BLOG: Living that RV Life!

[m00npie]

Last Wednesday, my buddy Jeff and I embarked on a five day trip from Oklahoma to Hurricane, West Virginia (and eventually back) in a rented 2022 Class B RV. We drove to West Virginia to attend Boatfest, a small gathering of retrocomputing enthusiasts. I’ll be writing more about Boatfest tomorrow, but today I wanted to write about our experience with and in the RV. The RV we rented was a 2022 Class B Entrada motorhome by EAST TO WEST. Class B motorhomes are built on van frames (this one was a Ford E-350), so it is relatively short (24′) compared… (read more)

Source: https://www.robohara.com/?p=14324

[k8track]

Your experience seems mixed, but hopefully you'll remember the fun parts more. I've never rented or driven an RV. My version of that was packing up my trunk with my two-person tent and camping equipment, and away I'd go. I remember the weekend back in the summer of 1999 when I went up to Folklore Village (~30 minutes away from Madison, Wisconsin) for a Swedish Midsummer Festival. I was happy as a clam sleeping in my tent with air mattress. I never really did much solo camping, but in 2003-2004, my (then) fiancee (you remember Kazue, Rob?) and did a ton of camping all over the place, taking several interstate trips and finding campgrounds to stay at with our tent. We had our lovely assortment of vintage picnicking equipment we'd gotten from several different antique and thrift stores. We had a little propane stove (the most bare bones thing ever that you'd just screw to a gas canister), boil a kettle of water and make Japanese food. Those were the best times ever.

[Flack]

The beds in the RV were not comfortable. They were more than uncomfortable. They were literally painful, and we dreaded sleeping on them. Someone recently told me that the mattresses in RVs are merely place holders until you can buy your own. I don't know if they were being funny or not, but I believed them. A lot of the trip rolled downhill from there... like, if you dread going to bed and you wake up hurting, the day starts out on the wrong foot.

My whole dream in regards to the van thing is to be able to go on short trips and sleep in my van to save money. That's really it. The RV just isn't designed for that -- it's designed to park at campsites and leave it there. The guy who rented it to us said it really wants to be plugged in to power to charge things often. In my van, my portable battery will recharge from the 12v adapter (and/or solar, if I add it). For me, the fun is in saving money and stealth parking around town, which the RV is... not stealthy, to say the least.

One thing I've read and am learning is that RVs and camper vans will not change who you are. If you don't like camping in the forest or hiking in the sum now, you won't after buying one of these vehicles, either. Like I said, my idea is to do things like drive to Arkadia, spend the day there, crash in the parking lot, and then come home the next day.