Trailer Shopping – What You Really Need to Know

I love RV shows!  You might say I’m an RV show geek!  My husband and I go even when we aren’t in the market.   We love looking to see what’s new and are always on the hunt for what might be our “old fart trailer.”  The “old fart trailer” is the ultimate travel rig that will be the one we travel in for months at a time without kids.  Suffice it to say, we’ve seen a lot and we’ve noticed a lot of funny mistakes made by RV and trailer makers.  For the purposes of this article, I’ll refer to the RV/Trailer/5th Wheel as a “Rig.”  

Here are some things to think about before you begin your search:  

1.  How will you use your rig?  Are you going to be a football game tailgater?  Are you planning on Boondocking (no hook ups camping)? Are you planning to go to cities and stay in RV Parks?  Are you a State/National Park Camper?   If you are a State/National Park camper, be sure to check the RV sites lengths and amenities at your favorites.  Yosemite is one of my favorite places on the planet.  However, it’s hard to get a trailer in the park – especially in the summer.  (We found other options for this, by the way!  We still go!)  
2. What will you be towing your rig with? This will dictate what you’re able to even realistically look at.  For instance, if you’re planning on towing with a mini-van, a pop up tent trailer may be the ticket.  If you have a one ton diesel truck, your options are much greater.
3. Where will you be storing your rig? How much space to do you have to store your rig on your lot?  Are there HOA rules about storing  RV’s in your neighborhood? Will you need to store your rig at a storage facility?  One RV dealer actually tried to sell my brother a trailer that was longer than the space he has in his driveway.  He had to keep assuring the dealer that he measured more than once and that the trailer the dealer was trying to sell him wasn’t going to fit and could he please see the one that was the right length?  
4. Are you camping with kids? – They’ll need a place to sleep!  How big are your kids?  Our first trailer was perfect for our kids when they were 4 and 8.  Then, when they were teenagers with longer legs and bigger feet, we were kind of cramped!
5. What do you plan to eat when your camping? Sounds like a question for after the shopping, but NO!  When shopping for our first trailer, we found that many of the trailers we looked at had room for food or clothes, but not both!  If you’re planning to bring boxes of cereal for the morning and eat out the rest of the time, that might work for you.  
6. All the other stuff that they tell you in the RV books, magazines, etc about hitches, wheel bases, scissor jacks, blah blah blah!  That’ my husband’s territory!  I’m mostly in charge of making sure the inside is going to work for us.

So, you’ve decided what kind of camper (or as we like to call it, “fake camper”) you’re going to be.  Now it’s time to shop!  I can’t recommend highly enough going to an RV show.  This is how you can get the best overview of what’s out there in the shortest amount of time.  Here’s how to do it and not get completely overwhelmed.

1. Take the bag they hand you when you walk in!  You need it for all of the brochures you’re going to grab! 
2. Look only at what you’re interested in – That seems obvious, but if you’re looking for a 23′ trailer, don’t get distracted by the $200K motor homes.  While it’s fun to look at the crazy stuff they put inside of them, it’s going to suck up a lot of your time and energy.  
3. Take pictures of the make and model of the rigs you like along with the paper they have on the counter with the “show price.”  By the way, “Show price” is kind of a lie.  You can negotiate that price on the lot later.

Now you’re focused and have a plan of attack.  Now, climb aboard the rigs that fit your criteria.  Here are some things I look for when we are out looking for our ultimate rig and my system for inspecting and trying to figure out if the rig will work.  So, far I haven’t found the perfect rig!  The trick is finding out what your deal breakers are and how much you’re willing to bend on your plans.

1.  First stop, the kitchen – I don’t need to go any further if the kitchen doesn’t have proper storage and enough counter space.  I need room for dishes, pots and pans, and food.  I don’t need a fancy residential fridge or anything super fancy.  But, I like to cook.  If there’s not enough room for me to cook, I move on!  No need to look any more at that rig.  I call those “Cracker Barrel” kitchens because you have to go eat at Cracker Barrel since there’s no room to cook.  This term is not catching on….
2. Next stop, the bathroom – I can’t tell you how many rigs I’ve been in where there’s no place to hang towels!  To me, that’s just stupid!  In our first trailer, we hung a towel bar with 4 rungs over the bathroom door, which was fine for the 4 of us … until they were wet and in your face when you’re sitting on the toilet.  I recently looked at a 5th wheel with a huge bathroom and guess what – no place to hang the towels or toilet paper within reach of the shower or the toilet.  Ridculous!  Deal breaker!  Move on!
3. The living area – How are you planning to hang out?  For my husband, it’s all about TV viewing.  Is he going to be comfortable?  Can he stretch out after a long day of driving?  One mistake we made with our current rig was not flopping out on the couch when we were shopping.  As it turns out, neither of us (and I’m vertically challenged) can stretch out in the living area.  In our “old fart trailer” hunt, we’re paying much closer attention to this!  
4. The kid area (Bunkhouses)– If you are going to be camping with kids, do your best to find them beds in your rig.  I know that sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many people try to fit 6 kids into a rig without a bunkhouse.  We love this show called “Big Time RV.”  It’s like “House Hunters” for RVs.  Time and time again, we’ve watched them sell little rigs with no bunkhouse for big money to people with kids.  It’s ridiculous to think that your 6′ tall 15 year old is going to fit on the dinette folded down.  I promise, he won’t!   For us, it’s important that one of the rooms, either where the parents sleep or where the kids sleep have an actual door that’s made out of wood?  We laugh at the curtains they put up and call them “curtains of ultimate privacy.”  They’re not private at all.
5. The “master bedroom” – for lack of better terms – where the grown ups will sleep.  One HUGE mistake we made when we bought our current rig was not laying on the bed.  We had a short queen in our first trailer and it worked fine.  Being vertically challenged, I never worry about the length of a bed.  Well, this rig has a short queen too.  But the difference is, it’s bumped up into the nose of the trailer giving us a curved sort of headboard and making the short queen a little shorter.  My husband has to sleep all scrunched up!  A real queen is on the list of things we need.

After you’ve approved of all of all the major parts of the rig, now look for the fine details and make sure you can live with things like:

1.  Where you’ll have to put your trash can? – That’s a much bigger deal than you might think!  For us, we had to figure out how to keep our hound out of the trash which meant we had to find a little waste basket sized trash can to fit under the sink in the kitchen in our first rig.  Luckily, we had kids and it was their job to take out the trash.  We kept them really busy!
2. Does the kitchen have a oven? – This is a deal breaker for me.  When we were shopping for our first trailer, we were amazed at how many rigs didn’t have ovens!  They tried to tell us we could use this microwave/convection contraption and that people only use real ovens on Thanksgiving.  
3. Where will you put your coffee maker? – I must admit that I am completely and totally caffeine addicted and can’t start my morning without my coffee.  Luckily, it’s the same for my husband.  We were delighted with our current rig that we were able to purchase a full sized coffee pot and leave it on the counter when we’re traveling!  The first trailer only had room for a little 4 cup coffee maker and we had to make two pots because every coffee monger knows the number of cups they advertise on coffee pots is a lie.
4. Where are you going to put your toilet paper? – We have yet to have a rig where the toilet paper can hang on the wall like a normal bathroom.  But, we have a cupboard that’s close enough that we can keep it in there.  

Now, LEAVE the RV show!  Take your pictures, your brochures and GO HOME!  Look through everything carefully.  Talk over what you liked and didn’t like.  Then, after you’ve had some sleep, go back to the dealer (You’ll have a business card if you spent more than 5 minutes in one rig.  Try to get out of the show without it!).  Look through the rig again and decide if you still like it.  Maybe look on Craig’s list or RV Trader and see if you can find the same thing a year or two old.  You’ll save a lot of money if you can find something gently used.  

That’s a lot of information and a lot to think about, I know!  I’m sure your brain is tired.  You should probably take a nap before you start looking for your next RV show!  Enjoy the search!   Maybe in the meantime, find some “Big Time RV” re-runs.  

Next blog post:  Getting Your Rig Ready to Roll!