Class of 2015

[outwestbound]

I've saved and am ready to hit the road in 2015. I didnt' want to get ahead of myself, so I'm just now seriously looking at rig options and getting more into the details of the full-time lifestyle. These forums are great! As it stands today, I'm getting a new F150 maxed out for towing (about 11,000 tow capacity) and a new or used travel trailer; rear living area plan, 3 slides, about 33-35 feet box size.

[ezdays]

Better make sure your F150 can pull a trailer that's 33-35 feet. That's pretty heavy. I was told most 150's cannot pull anything too heavy. I have a dodge RAM 150 hemi and it can only safely tow 9,500 lbs. You need to check the GVWR on the truck and trailer. I don't think a 150 will tow three slides. Better do some research first. Even maxed out with towing package I think you will have a lot of problems towing something that large. Welcome to the forum. Everyone here has good information. Maybe you should ask the other posts about your truck and trailer. They are a lot more knowledgeable and you will get some good ideas.

[skp51443]

That F150 is going to be very limiting in what you can tow, 33 and slides is going to be a lot to expect it to safely tow and stop. Check some of the other topics here on towing with light trucks and you'll get an idea of what to expect from it. Having towed a very light 2 slide 32 footer with an F250 I'd never do that again by choice and the wife wouldn't ride in it either.

[outwestbound]

Thanks for the advice. Yes, I'm checking into this carefully. I downloaded an excel spreadsheet that completes the calculations and I have the weights of the truck and trailer but the unknown for me, as a novice, is the cargo weights. I'll get it detailed out and post it, but the F150 rates at 11,100, 4x4, 3.73 rear end, V6 turbo ecobooste, supercab, 6.5 box. I attended a seminar at a show by an RV safety and feel that a cushion of 2,000 would be safe, so I'd figure towing no more than 9,100. As an example, I'm looking at Coachmen's 322RLDS with GVWR 9800 and the actual trailer sticker dry weight of 7442. It's just two of us in the trailer and I don't yet know what to figure for cargo, but doubling the crap sales people said at the RV show, allows me 1,000. This makes the trailer 8442, allowing a cushion (trailer only) of 1358, which I assume implies that a little breaking cushion exists, if the thing was designed to break the GVWR of 9800.

 

I figured I would not overload the truck, so the number seem to imply that it will work, but I haven't completed the calculation on the axels and know only enough about this stuff so far to be dangerous. I am good at math, so I just need to figure the cargo. I don't know if there is a ratio truck-to-trailer weights that makes sense. At some point it seems, the numbers may work out but the truck still must represent some ratio of the CVWR I guess?? I am concerned, but still grasping

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

1 thing to remember is that the dry weight of the trailer usually is without batteries, water, or propane. You need to figure those weights in.

[outwestbound]

Alie & Jim, great info. Not including fluids, batts or propane, do you have a sense what the cargo weight runs for a couple folks for the trailer? The RV sales people generalized at 500 lbs for a couple. I have no idea.

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

I'm a bad example for this as we are full-time in a 5'th wheel that weighs in at 18k or so. We probably have 4k in stuff but its everything we own.

[skp51443]

Don't forget the truck weights, if you weigh more than 150 pounds add that, want a passenger add that, want more than 1/8th tank of fuel add that, maybe a hitch... add that too. The weights you see in the fliers are very carefully calculated to make things look good. Get a scale weight with full fuel and normal passenger load then add in things like the hitch and bed cargo to get closer to a real weight.

 

Same for a trailer, the sticker may be very very wrong and you'll find between the truck fudging and trailer padding your 2000 pound safety factor suddenly is a -500 un-safety factor.

 

The weight ratings on the stickers and the factory towing guide** are the ones that can be trusted, get any other weights from a scale and you will have far fewer regrets.

 

**The towing guide is usually for horse trailers at 60 square feet of frontal area, make sure to adjust for your fiver's 100 some square feet of frontal area.

[Bill and Jodee]

EKBandana - the Blue Ridge Mountains are on our list so I have saved your contact information for our travels in your direction. Thanks so much for the offer.

 

So many of us live in wonderful places that others want to visit Somehow that validates for me that the pull of the open road is very strong. Our winters here in SoCal are mild and Spring and Fall are beautiful. We're okay with the taxes and gas prices and diversity and politics so most people wonder why we would ever want to leave.

 

We tell them it's the freedom of the road, the excitement of seeing so many other wonderful places in this amazing country, the challenge of being out there on our own, and the opportunity to meet new and interesting people. We love time together, and lots of it, so we're looking forward to a small house and an unlimited backyard we don't have to maintain .

 

Great to see how big our class is so far, and I'm looking forward to "seeing" each one of us on our graduation days - next year!! Woohoo!

 

Jodee

[EKBendana]

Well, have convinced my hubby to at least consider full timing for a trial year...we are going to the RV dreams workshop and then will make the decision. If we can sell the house, pay off debt, then we can get on the road faster....I just don't think it makes sense to invest in a new house while I really want the freedom to go and travel and we wish....lets see...we may be able to move things up a bit...

[outwestbound]

I sat down with my calculator tonight based on good comments here and yes, I'm too close for my comfort in pulling 8,500lbs with an F150, even maxed out in a 2014 model. Plus, I'm heading out west. I'll read the towing threads, but now I'm looking at the F250s. The 3.73 rear end 6.2L V8's GCWR is 19,000 and max tow 12,200 in my selected model - not much different than the F150. The 6.7L V8 turbo diesel 3.55 rear end jumps dramatically to GCWR 23,500, tow 14,000. The tongues are 1250 and 1400, with the right hitch.

 

I know this isn't the right forum; so will read the tow threads. Thanks

[Bill and Jodee]

It's always satisfying when we are able to support each other through doubts and frustrations with just a few key strokes.

 

Knowing someone may have avoided a dangerous situation for themselves and others because they asked for help on towing weights.......THAT makes my day! Kudos to all you experienced folks who always step up to help.

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

Your headed the right direction now. While the numbers do vary, for the size camper your after any of the 250/2500 series would do fine. You'll find the the diesels are more expensive but will give a better return pulling mountains and being at high elevation0.s

[Pjoe]

Well we moved a few steps closer to the next chapter in our life. We accepted an offer on our house and met with some folks about doing an estate sale to get rid of most of our stuff. We will be looking for a place to rent for a few months until we upgrade our motorhome. Retirement planned for April and May 2015. Wish us luck!

[dawgdawg69]

Good for you and best of luck!

 

Scott

[Bill and Jodee]

How exciting Pjoe!!!!! I look ahead at the sale of the house as our biggest hurdle and can't wait to be where you are now . We've thought about putting it on the market now to test the waters and then rent if it sells quickly.......but home prices are predicted to rise another 8% this year so we're keeping our fingers crossed that waiting will pay off.

 

Such fun to spend the next few months upgrading your rig - best of luck with all your plans.

 

Jodee

[outwestbound]

It appears I may be in the class of 2014. I closed on a rig today; 2011 Carri-Lite and a 2011 F350. I'm a little ahead of my plan but couldn't pass us a buying opportunity. I figure I'll keep the unit in a local park and my apartment for 3-4 months while I figure everything out and hit the road late summer.

[Luv2pik]

Dave and Nancy here, excited to say we will be FullTimers in June of 2015! If all goes according to plan and hubby actually retires! They are having a hard time letting him go.

 

We sold the house last year and are in a townhouse as we continue to downsize and scan all those years of photos! We have all the old video converted to DVD already. Home base is Michigan, we bought two adjoining sites in a nice Membership park. One site has a trailer for our kids to use and the other is for us in our motorhome. Works out perfectly! Annual fee is very reasonable.

 

Can't wait to get out of the cold and see this beautiful country! We play music and hope to meet up with fellow musicians for some jam sessions along the road. We love to hike and bike too.

 

Anyone else going to Escapade? This will be our first one and we will be there for boot camp as well as Escapade, can't wait!

 

Hope to see you there! ?

[VallAndMo]

Hello folks,

 

Early last week we took the decisive step for our US permanent visa, and if everything works as planned, we should be able to move to the US and start fulltime RVing in late 2015 (in the sense of having no S&B house, and living 24/7/365 in an RV... Vall will still need to work for a few more years).

 

Our plans for truck & 5er can be seen in this other thread, if anyone's interested.

 

We plan on living initially on the Phoenix Arizona area due to Vall's work, but moving further North (towards Flagstaff) for better weather during the summer months. During these first years, we will only be able to travel for short stays during eventual vacations, and so will only be hitting nearby states (NM, CO, NV, CA). But as we loved Arizona when we visited it, this will probably not be too burdensome .

 

After a few more years we should be able to retire and then really hit the road... we have a rather long bucket list to take care of .

 

Hope to meet you all on the road!

 

Cheers,

--

Vall & Mo.

[Arusarogge]

Outwestbound - Congratulations! Enjoy your new found freedom starting this summer. And say hello to the class of 2014 for us.

 

Luv2pik - Welcome to the Class of 2015. Looks like you'll be hitting the road right around the same time as us. We're not going to the Escapade this year (obviously, it starts tomorrow). We'd like to go next year, but it depends on whether or not we have our new rig by then. Of course, I am sure it would be beneficial even if we did not have the rig by then.

 

VallAndMo - Welcome to the Class of 2015. How exciting for you! I hope everything works out as you plan. Full-timing is at the top of my bucket list and has been for years. I can't wait to mark that one off and start on the rest.

 

See ya all on the road!

 

Mike and Lorraine

[VallAndMo]

Hi Mike & Lorraine,

 

VallAndMo - Welcome to the Class of 2015. How exciting for you! I hope everything works out as you plan. Full-timing is at the top of my bucket list and has been for years. I can't wait to mark that one off and start on the rest.

 

Thanks! In a related note, we just joined Escapees (details here), so it's one more thing getting us closer to our goals!

 

Cheers,

--

Vall & Mo.

[donna-ashby]

We are trying to take early retirement in 2015. I am reading about changes to Texas domicile law. Just feel stress right now. I don't know the steps for getting out there. Domicile, medical insurance, prescriptions, vehicle insurance. But we are starting to empty and fix the house up for sell, doing yard sales and research.

[VallAndMo]

Hi Donna,

 

We are trying to take early retirement in 2015. I am reading about changes to Texas domicile law.

Texas "Domicile" law? Or do you mean the mandatory-annual-vehicle-inspection thing?

 

Just feel stress right now.

If you mean the latter, I think you can relax: Escapees is right on top of the issue (look at the magazine, issue 2014/May-June, article starting on pg.10) and I understand it's very probable they will be able to change things for the better. Also, if worse comes to worst, I understand Escapees is getting a "Plan B" ready and setting up forwarding addresses on lots of other states; see pg. 11 of same article, and also Travis' post here.

 

don't know the steps for getting out there. Domicile, medical insurance, prescriptions, vehicle insurance.

Regarding domicile, there's another excellent article on pg. 12 of that same magazine (what? haven't you picked it up yet?! ) dealing specifically with that.

 

Regarding Health Insurance, I suggest you read WheelingIt's excellent series of articles here. Although it spends a long time detailing their own particular option, which may or may not work for you, it does give a good overview of the area. We are still about 18 months from our move, so what we've been doing so far is getting quotes on ehealthinsurance.com (recommended by WheelingIt) and evaluating things. We are also trying to get quotes for our planned 5er and truck setup so as to enter the numbers in a very detailed planned budget we have been assembling. Alas, doing a detailed planned budget -- the more detailed the better -- is something we heartily recommend, if nothing else for the added peace of mind to see that indeed you will be able to make ends meet.

 

But we are starting to empty and fix the house up for sell, doing yard sales and research.

Same here, only not much in the way of yard sales as they are not usual practice here in Brazil. But oh my, emptying and fixing the house (at the same time!) really takes a lot of our energy, specially having to discard almost everything we own (our plan is to move to the US and into the RV fulltime lifestile with two large and one small air travel bags for each one of us!)

 

Have courage, if we just keep our noses to the grindstone and continue moving things in the right direction, all of us will make it in the end!

 

Cheers,

--

Vall & Mo.

[donna-ashby]

I think I need to go ahead and join Escapees. I haven't done any of that yet. We haven't been 100% sure of our timeline and didn't want to spend money on memberships until we got close.

[VallAndMo]

Hi Donna,

 

I think I need to go ahead and join Escapees. I haven't done any of that yet. We haven't been 100% sure of our timeline and didn't want to spend money on memberships until we got close.

 

Oh, as your profile shows "SKP#:47821" I was under the impression you were already a member. Well, if you aren't yet, this is something I heartily recommend: I just joined yesterday (as a Brazilian, I had to call and see whether an exception could be made), and what I discovered so far already made it more that worth the annual fee.

 

Cheers,

--

Vall.