Starting Out With RV Living
Back in August 2010, we decided to take the plunge and buy an RV. My wife Jan and I had been thinking about this for some time, as we had figured on buying one when we retired so we could toodle around the country as part of the Snowbird crowd.
But then we started thinking about how little of the country the boys have seen, and we really haven't seen much ourselves since we got married and did the whole "settling down" thing. After what to most folks would have seemed an amazingly brief discussion on the matter – because we're so totally on the same wavelength about most things – we decided to go ahead and get one.
If you're thinking about buying an RV (a.k.a. motorhome or motor coach), let me first say that I had absolutely no idea there were so many choices out there! Once I started researching, my head just about exploded with the different manufacturers and all the different models they offer. But all of them boil down to three main types: Class A, which have a bus-type front; Class B, which look like hyper-modified vans, and Class C, which typically have a cabover-type arrangement and a truck-style front. For the Class A type, there are two major sub-types: gas and diesel pushers (gas Class As have the engine up front; pushers have them in the back).
Past that, it's all craziness, sorting out the floorplans, features, and whatnot that you feel are in your price range. Plus, not all RVs are readily available in all parts of the country: manufacturers tend to be regional, and don't typically ship new RVs all over the place. So if you have something specific in mind, you may not be able to get it locally, but may have to take a trip to get it!
Of course, you can also buy new or used. There are some real bargains out there in the used market, but you need to know what you're looking for and be prepared to deal with any bugaboos that may (or may not!) come with a used vehicle. A new RV will also have its share of issues, but in our case, we opted to pay the extra money for an extended warranty that covers everything from the tires up for seven years, figuring that we'll be ready to upgrade again in about that time.
We finally settled on a new Damon Daybreak 3211. We liked the floorplan, and it was in our price range. I also was impressed with Damon's construction, but again, all that is totally up to your personal preference and desires. We bought ours at Leo's Vacation Center in Gambrills, MD, and had a really good experience there.
We bought it on 6 August and took several trips in it, the first being to a local KOA near the dealer where we bought it to check things out.
On 6 October, believe it or not, we traded it in for a Daybreak 35BD! Call us lunatics, but we found that the 3211, while great for two people, was going to be a real hassle on longer trips with the boys (we're planning on two to three week outings during the summer): they would have to sleep in the main living area where the kitchen, etc., was, essentially leaving Jan and me trapped in the back bedroom, as we stay up later and get up earlier than the boys.
The Daybreak 35BD, or "bunkhouse," has two bunk beds in a second slide. That slide also gave us something that was another irritation in the 3211: storage and walk-around space in the bedroom. The upgrade wasn't cheap, as we had to eat a fair amount of negative equity on our first loan, but the new loan wasn't all that much more (okay, so we have to eat more peanut butter!), and I think in the long run the 35BD will be worth it. I'd also like to give another shout out to the folks at Leo's Vacation Center: they gave us what I thought was a really good deal both on the 35BD and the trade-in on the 3211, and also worked with us over some bumps in the road on the financing side of things.
On a side note, comparing the two vehicles, as far as I'm aware the suspension for the two is supposed to be identical, although the 35BD is three feet longer (36′) than the 3211 (33′). The ride, however, is totally different! The 3211 shook our teeth out going over bumps and was extremely touchy to steer, but the 35BD provides a really smooth ride and seems to not need so much steering input, which greatly reduces driver fatigue.
Anyway, the morals of the story here are to really give some thought to how you plan to live in your dream RV before you buy. Also, we made some decisions for our first buy purely on price, and in retrospect, the monthly amount that we had to pay wasn't all that much more to get a considerably improved vehicle. So, be smart and don't break your piggy bank, but don't shortchange yourself, either!
