Purchasing Our First RV

When I was growing up my family went on a fair number of camping trips, first in a tent, then a small pop-up camper with no trailer brakes and a full canvas top, and finally in a regular pop-up with trailer brakes and a center hard-top. None of our campers had any hook-ups and were just used for sleeping and staying dry in a rain storm. We did all of our cooking, eating and relaxing outside. My wife had a similar experience growing up. We had tent camped together several times as well so we both had a pretty good idea of how we liked to camp, which is important when considering the type and size of RV to buy.

Typical pop-up camper.

I would have been happy with a pop-up trailer, but my wife wanted something with a separate walled bathroom so that she and our daughter would not have to make any middle-of-the-night walks to the campground restrooms. This ruled out pop-ups as the ones with bathrooms typically use curtains except for a few fairly large pop-ups. We also ruled out motorhomes because you are buying another large vehicle so they are expensive compared to travel trailers.  They also require more maintenance, don't have as much space as an equal length travel trailer and, unless you tow a car behind you, you will have to disconnect and reconnect your electric, water and sewer every time you leave from and return to your campsite. 

We had attended a few RV shows and visited a few dealers near us throughout 2012 and 2013 so when the 2013 Fall RV show came to the Timonium Fair Grounds just north of Baltimore, Maryland we were ready to make a purchase. Our requirements at the time were:

• Separate walled bathroom with separate shower. By this time we had ruled out bathroom shower all-in-ones.
• We were looking for a travel trailer, sometimes called a bumper pull as we had a half-ton truck, but didn't want to install a 5th wheel type hitch.
• We wanted something as small as possible while still providing a full bath and enough space for a family of four with no pets to do cross-country road trips. When camping in national parks and some state parks the smaller your rig the more sites you will have to choose from.
  
• Things we didn't care about: TVs, built-in radios, slide-outs, power awnings or power jacks. The simpler the trailer the less things there are to break.

Typical hybrid trailer.

Based on our requirements I was mainly looking at hybrid trailers, sometimes called pop-outs because the main body of the trailer looks like a normal travel trailer, but the beds pop-out of the front and back and some have a third bed that pops out of the side. These are not slide-outs as a large hinged door is opened from the outside of the trailer, folding down and flat for each bed and the walls and roof for each bed are some type of weatherproof material. These types of trailers with full baths are typically 19 to 22 feet in length. My wife wanted permanently set up beds for our 2 children given the amount of time we planned to be on our trips (4-6 weeks) and we didn't want to convert a dinette to a bed every night.

Our trailer displayed at the RV show.

Towards the end of the day we found a 21 foot travel trailer that had upper and lower bunks, a full bath with separate shower, but no sink and a corner queen bed.  It was the Gulf Stream Ameri-Lite 199DD and was at Bay RV's display. They also had another American-Lite model there: the Gulf Stream Ameri-Lite 248BH. We went back and forth sitting in both and decided that the 248BH just felt more comfortable. However, I was worried about the length as it is 27 feet in total length, almost 4 feet longer than the 199DD. In the end, we decided that the larger trailer just felt right and so that was the one we purchased. It was a fairly basic trailer: no TVs, no built-in stereo, no slide-outs, no outdoor shower, no power awning or jacks and only 13 inch bias-ply tires. However, it weighed less then 4000 pounds dry, but had a GVWR over 7200 pounds, which ment it could carry a lot of extra weight. It also had large bunk beds, decent storage and all of the basics that we were looking for.

Picking up our trailer at Bay RV.

A couple of weeks later we went to Bay RV to pick up the trailer. They installed a brake controller and set up the Equalizer load distribution & anti-sway hitch. I drove around their parking lot a few times to get the hang of making turns and off we went. During this multi-year buying process answering the following questions really helped us get the right trailer for our family and the type of camping we planned to do with it.

• How many people will be camping with you?
• Will you be bringing pets with you?

• 

  Driving practice at Bay RV.

  Will you be bringing big toys with you (i.e. bicycles, motorcycles, ATVs)?
• What types of campgrounds will you typically be staying at (i.e. full-hookup RV resorts, national and state parks, boon-docking)?
• What types of trips will you generally do (i.e. long weekend trips, multi-week trips, full-time RVing)?
• How much time do you expect to spend inside the camper vs. outside?
• How comfortable will you be towing or driving a big rig vs. a smaller rig?

    We hope this helps some of you first-time RVers find the one that best suites your needs. Check out our other blog entry We Have the Perfect Travel Trailer (Mostly) to see how well we did 8 years and over 20,000 miles later.