Camping & Campers

Camping People

So, we got introduced to "camping" by our daughter and son-n-law. They's started their journey with a pop-up and then later on, graduated into a good size towable.

But we were a little hesitant at the beginning. We didn't know if we were "camping people" or not. Maybe it was just the idea of camping that appealed to us and not so much the logistics, equipment and hassle of making it all happen.

The Truck-Tent

So, not wishing to be left out all of this potential fun and frivolity with the grandkids, we stuck our toe into the water and bought this tent contraption that went over the bed of the pick-up along with an electric air mattress that was cut out to fit between the wheel wells.

A couple times out in that rig was all it took to figure out that--if we were going to continue to do this--that this was not the way to go about it.

Towables

So, Facebook Marketplace helped us pass on the whole tent thing on to new owners and we started looking around for a small towable (or as it's sometimes called: a bumper pull).

1.Wildwood X-Lite

In 2019, at the annual Campers Show at the Fairground in January, we bought a 23' little camper from a local dealer just over the river and began the next phase of our camping journey.

It was just under 4,000 lbs and it was a great place to start to learn about this whole new--and completely foreign--world of DC systems, sway bars, and holding tanks, and dump stations, and pressure regulators, and hoses and...wow. (I will say that our son-n-law Eric was an invaluable resource during the steep learning curve of a first season.)

We chose this model with no slides and a murphy bed intentionally to keep it short and keep the weight down while we were learning the whole towing thing.

The Upgrade

But, after a couple years we'd gotten firmly entrenched in the idea that we actually were camping people, so, as any good camping person will tell you, you must go to the annual show in January at the Fairgrounds and you start thinking about upgrading. (It's just what you do.)

After experiencing the tight quartes in the twenty-something footer with a murphy bed, we had begun looking longingly at smaller 5th wheels. Something with a separate bedroom. But still under 30' and under 10,000 lbs.

2.Montana 3121RL

So, what did we end up with? A 35', 16,000 lb behemoth of a thing with 3 slides -- that caused us to upgrade our pickup truck to a diesel, F350 dually! (What the heck happened here?)

Well, it turns out--at least for us--that the Camper Show was not the place to shop for a new camper!

The "Scope Creep" as we call it in Project Management circles; began slowly and insidiously. As we walked through the nice little thirty-footer we were initially interested in, we noticed the TV wasn't in a great spot right over the stove and that the kitchen had a little bit of an odd layout.

So, we walked down to the next unit on display -- oh, much better. Kitchen was more spacious and the TV wasn't hanging from the ceiling right over the stove. And it was only 31' feet long. Longer than what we wanted -- but not too far out of bounds.

But when you walked into the bedroom, you had to get up onto the wheel wells and bend over to keep from hitting your head while getting into bed. Not ideal

So we walked down the line to the next unit on display. And here's where things really start to go south. Turns out we're no longer comparing the specs on this one to the specs in our head -- but to the specs on the last one we just looked at! In other words, since this one was only 32' feet long and just 12,000 lbs, well that wasn't too from from the 31', 11,000 pounder we just looked at.

And that thought process continued as we went through a couple more units -- until we were up to 35' and 16,000 lbs. And it was gorgeous. And it was spacious and it had a separate living room with electric and heated lounge chairs (say it ain't so!)

And it cost twice as much as our first house did in Nashville! But hey...when you're camping people...

Nimble or No?

I always knew that there would be a learning curve to driving (and backing) something that size, but I hadn't considered the fact that that learning curve flattens out at the point where you find out that a lot of parks (especially State and National Parks), will have trouble accommodating a rig that size.

You need to plan ahead. You need to consult Google satellite view religiously before pulling into a gas station or a parking lot or even the campground you're booked at for the night.

And God help you if Google maps erroneously sends you down a dead-end with no way out except to back out onto a busy highway or tear your roof off driving under some 13' branches -- which is just below your 13'-6" height! (ask me how I know that.)

Time to Upgrade

So, after a few years of that, we started thinking about getting back into something smaller. Certainly under our original 30' mark. And as we did that, we also started toying with the idea of, maybe, moving into a Class A (drivable).

Class As, especially diesel pushers, were ridiculously expensive (like $250k to $2M), but after we got passed the allure of the granite counter tops and the bathrooms the size of your backyard, we started looking at nicely used, pre-owned units -- maybe 8 to 10 years old. Ah...looks like there's some deals to be had there.

But, it's actually kind of tricky even finding a Class A under 30' feet long. So when we ran across this sub-27' Winnebago that's no longer in production (the last year it was made was 2017), we started actively trying to find one anywhere in the country.

3.Itasca Sunstar 26HE

Enter the Itasca Sunstar 26HE. It's a little over 26' long and capable of towing a small vehicle. It's way smaller inside than what we were used to with the Montana, but it's so much easier to get around in. The trade-off for us is well worth it.

We're comfortably under the threshold for most State and National parks and we can get in and out of most parking lots without too much difficulty.

We found one in Florida and ended up paying almost exactly what we were able to sell our Montana for. (Actually pocketed a little bit extra from some much needed upgrades.)