehicle, whereas with a Class-whatever you need to tow a vehicle behind. In your situation, especially if you already have a vehicle that can tow, it sounds like a camper is the way to go. I could see my wife and me getting a Class A that we could tow the motorcycles with at a point later in life when we want to do similar travel, but then that would give us the combination of vehicles.
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nah, get a tow behind travel trailer and then THIS wonder of mechanical engineering to haul the toys. i'm looking hard at this

http://www.jettrax.com/ (no, i don't get paid to promote them, but they seem to have figured this out)
 
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Grum.Man said:
My only suggestion is to buy the smallest camper you would be comfortable in. The bigger they are the harder they are to park in a camp spot, clean, pack, store, and pull.
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post of the day. find a solid, used 20' camper, ideally an ultralight. if you set up the weight distribution and anti sway correctly, it will tow nicely, be relatively easy to park/store in a driveway/etc, but still be fully self contained.

i pull a 29' TT and I'm LONG going down the road
 
MIFlyer said:
nah, get a two behind travel trailer and then THIS wonder of mechanical engineering to haul the toys. i'm looking hard at this

http://www.jettrax.com/ (no, i don't get paid to promote them, but they seem to have figured this out)
Click to expand...

That's a neat system for sure.

One thing is that I personally am not a fan of gooseneck/5th wheel trailers. I want to be able to put things in the bed of the truck and not have that space unusable. So if we ever did do the camper option to pull behind the ram, it'd be a standard travel trailer, and could fit a bike/bikes in the bed of the truck.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
That's a neat system for sure.

One thing is that I personally am not a fan of gooseneck/5th wheel trailers. I want to be able to put things in the bed of the truck and not have that space unusable. So if we ever did do the camper option to pull behind the ram, it'd be a standard travel trailer, and could fit a bike/bikes in the bed of the truck.
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Agreed, with one caveat that you can do a camper that sits up higher (poster above showed) which leaves the space below the bed rails free.

I would miss the ability to throw the bikes/etc in the back, but I've got to compromise somewhere if I want to haul a camper and toys.
 
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