Moving On: What’s Next After Selling Our Renovated Travel Trailer

Alright friends, you may have gathered from my most recent posts that RVing is my focus lately.  I mean for real…I put up a whole series of posts about the different parts of our travel trailer renovation last summer.   The results were so amazing and we were super happy with how nice our camper turned out.  We completed a complete remodeling of the camper and identified some old leaks.  In the end, we fixed that camper up so much that it was better than new.  With all that work and the updates, you may be surprised to hear that we sold the travel trailer a couple of months ago.

What?!?

As much as we loved that camper, there were some very compelling reasons for us to sell it.

Reasons to Sell the Travel Trailer

1. Bunk Space – we are all for being nice a cozy but the top bunk was extremely small for our kids.  Only our youngest could sleep up there but it’s pretty closed in and claustrophobia-inducing.
2. Bathroom Space – having the bathroom outside of the shower/toilet area is a great space saver.  However, the actual toilet/shower area was so small.  Not to give you too great a visual, but sitting on the toilet, even my knees would hit the door.  This also means there was no room to change clothes which is not ideal.
3. Comfort During Road Trips – we have a work truck, a Dodge Ram 2500.  This truck is not built for comfort but definitely built for work.  Every bump is felt and a long trip with this truck is out of the question.  In fact, we took a long road trip to San Antonio, TX, Phoenix, AZ, and Zion, UT last fall and stayed in Airbnbs instead of camping.  To me, that’s a huge bummer since camping is our preference.

Really, it was #3 that was most important and reason as we were attempting to plan a long family vacation…

Our Spontaneous Vacation

A few months ago, we were throwing ideas around about where to take a vacation before my work gets even busier and all the schools are out for the summer.  Calculating our lodging, food, and gas for the trip, it was getting pretty pricy with Airbnb costs so ridiculously high.

I was lamenting about the situation and how we had a nice camper that we could tow and stay in.  But that darn truck.  Ugh…it is a kidney buster, I’m telling you. Mark and I both wanted to be spontaneous with this vacation.  Our idea was to pray about where to go on our trip while we were out traveling rather than plan and figure it all out in advance.

Clearly, we were both up for an adventure and we decided it would probably be more stressful to try to locate Airbnbs and hotels to accommodate our family of 6 and dog at the last minute. Because of this, we decided camping was our very best option.  On one occasion, during a drive to Wyoming for an appointment, we were discussing the vacation.  The weather was terrible and there was snow flying.  I saw a Class A on the interstate and said, “We should just get a Class A!”  I said it half-joking but that little idea took root.

Meeting of the Minds

We sat down as a family and threw out our options.

1. Stay in Airbnbs/Hotels and plan out our vacation more.
2. Buy a Class A and camp – be spontaneous.
3. Tow our travel trailer and camp – be spontaneous and deal with some discomforts.

It’s not hard to surmise that the vote was unanimous for buying a Class A.  So we set to looking for one.  There were some reservations about getting a big Class A that could be modified to sleep everyone (like we had with our Winnebago Adventurer) and not break the bank regarding gas.  We hadn’t even considered a Class C but after a little bit of looking, we found a really nice one that looked to be perfect for our family.

It is so funny to sit back and consider that we have owned every type of camper available except a Class B!  It’s also crazy that in the 3 years we have been back in South Dakota, we have owned 4 different campers.

So this obviously isn’t our first rodeo.  Just for fun, below are the campers we have owned.  

Our Camper History

1. Fleetwood Popup Camper – sold to move into our 5th Wheel full-time
2. Sandpiper 5th Wheel – sold to move into a camper that was mobile (our Class A).
3. Winnebago Adventurer Class A – sold because we stopped full-time RVing.
4. Coleman Popup Camper – sold to get a camper with more space and convenience.
5. Passport Express Super Light Trailer – camped only 2 times with this trailer and it was completely hailed out.
6. KZ Frontier Trailer – sold to buy a camper that was large enough and better for road trips
7. Winnebago Minnie Class C – here we are today.

Since we have had so many different campers, I think I might write up a summary of the things to look for in a camper and more lessons learned with the various types.

So now you all know why I have been inundating you with all the camper remodeling posts.  Our little travel trailer is no longer with us.

I’ll be sharing with you about our road trip along with some awesome tips to help you as you plan your vacation, so be on the lookout for that soon!

Oh and I’ll get back to posting about gardening and canning this summer.  My garden is planted and thriving.  So much to share, so little time.  Blessings!