February 20, 2025 • 21 mins
🚐 Which RV Should You Get? | The Ultimate Guide for Beginners
If you’re new to RV life, you’ve probably asked: “Which RV is right for me?” 🤔 With so many options—travel trailers, fifth wheels, Class A motorhomes, and more—it’s not a simple answer! That’s why we’re dedicating this entire episode of The Wandering RV Show to breaking down the different types of RVs and helping you figure out which one fits your lifestyle best.
🔥 What We Cover in This Episode:
✅ Towable RVs – Pop-ups, teardrops, travel trailers & fifth wheels 🚛
✅ Motorhomes – Class A, B, C & Super Cs 🏕️
✅ Specialty Rigs – Toy haulers, truck campers & van campers 🚐
✅ Choosing the Right RV – Solo travelers, couples, families & pets 🐾
✅ Luxury & Extras – Do you really need a dishwasher & lighted underbelly? 🤩
Whether you’re planning weekend getaways or full-time RV living, we’ll help you understand the pros and cons of each option so you can make the best choice for your adventure!
💬 Which RV type are you considering? Drop a comment below!
📌 Follow Us:
📸 Instagram: https://bit.ly/3MAV2sC
📘 Facebook: https://bit.ly/3GBAYT7
🎙️ Podcast: https://bit.ly/3o2pC4a
🎵 TikTok: http://bit.ly/41hT1FB
🏕️ Happy Camping & Stay Safe Out There!
Byyyyeeeeeee! 🚐✨
Support us through our Amazon Store: https://podcast.wanderingbabe.com/amazonstore
*Special thanks for our Intro/Outro music to Stock Media provided by stockmusic331 / Pond5
If you’re new to RV life, you’ve probably asked: “Which RV is right for me?” 🤔 With so many options—travel trailers, fifth wheels, Class A motorhomes, and more—it’s not a simple answer! That’s why we’re dedicating this entire episode of The Wandering RV Show to breaking down the different types of RVs and helping you figure out which one fits your lifestyle best.
🔥 What We Cover in This Episode:
✅ Towable RVs – Pop-ups, teardrops, travel trailers & fifth wheels 🚛
✅ Motorhomes – Class A, B, C & Super Cs 🏕️
✅ Specialty Rigs – Toy haulers, truck campers & van campers 🚐
✅ Choosing the Right RV – Solo travelers, couples, families & pets 🐾
✅ Luxury & Extras – Do you really need a dishwasher & lighted underbelly? 🤩
Whether you’re planning weekend getaways or full-time RV living, we’ll help you understand the pros and cons of each option so you can make the best choice for your adventure!
💬 Which RV type are you considering? Drop a comment below!
📌 Follow Us:
📸 Instagram: https://bit.ly/3MAV2sC
📘 Facebook: https://bit.ly/3GBAYT7
🎙️ Podcast: https://bit.ly/3o2pC4a
🎵 TikTok: http://bit.ly/41hT1FB
🏕️ Happy Camping & Stay Safe Out There!
Byyyyeeeeeee! 🚐✨
Support us through our Amazon Store: https://podcast.wanderingbabe.com/amazonstore
*Special thanks for our Intro/Outro music to Stock Media provided by stockmusic331 / Pond5
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, podcast listener, thanks for listening to us on your
way to work or you know, to your next camping trip.
This is a YouTube first show, so if you want
the full experience, go check us out on YouTube too
Doo doo doo doo too tube.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I do like that you have us in the shade.
This is lovely, you know.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
I thought, Hey, if we're gonna be outside, I don't
want the sun beating down on me. Yes, yes, well, okay.
One of the questions we get asked all the time
is I'm a newbie, what kind of our V should
I buy? And that is a loaded, fricking question, like
how am I supposed to know what is good for
you or not good for you?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Like, seriously, it's a little tough to answer that question
in a comment on one of our videos or just
like in a very quick passing conversation. So we have
devoted an entire episode to breaking down every type of
r V there is out there on the market, so
you know what's right for you.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
And we're gonna look like fools, Well we do it.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, We're in a public park, so if people walk
around everywhere, totally fine. Welcome to the Wandering RV show
your source for our stories, our screw up and our
success is living the full time RV life. I'm your host, Kara,
the wandering RV babe.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
This is my driver.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Run had it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
That that was very enthusiastic.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I had to go for like a really like short
sweet and you know done.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh there you go, short sweet done.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So first I think we need to talk about what
are the different kinds of r vs. Yes, an RV
is also a tollable and one that has a motor
behind it, but it's a vehicle. Yes, trailers are vehicles too.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, they don't have to have a motor to be
a vehicle.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
We get that question all the time, or we get
people that come into the comments and they're like, that's
not an RV because it's a tollable like a travel
trailer or fifth wheel or pop up tent one of those.
We'll get into them here in a second. But yes,
they are all under the umbrella of our.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
So here's the different types. You got tiny ones, medium
sized ones, large ones, and really really really big ones.
Some of them are motorized. There's your lesson for the day.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
First up is probably the most basic or entry level
RVs and those are your small towables, pop up tent trailers,
teardrop trailers, things like that. It's one where almost any
vehicle with a toe package can tow it, and it
kind of gets you into the RV world to be
able to start testing things out.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, it's like you could probably toe this with a vehicle,
an suv or a truck that you already own that
you drive back and forth to work for Like, don't
get me wrong, like having a bigger truck is better
when you're driving down the road, but in the case
of like driving to and from work, a small truck,
small suv. I mean, I've even seen like tiny little
jeeps pulling some of these because they're lightweight, they're designed
(02:55):
for it. You could probably pull it with your mom's Mercedes.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
You probably could.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And the nice thing is it still kind of keeps
that camping rustic charm because really they're only big enough
to maybe have a sleeping space, maybe a small little
kitchen prep space, and that's about it. Next up is
going to be the small to medium sized travel trailers.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, these are just bigger versions of the really tiny ones,
but they're longer, they're larger, they have more space, you
can probably still pull it with like a regular half
ton truck. If you can, they're gonna be built lighter
and probably get damaged easier. Or you can upgrade get
a little bit bigger truck and then gives you a
little bit more flexibility. In that way, you're not having
(03:37):
to buy the lightest trailer on the road, because guarantee you,
if it says lite in the name, it's going to
fall apart on you. I've kep from you so many.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, it's gonna be made with the cheapest parts possible
to make it light. The other thing to keep in
mind with the larger towables is you need to have
some practice towing and backing that sucker in, because there's
a ton of RV camp sites that are back in
sites only. So the longer that trailer gets, the more
likely it is that you're gonna have to have a
little bit of a learning curve getting into those spots.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, Like, if you've ever pulled like a little tiny
uhul trailer whenever you're moving or anything like that, you
can probably pull a little tear drop or even a
pop up tent trailer very easily backing in doing all
the things that you need to do. But once you
get passed, honestly, like maybe twenty feet, the whole thing changes.
Your rear axle is so far behind you that you've
(04:28):
got to be making decisions well in advance if you
actually want to back up and do what you want
to do.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
And then you have the daddy of all towables, your
fifth wheels and your toy haulers.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, the fifth wheels. Obviously we're big fans of fifth wheels.
The other advantage we kind of drop the ball, and
this the other advantage of the toe behinds is it
leaves your bed completely open and usable to put toys
or anything else you want to take with you. Whereas
once you enter into the fifth wheel and toy hauler range,
your bed is now a place to hitch in. You
might have a little bit of space around it, but
for the most part, your bed is four hitching and
(05:01):
that is what it is being used for.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Exactly those fifth wheels and most of the toy haulers
that are also fifth wheels, is just a different type
of fifth wheel.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Hitch on top of the bed of the truck, so
that cap is sitting right over the bed of the truck.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
But these are very large and usually very heavy, and
so you are definitely looking at three quarter ton bare minimum,
probably one ton. Even those little half ton fifth wheels,
you're still going to want a probably a three quarter ton.
I just being honest with you, I know you can
probably toe it, but you're gonna be at your max,
and you never want to be at your max.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
When we say three quarter ton, we're talking about a
twenty five hundred or a two point fifty. When we're
talking about a one ton, we're talking about a three
fifty or a thirty five hundred.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Or a four to fifty or four to fifty.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
And then you've got the Duley's and if you've got
a duly, you're gonna be.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
All right, which is four to fifty is always a duly.
And when you're looking at toy haulers, you definitely want
to be looking at a duly because the weight at
the design to be able to handle the weight at
the rear of the trailer puts extra weight on the
bed of the truck, meaning that you're gonna have a
much higher hitch weight, which, by the way, we did
a video on that on our shorts we did.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So check those out if you want to see what
we mean by looking at gross vehicle weight and penwight.
We could actually do a whole episode dedicated to that,
So you have to let us know in the comments
if you want to see that information or hear that
information from us.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
But moving on, we can get real technical if you
want us to.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
So so technical you cannot even understand how technical I
can get.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I really can't, I really can't. I don't think we
broke down toy haulers.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
So toy haulers are essentially their fifth wheels, but they
have a garage in the back so that you can
get toys in there, i e.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Side by sides, motorcycles, things like that.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I've seen some people even take a spare vehicle with them,
like a small jeep, even so that that way they
don't have to drive their big truck around town. They
can literally just drive their jeep off of the little
garage and then now that's their vehicle on the go,
not a Toy haulers are designed for that kind of weight,
so you do need to make sure that the ramp
is rated for getting a full vehicle inside and not
(07:06):
just an ATV because there is a weight difference. Very true.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Now, if you really want to have some fun going
off grid or towing like a boat or something like
that behind you. Truck campers are a great option as well.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, these are basically campers that are designed to fit
into the bed of the truck, not hitch, but like
they actually fit in there. Now you can put struts
down and pull out from it, so it's not like
your truck is stuck there. It's just when you're transporting
down the road, it's taking up your entire bed, but
you still have access possibly to the rear hitch to
be able to take a like you said, a boat
or a toy or something else whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, they're generally designed for between one and two people,
but they often have bedspace, kitchen space, toilet space, things
like that, so that way you can just you know,
be off grid and actually still be able to do
the things that you.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Want to do. Then, starting our first section on motorized vehicles,
the Class B tiny little van, the van lifers.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
That's exactly what a Class B is. I'm not really
sure why.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
The Class A is the big ol' honkin motor home,
the Class B is the van, and then the Class
C is kind of in between the two of them,
but that's the way it is. So a Class C
is a motor home that has a truck front and
then generally like some sort of cap over it. That's
usually where an extra bed will go, and then the
(08:28):
rest of the vehicle is your living quarters.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
But it's gonna be much much smaller than those huge
honkin' buses which are your class as.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Yeah, basically the Class bs are on usually on some
sort of truck or van chassis that's been extended, and
then your Class b's are just on a regular van chassis,
and then your Class a's are on a custom chassis.
That's kind of the easiest way to remember it. But
that's not all. There's more differences. But just fo you understand,
then you got your supercs, which are technically still Class c's.
(08:56):
They're just longer, larger, usually diesel, so that that way
they can handle the extra weight and be able to
drive down the road. Those are very useful, very nice.
They're big, they're basically as big as a Class A
at this point, but they are still on that more
truck chassis feel, if that's what you're comfortable with. Where
basically the big difference. I think I've always described it
(09:18):
to people is whether you're in front of your steering
wheels or behind your steering wheels. Because when you're driving
a truck obviously, or a car, anything, any regular vehicle
down the road, your steering wheels are in front of you.
When you're in a Class A, you're either sitting on
top of them or they're even slightly behind you, and
so like, it really changes how you drive.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
So, now that we've covered all the different types of RVs,
let us know if we missed one in the comments below.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
But we want to get into why you might pick
one over the other.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Well, if you're a couple and it's just the two
of you, you gotta got the pick of the litter,
because honestly, any of these could probably work for just
a guy and his wife, or a guy and his girlfriend,
guy and his boyfriend, is do a girl in her cat?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I don't know any combination of two.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, don't get me wrong, you can absolutely get more
in some of these, but convenience factor aside. Like you
as a couple, you have the entire pick of the litter.
Whatever you want, just like we do is just the
two of us and a dog. So I guess there's
three of us here we go. That's why we needed
something so big. Our dog she needs her own dedicated space.
So that's why we bought a forty foot fifth wheel.
(10:27):
She is a princess and a half. So is this
one right here?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Just say you know, listen, Yeah, it's true, it's very
very true.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
But if you have a bigger family, you're gonna want
to go a little bit bigger to give your family
a little bit more space. That's where we've seen a
lot of families that RV have success with fifth wheels,
toy Holler fifth wheels to be specific, or big motor homes.
One thing I really like about the toy Holler aspect
is I've seen a ton of families take that garage
(10:56):
area of the toy Holler and make it into the
kid's bedroom or vice versa.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
You can make that into mom and dad's master bedroom
and make the front bedroom into the kid's bedroom and
cram them all in there. Totally different, totally two different
options that everyone's done and is really really fun. But
the extra space is nice. There are customized i shouldn't
say customers, There are specialized fifth wheels out there. Four
families called bunk houses where they basically have like a
front bedroom, a mid bedroom, and your regular living space,
(11:24):
so you can still fit in more people.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
You have that in some of the class as as well.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yes, and so obviously the class as are another big
option because they're usually larger, have a lot more space,
definitely when you're traveling down the road, because if you've
got a family of five and you're driving in a truck,
all five where you're taking up that space in that truck,
there's only five seats in a truck, then it's going
to be a lot tighter than if you're in a
motor home where mom and dad or maybe dad's driving
(11:48):
and one of the kids is sitting in the front
seat and all the rest are sitting in the back.
There's a lot more seating while traveling down the road
in a Class A and a Class A Super C,
I won't say a Class A Super C. You'll get
more of that space for the road trip portion.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
In general, if you're trying to decide between a motorized
RV versus a tollable RV, there's two really distinct differences
that you're gonna want to pay attention to. We call
them the journey versus the destination.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
And so what we mean by that is if you
as a family just like to go down the road
and you want to enjoy your time going down the road,
stopping somewhere, hanging out, doing something, but you're still taking
like your motorhome with you. Like I don't know the
best we describe it, but like say you're driving down
the highway and you see some random the biggest ball
of yarn on the side of the road, and you
want to be able to stop, grab all your kids,
(12:36):
go out there, take some pictures, YadA, YadA, YadA, and
then move on your merry little way. That's where something
like a motor home is really really beneficial because you're
essentially you're enjoying the journey, you're stopping along the way,
you're doing things. Whereas for us, we're more destination people.
So our journey is just about getting from point A
to point B, and we essentially, like once we hitch
up in the morning, we're on the highway, we're stopping
(12:57):
for lunch and potty breaks, and that's it until we
get to where we want to go. So then we
unhitch and we go explore.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
I think the other main difference though, with a Class
A and being able to kind of leisurely take that
journey is you don't have to stop for your passengers
to use the bathroom. In a Class A or any
kind of motor home, really, you don't have to stop
for your passengers to jump into the fridge and grab
lunch or something like that. You only have to stop
if the driver needs to stop, whereas in a fifth
(13:24):
wheel or any kind of toe behind, you're definitely gonna
have to stop for bathroom breaks.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Not all fifth wheels will allow you access to.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
The fridge or even the bathroom sometimes within the fifth
wheel when all the slides are in, so you do
have to kind of keep that in mind as well.
So you're definitely gonna have to stop more often just
to make some of those breaks. When you have a
big family and you've got a lot of tiny bladders,
motor home might be where it's at.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
She's got a tiny bladder, it's like an hour, like
it's just on the dot every hour for like the
whole first couple of hours of every day, and by
afternoon she starts to dry up a little bit.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Well, once my coffee has you know, once I'm done
with the coffee and the coffee has run through me,
then I'm good to go. And we can drive a
couple of hours at a time, but in the mornings, man,
every hour on the hour, we just have to have
a stop.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And the nice thing is by having a fifth wheel
with a truck and our truck, it's not a long bed.
We don't have a big old huge gas tank in it,
diesel tank in it, and so what it kind of
works out because we have to stop for her bathroom breaks. Anyways,
I originally was planning on getting like an extra thing
to store more diesel so that way we could get
farther down the road. And then in the end of point,
what's the point I'm having to stop for her bathroom break?
(14:35):
So think about your own like travel like you, I'm
sure even if you have an RV, you've probably gone
on a road trip with your family or your spouse
or your partner, and so you can kind of conceptualize
as you extend that out, what are the use case
scenarios and what we're talking about about getting into the
bathroom and the kitchen and stuff like that. When you're
talking about like a fifth wheel, like we have slide outs,
(14:55):
so when our slides come in, we can't access the fridge,
we can't access the bathroom. But we have run into
not very many, but one or two where the sides
actually prevented you from accessing the bathroom, and those are
just non starters for us, because it doesn't matter what's
happening if you want to be able to stop going
down the road and be able to like just get
out and be like, I need to use a bathroom
right now, and I don't want to wait till the
(15:16):
next gas station or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And that's simple to.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Consider when you're in the market and you're looking at
different floor plans. Is one liveability and two like how
do you actually move around? Is what I mean by that,
how do you like to function on the daily in
your home? Because that's going to be important too, but
also access to the bathroom, the fridge, things like that.
(15:38):
The other big difference with motor homes versus towables is price. Yes,
if you have a motor home, you better have some
cash because most of them now not all, but on
the whole, we see a ton of motor homes in
the like two fifty to five hundred thousand dollars range.
(15:59):
That's like a normal price range for a motor home,
even for a super sat, that's a normal price range,
whereas I've never seen a fifth will go beyond maybe
one hundred and thirty dollars one hundred and thirty thousand, sorry,
one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Now, I'm not saying
that that's where you're gonna pay, but that's the max
that i've seen MSRP for really any kind of tollable.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, and you really don't want to be buying at
those super high ends unless you just have money to
burn anyways, because our views are depreciating. That's just how
it goes. Like when you buy it, it's gained no value.
You really don't want to spend too much money, especially
on your first starter RVW, which is really what we're
talking about here, because once you've done it for a
little bit, you're gonna figure out you might change. We
(16:42):
actually bought ours a little bit on the cheaper side.
We had some options and there was one that we
really really liked and it was at this price range,
and there was a couple that were a little lower
that we're like, yeah, this might work. And we kind
of went more towards the middle low end of our
price range because we were like, we don't know until
we've really started full timing. And this is for us
as full timers. For you is if you're just going
out on the weekend, no big deal. It may not
(17:04):
be as big of a deal for you. But for us,
we were like, we don't know what our life's going
to be like when we're actually in this thing twenty
four to seven. Every single day, our chase may change,
and so we don't want to spend overspend really on
our first full time trailer knowing that we might be
wanting to come back and change it out for something
different down the road.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And transparently we have to say we were biased. Fifth
wheels are our jam.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
We love fifth wheels. We love the liveability of a
fifth wheel.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
You cannot get all of the floor plan options in
a motorized RV. They just can't do it because they
always are going to have to have the driver's seat
in a certain spot, so it's going to limit them
on what they can you know, how creative they can
be on the inside of the camper. And for us,
being able to have a really cool theater seat, den area,
(17:52):
huge rear kitchen at the very very back of our RV,
and then our bedroom and bathroom up towards the top.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Was the perfect floor plan for us.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
So if you're going into this as a full timer,
one thing you need to understand is that your lifestyle
is not going to change. And so this is where
kind of the bells and whistles portion of the discussion
kind of comes up of how much do you want,
what all do you want to deal with? What is
more costly and not really worth it, like things like
a dishwasher, Like we don't have a dishwasher in our RV,
(18:20):
but between the two of us, we don't go through
enough dishes. It's really been fine for the two of us.
But if you and your family, maybe there's five of
you and you're going through dishes. Concept, maybe you could
use paper plates every once in a while, but save
the environment you could use you might want to have
a dishwasher in your RV. And that's totally understandable, and
that goes for a lot of the different bells and whistles,
like what they.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Have things like lighted underbelly. They have things like lighted
cup holders, remote control window shades.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
It's so hard to go pull that window shade down myself.
I know, I know.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
They have all kinds of bells and whistles and some
of the newer RVs, and to be honest, some of
them are really valuable and really helpful and useful, and
some of them are total gimmicks. So you kind of
have to evaluate that just on a case by case basis.
I would say lean more towards in terms of your
final purchase consideration floor plan, the way you like to travel,
(19:17):
the way you like to do life, and if it
comes with bells and whistles, great, If it doesn't, you're
probably not gonna miss many of them anyway.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
So, China, if you have.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
The perfect RV for your family, chime in the comments.
Let us know what RV you picked and why you
picked it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, like your circumstances, because this could be really useful
for somebody else who's looking. They might be able to
search that up and be like, oh no, that makes
sense for me, That makes sense for me. Going to
our V shows, which we're gonna be talking about next week,
is a great way to see all the floor plans
in one place. But talking to other users talking to
other people who've lived this life, have similar needs and
similar I don't know circumstances, and you know, weekend warrior
(19:54):
versus full timer versus I don't know. Retired family of
twoired family of seven, I don't know, Like what is
a retired family of hired.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Family of seven? That would be kind of interesting. Yeah,
if you are a retired family of seven, we want
to hear from.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
You and what r V did you pick?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And what RV did you pick?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Hey campers, we'd love to stay connected. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook,
and YouTube at Wandering our v Babe. Thanks for joining us.
Let's do it again next week and happy camping.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Bye Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do?
This is my We finished an episode happened Dance.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
So there was this couple that came over and they
were like talking and they had this like massive dog
and I was like, they stopp right there. They acknowledged
they were like, oh.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
You guys feel you guys feeling and they just stop it.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
They stop right there and just kept on talking, so,
which I get.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
It's a public park. They can stop whatever they want.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
It was just really funny, like isn't this beautiful totally
oblivious to to film.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
For my audio listeners, there's a beautiful little water way
out here. I don't you know. I'm sure you can
hear the wind a little bit through the mics, but
it is nice. The wind actually feels amazing. It's a
little warm. Granted, we've got some shade on us right
now to kind of protect from the sun, but with
that wind breeze, oh my gosh, I mean it's always
breezier by the water.
Hey, podcast listener, thanks for listening to us on your
way to work or you know, to your next camping trip.
This is a YouTube first show, so if you want
the full experience, go check us out on YouTube too
Doo doo doo doo too tube.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I do like that you have us in the shade.
This is lovely, you know.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
I thought, Hey, if we're gonna be outside, I don't
want the sun beating down on me. Yes, yes, well, okay.
One of the questions we get asked all the time
is I'm a newbie, what kind of our V should
I buy? And that is a loaded, fricking question, like
how am I supposed to know what is good for
you or not good for you?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Like, seriously, it's a little tough to answer that question
in a comment on one of our videos or just
like in a very quick passing conversation. So we have
devoted an entire episode to breaking down every type of
r V there is out there on the market, so
you know what's right for you.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
And we're gonna look like fools, Well we do it.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, We're in a public park, so if people walk
around everywhere, totally fine. Welcome to the Wandering RV show
your source for our stories, our screw up and our
success is living the full time RV life. I'm your host, Kara,
the wandering RV babe.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
This is my driver.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Run had it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
That that was very enthusiastic.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I had to go for like a really like short
sweet and you know done.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh there you go, short sweet done.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So first I think we need to talk about what
are the different kinds of r vs. Yes, an RV
is also a tollable and one that has a motor
behind it, but it's a vehicle. Yes, trailers are vehicles too.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, they don't have to have a motor to be
a vehicle.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
We get that question all the time, or we get
people that come into the comments and they're like, that's
not an RV because it's a tollable like a travel
trailer or fifth wheel or pop up tent one of those.
We'll get into them here in a second. But yes,
they are all under the umbrella of our.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
So here's the different types. You got tiny ones, medium
sized ones, large ones, and really really really big ones.
Some of them are motorized. There's your lesson for the day.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
First up is probably the most basic or entry level
RVs and those are your small towables, pop up tent trailers,
teardrop trailers, things like that. It's one where almost any
vehicle with a toe package can tow it, and it
kind of gets you into the RV world to be
able to start testing things out.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, it's like you could probably toe this with a vehicle,
an suv or a truck that you already own that
you drive back and forth to work for Like, don't
get me wrong, like having a bigger truck is better
when you're driving down the road, but in the case
of like driving to and from work, a small truck,
small suv. I mean, I've even seen like tiny little
jeeps pulling some of these because they're lightweight, they're designed
(02:55):
for it. You could probably pull it with your mom's Mercedes.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
You probably could.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And the nice thing is it still kind of keeps
that camping rustic charm because really they're only big enough
to maybe have a sleeping space, maybe a small little
kitchen prep space, and that's about it. Next up is
going to be the small to medium sized travel trailers.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, these are just bigger versions of the really tiny ones,
but they're longer, they're larger, they have more space, you
can probably still pull it with like a regular half
ton truck. If you can, they're gonna be built lighter
and probably get damaged easier. Or you can upgrade get
a little bit bigger truck and then gives you a
little bit more flexibility. In that way, you're not having
(03:37):
to buy the lightest trailer on the road, because guarantee you,
if it says lite in the name, it's going to
fall apart on you. I've kep from you so many.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, it's gonna be made with the cheapest parts possible
to make it light. The other thing to keep in
mind with the larger towables is you need to have
some practice towing and backing that sucker in, because there's
a ton of RV camp sites that are back in
sites only. So the longer that trailer gets, the more
likely it is that you're gonna have to have a
little bit of a learning curve getting into those spots.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, Like, if you've ever pulled like a little tiny
uhul trailer whenever you're moving or anything like that, you
can probably pull a little tear drop or even a
pop up tent trailer very easily backing in doing all
the things that you need to do. But once you
get passed, honestly, like maybe twenty feet, the whole thing changes.
Your rear axle is so far behind you that you've
(04:28):
got to be making decisions well in advance if you
actually want to back up and do what you want
to do.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
And then you have the daddy of all towables, your
fifth wheels and your toy haulers.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, the fifth wheels. Obviously we're big fans of fifth wheels.
The other advantage we kind of drop the ball, and
this the other advantage of the toe behinds is it
leaves your bed completely open and usable to put toys
or anything else you want to take with you. Whereas
once you enter into the fifth wheel and toy hauler range,
your bed is now a place to hitch in. You
might have a little bit of space around it, but
for the most part, your bed is four hitching and
(05:01):
that is what it is being used for.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Exactly those fifth wheels and most of the toy haulers
that are also fifth wheels, is just a different type
of fifth wheel.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Hitch on top of the bed of the truck, so
that cap is sitting right over the bed of the truck.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
But these are very large and usually very heavy, and
so you are definitely looking at three quarter ton bare minimum,
probably one ton. Even those little half ton fifth wheels,
you're still going to want a probably a three quarter ton.
I just being honest with you, I know you can
probably toe it, but you're gonna be at your max,
and you never want to be at your max.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
When we say three quarter ton, we're talking about a
twenty five hundred or a two point fifty. When we're
talking about a one ton, we're talking about a three
fifty or a thirty five hundred.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Or a four to fifty or four to fifty.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
And then you've got the Duley's and if you've got
a duly, you're gonna be.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
All right, which is four to fifty is always a duly.
And when you're looking at toy haulers, you definitely want
to be looking at a duly because the weight at
the design to be able to handle the weight at
the rear of the trailer puts extra weight on the
bed of the truck, meaning that you're gonna have a
much higher hitch weight, which, by the way, we did
a video on that on our shorts we did.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So check those out if you want to see what
we mean by looking at gross vehicle weight and penwight.
We could actually do a whole episode dedicated to that,
So you have to let us know in the comments
if you want to see that information or hear that
information from us.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
But moving on, we can get real technical if you
want us to.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
So so technical you cannot even understand how technical I
can get.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I really can't, I really can't. I don't think we
broke down toy haulers.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
So toy haulers are essentially their fifth wheels, but they
have a garage in the back so that you can
get toys in there, i e.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Side by sides, motorcycles, things like that.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I've seen some people even take a spare vehicle with them,
like a small jeep, even so that that way they
don't have to drive their big truck around town. They
can literally just drive their jeep off of the little
garage and then now that's their vehicle on the go,
not a Toy haulers are designed for that kind of weight,
so you do need to make sure that the ramp
is rated for getting a full vehicle inside and not
(07:06):
just an ATV because there is a weight difference. Very true.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Now, if you really want to have some fun going
off grid or towing like a boat or something like
that behind you. Truck campers are a great option as well.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, these are basically campers that are designed to fit
into the bed of the truck, not hitch, but like
they actually fit in there. Now you can put struts
down and pull out from it, so it's not like
your truck is stuck there. It's just when you're transporting
down the road, it's taking up your entire bed, but
you still have access possibly to the rear hitch to
be able to take a like you said, a boat
or a toy or something else whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, they're generally designed for between one and two people,
but they often have bedspace, kitchen space, toilet space, things
like that, so that way you can just you know,
be off grid and actually still be able to do
the things that you.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Want to do. Then, starting our first section on motorized vehicles,
the Class B tiny little van, the van lifers.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
That's exactly what a Class B is. I'm not really
sure why.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
The Class A is the big ol' honkin motor home,
the Class B is the van, and then the Class
C is kind of in between the two of them,
but that's the way it is. So a Class C
is a motor home that has a truck front and
then generally like some sort of cap over it. That's
usually where an extra bed will go, and then the
(08:28):
rest of the vehicle is your living quarters.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
But it's gonna be much much smaller than those huge
honkin' buses which are your class as.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Yeah, basically the Class bs are on usually on some
sort of truck or van chassis that's been extended, and
then your Class b's are just on a regular van chassis,
and then your Class a's are on a custom chassis.
That's kind of the easiest way to remember it. But
that's not all. There's more differences. But just fo you understand,
then you got your supercs, which are technically still Class c's.
(08:56):
They're just longer, larger, usually diesel, so that that way
they can handle the extra weight and be able to
drive down the road. Those are very useful, very nice.
They're big, they're basically as big as a Class A
at this point, but they are still on that more
truck chassis feel, if that's what you're comfortable with. Where
basically the big difference. I think I've always described it
(09:18):
to people is whether you're in front of your steering
wheels or behind your steering wheels. Because when you're driving
a truck obviously, or a car, anything, any regular vehicle
down the road, your steering wheels are in front of you.
When you're in a Class A, you're either sitting on
top of them or they're even slightly behind you, and
so like, it really changes how you drive.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
So, now that we've covered all the different types of RVs,
let us know if we missed one in the comments below.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
But we want to get into why you might pick
one over the other.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Well, if you're a couple and it's just the two
of you, you gotta got the pick of the litter,
because honestly, any of these could probably work for just
a guy and his wife, or a guy and his girlfriend,
guy and his boyfriend, is do a girl in her cat?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I don't know any combination of two.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, don't get me wrong, you can absolutely get more
in some of these, but convenience factor aside. Like you
as a couple, you have the entire pick of the litter.
Whatever you want, just like we do is just the
two of us and a dog. So I guess there's
three of us here we go. That's why we needed
something so big. Our dog she needs her own dedicated space.
So that's why we bought a forty foot fifth wheel.
(10:27):
She is a princess and a half. So is this
one right here?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Just say you know, listen, Yeah, it's true, it's very
very true.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
But if you have a bigger family, you're gonna want
to go a little bit bigger to give your family
a little bit more space. That's where we've seen a
lot of families that RV have success with fifth wheels,
toy Holler fifth wheels to be specific, or big motor homes.
One thing I really like about the toy Holler aspect
is I've seen a ton of families take that garage
(10:56):
area of the toy Holler and make it into the
kid's bedroom or vice versa.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
You can make that into mom and dad's master bedroom
and make the front bedroom into the kid's bedroom and
cram them all in there. Totally different, totally two different
options that everyone's done and is really really fun. But
the extra space is nice. There are customized i shouldn't
say customers, There are specialized fifth wheels out there. Four
families called bunk houses where they basically have like a
front bedroom, a mid bedroom, and your regular living space,
(11:24):
so you can still fit in more people.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
You have that in some of the class as as well.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yes, and so obviously the class as are another big
option because they're usually larger, have a lot more space,
definitely when you're traveling down the road, because if you've
got a family of five and you're driving in a truck,
all five where you're taking up that space in that truck,
there's only five seats in a truck, then it's going
to be a lot tighter than if you're in a
motor home where mom and dad or maybe dad's driving
(11:48):
and one of the kids is sitting in the front
seat and all the rest are sitting in the back.
There's a lot more seating while traveling down the road
in a Class A and a Class A Super C,
I won't say a Class A Super C. You'll get
more of that space for the road trip portion.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
In general, if you're trying to decide between a motorized
RV versus a tollable RV, there's two really distinct differences
that you're gonna want to pay attention to. We call
them the journey versus the destination.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
And so what we mean by that is if you
as a family just like to go down the road
and you want to enjoy your time going down the road,
stopping somewhere, hanging out, doing something, but you're still taking
like your motorhome with you. Like I don't know the
best we describe it, but like say you're driving down
the highway and you see some random the biggest ball
of yarn on the side of the road, and you
want to be able to stop, grab all your kids,
(12:36):
go out there, take some pictures, YadA, YadA, YadA, and
then move on your merry little way. That's where something
like a motor home is really really beneficial because you're
essentially you're enjoying the journey, you're stopping along the way,
you're doing things. Whereas for us, we're more destination people.
So our journey is just about getting from point A
to point B, and we essentially, like once we hitch
up in the morning, we're on the highway, we're stopping
(12:57):
for lunch and potty breaks, and that's it until we
get to where we want to go. So then we
unhitch and we go explore.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
I think the other main difference though, with a Class
A and being able to kind of leisurely take that
journey is you don't have to stop for your passengers
to use the bathroom. In a Class A or any
kind of motor home, really, you don't have to stop
for your passengers to jump into the fridge and grab
lunch or something like that. You only have to stop
if the driver needs to stop, whereas in a fifth
(13:24):
wheel or any kind of toe behind, you're definitely gonna
have to stop for bathroom breaks.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Not all fifth wheels will allow you access to.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
The fridge or even the bathroom sometimes within the fifth
wheel when all the slides are in, so you do
have to kind of keep that in mind as well.
So you're definitely gonna have to stop more often just
to make some of those breaks. When you have a
big family and you've got a lot of tiny bladders,
motor home might be where it's at.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
She's got a tiny bladder, it's like an hour, like
it's just on the dot every hour for like the
whole first couple of hours of every day, and by
afternoon she starts to dry up a little bit.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Well, once my coffee has you know, once I'm done
with the coffee and the coffee has run through me,
then I'm good to go. And we can drive a
couple of hours at a time, but in the mornings, man,
every hour on the hour, we just have to have
a stop.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And the nice thing is by having a fifth wheel
with a truck and our truck, it's not a long bed.
We don't have a big old huge gas tank in it,
diesel tank in it, and so what it kind of
works out because we have to stop for her bathroom breaks. Anyways,
I originally was planning on getting like an extra thing
to store more diesel so that way we could get
farther down the road. And then in the end of point,
what's the point I'm having to stop for her bathroom break?
(14:35):
So think about your own like travel like you, I'm
sure even if you have an RV, you've probably gone
on a road trip with your family or your spouse
or your partner, and so you can kind of conceptualize
as you extend that out, what are the use case
scenarios and what we're talking about about getting into the
bathroom and the kitchen and stuff like that. When you're
talking about like a fifth wheel, like we have slide outs,
(14:55):
so when our slides come in, we can't access the fridge,
we can't access the bathroom. But we have run into
not very many, but one or two where the sides
actually prevented you from accessing the bathroom, and those are
just non starters for us, because it doesn't matter what's
happening if you want to be able to stop going
down the road and be able to like just get
out and be like, I need to use a bathroom
right now, and I don't want to wait till the
(15:16):
next gas station or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And that's simple to.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Consider when you're in the market and you're looking at
different floor plans. Is one liveability and two like how
do you actually move around? Is what I mean by that,
how do you like to function on the daily in
your home? Because that's going to be important too, but
also access to the bathroom, the fridge, things like that.
(15:38):
The other big difference with motor homes versus towables is price. Yes,
if you have a motor home, you better have some
cash because most of them now not all, but on
the whole, we see a ton of motor homes in
the like two fifty to five hundred thousand dollars range.
(15:59):
That's like a normal price range for a motor home,
even for a super sat, that's a normal price range,
whereas I've never seen a fifth will go beyond maybe
one hundred and thirty dollars one hundred and thirty thousand, sorry,
one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Now, I'm not saying
that that's where you're gonna pay, but that's the max
that i've seen MSRP for really any kind of tollable.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, and you really don't want to be buying at
those super high ends unless you just have money to
burn anyways, because our views are depreciating. That's just how
it goes. Like when you buy it, it's gained no value.
You really don't want to spend too much money, especially
on your first starter RVW, which is really what we're
talking about here, because once you've done it for a
little bit, you're gonna figure out you might change. We
(16:42):
actually bought ours a little bit on the cheaper side.
We had some options and there was one that we
really really liked and it was at this price range,
and there was a couple that were a little lower
that we're like, yeah, this might work. And we kind
of went more towards the middle low end of our
price range because we were like, we don't know until
we've really started full timing. And this is for us
as full timers. For you is if you're just going
out on the weekend, no big deal. It may not
(17:04):
be as big of a deal for you. But for us,
we were like, we don't know what our life's going
to be like when we're actually in this thing twenty
four to seven. Every single day, our chase may change,
and so we don't want to spend overspend really on
our first full time trailer knowing that we might be
wanting to come back and change it out for something
different down the road.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And transparently we have to say we were biased. Fifth
wheels are our jam.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
We love fifth wheels. We love the liveability of a
fifth wheel.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
You cannot get all of the floor plan options in
a motorized RV. They just can't do it because they
always are going to have to have the driver's seat
in a certain spot, so it's going to limit them
on what they can you know, how creative they can
be on the inside of the camper. And for us,
being able to have a really cool theater seat, den area,
(17:52):
huge rear kitchen at the very very back of our RV,
and then our bedroom and bathroom up towards the top.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Was the perfect floor plan for us.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
So if you're going into this as a full timer,
one thing you need to understand is that your lifestyle
is not going to change. And so this is where
kind of the bells and whistles portion of the discussion
kind of comes up of how much do you want,
what all do you want to deal with? What is
more costly and not really worth it, like things like
a dishwasher, Like we don't have a dishwasher in our RV,
(18:20):
but between the two of us, we don't go through
enough dishes. It's really been fine for the two of us.
But if you and your family, maybe there's five of
you and you're going through dishes. Concept, maybe you could
use paper plates every once in a while, but save
the environment you could use you might want to have
a dishwasher in your RV. And that's totally understandable, and
that goes for a lot of the different bells and whistles,
like what they.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Have things like lighted underbelly. They have things like lighted
cup holders, remote control window shades.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
It's so hard to go pull that window shade down myself.
I know, I know.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
They have all kinds of bells and whistles and some
of the newer RVs, and to be honest, some of
them are really valuable and really helpful and useful, and
some of them are total gimmicks. So you kind of
have to evaluate that just on a case by case basis.
I would say lean more towards in terms of your
final purchase consideration floor plan, the way you like to travel,
(19:17):
the way you like to do life, and if it
comes with bells and whistles, great, If it doesn't, you're
probably not gonna miss many of them anyway.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
So, China, if you have.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
The perfect RV for your family, chime in the comments.
Let us know what RV you picked and why you
picked it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, like your circumstances, because this could be really useful
for somebody else who's looking. They might be able to
search that up and be like, oh no, that makes
sense for me, That makes sense for me. Going to
our V shows, which we're gonna be talking about next week,
is a great way to see all the floor plans
in one place. But talking to other users talking to
other people who've lived this life, have similar needs and
similar I don't know circumstances, and you know, weekend warrior
(19:54):
versus full timer versus I don't know. Retired family of
twoired family of seven, I don't know, Like what is
a retired family of hired.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Family of seven? That would be kind of interesting. Yeah,
if you are a retired family of seven, we want
to hear from.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
You and what r V did you pick?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And what RV did you pick?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Hey campers, we'd love to stay connected. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook,
and YouTube at Wandering our v Babe. Thanks for joining us.
Let's do it again next week and happy camping.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Bye Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do?
This is my We finished an episode happened Dance.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
So there was this couple that came over and they
were like talking and they had this like massive dog
and I was like, they stopp right there. They acknowledged
they were like, oh.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
You guys feel you guys feeling and they just stop it.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
They stop right there and just kept on talking, so,
which I get.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
It's a public park. They can stop whatever they want.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
It was just really funny, like isn't this beautiful totally
oblivious to to film.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
For my audio listeners, there's a beautiful little water way
out here. I don't you know. I'm sure you can
hear the wind a little bit through the mics, but
it is nice. The wind actually feels amazing. It's a
little warm. Granted, we've got some shade on us right
now to kind of protect from the sun, but with
that wind breeze, oh my gosh, I mean it's always
breezier by the water.
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