RV Travel, Tips, Tricks and Pitfalls

  It seems like those of us who enjoy the RV lifestyle all have a different opinion of how to get around once arrived and hooked up at a destination campground. Of course, if you’re pulling a trailer or a fifth wheel, you have the option of unhooking and using the tow vehicle to go wherever you like. When we had our travel trailer we towed it with a very comfortable Ford pickup truck, and the truck served as our local transportation wherever we went. And if you are in a Class B or B+, your RV is likely small enough to be both your home while camping and your local transportation. That leaves the rest of us who are driving either Class A or Class C motorhomes. We have choices, but none of them are great. We can flat-tow a vehicle behind our rig, which requires a vehicle designed for flat towing; a tow bar system; a braking system in the towed vehicle, and a modification to the towed vehicle called a “base plate”. The extra weight added to the towing vehicle is minimal, usually less ...

Bari and I went ‘Buddy Camping’ last weekend with Allison and David Cranmer. We went to Cedar Key. We had several “FIRSTS” on this trip. This is the first time we’ve towed a car behind our RV using a tow dolly. It was an uneventful drive, and the little KIA Soul went on and off the dolly easily. I had greased the wheel bearings and inflated the tires to the proper pressure before leaving. All in all, it worked great. The next “FIRST” was a buzzing sound, like an electrical hum coming from under the starboard bunk in the rear of the RV. I disassembled the bed and found the Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS) humming like a kazoo player on amphetamines. I tapped the box and the humming subsided. We had dinner and then made ready for bed. The buzzing came back and I figured it needed a bit more ‘tapping’, so I opened up the compartment under the bed and hit it again. The sound didn’t change, so I grabbed one of the input wires and gave it a shake. The AC immediately shut off and I knew we wer...

Whoever said “There is nothing quite so constant as change..” must have had us in mind.  After getting our   2021 Coachmen RV Freedom Express Ultra Lite 248RBS set up just the way we wanted it, the urge to change came over us once again. There are many reasons an RV owner might want to get a different vehicle. Their RV might be too big or too small. It might not have a feature that the owner really wants. It might just be getting older and costing too much to maintain. In fact, none of this applied to us. This time the urge was driven by economics!   When we sold our Winnebago Intent and bought the 2021 Coachmen RV Freedom Express Ultra Lite 248RBS, we paid a little over $26,000 for the trailer Then we had to find a tow vehicle, which cost an additional $37,000. We already had all of the necessary towing equipment, so we were able to just hook up and go.    In October we enjoyed a three-week trip to the national parks in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, ...

We have owned our 2021 Coachmen RV Freedom Express Ultra Lite 248RBS for about six months. We’ve trailed it over 5,000 miles. We tow it with a Ford F-150 STX 4x4 with the 3.5 Twin Turbo and the Max Tow package. We use a Blue Ox Sway-Pro system.   All in all, we are quite satisfied with the trailer. But we have had a few problems, and we’ve made several modifications to make it a bit more comfortable.  The first thing we did was replace all four Chinese tires with Good Year Endurance tires. We simply do not trust the OEM Chinese tires. We found the 4” rear bumper sewer hose storage to be woefully inadequate, so we added a 5” square tube of equal length just below the original equipment. We can easily store 100’ of sewer hose and the elbow, too! We added a screen door crossbar handle to make closing the door easier. We installed a second TV on the wall in the bedroom. We use a bungee to keep it in place while traveling. We fabricated two boards to use instead of lowering the ...

As is the norm, our quest for a roomier RV began in earnest at an RV show. We looked at travel trailers longer than our own 20-foot Coachmen. We investigated Class C, Class A, and the new Class B’s that were sort of a narrow camper, built on a Sprinter chassis.     Plenty of RV Shows Helped Us To Narrow Our Choices We felt the Sprinters (Winnebago Travato, Airstream Interstate, Chinook Countryside, etc.) were a bit too small and way more expensive than we would find comfortable. The larger class B-Plus units were attractive, but we just couldn’t see ourselves spending that much money.  Airstream Interstate Class B Sprinter We looked at several Class A motorhomes in the 30-to-34-foot range. They seemed huge and complicated. Lots of systems to keep track of, and plenty of things to go wrong.  We particularly liked the discontinued Winnebago Brave tribute models built from 2015 to 2017, but we couldn’t find any for sale.    A Classic Brought Back  As...

The Coveted 'Full Hookup'  We had a great time learning the ins and outs of RV camping in our little Freedom 204RD. On our ‘maiden voyage' we went to nearby Lake Kissimmee State Park, where we learned how to plug into the 30-amp service and hook up to the freshwater system provided by the park. A neighbor warned us that the park's water pressure often fluctuated, and too much pressure could damage the water system in the trailer. He advised if we didn’t have a pressure regulator for the water system to avoid turning the spigot to ‘full-on”. We listened and followed his advice. We also learned about the 'dump station', and heard other campers sing the praises of a ‘full hook up’.    Our new Ford F-150 looked like it could pull the trailer with no problem. But I soon learned that it was not completely up to the task. With a 5-liter V8 engine and a 3.53 gear ratio, the specs seemed to indicate the truck would be sufficient. What we had not considered were the real ...