Motorhome vs. Trawler

BandB said:

Still, one argument comes back to tell me RV isn't for us. Now this argument is even more valid for boating but doesn't dissuade me there. That is you could drive a car and stay in the nicest hotels there are for less than it costs you to go by boat or RV.

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Yup, but the money isn't all of it. I spend 120+ nights a year in very nice hotels, and the LAST place I want to be on my days off is in a hotel.

I park the RV in the driveway, we load up the fridge etc etc and, just like a boat we have our own house with us and sleep in our own bed, toilet, shower etc.

On the road I pull into a truck stop, diesel up, and pull into a parking spot. Fire up the APU, have dinner, take a shower, watch some TV and take a nap. Next morning breakfast and back on the road without having to talk to ANYONE. No nasty receptionist, neighbors banging on the walls..... just happily in my own house. Wife hasn't used a public restroom in 10,000 miles.

When we get to where we're going it's set up in minutes, and yes, like marinas there's always interesting people to meet at the campground.

A fifth wheel is called a turntable down under.

See, we find marinas inviting and great, but having never been to an RV campground, or for that matter, any campground, that's a huge unknown to us. I can say the idea of sitting around a campfire drinking bourbon doesn't appeal to us. Now for the big reveal/confession. Neither one of us has ever camped out on land. Never even in a tent in the back yard as a child. It's on our list of things to do one day.

Ok, just corrected by wife in that we have spent the night on the beach. That does appeal to us. Much like spending the night on a flybridge out in the ocean, just us, the moon and the stars, the gentle breezes of salt air from off the ocean. So guess we can relate to that aspect.

We know many people find RV travel great so love reading about it here and how it compares. Right now we have more than enough places to explore by water so not going to land travel yet. Maybe one day.

Oh, and someone mentioned flying. Yes, often suggested to us by non boaters. I've not flown professionally like many here but I've flown so many hundreds of thousands of miles in my career that I'd be happy never to fly again. It's only for me a way to get back and forth to the boat.

BandB said:

See, we find marinas inviting and great, but having never been to an RV campground, or for that matter, any campground, that's a huge unknown to us..

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We have friends who are into RVing, long distance and local, and we have visited them on occasion over the years in their RVs at the spots they happened to be in. These places have varied from National Parks to RV campgrounds at the ocean, in the woods, etc.

Never say never, but neither my wife nor I can even imagine a worse way to travel. Jammed into RV parks or crowded RV campgrounds, surrounded by the kind of people we can't stand to be around that are constantly making noise and wanting to "include" you in whatever they happen to be doing. Very nice of them, true, but no thanks. We don't travel to be with, see, or hear crowds, we travel to get away from them.

We love road trips, short and long, and take them constantly, work and other occupations (like boating) permitting but we will rent a cabin or if necessary stay in motels. For example this coming weekend we are driving hundreds of miles north to be taken by raft down a river through the middle of some 3,000 feeding bald eagls. We'll stay in a cabin the two nights we're there. So driving is something both of us very much enjoy, even for long distances. Our longest drive in a single 24 hour period to date had been a something over 1,000 miles on the way south from Prince Edward Island a few years ago. It was great.

But the whole RV scene is just bizarre in our opinions. It was bizarre back in the late 1970s when a good friend and I took my Land Rover to the Yukon for five weeks of camping, canoeing and fishing and it is WAY more bizarre now.

Some of the rigs are cool, no question, the aforementioned Airstream products in particular. So it's not the means of travel that puts us off, it's the company one is forced to endure while traveling.

We have one set of friends who last year bought a trailer and truck specifically set up for what they call "off grid" RVing. They feel exactly the way we do about the RV scene, so they in essence go "off-roading" with their truck and trailer which is set up to be totally self-sufficient for a fairly long period of time.

He's an avid fisherman and his work schedule is such that they can go to all sorts of fairly remote areas in the Washington/Oregon/Idaho/Montana area and camp near good fishing rivers and streams. They find remote roads to go up and camp or get permission from nearby farmers or ranchers, and so on. Most of the time, they are the only people there. Next year he and I are planning to go to a river high up in BC for some steelhead fishing and we'll take his rig and stay in the toolies.

So that kind of thing my wife and I could see doing down the road a ways. But the standard RV scene? No way in hell.

So BandB, in my opinion, given how you use your boats and where you go with them, you are not missing anything at all with regards to the RV scene in my opinion. I suspect you would find it as bizarre and annoying as we have observed and experienced.

Marin:

Certainly there are lots (and maybe most) of campers who like commercial campgrounds where you back into your 40 x 20' slot and hang out at the pool or playground and crawl in your palatial RV after dark to watch TV, but that is not our style.

For the last two years since we moved back to Connecticut we have camped a couple of dozen nights and for at least half of them we didn't have anyone close enough to even see their campfire. These were state and US forest service campgrounds. Yes, National Parks are crowded, but even with those I can enjoy my bourbon late at night around the campfire. And they always have fantastic scenery to enjoy during the day away from the campground.

And I have towed my smaller camper years ago behind my 4 wheel drive SUV to totally remote "dispersed" campsites where there probably wasn't another human for a mile in every direction. Don't do that anymore though.

So it isn't all as bad as you say, just bad for the maddening crowd.

But some of the same applies to boating. You do understand the term "dock queen".

David

Agree with Marin. Only RV I would consider would have to be Unimog (or similar) based. Thank goodness Polk didn't succeed in his fifty four forty or fight idea.

Spy
LOL: Had to look up Unimog. What a cool looking vehicle!
No, There aren't any of those in our RV Park. Wouldn't meet the minimum length rule.

Marin: The first year we were doing the winter in Ca thing, we went to some of the other parks owned by the same Company that has a good one in Palm Desert. Didn't want to stop. We had found the places where old RVs go to die. Kept looking over our shoulders to see if someone was playing banjos to the tune from Deliverance. So yes, I know exactly what you mean. We also found some really nice State Park campgrounds, with lots of room, quiet, and nobody making you want to go inside and turn on the TV.

Some anchorages are like that too.

One of the pleasures of traveling can be eating out. Unfortunately, small-town USA can make it difficult to find a good meal. Leastwise that was our experience in last years' road trip to Canadian glaciers traveling through eastern Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Nevertheless, the scenery was worth the 3000 mile trip.

djmarchand said:

Marin:


But some of the same applies to boating. You do understand the term "dock queen".

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David--- You're point is well taken, and it sounds like you use your RV rig in a way somewhat similar to the friends I described earlier.

I think one difference, albeit perhaps more psychological than physical, between RVing and boating is that with a boat, even if one is at a popular marina or harbor, there is still the feeling of being "remote." Perhaps it's something to do with being on the water which in itself is a fluid, flexible, here-today-gone-tomorrow sort of environment which by its very nature creates a somewhat risky-feeling environment.

An RV, on the other hand, is just a glorified station wagon and it's in an environment that poses no threat, no risk, and is one just about everyone is totally at home in. The qualifications for RVing are zero outside of possessing a driver's license. Navigation is a snap and is without risk--- one might get lost depending on one's map/GPS/sense of direction skills but the roads are fixed in position and they don't get nasty and dangerous when the wind blows or the tide goes in and out. Driving at night is no different than driving during the day.

What this means is that RVing, unlike boating, is open to everyone because everyone can do it with no risk or sense of unknown to any of them.

Now we all know there are plenty of unqualified, irritating, bozo boaters out there. Every report I see on this forum of people getting waked along the ICW bears that out and we've all probably been in harbors with loud, obnoxious boaters nearby--- your referencing dock queens is spot on in many of these cases.

But the RV world seems to possess a whole lot more of this kind of personality in our observation. And, even in a crowded harbor, there is still a strong sense of privacy when it comes to boats. In our experience--- and maybe it's a regional thing, I don't know--- people rarely walk up to someone's boat and start a conversation or start telling you their life stories or describe in minute detail the knee surgery they just had. A boat, for whatever reasons, seems to present a pretty strong barrier to that kind of familiarity.

But this does not seem to be the case in an RV park. Everybody seems to want to know everything about everybody else, and worse, seems determined to tell everybody else about themselves. An RV is just a vehicle parked in a space--- there does not seem to be any real privacy associated with this.

Sit on the aft deck or flying bridge of your boat at a dock and most dock walkers will leave you alone. Or they might say something generic like "nice day, isn't it" or whatever as they walk past. But that's not what we saw in the RV parks. Sitting outside your RV at the picnic table or in a lawn chair is liking putting up a huge flashing neon sign that says "Come talk to us about whatever you want to talk about for as long as you want to talk about it." Because that's what seems to happen all the time.

And that is exactly what we don't want from our exploring-our-world experiences. I can get that at work.

Sad.......

Marin said:

...

Sit on the aft deck or flying bridge of your boat at a dock and most dock walkers will leave you alone. Or they might say something generic like "nice day, isn't it" or whatever as they walk past. ...

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Last Friday, during the 20-minute preparation for taking the boat out after two weeks of inactivity, (1) a boating neighbor dropped by asking advice for replacing battery acid, (2) the local diver gave his business card, and (3) the blackwater pump-out man came to service the boat.

markpierce said:

... the local diver gave his business card...

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Was the diver Chris Steinberg of Boat Bottom Cleaning Service? He's the guy I hire. He does a great job as evidenced by my recent haul out.

Apologies for the thread creep...

Oscar,
Nice explanation of the fifth wheel. I have always defined it as the horizontal pivot point connecting the trailer to the tow rig. Google defines it as "a coupling between a trailer and a vehicle used for towing." With some some trailers now having a third axle, that wheel is not always the fifth any more. Here is our current home shortly after we picked it up in Missouri:


This tow vehicle can also be used for the boat. It was one of my reasons for changing from a motorhome. A bit on the larger side, but I found these examples on thehulltruth.com of the Camano 31 being towed by a tow vehicle a similar size to mine.



It is certainly large enough to be comfortable on for a while. For a smaller trailerable example, the C-Dory 22, Halycon, was used extensively as a liveabord. That usage was documented in their blog and eventual book. The Ranger Tug R27, Kismet, is another example that was blogged about and later compiled into a book. There is also mention of the boaterhome, where the trailerable boat is used in RV campgrounds. I haven't done that yet.

I think there are many similarities between RVs and boats. Thinking that marinas=campground and anchoring=boondocking are a couple of examples. There are many corresponding varieties for both of those. For campgrounds, some are oriented for families with children. Others lack those features. Some are tight and crowded. Others are more spacious. Both boats and RVs have systems ranging from more simple to more complex. With the large engine and accompanying systems, the motorhome we had was more complex than the fifth wheel trailer we now have. As with boats, there are pros and cons to each type of RV. There's a saying on the RV forums that "you will like your third one." I wonder if selecting a cruising boat is similar.

Tim

FlyWright said:

Was the diver Chris Steinberg of Boat Bottom Cleaning Service? ...

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yes

Tim, looks like you're putting a lot of stress on your vehicle. Wonder how much heavy duty shortens the life of the towing vehicle.

Comparing hotel/motel costs to a live-aboard trailer, an expensive trailer doesn't compute.

markpierce said:

Tim, looks like you're putting a lot of stress on your vehicle. Wonder how much heavy duty shortens the life of the towing vehicle.

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It's was not parked entirely straight, but turned slightly. The overall numbers are fine, though I also plan to check specific tires. The truck is rated for 17K and the trailer maxes just under 16K. The combination tows and handles great.

Comparing hotel/motel costs to a live-aboard trailer, an expensive trailer doesn't compute.

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The cost analysis depends on usage patterns. I would not want to pay for full-time living in a hotel. Here's one data point towards that. We had a smaller house in the suburbs of Chicago. The taxes alone for a year on that house will pay for a full year of decent RV parks and, depending on where, maybe even two. It was only $300/month in Rockport, TX, but about $650/month in Anacortes, WA. Missouri was about $350/month. As you can see, it varys widely. All we have to do to change the monthly budget is drive to a different one.

Tim

markpierce said:

Last Friday, during the 20-minute preparation for taking the boat out after two weeks of inactivity, (1) a boating neighbor dropped by asking advice for replacing battery acid, (2) the local diver gave his business card, and (3) the blackwater pump-out man came to service the boat.

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Good point, Mark. But how many of these people bent your ear for two hours talking about the latest trick they've taught their tiny hood ornament dog, the fact their newest grandchild just pooped for the first time on his/her own, and how the mysterious stomach ache they've had for the last month has them totally baffled?

sunchaser said:

That is the rig we are looking at too. Great choice IMHO and would permit us to spend several weeks each way as we go from AZ to BC.

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Andy R and Janet H are waiting for you at airforums.com.

Moonstruck said:

Andy R and Janet H are waiting for you at airforums.com.

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Believe that was their first forum. Airstream 25 was my parents choice for a two year trip around North America, it should serve both of you and Tom well.

Marin, once again (you must be accustomed to it by now) you are wrong. Even in our 36 foot diesel pusher motorhome, out west, we NEVER had to stay in a park, unless we wanted to. We didnt have to stay on the "beaten path" unless we wanted to. The very best places were the ones we found after we took a wrong turn. We camped behind a bar/cafe one night just north of Billings Montana in a rainstorm. The food was great, the people we met were even better. A once in a lifetime experience. It was one of numerous great experiences like that.It happens on the road, on the water, or where ever.The tourists sees what he came to see. The traveler see whats there to see.

Some people don't know about the millions of acres of BLM land that are available for camping. There are plenty of places to camp without going to a commercial RV park. As I said, "boondocking is like anchoring".

kulas44 said:

Marin, once again (you must be accustomed to it by now) you are wrong.

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The fact that I'm never wrong aside, I'm not talking about what a relatively few RVers do which is seek out out of the way, off the beaten path places like the fishing friends I mentioned earlier. That could be interesting if we were attracted to the RV thing at all, which at this point we aren't as we think we would find it extremely boring compared to the kind of traveling we are used to doing here and abroad.

I'm talking about what the vast majority of RVers do which is travel between RV parks and campgrounds. Hideous environment is the best description I can come up with based on our fortunately few experiences with it. In our observation it is every bit as bad as the stereotype portrays it.

Based on our admittedly limited experience with it it simply is not the kind of crowd we want to be around. We are not social boaters so have little to no interest in interacting with other boaters apart from the small handful of people from here and Europe who we take out on our boat and the folks we like to boat with from our harbor. But at least on a boat there is a barrier--- the water--- that tends to ensure privacy if you want it even if there are other boats nearby. And for the most part, boaters seem to be quite respectful of people's privacy.

Not so in the RV corrals. There is no impediment to people you have zero interest in interacting with coming over and intruding on your privacy. And unfortunately too many of the people who are attracted to the RV thing are the very kind who seem to live to inject themselves into as many people's lives as they can.

Maybe it's an RV thing--- like birders keeping score of how many snowy owls they've seen. Maybe RVers keep score of how many people they've roped into listening to their tales.

Even way back on the Yukon trip I mentioned--- and this was before the Alaska Highway and other roads up there were paved so I shudder to think what it must be like up there now with the access so much easier--- we'd be in a nice provincial campground by the lake we were going to fish and then one or more RV-types would show up, make a huge ruckus getting their rigs leveled, and then crank up the generators and music. And invariably, once they'd gotten all settled in these old coots would stroll down to our campsite and yack our ears off telling us all about their trip and lives and RV features and families and God only knows what.

It seems from the times we've stopped by to visit RVing friends on the road in recent years the situation hasn't changed at all.

That's the great thing about float flying and boating--- the machines make it possible to experience amazing places and see amazing things without the babble of humans in the background. We'd rather have an unpredictable brown bear on the other side of the stream than a typical RVer hell-bent on telling us his life story.

Down where we mostly live around the Mediterranean we are inundated with motor homes as people from the colder north Europe come down for the sun.That's no problem and they are entitled to their leisure time, the difficulty is we don't have the space as in America, Canada or Australia and the medieval town centres can't accept campers so they end up hogging supermarket car parks.
The campsites here were more geared up for tents until the motor home boom and they are struggling to cope with their ever increasing size.
I feel sorry for them as they cruise gently along the roads taking in the scenery because everyone else is in a rush at work and they end up clogging the roads and get being given signs and gestures that are not in any highway code book I've seen.

"The fact that I'm never wrong aside, I'm not talking about what a relatively few RVers do which is seek out out of the way, off the beaten path places like the fishing friends "

I suggest you google "4 corners" for a different view.

Just as perhaps 1 in 200 marine motorists choose to PAY for the style vessel to go in blue water,(and put up with the required compromises) it is similar in the RV world.

A big tire , good ground clearance tiny BOONDOCKER would seldom be seen in a US RV park.
You will find them on the Pan Am highway trekking thru local roads .
Many are versions of 4WD Mercedes 24 ft or so with 500+ mile fuel ranges.About 1/4 million $$$ each.

Here are a few of varing ability and pricing.

http://www.doityourselfrv.com/toughest-off-road-rvs/

The closest in the USA is the escapees club , where the usual truck chassis restricts them to highways and unimproved roads .

These folks make a game of independant travel and many will have a number stuck on their club logo.
The number represents the number of times they have gone across the USA with ZERO nights in a campground.

The US forest areas as well as state , county and city parks are all used.

Campgrounds do have social rules , although there are no posted signs.

One NEVER crosses another occupied camp site !!!!

At times folks on the ROAD will strike up a conversation IF the campers are outside and there is some commonality.

As a bus camper , 1956 Flxible VL 100 , other Bus Nuts may say high , but only after seeing a YES card on display in the windshield, NO means no visitors.

A campground is not a Bill Clinton hunting ground trailer park as too many rigs are $200,000 + a few go over 1 million.

Successful people understand, respect and enjoy their privacy as much as any marine motorist.

Many campers have 2 styles of operation .

One is in transit , snowbirds , whatever, and the camp ground is a safe spot to plug in O'nite and not need a noisemaker.Far less stinky than a free truck stop

Vacation travel is different with many folks towing a "toad " to be able to see the local sights.

Northern Spy said:

A fifth wheel is called a turntable down under.

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Thanks, amazed at the breath of the Queen's English. Any idea as to the origin of the usage of turntable for the connecting hitch receiver?

"We'd rather have an unpredictable brown bear on the other side of the stream than a typical RVer hell-bent on telling us his life story. "


Based on the length of most of your posts, the RVer would probably feel the same way!

dimer2 said:

"We'd rather have an unpredictable brown bear on the other side of the stream than a typical RVer hell-bent on telling us his life story. "


Based on the length of most of your posts, the RVer would probably feel the same way!

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While we don't camp, we love hearing the life stories of others as long as they're sober when sharing them. We find people interesting and enjoy learning about them and at the same time learning more about our fellow man and the world we live in. We don't want to lose touch and knowledge of those who have lives different from ours.

There is an RV for everyone.

https://youtu.be/SpwH9WeVEfU

https://youtu.be/XixtZqpILm4

Thanks for the humor Dimor. Rving the Oregon and Washington coasts in the fall and winter, most places are almost empty. Oregon has some great campgrounds on the coast, not expensive, some even with cable service.

Marin said:

Never say never, but neither my wife nor I can even imagine a worse way to travel. Jammed into RV parks or crowded RV campgrounds...

We love road trips, short and long, and take them constantly, work and other occupations (like boating) permitting but we will rent a cabin or if necessary stay in motels.


Some of the rigs are cool, no question, the aforementioned Airstream products in particular. So it's not the means of travel that puts us off, it's the company one is forced to endure while traveling.

We have one set of friends who last year bought a trailer and truck specifically set up for what they call "off grid" RVing. They feel exactly the way we do about the RV scene, so they in essence go "off-roading" with their truck and trailer which is set up to be totally self-sufficient for a fairly long period of time.

So that kind of thing my wife and I could see doing down the road a ways. But the standard RV scene? No way in hell.

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djmarchand said:

Marin:

Certainly there are lots (and maybe most) of campers who like commercial campgrounds where you back into your 40 x 20' slot and hang out at the pool or playground and crawl in your palatial RV after dark to watch TV, but that is not our style.

For the last two years since we moved back to Connecticut we have camped a couple of dozen nights and for at least half of them we didn't have anyone close enough to even see their campfire. These were state and US forest service campgrounds. Yes, National Parks are crowded, but even with those I can enjoy my bourbon late at night around the campfire. And they always have fantastic scenery to enjoy during the day away from the campground.

And I have towed my smaller camper years ago behind my 4 wheel drive SUV to totally remote "dispersed" campsites where there probably wasn't another human for a mile in every direction. Don't do that anymore though.

So it isn't all as bad as you say, just bad for the maddening crowd.

But some of the same applies to boating. You do understand the term "dock queen".

David

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Marin

Your post is exactly how we feel. We cannot imagine paying to park a rig 10 feet from another rig, and then then dealing with the hassles as some grumpy old fart lets his little dog roam because it's "cute" while giving us the evil eye because my German Shepherd is "scary".

David

The picture you paint of RV'ing is the only way we could do it. That sounds like fun, but the problem is that nothing we've seen except some folks "boondocking" occasionally remotely resembles your description.

So the problem is that we know fun, uncrowded RV'ing must exist, it's just too iffy to make the huge investment required to find it.