I think I’m going to have to put a pin in this for a year. While I want to jump in, there’s a lot of layers to the onion to consider. I’m writing this to share with those interested in the travel trailer all kinds of things to consider, and how I have to plan for this. And – some other options!

Below – I’m going to go over a lot of the reasons I cannot do it at this time, but some things to consider and plan for to ensure this is done the right way. My huge attraction here was finding an undervalued asset, acquire it, and then grow into it. Where I was looking – they were having the best I can describe as fire sales on 2022s still left on the lot with 2024s coming. We’re talking $20k off on a lot of these.

  1. Safety

My biggest reason at the moment is safety. I’m concerned my current truck cannot haul this trailer safely for any real distances. This led to hearing a “half ton truck” for the first time in my life. Had no idea what that was, but my RAM 1500 qualifies as it. With this, I figured some smaller trailers would be fine. I’d be correct with that. However, when I started to look, I fell in love with a 31′ camper that was 5800 pounds. The smaller ones with a Murphy bed kinda thing? I figured I needed to pass on that.

This then leads you to some people talking about the “80% rule”. For example, my truck was rated to tow 8,000 pounds, but I thought it was 10,200 pounds. I had to end up calling my RAM dealership so they could tell me the axle ratio of my truck and my specific trim level. None of this is easily apparent with my truck. While I have the 5.7L V8 Hemi – it only has a 3.21 gear ratio and not the 3.92. In research I found this means your tires would spin faster with the 3.92 than the 3.21. I’m not a mechanic – but when you look up the charts you find the 3.21 can only tow 8,000 and the 3.92 can tow 10,200. Meaning, I needed to first understand my vehicle. I would encourage anyone looking at a travel trailer to first take a deep look at what they currently have.

With this, you find a lot of people suggesting you should not tow more than 80% of what your vehicle can tow for. This then puts me at 6400 pounds. I’m good, right? Well, the 5800 pounds of the trailer weight is “dry weight”. The first salesman I talked to said to add 1,000 pounds to the dry weight. I think I spoke with the owner on Thursday and he said 500 pounds. My father in law suggested 2000 pounds.

I think if it was 500 pounds, add it to the 5800 and I’d be fine at 6300. If 80% is 6400, then I’m under by 100 pounds. But the 500-1000-2000 variances bug me a bit. I have a 3 year old and a 14 year old. I can’t just wing this. If it were 2000 pounds on 5800, that takes me to 7800. If 80% is 6400 then I’m over, by a lot.

Too many variables at the moment.

2. Power

While I talked about the above with safety, my truck can pull 8,000 pounds. It was just something as simple as getting the gear ratio changed, right? I looked up online and I had seen things where it would cost $1,000 per axle. This was doable. But I called my dealer and he actually chuckled and told me closer to $7,000. Meaning, I had two choices – get a trailer that was much lower in weight, or shop for a car that could tow more.

With my 2018 RAM 1500, by all objective measures, I have roughly $10,000 in equity on it. I adopted a policy a few years back that I only wanted to buy low mileage 3 year old cars ever again. The first owner loses 50% of their equity when they drive it off the lot, and I make out by getting a car with 30-40k mileage that should run well for awhile. The RAM 1500 was the first pickup I ever owned. While this thing is fast and powerful, my issue at the moment is that as a daily driver it isn’t extremely comfortable. It is the ST model, which has pretty much no bells and whistles. When I bought this, it was during COVID and no one was driving much into the office. Now that I’m driving into the office more, the discomfort with the ride becomes more apparent over the 90 minute trek. With these trailers, I want to visit local and regional sites with the kids, but the main reason is to have it to see the in laws in NY. They live 4.5 hours away, are in their 70s, and I like the idea of taking a hotel room up there to not put them out. However, good luck affording hotel rooms or airBnBs on Long Island. Trailer campers are about the only economical means of doing it.

With all of that being said, my truck I’ve now had for 5 years. I started to look at RAM 1500s that are 2020s and can tow 10,200 pounds and these numbers are STARTING at the $40k range. On top of that, you are looking at 8-10% auto loans.

With all of my writing on macro economics – I know better than to buy a truck right now. I feel we are approaching the beginning of a nasty recession, and with this, waiting 6-12 months for used car prices to collapse, along with rates, is probably my best play here. While the value of my car will undoubtedly go down, so would the cost of one of these. I would probably look at getting something like a Laramie for comfort, but this now opens up the world to lots of different trucks with 6 months of research ahead to perhaps pull the trigger early next year.

For the record, even glancing at a 3/4 ton (2500) and full ton (3500) is silliness at the moment. Not only do I not want these for a daily driver to Maryland, but I don’t want to drive an uncomfortable diesel work truck to do so.

Ford F150s apparently make a V6 that are 3.4L and can tow like 12,000 pounds. While I’d like a V8 over a V6, that towing level is impressive, and a V6 for a daily driver may be more appealing for the wallet with gas money. I once owned a Ford for a year 20 years ago, and while it ran smoothly, it was probably the lowest tier of car and basic beyond belief. Meaning, my experience with Ford was reliable, but ugly and uncomfortable.

If I want to do this, I think any truck I look for should by a half ton with higher towing capacity – I feel a low end of 10,000 in my threshold. This would then allow me to safely haul 8,000 pounds. Most of the campers I liked were 5500-6800 pounds. So now I will do my research on trucks the next few months.

This is similar to what my current truck looks like.

3. Costs with extras

When you looked at the sticker costs of what I was looking at, it was $258 per month at a $29,999 sticker price. That’s very doable. But then you need to buy a ball hitch mount for $300. Weight distribution hitch and sway bars. Maybe $1200-1400. Then there are videos that show you a lot of the accessories you may need for hookups. Sheets for the beds. Etc etc. Before long, you have a list of perhaps $3.000 in extras. The payment quoted then came back a little higher because I didn’t have the top tier credit. Before long, I’m looking at a serious commitment here.

4. Costs with insurance and storage

I hadn’t even considered insurance into my calculations, but a rough estimate here is about $50 per month for that and $60 for storage, which I had banked on $40. This is $110 between them. With the above, we are now at about $410-$440 per month. For me, this is a bit over the $258 I had in my head, but ok. We can then use a lot of time to camp!!

5. Seasonality

There’s a whole RV culture with the best camp grounds and with this, you have to book a lot of these in advance. Like the day the calendars open. My main reason for the RV was camping on the beach at Smith Point, NY and visiting the in-laws. Well, that app is a shit show. And, because they are packed like sardines on Long Island, the entire season can literally fill up in minutes. Yeah. Re-read that. So it’s now early June, I don’t have an RV yet. Zero chance of getting any spots there.

Then I started looking at some other interesting camp grounds near me. Yep. Booked up. And these websites suck pretty badly for trying to find time to book. They are a time suck and they aren’t super friendly to help you navigate when things are indeed available.

So I’m then looking at getting this thing and not really being able to use it this year. So, why the rush?

6. Skills

I’ve never towed a trailer. Many were giving me a lot of grief on this. Perhaps they are right to do so, but it rubbed me the wrong way. Many millions of people are driving with trailers and they figured it out. I have two master’s degrees and need to know the nuance of every detail of a skill. So, I’d want to learn about it and practice as much as possible before I ever put the kids in there. Still, the thought of buying the thing, then them throwing the keys at me and driving off the lot with it created some anxiety with me. This RV place didn’t exactly seem easy to drive out of with one of these things.

I also worry about needing someone with you to drive this thing for backing up purposes. I know they make some cameras for these things, but is it standard on some? A few hundred bucks of an aftermarket upgrade? This isn’t readily apparent when you are looking for these things. I watched a few videos on this, but need to spend more time understanding how to even drive it off the lot and how it comes equipped.

With people like me, I want to surround myself with people who know more about things than me. How I respond to things like this is asking people to teach me or ask how I can get the skills needed. Many were throwing their hands up. People like me don’t operate well with negative influences. We like to overcome. Adapt. Understand. I’m not the kind of guy who walks away, from anything.

7. The wife

I’m a VERY positive guy that manages change for a living. In my profession, daily, you hear “but that’s the way we always did it”. My job, day in and day out, is to implement change and with this, I find obstacles and defeat them. This is kind of why I feel that no matter what obstacles are in front of me, I’m able to be successful. Some obstacles may be more challenging than others – but you get on board or get out my my way, change is coming.

My wife…..doesn’t embrace change. She sees nothing but risks and status quo. To an extent, it frustrates the hell out of me, but she’s also been a great partner in keeping me somewhat anchored. She was not onboard with this. She wants a patio/deck. I get it – and this is a philosophical issue at the moment. A travel trailer commits you to….travel. An investment into a deck/patio commits you to…spending more time at home. My main thing right now is getting the asset dirt cheap – but those patio people are still charging extremely high jacked up prices due to supply/demand. So – IF my macro vision is correct, it’s possible we can do both next year. Wait for more trailers to come available, AND wait until the housing market really rolls over and the patio people come down on prices. In both cases I’d be borrowing as I’m in severe cash preservation mode, so it makes sense to borrow when rates are more favorable. And – I couldn’t even part on the RV lot due to how many campers were there. Bullwhip effect may still be there next year.

But you need to have your partner on board with any major financial decision, even if you are the one paying for it. While I think we will get to a good place, I think it makes sense to continue the research and get more of our couple friends involved who have done this.

My friends Justin and April (April is like a cousin to me, our moms were best friends) did RVing across the country for like 18 months running their real estate business from there. I took a ton of their pictures from their trip on the last post. They are also pretty experienced with boondocking, which is not having hookups at camp grounds. They have offered to tell us all, and I’d like to take them up on that sometime with the wife involved so we can hear about the good, the bad – the ugly – and the amazing places they went!

8. Used

I hadn’t really considered used. However, I watched some RV videos of first time buying and the suggestion was to buy used. Perhaps 4-5 years old may be the sweet spot. And, if the economy is going to do what I think it’s going to do, by this time next year the market can be flooded with used RVs. It’s possible a used one that is 4-5 years old has worse financing conditions, but if someone just ate half of the value of the thing for owning it for 3-4 years and it is in really good shape, it makes sense to consider this option.

This will give me a good oppportunity to understand the market place better. What are the higher end versus lower end. Where are the best places to buy used? What should I look for with a used RV?

9. RV friends

My wife has some friends who have done some of this. I have a few. I think it makes sense over the next year to talk with as many of them as possible. Understand the good camp grounds. The bad ones. How to schedule these things. What they would have done differently. What they love and hate about it. I have gone to some really cool places in my life which transform me into a different person. I want to be that person a lot more than someone who just sits around the house on the weekends and rots.

Back when I was doing lots of training, I wanted to get an RV also to do half ironmans. Take the family in one of these for a week trip, get there, soak in the vacation, and one day I just happen to go exercising for 6 hours. The family can completely fall in love with nature, and I have a travel hotel room.

I just imagine doing one of these in Lake Placid or Coeur D’alene. You are on your 56 or so mile bike ride, and you see this…

I would not be doing the halfs to win them. I’d be doing them for the experiences. Many of these people travel in RVs, and I couldn’t think of a group of people more to befriend.

10. Navigation

I’m extremely worried about driving these types of vehicles without understanding how to navigate. What I mean is – when driving to my in-laws in NY, you cannot go through certain toll booths due to the height. Many of the bridges to LI on Souther States have like 9-10′ clearances. Rumor is, they intentionally built a lot of this low to keep city people out using buses to come out there. I have heard you can buy like a Garmin for $800 which is friendly to RV navigation, but for now I’m trying to see if there’s any Waze-like app that exists that can be used. I need to be able to trust that I’m getting on a highway that has proper clearances.

11. Family makeup

I mentioned I have a 3 year old. I think I’m petrified of the kid waking up in the middle of the night and letting himself out of the camper. Maybe there’s means of preventing this, but there’s a lot of risk right now. It might still be there at 4. And 5. But right now this kid is a bundle of energy and being couped up in one of these during a rainy day isn’t ideal. There’s just a lot of unknown unknowns with this at the moment that I need to ponder and de-risk. I could still get the asset, and use it later, but I’m going to hit the snooze button.

Optionality

One of my friends commented on my RV stuff with a thought about her Jayco Motorhome. They have a rather large family by today’s standards, and this seems appealing – a truck/camper in one. And – while travleing to your destination, your family can relax in the comforts of the interior.

This is an example of a motorhome. Looks like you need a Class C license for this, and likewise, this can cost with insurance perhaps up to $900 a month. You can also two your car/truck with this. You could spend $800 in a week on a rental car alone if you went with your family somewhere flying. I can also imagine for a family of like 5 to fly places you are then looking at thousands of dollars in air travel.

At this moment, I’m not considering this, but I am thinking about this down the road. Perhaps after a travel trailer? Perhaps if I was in a semi-retirement position I would consider this?

In my career, I can also take travel gigs for weeks/months which pay EXTREMELY well. With the 3 year old, this is out. But if he is like 8 and I can make $1000-$3000 a day consulting somewhere in the northeast corridor, I’d be silly not to have an ability to drive long distances in something like this, stay at a campground for weeks/months, and tow my every day car with me. I could drive the 3-5 hours home on weekends, but have a much less expensive place to be during the week.

Anyway – here is the plan

  1. Keep researching!
  2. Plan for upgrade of tow vehicle in early 2023. IF prices come down and IF rates come down. WANT over 10,000 tow capacity AND be a daily driver AND get decent MPG AND be comfortable for longer rides
  3. Decide on how to do navigation and make a decision.
  4. Look at 3-5 year old RV with the best name brands. If there’s a mfg warranty, pay to transfer it for $100. Rather than look for new at $30k, maybe find a 3-5 year old high quality for $15k in bad recession times. Maybe pay cash then to avoid any payments with 10%+ interest.
  5. Continue to get a list of the best campgrounds in the northeast and build schedules when these things book.
  6. Continue to get advice from those who know about this than me. A LOT of advice.
  7. Talk with friends about RV trips down the road so I’m not so alone if something goes wrong.
  8. Find creative ways to practice driving any trailers. Might start with a ball hitch and pulling a small trailer for practice and going into vacant lots and practice backing up.