Читать книгу RVs & Campers For Dummies - Christopher Hodapp - Страница 60

Motorhomes and fifth wheels tend to win on sheer size. These two categories are the rigs of choice for full-timers. As a rule, you just won’t get that kind of space in a standard travel trailer. Some trailers mimic the feel of a fifth wheel, but we had trouble finding them.

We well remember our first trip to a gigantic Lazydays dealership. Just in trying to understand all our options, we kept pleading, “Okay, we’ve seen the huge, luxury fifth wheel and motorhome. Now show us the trailer you’ve got that’s just as luxurious on the inside.” The saleslady said it would be easy, and she did try, but we just didn’t find it sitting on the lot. Trailers offer an incredibly wide range of sizes and amenities, but you have to look a little bit harder to find one that looks as luxurious as a Class A inside. And so, on the whole, we’ll hand over the victory laurels on size to a Class A or fifth wheel.

Motorhomes also win hands-down on boondocking, because almost all of them have their own electrical generator. Trailer people usually have to haul a heavy “portable” generator along with them and, worse, find a place to stow it. If you tow with a truck, the truck bed is the obvious place, but that means you just lost a great deal of storage space.

Again and again, we’ve heard stories about generators being stolen out of the back of a truck — one guy we know actually chained his down. Having had some similar items stolen from an open pickup, including a riding mower, we understand the issue.

You can have a generator installed in a trailer. A closet is the favorite place, but there are other, more imaginative options. (We saw one guy boondocking with an ultralight who had the entire trunk of his tow car filled with big, heavy golf cart batteries.) But the fact remains that motorhomes are great for a pull-off-anywhere boondocking situation — spending the night wherever you like without ponying up for a campground.

If you’re planning to boondock on a distant piece of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) government land, it may be very difficult to get a bloated Class A down some of those rugged roads. Class A motorhomes simply are not all-terrain vehicles. More than a few have been driven down into a steep gully, only to get wedged at both ends and suspended with the wheels off the ground.

There’s no question that the Class A motorhome can feel like the royalty of the RV park. The poor little trailer, parent to it all, can seem to fade in the face of all this glamour. Or does it? Because, when you get to the park and set up camp, the advantage goes to the guy pulling a trailer. Take less than five minutes to slip the bonds of your ball hitch, and you can go anywhere you please, in the full-size tow vehicle that can take you wherever you want.

Towing a car is just plain more problematic than towing a trailer. (We may get some flak over saying so, from a few of the Tiffin faithful, but we stand by it.) If you’ve never towed a car before, read Chapter 19 while you’re still in the planning stage. It’s an in-depth explanation of your options for towing, as well as the problems and expenses involved. You’ll have a much clearer idea about whether towing a car is something you can embrace.

Another aspect that may be a win for a towable trailer instead of a motorhome is budget. Let’s say you’re just starting out with a yen to go RVing, and there’s no way you can afford a large motorhome, nor can you afford a major tow vehicle, a truck, or a large SUV. A small trailer could be your best option, because you may be able to tow it with the vehicle you already drive.

For years, we owned a Honda Odyssey, a very popular family minivan. The 2020 Odyssey has a respectable tow rating of 3,500 pounds. You can find lots of great small trailers out there with a dry weight that’s less than 3,000 pounds. In our own Airstream family, you don’t even have to go with an ultra-light Basecamp — the 16-foot Bambi with the classic silver-bullet shape comes in with a dry weight under 3,000 pounds. Just search the web for “trailers with dry weight under 3,000 pounds” or whatever weight your car can tow. Your options and choices are much bigger than you think.