We dont have a camper(we are still tenters), but in Maine practically everybody has a camper, if they dont have a camp. All my friends say make sure there is a very easy to set up awning. It is the first thing they do when they get to camp. And those that have a class c with outdoor cooking say they would never go back, it gives you so much more options and space. I think a lot of the Class Cs have flat roofs that you can use for hauling kayaks, paddleboards, bikes, I would look for that too. Right now you have small bikes, bigger toys will be in your future. Also, solar panel, wifi, etc.

And look at used. These things depreciate like crazy and so many people buy them and then want to get bigger, or just sell. You can get very, very nice used RVs

We had a class C when our kids were young. It had an overhead queen for my husband and I, a double in the back that the girls shared, but the dinette also folded down in to a single bed, so three separate beds. It had a bathtub/shower combo (my kids were petrified of showers until they were about 5.) The tub was only about 1 foot deep, but it worked for little kids. My husband found it easy to drive - we never towed a car. The girls started out calling it the Momo; their take on motorthome- they were 2 when we got it) so we always referred to it as the Momo. We had many great adventures and I would highly recommend one for a young family. Kids are grown and we are retired so bought a 32' 5th wheel a couple of years ago.

My cousin and her husband have a Fifth Wheel. When they retired, they spent several years traveling in that (they did keep an apartment in their hometown as a base for mail, out-of-season clothes, stopping home for appointments). What they liked was, it wasn’t quite as bad as towing, and they just unhitched from over the truck bed and then they tooled around in the pickup. But, that’s just an anecdote, it won’t suit your needs with the kids.

Sounds fun!

Sounds fun! In case you haven't seen it - This is a good website to look at options and pricing -https://www.rvtrader.com/

Hubs and I are eventually going to get a camper trailer. He cannot do the sleeping on the ground anymore, even with an air mattress. I have to say that everyone I know who got a "motor home" was pretty much dissatisfied with using it and even said that they didn't use it as much as they might have if it was a trailer. Here's why: in most cases they had either an extra driver or some type of arrangements for getting access to a car, but it just added and extra layer of logistic to every trip, so sometimes a trip was either canceled or postponed due to that element. It was also harder to just pick up and leave since you had to plan for the extra car. And the cost. Not saying it won't work, these observations were made prior to the era of Uber. Even with the extra logistics, my friends who had them still got a lot of enjoyment out of them. We're going with a truck and a trailer because we need the truck anyway and use it all the time for other things. YMMV. There is something about just getting in and driving around with your home. I've driven both, neither is easy to maneuver, six of one, half a dozen of the other, IMHO. Not impossible, just takes a little finessing. Well worth the trouble!

Oh, and I second used. Even if it is a little rough around the edges, most of it can be fitted out how you like, just like a home. My cousin is actually a camper flipper! It's just another layer for them of a very enjoyable family hobby!

We had a 27’ class C about 10 -12 years ago, it had a bad roof leak, it was a pretty common issue for class C at the time. We sold it after a few tries. Now we have a small 17’ Toyhauler with a garage door/ramp in the back. It makes loading stuff much easier. We camp with 2 small motorcycles/scooters, 2 bicycles, plus 2 kayaks sometimes. They all fit in there. The new class C might have a better roof now. Google roof leak for class C, you may find some useful info from class C owners online.

Thanks for the tips. I didn't even think about outdoor cooking -- the awning I know is important since we are always under the awning at my inlaws. They have a very old camper so there's doesn't have outdoor cooking.

I will look for a used one for sure. I have been bookmarking some on RV Trader (so thanks for the referral to that site, it is a great one). I do want something 2019 or later just because technology has advanced so much. I want the lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control, etc. All the fancy stuff that makes driving easier and that really cannot be retrofitted.

A cab-over bed won't work for me to sleep in because the dog must sleep with me. But the ones we've been looking at do have that bed and I'm thinking Bastian can sleep there.

A truck towing a camper would not work for us because we need room in the vehicle for 2 kids, 2 adults and one dog right now (eventually to be two once Arya turns 2 and I get a friend for Molly). We maybe could tow something with my Yukon XL but we just don't want to. I have checked basically every camp ground we'd be most interested in and it seems like Turo will deliver a car to rent just about anywhere if I am willing to pay the delivery fee. We are at a point in our life where we are able/willing to pay for convenience.

Beagles, your Yukon can definitely tow pretty much anything, but I’ve never driven any tow vehicle, and I’d probably rather drive vs. tow, but like you said, then you may need another vehicle to go anywhere. We looked into renting Class B for a festival last year, but glad we decided against it because the camping was very much oversold, and it would have been a horrible experience as novice RV’ers. I also realized why many RV rentals do not rent to music festivals. But we are just two adults and no pets. Any RV for me, a bathroom with a shower would be must.

Lynn has a 5th wheel. Maybe she will chime in.

Yes, a bathroom with a shower is essential. And we want a real shower, not a "wet bath" which is a fancy way of saying you can turn your whole bathroom into a shower but then everything is wet all day. No thank you.

Initially I was looking at Class Bs but they are WAY too small for us to be comfortable.

A Class C may not have big enough fresh water tank ( 35-60 Gallons) for a family of 4 to shower daily. Class A (72-100 gallons) and 5th wheel (50-922 gallon) have much bigger fresh water tanks. That's why most of RVers use bathhouse at campsites to save their fresh water for cooking and bathroom usage.

From what I observe in neighbors and bffs having an RV DOESNOT reduce the packing/unpacking!! Sooo many spend three days shopping/packing then go to return and spend three days unpacking/laundry/cleaning take a day then begin the process again. The question we spend a ton of time debating as we relax by the lake of our airbnb is how many times do you have to go out with an RV to re-coop the cost? One needs a second mode of transportation as they don't traverse cities easily when sight seeing. No an RV will not reduce packing/unpacking. Remember STUFF fills the space it has. You will just find more things to haul with you since you have the space.

But Arcy, you wouldn’t be unpacking and repacking your car to stock the air bnb or cabin for your stay. Or when you change location during the trip.

Just wanted to add that we camped when our kids were little. Not fancy, we had a Jayco Pop Up that we pulled behind my station wagon. Our now adult children often talk about those trips with fondness. Hoping your adventures will become happy memory makers for your children,

Do you have a place to park it at your house? Our fifth wheel was easy to load and unload while we stored it at the house. We put it a campground at the lake and left it on a permanent site and that was a pain every time we went. Taking clothes and food.

My son bought a class c and had to store it in storage facility and had the same problem with loading.

We have tent camped, had two popups, a travel trailer and a fifth wheel toyhauler. You can get trucks with rear seats.

We (empty nesters) started camping with a small travel trailer, moved up to a larger travel trailer, and now have a 31 ft Class C, towing a Jeep. You may want to look for a bunk house model, which will give you bunks for B and A. (and the bunk space can be used for storage if they aren't ready for bunks yet.) We duplicate everything from home, dishes, pans, linens, knives, etc, and leave "hard" stuff in the RV. Each trip involves loading/unloading linens, food and clothing. Most RVs will have a dinette that can convert to a bed, as well as a primary queen or king bed depending on the size of the rig. We prefer a diesel engine for its power. Good luck with your search. We love camping and are on a 12 week summer trip from our home in SC, currently at Itasca State Park in MN.

My understanding is that we can hook up to water at the campsite? That's what my in-laws have always done. We aren't roughing it here -- we're going to Jellystones and KOAs which have ample amenities.

In our case, I do believe an RV will reduce unpacking. I am truly focused on convenience, not cost, so my intention is to buy an extra of everything we might need, and keep everything on the camper except perishables. E.g. I'm going to get 2 extra bikes for the kids, an entire set of clothes, shoes and towels for everyone to keep on board, all the dishes, pots and pans we would need, etc. I'll take the laundry bag off the RV, get the linens and clothes wash up immediately in 1-2 loads, and they will go immediately back on the camper.

The only thing we should need to move on and off is food and vitamins/toiletries that would be affected by the heat if left on the camper. And I'm going to keep a bin with all that stuff in our extra fridge so it should be a one-stop thing. I've doubled up on everything w/ our FL and PA house and we just grab our laptops and vitamins and go. That's what I'm hoping to achieve here.

We do have a place to park at our house. We have 5 acres with a very, wide long driveway. And we are in the woods so no one will see it, it will not bother anyone or interfere w/ our HOA rules.

We have already spent a lot of time at the campgrounds we are going to so we know we like the places.

By the way, a family in our scout troop had a great use for their camper. They drove it to pretty much any event that would go on for several hours, so scout things but also the county fairs, events at a convention center like auto show, etc, or any daylong activity. It was their ”break room”. Someone could go with the baby or toddler who needed a nap, or a major diaper change, the whole family could go escape the noise and dust for an hour, have a quiet snack, then go back for more.

Put in an electrical plug for the camper and you can keep the frig plugged in, so all the condiments stay there. That is what we did. Then only milk, fruit, etc. had to be taken in and out.

I only closed our frig down in the winter when we quit using it. We found ours would hold 7 to 8 hours not hooked up to shore power.

Yes, to duplicating everything you need, that is what makes it easy.

ETA: 15 or 20 amp will run the frig and lights. 30amp will also run the air conditioner.

ETA 2 : I love KOA'S and Jellystone's.. We kept a KOA membership for a while, because not only did you get a slight discount, you checked in much faster.

That's a great idea bpath! I'm sure that B is going to be involved in a lot of sports stuff (he already loves sports-related everything) so it should really come in handy if he does any travel games or anything.

Also a great idea about the electrical plug for the camper. I don't know why I didn't think of that. One of the ones I'm looking at, the Winnebago View, comes with solar power so I wonder if the fridge could work mostly on that too...

DH and I were toying with getting a teardrop a few years ago, turns out there’s a VRBO for campers. We were actually able to try out specific models we were considering. Some dealerships will also do that with their used inventory.

RVShare.com

Outdoorsy.com

@localeater, we looked at those sites in trying to rent for the music festival. Many people do not rent to music festivals, and we certainly found out why! Oh yeah, Beagles, Class C would be the minimum size with kids. I know people who have a class B (Winnebago Solis) with a popup who have one teen son who travels with them (and their dogs), but that's about it. I couldn't imagine small kids. Their son does mountain biking competitions, so they use it a lot since these are usually in remote areas.

The Mercedes Class C's look really nice, no surprise!

@LynnNM, tagging her if she is in town and available. She might be off in her RV!

We had a pull behind camper for several years and loved it! The only problem is getting it up the hill to our house. We got tired of having it in a storage lot, although we still toy with the idea of getting another one. We had a full bathroom, kitchen, dining area which converted to another bed and in the very back we had a "bedroom" with queen size bed. The platforms are a bit shorter than a regular bed, so we had a mattress made to fit and slept in comfort. State parks are a great place to camp and many lakes have camping areas. We even camped nearby in our national park (Smoky Mountains), although there we had to "rough it". Most campgrounds have water and sewer hook-up. We bought ours used, you could hardly tell. I think many people buy an RV before really checking camping out and then don't like it. We had duplicates of bedding, towels, dishes, pots/pans, etc. that stayed in the camper, even paper products. I kept a basket of

cleaning supplies ready to go for the camper. We really didn't have alot of packing/unpacking, other than clothing, etc.

"Camp sites - Getting way too close to people you never knew you didn't want to meet."

While this can be true in the more "commercialized" campgrounds, there are many campgrounds nothing like this. As I mentioned above, state parks have wonderful campgrounds. We always got on-line and looked at the sites and picked. We were almost always waterfront and many campgrounds have large sites, some situated away from others. You just have to look. Sometimes we would stay at a campground and go through looking at sites, making notes of ones we liked. We never stayed at campground that were the all concrete area (like in the touristy area near me LOL). There really are some beautiful camping areas if you just do your homework.

When we were doing alot of camping, our little pup traveled with us and loved it. My husband camped as a child and has always had a fondness for camping. He has many good memories of him, his brother and cousins camping together. We love the outdoors and camping fits the bill for us, especially when you have all the comforts of home in your camper LOL.

I wish you many fun times ahead!!

Couple more thoughts.

- You probably want a slide, since that gives you more floor space when you are in camp.

- We keep all our clothes in packing cubes (can be color coordinated for each family member) and move them back and forth in Ikea blue plastic shopping bags (which are then folded when not in use). Tubs are nice, but be sure you have room to store them in the RV.

- There are different types of refrigerators, which may or not be happy with solar only power.

- Definitely get an RV plug set up at home. We have to store our camper, but try to pre-load as much as possible the day before so we are ready to roll on travel day.

Please let us know what you get!

My suggestion would be to rent one first and see if the concept works for all of you before buying.

You should at least look at Class A RV's. You have a growing family & will need the space. If you are planning to rent a car already then why not have the space of a Class A? We had a Class A for about 10 years and took our daughter & 2 granddaughters with us everywhere we went. We also pulled a 20 ft pontoon. But I certainly would not recommend that to anyone. LOL.

Well, we never had a problem, even being in one of my favorite and most commercial campgrounds EVER!.

Camping on the /Gulf, Miramar Beach, FL. 714 and 718 were our favorites. Just enough room to back in. Great place.

Yes, we definitely want a slide. And I'm really leaning toward one w/ a Murphy Bed so it will give us the flexibility of having a couch during the day and a bed at night (I anticipate we will almost always just bring the Murphy bed down and leave it down, mainly because I know from our camping experience we are outside 100% of the day and only go in to sleep. But, if it rains and we get trapped inside, it would be nice to have the flexibility to put the bed up and have extra seating.

Thinking possibly of the Winnebago View/Navion, the Thor Quantum LC25; and the Jayco Melbourne Prestige 24RP. We also need one that has the latch hookups for car seats (or the ability to install them).

I will let you guys know what we get. We most likely will not make the purchase until Sept / Oct or even November because we already have cabins booked for this entire camping season But if a good deal comes up on a model I am interested in, then we may act sooner.

Thanks for all the advice! I mentioned to my husband about the idea of being able to bring the camper places (like fairs, etc.) and he seemed very excited about that idea.

While you are looking, try to find the models you are interested in at a dealerand tour them. You can look at new ones, even if you end up with a used one. There are usually owners groups that have websites/facebook pages which are good sources of info. Also check Youtube for walkthroughs/reviews.

Many will have a receiver hitch that you can use for a bike rack.....altho a lot of bike racks are not recommended for RVs due to the rattle/movement. They are out there tho if you want to take the bikes that way.

So exciting that you’re doing this. Our kids enjoyed camping so much, and yours will too. There are so many great places to go and explore. Campgrounds aren’t what they used to be. Some even have gourmet coffee bars!

Be sure to check the weight limit of whatever RV you choose. A lot of people do not. I know you want to outfit it with as much as possible so you don’t have to pack much, but keep in mind everything adds up, including food. There is usually a generous limit but you do need to be mindful.

DD and her DH bought a trailer almost 2 years ago and they do enjoy it. They like having a bed that allows either to get up without crawling over the other. They enjoy cooking outdoors and made sure theirs had an outdoor kitchen and storage for all the associated gear for their dog. We also gave them a medium sized Solo Stove which they like a lot for campfires as it’s nearly smokeless. They can be found on sale almost all year. Online resources have a lot of storage hacks for Rv life that maximize storage space for kitchen and bath items. I can’t recall any in particular right now, but you will figure it out.

They did a couple of short weekend trips not far from home that served as trial runs for the longer trips ahead.

I'm late to this discussion but have been researching campers so wanted to add a couple of things from my experience.

First, we've been tent campers and sailboat people for a long time, so camping and the various boat systems (water tank management, battery levels, wastewater, etc) are familiar to us.

We've been researching slightly different criteria and are looking for a towable camper ~20ft that suits our dog and our intended uses (lots of weekend/long weekend camping and some occasional cross country trips).

I will say first that it's much more complex than I was expecting but if you don't mind research and talking to campers & camper dealers you can get plenty of info and advice!)

Water & electric hookups are pretty common at many of the campgrounds we go to but sewer/wastewater is rarer. If you think you will be 'boondocking' (using your camper without any place to plug it in or hook it up to water input), give some extra attention to tank capacities and to the versatility of your fridge (some are 3-way, and can run on either the battery, plugged in (AC) power, or propane). If you'll be camping during shoulder seasons or think you'll take it to colder places, also look into the options for heat. Some have a furnace that uses the propane, others run off electric, etc. Some also have heat/cool options with the AC system.)

The whole weight thing is complicated. Figuring out weight has a few aspects. There's GVWR (gross vehicle weight rating) and 'dry weight' and then what it will weigh with all tanks full and all your stuff in it (and 'tongue weight' if you're towing). It sounds like you're going class C but with the Yukon if you end up considering towing something, bear those differences in mind.

I'd definitely recommend seeing if you can rent some of the options you're considering. You can try sites like Outdoorsy (we rented from them and one of the benefits is that the person renting it to you goes through a whole orientation with you of how everything works, including critical arrival / departure lists. It was a great way to deeply understand the camper, and then get to test it for a few days.) Dealers may be able to connect you with rentals also.

Good luck!

We're also looking to buy a smaller RV. Most likely a B+. Traveling with my older dog is a big factor. There was a run on RVs during the pandemic which drove up pricing. I'm hoping some of these will come back on the market as people decide it's not for them. There are many RV reviews on YouTube which I've found very helpful. We've been most impressed by Leisure Travel Vans but there's a waiting list for them.

Another thing we have always done is to keep a log. We rate each campsite that we stay at, note if there were hook-ups and what type (ie 15 amp electric or 30 amp) which site we stayed in and if there were other sites that we would have preferred. For instance "site 35 right across from the playground" when our kids were little. It has come in handy, as after 30 years of camping, the sites can get a bit blurred in your memory.

More great advice, thanks! We've already started keeping a log since we've been to a bunch of campsites and stayed in the cabins.

I do have to say, cabin quality varies dramatically and that is one of several reasons we want a camper. We want to make sure our beds are comfy and big enough for us, which is definitely not the case w/ all or even most rented cabins!

Just wanted to update those who offered such helpful advice, we did finally buy a camper last weekend :) We ended up going bigger than we planned to have enough space for everyone plus we decided we really wanted a washer dryer.

In the end, we went with this model: https://www.thormotorcoach.com/quantum/floor-plans/kw29

Thanks again everyone for the tips and advice!

How exciting! Enjoy your new adventures with B&A!

Looking forward to hearing about your travels!

Nice! Congratulation. Kids are gonna love it!

Looks like a wonderful home away from home - enjoy!

Happy trails!

Congratulations. Do you have your inaugural trip planned yet?

Headed to Fort Wilderness in March for Arya's first birthday. We are going to try to squeeze in just a quick overnight or two before that bigger trip to make sure all is up-and-running and we know what we are doing. And we have eight trips scheduled this summer already around PA, NJ, NJ, and MA/NH. Very excited!

Congratulations-- and I think you will be very glad you upgraded to have a washer/dryer!

I’m excited for you, Mr Beagles and your kids.

Fort Wilderness was our favorite campground when we were camping. There was a time, in the olden days, when Disney had Airstreams (setup on the campsite) available to rent. Camping with daily housekeeping spoiled us.

We had so much fun when our kids were young, we’d stay there often. Both our kids mastered their bike riding skills on the quiet roads of the campgrounds.

Safe travels, your new camper looks perfect.

We adore Fort Wilderness. You get to keep your pets in the camper. You park and just use their transportation system everywhere. We stayed in the preminum sites down by the lake. They cost a bit more, but well worth it.

Sherry we got a ptemium site I think. You cannot lock in a site but can request one. My husband grew up camping there and for nostalgia sake we requested the site he camped at as a kid on the 400 loop. I have never been but am looking forward to it. I am eo excited we will have our rolling home, it should make it so much easier with dog and kids

i think we were in the 300 loop both times, but that is next to the 400.

That is really fabulous! Love it! Congrats!