In The Beginning

Our DIY Square Drop Camper

In the past, I loved camping in a tent. My tent, cooking apparatus, and bedroll would all fit into my kayak. I enjoyed adventures exploring Florida rivers. 

 

My wife, however, had no camping experience whatsoever. To add to her comfort, I built this little 'square drop’ camper in our garage. All I wanted to do was get sleeping bags off the ground.  However, the idea of sleeping in a box did not appeal to Bari. It became clear we would need to find something more comfortable.

 

We started visiting RV dealers in the Orlando area. We looked at a variety of camping options, from @TAB travel trailers to Tiffin Class A coaches. At that time, we did not have a budget or any specific plan in mind… just an idea that maybe this would be something fun and different. 

 

We decided to attend the Tampa RV show (one of the nation’s largest) to get a better idea of available options. The variety of RVs and the obvious differences in manufacturing quality became apparent as we walked through the show inspecting various aspects of RV marketing and manufacturing. 

 

We were true greenhorns! We didn’t know what we were looking for and didn’t understand the myriad nuances in RV life we would later encounter. For instance, many travel trailers have ducted air conditioning while others do not. We did not fully comprehend what this would mean in terms of personal comfort while camping in Florida’s high heat and humidity. (Not to mention the noise level of the non-ducted A/C systems!)

 

Neither did we understand how the towing capacity of a vehicle can contribute to the overall travel experience. Surprisingly, RV dealers have little knowledge of how to match a tow vehicle to a trailer. Even more surprising was their willingness to share incorrect information. So doing our own research was important!

 

To date, we have bought and sold five recreation vehicles. We did not understand enough about the actual towing relationship to make an educated decision until after we had bought (and sold) our first RV! 

 

In 2017, we found a local dealer who had purchased 45 Coachmen Freedom Express Ultra Lite 204RD travel trailers for the big show in Tampa. The list price at the time was $26,495. The ‘show’ price was $19,995. After their show, we looked at two of the four remaining on their lot. The salesperson wandered off to help someone else while we continued our inspection inside the travel trailers. 

 

Another employee came by and asked if we had any questions. He introduced himself as their finance manager. Off-handedly, I told him we liked this little travel trailer, and if they would sell it for $15,000 out-the-door, we would buy one. Surprisingly, he said he thought they could do that and led us into his office. About an hour later, we were proud owners of a brand new, current year Coachmen travel trailer. However, we did not have a vehicle to tow it! Three days later I returned to the dealership to pick up our trailer with a new Ford F-150. We bought a Blue Ox equalizer towing system, had it installed, and were finally full-fledged RVers.

 

After they attached the tow bars and hooked up the electrical cord, we participated in a perfunctory orientation regarding the care and use of our new RV. They gave us plenty of information, most of which we forgot, and we erroneously assumed everything would be written in our owner's manual. That is when our learning curve began to steepen. 

In our next post, we will reveal several parts of our learning curve brought to us by both experience and other RVers we encountered as we ventured into the world of RV travel. 

Our first real RV