“Pfft,” I scoffed while scrolling through floorplan after floorplan. “Who needs a fridge to go camping? And a TV? And a toilet - what’s wrong with pooping in the woods, like I’ve been doing all of my life? This is ridiculous, and so not me.”
Queso at home on the road
Brian and I were on the hunt for a way to travel together, bring our dogs, and have adventures outside while working on the road. Typically, I would take off solo, living out of my Subaru or the Tacoma (see related post: The Sleeparu) while Brian stayed home with the dogs. Now and then we’d do a weekend together. As our work changed to more flexible hours, and our dreams of adventure got bigger, and when we started kind of missing each other - we knew it was time for a change.
We thought about a van. We wanted to do a smaller van, not a massive sprinter style. Think plumber van. Quickly, there were cons:
Room for puppers and friends
My hubby is 6’3”. We weren’t planning on having too much standing room, but he’s so tall he wouldn’t be able to fit in the bed that’s traditionally across the back of a van build.
By the time we bought a used van that still had a lot of miles left, we were looking at $10k+, plus $5k for upgrades/build out/ etc.
Not doggo safe during extreme warm or cold weather.
Not a lot of room to hang during rowdy weather or work hours.
Having lived out of a car before, having to pack up your entire world each morning to go to the crag totally sucks.
We found a slide in truck camper on Craigslist, mint condition candy apple red 1997 F250 included. The camper wasn’t perfect for us, but it got us thinking - what if we’re actually looking more at that RV market?
The thing is, we’re not THEM. There is a real emotional, identity divide between the US in the outdoor world (climbers, skiers, backpackers) and the THEM (the type of characters that, in my mind, were the stereotype of those who use RVs).
But then as we looked around, we realized a travel trailer is actually exactly what we wanted:
Sure, we’d have way more room with a few less dogs.
Road ready, we already had a truck to tow.
Heat and AC for the dogs, so we know they’re safely snoozing/destroying pillows while we’re out and about for the day.
We could leave it at camp for days/weeks, and have our regular car to get around and explore.
SPACE!
We settled on the RPOD 178 Hood River Edition which has some off road features and is only 20’ from tail to tongue, making it easy to tow and park for noobs like us.
For essentially the same price as building out our own van, we got a house on wheels - two queen beds, one which converts to a dinette that can seat 4 easy, 6 for card games. It came with a wet bath that we converted to extra storage for our long stints on the road - same with a power guzzling microwave oven that became our pantry space. There is an outside hot shower, which has come in clutch during the age of COVID when most shower places are closed. I don’t know how I could live without a fridge now, and when we are plugged in to shore power, I pop in a DVD to relax and cook dinner. On rest days, we can comfortably work in the camper or drive to a coffee shop.
We didn’t use the water systems at first, too scared and overwhelmed at the idea of it. We finally broke down though, and it’s a real wonder to turn that sink handle and have hot and cold water flow out - even more essential when you haven’t had a hot shower for over a week.
When we get to camp for the night (which could be a week at a campground or a single night at a truck stop) it takes us about 30 minutes to get the camper levelled and ready to live in. When we leave, it’s maybe 45 minutes to pack it all up and get it on the road. Now that we’ve had it two years, everything has a place and we move pretty efficiently.
We did do some major mods:
Ready to chase chipmunks and start the day
Upgraded the battery by replacing the stock marine/RV battery with two deep cycle golf cart batteries so we have enough power to be off the grid, no recharge, for about a week
Portable solar
Most recently, a generator, as a back up for when we’re in a shady spot and can’t use solar (we usually try to park in the shade to keep the trailer cool, which is a catch 22) and when we want to run the AC (it sucks too much juice for the batteries to handle)
Converted wet bath and microwave slot into storage - we camp in places that have bathrooms, or we have a groover and tent set up for boondocking. We catch a lot of slack on that mod from the people in the RV forums (‘if you can’t poop in it, just camp in a tent!’) but whatever.
Added cabinets where there was just mesh to keep things in place, and the damn dogs out of the human food
Purchased a cellular extender and an unlimited data plan so we can more easily work from the camper, since COVID has made it harder to work in coffee shops.
Outfitted a burly outside kitchen, for Brian’s greasy cast iron cooking habits - I can only imagine how gross the cabin would get if cooking bacon in there every day.
All in all, we’re super happy. We’ve had some minor maintenance issues, nothing crazy. Our biggest problem is the fixed queen is 74” long, and Brian is 75” long…meaning while we got the fixed bed with the idea of only using the dinette for visitors, our nightly routine is Brian in the main bed with a dog and myself in the dinette bed with two dogs. We also can’t both get ready at once, we have to take turns getting into the closet and brushing our teeth. So, as we plan on taking longer and longer trips, spending more and more weeks on the road, we are looking to upgrade soon to a model just 5’ longer that gets us a walk around 80” bed and a full dry bath, plus a propane oven.
No, we’re not the RV life people. Except - typing this while on week 5 on the road from a my office at the Chattanooga Panera - we suddenly are. I think that the trailer life is for me. From a quick weekend trip to our bigger ones - 3 weeks in Vegas, two weeks in Wyoming, now week 5 of a big east coast trip - I can’t imagine doing this any other way.