Hello from two Virginia Newbies!

[WD3D]

After lusting at the thought of having an RV at our disposal for some time, my wife and I got serious about looking some months ago (and it doesn't help that a Camping World is just down the road that we drive by all the time). She likes to camp (like in a tent), I consider roughing it to not having a coffee maker in my room... an RV seemed to be the perfect compromise! Plus, attending music festivals I can now stay onsite and get the full experience rather than running off to some hotel!

We initially focused on trailers... and spent months researching, looking at trailers, picking out the features that we thought important and narrowing down our search and thought... hey we should rent a trailer and do a test run. That trip alone convinced me to abandon the concept of a towable unit in favor of a driveable unit... so the search changed from trailer to Class C.

We went in with the thought it would really be us 2 plus a dog almost all of the time but would like the ability to sleep 4 should the need arise. I had kind of put 24' as a max length (which may, in retrospect, been more of something I determined when focusing on a towable trailer). So... we spent weekends perusing the lots of local RV dealers (some more local than others... some not very local at all), to get a chance to see the different options, layouts, etc... and, as luck would have it, went last weekend to our local Camping World who had a "almost new" 2019 Freedom Elite 30FE (3k on the odometer) with some mods the prior owner had so graciously done (loved the custom leather recliners they put in lieu of the couch). No matter what I did, I kept coming back to this unit even though it was way larger than planned, had more room/sleeping space than we were targeting and had a silly number of TVs and other amenities that weren't really high on the priority list... but what a tremendous value!

So, tomorrow I take delivery of said unit... all 32 ft of her. And we're off on our first adventure tomorrow night.

I want to thank everyone for the posts and insights we gained from these boards... while there are certainly a good deal of issues raised, there are far more nuggets of wisdom here that can only be gained by experience and I thank you all for sharing yours!

Looking forward to our RV experience and continuing to benefit from these boards and the collective experience of you all.

Bill and Lorraine

[Bob Denman]

Congratulations on finding the best compromise for your method of camping, and welcome to the Forum!

(My Missus always felt as if it was camping; when room service shut down before midnight... )

[JamieGeek]

Congratulations and welcome.

[Mr Sunshine]

Welcome and congrats on your purchase!

Suggest you go to here and print off the PDI checklist starting on pg 22: https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?...OJH9I0NBzwm44w

You'll find other useful info there which applies to most Class As and Cs. Ed Felker assembled this excellent crowd-sourced manual for Vegas/Axis.

[WD3D]

I downloaded that guide some time ago and already have the checklists at the ready! It is very helpful.

[Mr Sunshine]

Bill and Lorraine-
You are on the right track and have a running start! Take your time with the PDI, and if you can, video the whole presentation. Make them show you every switch and appliance, with and without shore power. Ask for a phone number that you can call after hours with questions.

Take your new rig to a big mall type parking lot and practice cornering and backing. Learn how much tail swing you have when you pull away from places like gas pumps.

You are smart to plan a shakedown close to home and right away. Let your forum friends know how it goes!

[Pete'sMH]

Congratulations on your new rig. I think you’ll be glad you went a little bigger than you planned. Some folks really like little but WAY more of us have ended up trading up to your size - or even larger. IMHO 24ft gets real small after about a week on the road. We traded our 26ft Freedom Elite - which was a perfectly nice machine - for a 32 ft class A after only 8,000 miles and 8 months. Enjoy your travels!

[WD3D]

Well our maiden voyage was very nice. The only "issue" we have is that the bathroom floor gets quite wet when showering... I cannot tell if it is poor caulking in the shower enclosure or if there is some issue with the shower drain. I'll probably recaulk this week and see if that clears it up first (because that is a quick and easy fix).

We're quite happy with the size, even had family pop in on us for one night and they had plenty of room (and comfort) too. Easy to set up, easy to pack up and stow, easy to drive... I think we'll make another short run this coming weekend as we add to our list of "damn... we needed to bring xxx" or "that coffee pot is horrible!" lists that we've begun.

Oh, and of course that first-world issue of not being able to figure out how to get netflix from our iphones working with the TVs (turns out I had a bad cable).

All in all, an incredibly successful first trip. Getting set for #2 next weekend.

[Bob Denman]

Glad to hear that you're already having so much fun with it!