We often get asked the question ” Where are you going on your next trip?”.  When we describe an upcoming road trip, almost without fail, given the length of our trips, the next question we hear is “Do you have an RV?”.  We must have answered this questions at least 50 times in the last few months.

The short answer to this is, of course, “no”.  However, the journey behind how we settled into our current travel approach evolved over the course of about 10 years.

The Tent Camping Years

One of our group camping trips at Lake Anna, Virginia

Nancy and I have been campers since we were teenagers. In fact one of the Coleman camp stoves we still have and use is the one I got when I was in my late teens.

When our kids were young it wasn’t unusual for us to go on 6 or more camping trips a summer. In this phase of life we were “tent” campers and typically took with us a least one large tent for the kids and a smaller one for us.

All of our camping boxes and gear was targeted towards camping with large groups.  Typically, our kids would have friends with them and it wasn’t uncommon for us to camp with other families where our group would exceed 40 people. There was also a period of about 10 years where once each summer, we would coordinate and lead 20-35 adults up to the Youghiogheny River up in Pennsylvania for white water rafting and camping.

Camping and white water Rafting on the Youghiogheny

Tent camping can really be a lot of fun but can become challenging when it rains a little too hard. Over the years we learned to put up tarps but there were still a couple of very memorable rain events.

  • The night near Front Royal, Virginia when we woke up to a storm and there was more that 4 inches of water in the corner of the tent.
  • Camping with a large family group down in Stanton, Virginia and a storm rolled up and it POURED! It was the first rain in weeks and a sudden stream appeared right in the middle of the camp sight carrying shoes and other things with it.  It tried to run through the middle of one our friend’s tents (SOAKED) – they left and went to a motel for the night.
  • Finally, up in Pennsylvania abut 8 years ago, we were tent camping with some friends who had a pop camper. It poured on Saturday night and we ended up spending several hours in their camper. It was at this point we decided to move on to looking at getting a camper.

And to be truthful – Nancy was getting tired of a few other aspects of tent camping:

  • Needing to “relieve yourself” in the middle of the night and fighting the zipper on the tent that invariably catches on the tent itself
  • hunting for shoes and a flashlight so you can go outside the tent and “relieve yourself” by a tree (not trekking all the way to the public bathrooms at that time of night).
  • Getting up off the air mattress and your better half sinks to the ground – and popping them back up when you get back on the mattress

SO, having spent time with friends with pop-up campers – who had air conditioning, foam beds and a potty inside the camper – we decided we were going “step up” and go looking for a camper.

The Camper Years

Our old Camper and Yukon XL on the Shenandoah river in Virginia

In 2013 we found a used 2010 23′ KZ Coyote that had 3 fold out queen beds plus another bed you could use by reconfiguring the dining table (32′ long when fully set up). With our 3 younger kids still camping with us, this fit the bill and we had a number of great trips in this camper.  We used it for all of our weekend trips and we took it on longer trips up to New Hampshire, New York and down to southern Virginia.

It was a learning experience for us as we had to learn how to among other things to:

  • Hook up and pull a rig that was almost 50 feet long (vehicle plus camper).
  • Drive on an interstate with side mirrors only
  • Dump gray and black water tanks
  • Camper winterizing
  • Break camp in about 30 to 40 minutes. Basically how to stow and secure everything before moving on.

The Last Few Years Leading up to Retirement – The Search Begins for a Retirement RV

Nancy and I are both long range planners and we started about 6 years ago looking for our “retirement RV”.  The KZ Coyote was a great family RV for us but it wasn’t what we want for retirement travel for just the two of us.

When it comes to RV’s there are an overwhelming number of options to weed through, but they fall roughly into the following categories (pictures below under “struggling with trade-offs”):

  • Class A – these are RV’s that look like buses
  • Class B – RV’s that are basically van conversions
  • Class C – RV’s that are in between A’s and B’s – like a truck camper except the driver’s area is open to the camper.
  • Pop up tent campers
  • Hard Sided Travel Trailers
  • 5th Wheel Trailers
  • Truck Campers

Every year we went to several RV shows.  The largest RV show in North America is up in Hersey, PA and features so many RV’s that you cannot possibly tour them all in the 4 days that the show goes on. When we were in Colorado we even visited some of the truck camper dealerships as this mode of camping is more prevalent out west and you have to go out there to really get a feel for what’s available.

We toured 100’s of RVs over this time period.

In the Mean Time

ATVing in Chicken Corners backcountry of Utah

One of my dreams and ambitions in life has been to travel extensively. When I was a kid, I was always fascinated by travel stories people told about places they had travelled to especially in North American and the American West. For about 20 years while Nancy and I were both working we were constrained by road trips that could a last at most 2 to 3 weeks.

Every year, we would pick a new state or area and do research on were we wanted to go and what we wanted to do and put together an itinerary that helped us to maximize our trip. We joked that these were reconnaissance trips and they were aggressive. We would fly to a new area, rent a jeep or other 4wd vehicle and hit the road changing locations every few days and covering 3000 – 4000 miles.

We got really good at packing light and knowing what the bare essentials needed to be. For example, we learned to pack a collapsible cooler that would fit in our suitcases.  We learned that certain types of clothing fabrics can be washed in a sink and quickly dry over night.

Nancy and I share a love of history, historical sites and the amazing outdoor beauty of this country.  We spend a great deal of our time seeking out and exploring these as we move around. It’s a rare day when we are transitioning from location to location that a significant portion of the day isn’t spent visiting interesting places and hiking in cool areas.

In addition, America is full of historical hotels and mansions that have been turned into B&Bs. In our experience also, when you get off the beaten path, many of these places are very reasonably priced.  Over the past 6 years or so we have also taken advantage of the proliferation of AirBnB/VRBO rentals allowing us to cook our own meals (eating healthier and saving money) and often are able to do laundry while we eat or sleep (no laundromats).  The lodging options we choose are almost always within walking distance of some restaurants (unlike campgrounds) for when we do want to eat out and to “meet the locals” to hear stories about the area.  We have been staying in some amazing places in very beautiful locations over the years.

It became a running joke with us to say “I really liked this campground” as we packed up to transition to our next stay.

Struggling With Trade-offs

After years of researching and thinking about this it became clear there wasn’t a perfect solution for us. So we needed to weigh the options and try and make the best choice for the lifestyle that we wanted.

As a part of this process, I built a cost model around how much will this cost us. There are a lot of factors to consider and the details of this are probably a whole other post but here are some of the main things that you have to consider.

Major RV types we considered

  • There is a difference between a summer camper that you use regionally and a 4 season camper that is built to handle cold weather and things like freezing pipes.  If you’re travelling like we do you need to make sure the pipes aren’t going to freeze. These are types of new campers options and prices we have seen and considered:
    • Class A – $100,000 to models we have seen at over $700,000
    • Class B – $100,000 to $200,0000 with some models exceeding $300,000 these are basically van conversions
    • Class C-  $70,000 to over $250,000 for super class
    • 5th Wheel – $100,000 to $200,0000 with some models exceeding $300,000
    • Truck Campers – $30,000 to over $65,000
  • The considerations of each type from our prospective
    • In the county I live in, you pay personal property taxes each year of $4.10 per hundred in blue book value. This adds up to thousands of dollars of annual expense
    • Campgrounds
      • Out west there are areas in BLM lands where you can “boondock” for free without services.  However, the average campground fee nationwide is $50+. We have seen this even higher in high demand areas and at camping resorts.
      • The quality of campgrounds varies enormously. It can be just a small camp site and it can be a camping resort (with pools, mini-golf, on-site restaurant, etc.)  Some campgrounds pack people in like sardines so most people just stay inside their RV.  Some of these are just giant “parking lots with water/electric hook-ups”.
      • We have noticed a growing trend of campgrounds basically turning into trailer parks with full time residences making up the majority of “campers” (transient workers).
      • Some campgrounds have limits on the length of RVs (most notably National and State Parks) – and some on the age of RVs allowed.
      • Internet connections aren’t always reliable (this is evolving!)
    • Class A
      • Need to tow a vehicle for exploring
      • Backup and turning given its size and length with a tow vehicle can be challenging
      • These are basically buses, finding places to service and repair these can be a challenge
      • If your Class A breaks down and it needs to spend the night at a repair facility, you lose your “house” for the night
      • Maintenance and servicing will be expensive
      • Fuel mileage is about 8 miles per gallon on average
      • Basically a small apartment on wheels with a lot of the comforts of home
    • Class C
      • Need to tow a vehicle for exploring
      • Backup and Turning given its size and length with a tow vehicle can be challenging
      • Maintenance  and servicing are easier given that these are built on production truck frames like Ford 350 or 450
      • If your Class C breaks down and it needs to spend the night at a repair facility, you lose your “house” for the night
      • Fuel mileage can be a little better, perhaps 12 miles per gallon
      • Not as big as a class A but still basically a small apartment on wheels with a lot of the comforts of home
    • Class B
      • good size for daily exploring and parking
      • no need to tow a second vehicle
      • expensive given there are essentially van conversions with starting prices exceeding 125,000
      • If your Class B breaks down and it needs to spend the night at a repair facility, you lose your “house” for the night
      • Better gas mileage up to 18 miles per gallon
      • Space is a premium – very compact.  Can you get one with a shower?  Is your couch also your bed?  How large is your fridge?
    • Hard Sided Travel Trailers & Fifth Wheel Trailers
      • Most 1/2 ton pickups top out at 6000 lb towing capacity – so you will likely need a full ton pick-up where you can easily spend $70,000 on the truck alone
      • Fuel mileage is about 9-10 miles per gallon on average
      • You will want a motorized jack for raising/lowering your RV to re-attach it to the tow hitch
      • Basically a small apartment on wheels that you tow with a lot of the comforts of home
    • Truck Campers
      • The size and weight will cut your truck gas mileage in half.
      • Most 1/2 ton pickups top out at about 1,500 to 2,000 pounds in capacity for a truck camper which typically exceed 3,000+ pounds.
      • To get a 4 season truck camper of any size you need to purchase something like a Ford 350 Dually. You can easily spend $75,000 on the truck alone.
      • Space is a premium – very compact.  Slide-outs livability, but add to weight.
      • Some bathrooms are “wet” which means the shower and toilet are one space.

The Initial Conclusion

I decided to run a detailed cost analysis that included:

  • Cost of a new RV
  • Cost of a new truck
  • Regular maintenance of RV
  • Property Taxes
  • Sales tax
  • RV Insurance
  • Gas mileage difference between RV mode of travel and ‘just driving and staying at hotels/B&Bs/AirBnBs”
  • Campground fees

It turned out you could stay somewhere between 700 – 1000 nights at nice hotels/B&Bs/AirBnBs before you started to reach a break even point.  Lots of factors and variables, but at a high level, this basically equals about 5-6 years of travel at our planned rate.  And as Nancy always mentions, when you have an RV, YOU are the one cleaning your bathroom & kitchen and washing the sheets on your bed.  But when you stay in a hotel/B&B/AirBnB, someone else is doing that!

In the  the first year alone, the amount of property taxes and sales tax equals a really nice long road trip!!

With our recent travels we also noticed the proliferation of reasonably priced Airbnb rentals. It seemed to us that the options on how you could retirement travel were evolving.

We had years of experience with 1-2.5 week vacations leveraging a 4 wheel drive vehicle and arranging a series of lodgings along the way.  However we had only done this for a maximum of 2.5 weeks.  Could we just expand what we were already been doing and loved?  The question was if we want to do a really long trip (2-6 months) using this approach, would it work for us?

Reaching a Final Conclusion

2019 Idaho – Seven Devils backcountry drive – part of our proof of concept trip

I retired at the end of 2017 but Nancy was still working. In 2018, we took a couple of our traditional road trips including one up to the Adirondacks following the same pattern of hotels/B&Bs/AirBnBs and with a length of 2 weeks.

In 2019, one of the things that changed was that Nancy began to work from home full-time.  As we were pondering our retirement mode of travel, one of the newer options we wanted to explore was “could we just take what we had been doing for 1-2 week road trips years and scale it to a much longer time range?”.

We decided to build a ‘proof of concept” trip that would last 2 months. It would have the following constraints:

  • This had to be a “work-cation” as Nancy didn’t have enough vacation time for 2 month vacation
  • We had to find places we could anchor where she could intersperse work days and hours with off days. This required high speed internet.
  • We needed to time the transitions between locations around work days.
  • We had to pack a portable office complete with a lockbox so we could safety store valuable electronics when were in transition.

In the end, we had an amazing 12,700 mile 2 month journey out to Idaho that solidified that we wanted to do this type travel extensively in retirement. We ended up renting a number of AirBnBs that were located in amazing places for a surprising low amount. here are a couple of examples.

Inkom Idaho – house we rented
House we rented in Driggs Idaho for 2 weeks
Inkom Idaho – Sunset at the house we rented
Clarkson WA – House we stayed at on the snake river
Clarkson WA – House we stayed at on the snake river

 

The Decision is Made

We decided that while we are in the “go-go” years of retirement we would:

  • Buy a new vehicle that allowed us to easily transport and support the travel lifestyle we were embracing.
  • We would take and refine all of the lessons we learned from years of travel and add in a few things that support a longer on-the-road life-style.
  • As much as the focus was going to be on staying at Hotels, AirBnB rentals and B&Bs we still wanted to camp on occasion, so we needed a camping solution.  One of the research threads I spent time exploring was a concept called “Truck Cap Camping”. After looking at the ideas around this in detail, we decided this was the concept we wanted to pursue and adapt to our own needs.

Now we needed to build out our very own personalize adventure vehicle.

Enter the Brown Beast

Although we briefly looked at the Ford 150 truck and the Yukon XL, we ended up with a Toyota Tundra.

We have owned Toyota 4-runners since the mid 1990’s and have found them to be extremely reliable, durable, hold their value amazingly well.  If you take care of them you can get a lot of miles out of them. I recently gifted my 2004-runner to my son with 240,00 miles on it.  It was in great shape. he had a guy offer him $6,000 cash for it on the spot that he turned down.  The 4-runner prior to that one – we sold with 265,000 miles on it (and the new owner sold it when it had 350,000 miles).

Key Mandatory Features
  • We wanted a Tundra that had the 38 Gallon tank option. This gives us a base range of about 650 miles without counting spare cans of gas.
  • A High Clearance 4X4 for type of backcountry road adventuring
  • A full king cab for storage space and roominess while traveling
  • Satellite radio
  • Nancy wanted ‘dirt’ colored

When looking at all the features of the various Tundra models we settled on the 1794 crew max TRD Off Road model. We were able to order one and we received it in early May. The ‘1794’ model refers to the ranch next to the production facility down in Texas where the truck was built.

Accessories and Customizations we Added to the Original Truck
  • A Truck cap with the following features
    • Thule roof rack
    • A side lockable Windoor (window door) for easy side access
    • A side window with sliding access to a screen (for ventilation when camping)
    • Three DC outlets
    • Cargo net on the interior roof for storage
  • A Bug Rug rear cargo area carpet
  • Running Boards
  • Dash Cam
  • Garmin GPS
  • Console Safe
  • Cell Phone Extender
  • Truck/SUV Tent
Truck Console Safe
Mount for Garmin GPS
Garmin GPS
Windoor for easy access
Curtains
BedRug
Cargo Net
Lock Box
Cell Phone Booster
SUV Tent
SUV Tent

The Brown Beast

We always name our adventure vehicles and ‘Brown Beast’ seemed an appropriate name.

In Conclusion

We are going with using the Brown Beast as our adventure vehicle and use a combination of following types of lodging:

  • Historic Hotels
  • B&Bs (the added bonus of gourmet breakfasts while conversing with other travelers)
  • AirBnBs/VRBOs (the ability to cook your own meals, do laundry and feels like home because it is a home)
  • Regular Hotels – We are Best Western Members so we love getting points and free nights.   Rarely requires any up front reservation fee and cancellation is 24 hours prior to arrival.
  • Occasional Camping when we find really cool places

Next up

In our next post we’ll detail out the travel check lists and storage organization we use in the Brown Beast that allows us to quickly transition between lodging types and destinations.