Do you already own a full sized truck? If so, I would suggest a truck camper. You can find a decent one for a reasonable price, comparable to a pup. If you find out later you use it a lot and need more room, get something bigger. When we purchased, we knew what we wanted and got the best unit we could find and spent a pretty penny to get it.
2008 Dodge Ram 2500 QC 4x4 - HEMI
2004 Northern Lite Ten-2000 CD
1998 Glastron GS 180 SF w/ Merc 150 HP Tizi's Transformer by whazoo
The one thing him and I do like is getting away from it all, even the hotel we stay in has nothing more than a bed and a bath and minimal t.v. reception. I thought about a rental but they all come fully equipped and i would honestly be afraid to take a rental down the roads we like to drive. We drive my beetle down them and see a lot of older tt and mh but to take a rental? Be to worried about tree branches and rocks getting kicked up. The one thing he has said is no campgrounds, no noise. We like to get away from people as far as we can. He just does not like the idea of hooking up a trailer and pulling it. I do not like the idea of Mh maintenance.
Think I will stick with my original idea of pup or tt small. Get a cheap old unit to putz with and see how she goes.
Thank you for your time. Pretty much what i was thinking (the posts on both sides) just wanted to be sure I was thinking down the right track.
We had a truck camper once, older but dry and only a $200. No water tanks and just an ice box.
Watching him worry about scratching his truck and if it was slipping off or too heavy and every little thing was not worth it. That was on a on a Silverado that was past being new. He is a bit of a worrier, especially when it comes to his truck (now a ram)
SuperiorBound wrote: We had a truck camper once, older but dry and only a $200. No water tanks and just an ice box.
Watching him worry about scratching his truck and if it was slipping off or too heavy and every little thing was not worth it. That was on a on a Silverado that was past being new. He is a bit of a worrier, especially when it comes to his truck (now a ram)
I sound like your husband. My wife would love to rough it, but not me. Because I enjoy working on cars and around the house, owning an RV fits right in. I kept up our old RV Click Here for 24 years. I considered it "Roughing It". It had NO amenities. Though it was still in great shape, I just couldn't travel in it any longer. It had no A/C of either kind. My back was killing me from sleeping on it's dinette convert-a-bed. The over-head bed was great for the kids when they were young, but too confining for us. The restless sleep made me so tired during the day. As we age, we are needing bathroom visits in the middle of the night. It would be an hour later by the time I fall asleep, adding more fatigue. Freezing our butts on cold nights. Sweating in bed on hot sticky nights. Getting bored as heck on rainy days. The last straw was a vacation we took in 2006. Driving through South Dakota, it hit 117 degrees at the Badlands. We both nearly passed out trying to get there. We spent the afternoon in Wall-Drug.
I told my wife, the only way I will continue such travel is This Way I LOVE the home ammenities....all the things you mentioned you didn't want. I love the microwave, TV, etc. etc. etc. Now I can continue such vacationing until I am too old to drive. We both turned 51 this year so the plan is to keep this RV until......
We dry camp 75% of the time, mostly in national parks, monuments, and forests. Our RV is small, yet ideal for 2 people, dry camping. The water, sewage, and twin battery power are adequate for about 4 to 5 days as long as you don't have to shower daily. The other 25% of the time, we hook up, charge up, and dump. We leave the RV at the camp site and spend the day time in an easy-to-tow vehicle, a little gas miser Toyota MR2 Spyder. It is ideal for sight seeing and parking in confined areas like pull-offs & trail heads. The convertible top is awesome for the views.
My wife still talks about roughing it, but she has quickly adapted to the improved comforts. It is very obvious to me, she loves her little home away from home.
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Dakzuki wrote: Showering daily while camping? Jeez, Ron.
We consider the "little" 21 footer the luxery gig as opposed to being in a tent......a tent carried by bike.
If you want to hear me protest just mention the word hotel. I hate them.
We never shower daily, at home or on vacation, but it is critical for others to do so. On vacation, we shower every third or forth day, more often if conditions allow for it. We are thinner people so we can get by with touch-ups and a shampoo, pending the day's activities.
My wife and I are right there with you in regards to motels. But we do enjoy nice hotels on rare occasion. We enjoy cruise ships too, which accomodations are somewhere in between.
This is not so much a RV question as a relationship question. I've been through it.
I like camping (to me, this means a tent, RVing is not camping, it is something else). My wife used to go camping with me (particularly to come along on geology field trips) because she liked the social interaction and didn't want to be left home alone. But she doesn't really like camping.
Approaching retirement, I wanted to get back to camping (and fishing, et al) while traveling around the country. Knowing that my wife didn't like sleeping in a tent on hard (sometimes frozen) ground, I re-approached the topic as "we can travel around the country, see things we haven't seen, in a RV." A year and a half of planning, RV shopping, working with RV club members, we figured out that my wife's comfort level was a motorhome.
If I want to throw a tent on the back of a motorcycle, or in the trunk of my car, I would have to do it alone. If I want to pull a pop up camping trailer behind a pickup truck, I'll be doing it alone. Even a nice travel trailer (we looked at many) raised the question "how does this work, traveling with the children or grandchildren?" A Type C motorhome was her comfort level. It is certainly more expensive than tent camping, but it lets us travel together.
You think you still like camping. Your husband doesn't. He thinks he would like RVing, and a motorhome (house on wheels, live in it while traveling, just park and you are "camped") is his comfort level. You have two choices:
DH is not a camper and didn't want to tow anything. I can rough it, he can't. It took about 1 1/2 years, but he finally started to like the idea of a MH. Now, he can't wait to get in it and drive us out of Dodge.
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