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How much experience in RV living do you have?


Kirk W

RV History...  

138 members have voted

  1. 1. Tell us about your RV history & experience...

    • I am new to RVing, with one year or less of experience.
      9
    • I have more than 1 year but less than 5 years & own/owned 1 RV.
      16
    • I have 5 - 10 years of RV experience but have owned only 1 or 2 RVs.
      20
    • I have 5 - 10 years of RV experience and have owned 3 or more RVs.
      8
    • I have mor than 10 years of RVing and have owned 3 to 5 RVs.
      40
    • I have more than 10 years of RVing and have owned more than 5 RVs.
      43
    • I don't fit any of these catagories...
      3


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We tent camped back in the 80's before kids, when boating at the lake. After a wicked thunder storm destroyed our campsite one night, that was it for my wife! We have rented RV's for a couple of vacations. We bought a timeshare back in 1999 and just stayed in condos where ever we vacationed with the kids. After selling the boat, we got in to off-road riding with our Polaris RZR. That's when we decided to get into RV'ing, so we could camp at the different riding areas. Bought our 30' Nexus Class C last May and are now making plans too retire and fulltime in the summer of 2016! I have a buyer for my business and my son will be buying our home. Just have to wrap up some things and we're off to explore this great country!

2005 Foretravel U270

2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee 

2016 Polaris RZR Turbo

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Tent camped on our honeymoon in the 60's. Then built a tent trailer we used for years. Since then have had trailers, fivers, pickup campers, culminating in full-timing in a fiver. Now back off the road.

2007 Arctic Fox 32.5 rls for full-timing, now sold.

2014 Sunnybrook Sunset Creek 267rl for the local campgrounds now that we are off the road
2007 Silverado 2500 diesel

Loving Green Valley, AZ (just South of Tucson)

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Foreclosure forced us to trade into a 30' Jayco TT. Been in it about a 2 weeks and still working out a LOT of small kinks. I am fine, having been a a boy scout and military, but my wife is struggling to adapt. Honestly, our biggest issue besides space, is figuring out our income sources. She is disabled and I am trying to get my disability. Looking into some workamping scenarios to help get us by for now. Always open to helpful suggestions. Currently at an SKP campground in Tn, going to the Smoky Mountain National Park today to look for work.

Have been enjoying the shared wisdom and wit here on the forum for the last 2 months.

Photographer on the go! Visit my website @ www.jmhillphoto.com or visit my blog

@ http://jmhillphoto.blogspot.com/ to see what we've been up to lately!

 

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Honestly, our biggest issue besides space, is figuring out our income sources.

One of the key parts of this is to keep expenses down as that can sometimes be more effective than increasing income. We found that serving as RV volunteers not only cut costs for us but also gave us a place to belong and the satisfaction of having contributed. We also had many wonderful experiences along the way that could not have been in any other means. If you haven't done so, I suggest you take a look at our volunteer lifestyle as a possible answer for you.

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

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We have owned and camped in a tent, cab high PU canopy, PU camper, 4 travel trailers and 2 motor homes. Started in 1970 and still doing it. Only 2 of the travel trailers were new. Still own the 2008 Komfort, along with the Volvo and Mtn. Aire shown. Not really camping anymore, but living in RV.

'98 Volvo, '03 Newmar Mountain Aire 5er,
'07 Polaris Ranger
Part timing all the time

photo-25557.jpg?__rand=0.62441800+135093

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As a young couple in the 1970's my wife and I tent camped extensively in the Lake Ouachita area near Hot Springs, Arkansas. Moved to Michigan in 1978, sold the tent. In the 1990's, on several different family vacations... we took our two kids and traveled the West and Southwest extensively. We would leave on a Friday night, and return 23 days later, staying in motels & lodges, and doing & seeing as much as we could. Hiked the Grand Canyon a couple times, stayed in most National Parks, Pacific Coast...

 

One big memory of these travels, were a lot of RV's... in a lot of nice locations that we would have liked to stay in longer.

 

In Fall of 2001, Mackinaw City, MI, we had dinner across from a couple that lived in a Motorhome... Escapees members, Workampers. They planted the seed. We designed our retirement plans around an RV lifestyle, attending RV shows and learning as much as we could. Zero experience. In 2012, we pulled the trigger on retirement two years earlier than we planned... buying a motorhome, toad, and leaving, all in the span of four months.

 

We had long considered a 5th Wheel... a Montana to be exact, about the 36' range. But as we shifted into the 'buy it' mode, and examined our most likely mode of RV'ing... we changed to a motorhome due to (what we perceived as) being better for boondocking & traveling. Two years later, we are quite happy. We avoided most big mistakes, and Alice has turned our MH into a 'home' with her decorating. We love it!

2007 Dolphin

  • Safe-T-Plus Steering Bar

Our Blog: Click Here

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I started in my teens with backpacking. I backpacked a lot through college, including the Appalachian trail.Then I started car camping with a tent.

 

When I married Danielle we tented a little - but she is not a "good" tenter. So we bought some RVs. First a class C which we totally gutted and renovated. Then a Travel trailer which we also renovated. We owned these RVs for a long time each.

 

Then we started fulltiming in 2000: We have had:

  • 36' 2000 Newmar 5er - new
  • 38' 2001 Carriage Royals International 5er - used (bought 2003/sold 2010). (John Bagley now owns it)
  • 2010 42' New Horizons custom built 5er - new
  • 2012 42.5' New Horizons custom built 5er - new
  • 2015 44.5' New Horizons custom built 5er - new

Jack & Danielle Mayer #60376 Lifetime Member
Living on the road since 2000

PLEASE no PM's. Email me. jackdanmayer AT gmail
2016 DRV Houston 44' 5er (we still have it)
2022 New Horizons 43' 5er
2016 Itasca 27N 28' motorhome 
2019 Volvo 860, D13 455/1850, 236" wb, I-Shift, battery-based APU
No truck at the moment - we use one of our demo units
2016 smart Passion, piggyback on the truck
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
See our website for info on New Horizons 5th wheels, HDTs as tow vehicles, communications on the road, and use of solar power
www.jackdanmayer.com
Principal in RVH Lifestyles. RVH-Lifestyles.com

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Tent camped when I was a kid at YMCA camps. Military ruined me on tent camping. In 1973 we wanted to go to auto races but didn't want high motel bills. So a friend offered use of his bare bones tent trailer. No ice box, no lights,etc. just slide out beds. Went to Pocono International Raceway, it rained cats and dogs Saturday night and we had a ball. So in 1974 we bought a Viking tent trailer with ice box and gas stove. Our first trip out was to North Myrtle Beach, S.C. Again fun. In 1976 we sold the Viking and bought a 1976 Prowler 21' travel trailer. That Prowler came to a screeching end coming home from the Rockingham, N.C. NASCAR race in October 1987. We flipped it and the van just south of the Potomac River on I-81 in West (by golly) Virginia. A few days later we bought 1988 Terry Travel Trailer 29' and the first outing for that trailer was Daytona 1988. We used that until October 2003, then bought a 2004 Alfa Gold fiver to fulltime with. Still in the wonderful Alfa and still very, very much enjoying fulltiming. We sometimes join Good Sam and have been Escapees since 2002. The people, travels, and our favorite places are priceless!

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Voted same as Bill Joyce and Dennis as no category for us = Fifth wheel 2000, then MH 2003 which still have. 15 years RVing in April - 2 RV's.

 

Emigrating from the UK to Canada, we were like kids in a candy store - all the space, mountains, lakes and my oh my, those wonderful campgrounds we were luckily invited to join of new friends we met, but usually for just day trips to join them. We embraced as a family the four seasons outdoor activities, but equally worked like crazy fools building our futures, not affording an RV for a few years and also realizing how many folks buy them and never use them much due to work, so knew we had to plan for it all to happen and gel together in reasonable balance.

 

Finally in 1999 we bought first the F350, thinking this would give us more flexibility in the RV to tow choice and we never looked back from that first 33ft 2 slide fifth wheel. That's how our RV affair began and still to this day continues. Boon docking are our favourite type of locations. The 5er took us to over 20 different states and 6 provinces. Hubby drooled over all the MH's as we travelled or even just drove up local Highways, and saw RV's heading South in the winter and North in the summer. 2003 saw us purchase our Fleetwood Southwind 36ft with two slides, and start increasing our vacation times away, especially every other year a 5 to 7 week trip as well as the Easter 10 days and many long weekends in between.

 

Love the floorpan still to this day although now hubby drools over DP's. Each year the past 5 we've been doing more and more extended travelling and now with new engine Easter 2013, updated TV's, Fridge, Solar system (all thanks to input from so many of you here), we are spending more and more time travelling in her, (as well sometimes other modes of travel).

 

With 46 states including Hawaii & Alaska, 10 provinces/territories under our belts (stayed one night in at minimum to be included), we are now embracing it all over again at an empty nest tortoise speed. OH YEAH!

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I had to choose "I don't fit in any of these categories" because we bought our 1st & only RV {a 38' Carriage Conestoga 5th wheel} in 1996. We had never done camping of any kind prior to buying our Carriage. We bought it & a Dodge pickup 1 ton, sold our house and headed out for parts unknown. We are finishing up our 18th year of fulltiming and are still in our same "home". We did have the outside stripped down and repainted in 2010 and did a bit of "freshening up" on the interior to bring it up to date. We did buy a new 2014 Ram in October of 2013 so we're good to go for a long long time. Hugs, Di

SKP #48048
2015 single Cab Ram 3500 Dually. Aisan Transmission, 410 gear. Pace Edwards automatic roll top cover. AMP running boards & tailgate step.
1996/2010 Triple Slide Carriage, Mor/Ryde Suspension, Kodiak Disc Brakes, Big Foot Leveling System & Plug It Right Stabilizers.
www.plugitright.com Plug It Right Stabilizer, TST, Quadra Big Foot Lever Tailgate Easy Lift Distrubitors
http://www.plugitright.com/5thwheelREDO.html e-mail: plugitright@gmail.com

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started with a popup in 1970, then a pickup camper in 71 through 74. No RV'ing as we had a farm until the early 90's. Got rid of the animals and started with a 1970 23ft Dodge Class A, then a 1986 29ft Rockwood Class C, then a 1989 30ft Pace Arrow. That was some living with a heated basement. Then we got bus fever bought a seated 1970 GM bus model PD4108. Back on the road after two years to complete the conversion to a motorhome and unexpectedly retired. We then purchased a 1986 MCI102A3 in 2006 for our second conversion and this should be our last RV. We are semi full timers as we are on the road about 8-9 months per year.

Bill & Lynn Baxter

MCI102A3 Conversion, Detroit Diesel S50  

dolphins.jpgVisitedStatesMap.jpgVisitedProvincesMap.jpg

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Started out in a 1967 VW Bus camper in 1968, then an Apache Eagle Popup, then a StarCraft Popup, and then another Starcraft Popup. Went to a Starcraft 27Ft pull trailer in the mid 90's. Got our first MH, a 31ft Allegro in 1999. Traded that for a 35ft 1994 Winnebago DP in 2005. Two years later we decided to go full time so we got a 2008 40ft Phaeton. We're still at it so we upgraded to the current 2015 42ft Phaeton in October of 2014. That got us two toilets and some other goodies that make life much more pleasant! :)

Frank
Kay - Co-pilot

Roscoe and Maggie - Rescue Beagles

"I asked God to send us a True Friend. He sent us a Beagle!"
"It's never too late to have a happy childhood!"

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I first started camping with my wife, about 3 months after we were married in 1969, in the back of my Chevy station wagon. A year or so later I bought a 3/4 ton Chevy P/U and bought a homemade slide on camper.

 

We used that until the first kid came along about 3 years later. We moved up to a pop top tent trailer, a nice Starcraft pop top, lots more room than a tiny slide on camper. We took our annual 2 week summer vacations and weekend trips with this for several years, culminating in a 7 week, "once in a lifetime" vacation from Texas to Yellowstone, Glacier NP's and Banff & Jasper NP's in Canada. Wonderful trip.

 

From there we upgraded to a large tandem axle Jayco pop top trailer which we camped in for the the next 15 or so years.

 

Once the kids were off to college we started taking vacations to Southeastern Utah, the Canyonlands country, and Big Bend National Park. By this time we had a 1988 Chevy Suburban 4x4 with a large roof rack. My wife and I would sleep in the back of the Suburban, cook and live outside. Lots of great adventures traveling and camping in the middle of nowhere on the back country and 4x4 roads in Big Bend and Utah. Also we still had the Jayco pop top and used it occasionally to camp on the Nueces River about 90 miles west of San Antonio.

 

On edit! I forgot about the Pickup Slide On Campers. We had two different 8' slide on p/u campers with the pop top roof on a 3/4 p/u. One summer we drove the rig on the "Alpine Loop" in Colorado. That's the loop from Silverton, over Cinnamon Pass to Lake City, then back over Engineer Pass to Silverton. Fantastic trip. Took 3 nights to do the trip.

 

About a year before I retired in 2004 we bought a 33' SunnyBrook TT. We towed this trailer with our Chevy 2500, 6.2L gas engine, with the pop top slide on camper on the back. We were maxed out on our GCVWR! After retirement we took a couple of 3 & 4 week trips and then in 2005 we took a 4 month trip with the SunnyBrook to Wyoming and Idaho area.

 

In 2006 we sold the house and started fulltiming in the Sunnybook, upgrading to a 33.5' Hitchhiker, 5th wheel a year later and then to a 40' Phaeton DP a year after that.

 

Christmas eve, 2010 we moved into a sticks & bricks to spend more time with the grandkids, sold the Phaeton in spring 2011 and bought a 26' 2005 Born Free Class C MH, which I had upgraded to 4 wheel drive that summer.

 

But things change. Medical problems for my wife made it difficult for her to spend lots of time in the smallish Class C. Especially since our son and DIL packed up the grandkids and said, "We are tired of the heat in Texas (both born in the San Antonio) and are moving to the Portland, OR area. If you want to see the grandkids, you come to Oregon!" After two 4 and 5 months long trips to Oregon, in the Class C, we sold it and bought a 29' Winnebago Class A. Much more comfortable and more room.

Al & Sharon
2006 Winnebago Journey 36G 
2020 Chevy Colorado Toad
San Antonio, TX

http://downtheroadaroundthebend.blogspot.com/

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It is looking like we are mostly pretty experienced in the RV lifestyle..... This isn't at all scientific but looks like 15% or so are what could be called, inexperienced. This makes me wonder what we may be able to do to attract and encourage the less experienced folks?

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

            images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqFswi_bvvojaMvanTWAI

 

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Interesting results, Kirk!

 

I found it curious that I'm in one of the smaller groups, 5 - 10 years with 3 or more rvs. In about 8 months, we'd be in the next category with 10 years. (9 years, in our third rv) The first was an emergency that got us going. The second was a nice one that we could find fairly easily that was close to what we wanted. The third was what we wanted, and it took a couple of years for it to come available. (It was a demonstrator used that had moved around the country from dealer to dealer. I watched it on the internet. The price had dropped to about half and we finally were able to make a deal. It was 4 years old but we didn't care. Took forever to get all of the little stickers off of everything, inside and out. Come to think of it, I think there may still be a sticker on the door...)

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This Montana Big sky 5th wheel is our 6th Rv and we do not count the pop up as a Rv as it was little more that a tent on wheels. Can't even put a exact date on it but we tent camped as far back as the mid 70's.As we got older and our financial condition got a bit better our rv's became bigger and bigger. We have been long timing since 2006 and this is our 2nd 5th wheel and 2nd truck. We hope to have another 3 /5 years before mother nature tells us to slow down. We are looking for a lot to purchase now here in Florida. We lease one now.

Helen and I are long timers ..08 F-350 Ford,LB,CC,6.4L,4X4, Dually,4:10 diff dragging around a 2013 Montana 3402 Big Sky

SKP 100137. North Ridgeville, Ohio in the summer, sort of and where ever it is warm in the winter.

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We tent camped for several years and I still miss some parts of that. Then we retired in 2010 and realized a 10 year dream and sold everything and went full time in our 5th wheel RV. We love this lifestyle and hope to be able to stay on the road for many more years.

 

Rick & Karen

2006 Arctic Fox 32.5 Silver Edition fiver

2001 Dodge 1 ton Dually with Mods

2005 Ranger Bass Boat;

Blog site is www.mytripjournal.com/ontheroadwithrickandkaren

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I have been camping for over 60 years, started as a kid tenting for vacations and continued going with my parents who upgraded to a class As gassers & Cs until I went into army which had their own idea of camping. I forgot about the home made topper I made for a pickup, in 68 before I got married I bought a pickup camper. I was sent over to Germany for 3 years in '72 we camped in a tent all over Europe from British Isles, Scandinavian Countries and all over Central Europe with our infant son and friends who kept coming over to visit us. When we got back we used my parents motor homes until we moved to Texas and bought a popup trailer and only used it a few times and decided to get a trailer. While my kids were growing up ('80 - '90) we went through half a dozen trailers. We had a 60's Argosy that we really liked but my kids got too big for the beds that flipped up and hocked to the ceiling and were only good to 125 lbs. When we retired over 4 years ago we had just bought a light trailer that had no storage at all so I saw a trailer that had a lot of basement storage it looked like a 5th wheel inside the bedroom/bathroom had steps going up to it and bought it. After I could not get it loaded to balance it and got tired of fighting sway I traded it in for a 5W so our 3rd unit in 4 years. My answer has to be over 10 years with more than 5 units.

 

I was a Scoutmaster of a Boy Scouts of America troop from 1986 to 2006 so I still tent camped a lot including a week long summer camp every year and a couple of long term back packing trek.

Dave Watkins

Highland Village, TX

2014 F-350 Dually

Open Range 349RLR

 

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When my husband suggested a 5th wheel I didn't even know what an RV was! Italians don't camp! I had zero experience camping so I didn't know the various types of RV's let alone what one was. But as the kids moved and took our grandchildren with them, I started research. Fell in love with the Keystone Montana & found it a way to scale back from all the "stuff" we had! Sold the S/B in April 2012, went fulltime and haven't looked back. Of course we went to Escapees Boot camp as we didn't know what we didn't know! Love it now more than when we first started nearly 3 years ago. 20 minutes to clean the RV then I go play...why would I every give up this lifestyle!!

Al and Barbara Smith

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We started in 1978 with our first of 2 slide in PU camper, in 1987 we bought our first of 4 5th wheels. Lots of memories and places in the last 37 years.

 

Denny

Denny & Jami SKP#90175
Most Timing with Mac our Scottie, RIP Jasper our Westie
2013 F350 SC DRW 6.2 V8 4.30 Gears
2003 HH Premier 35FKTG Home Base Nebraska

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