Q for Full-Timers - TOAD vs Rent?

[Down South]

Originally Posted by Judge

So the first question you need to answer for yourself is.....

Will you only be visiting mostly well-populated urban areas or do you plan to get out into the suburbs, national parks, remote areas, etc.?

If you will be only visiting and staying in urban areas, then you might be able to get by without a toad. But let me give you some personal real-time experience.....

I've got a 35' Magnitude Super C and we pull a vehicle (a Jeep or a Can-Am Spyder on a trailer). We don't full-time but will spend weeks on the road.

We are in the Smokey Mountains this week. Traffic and parking is unbelievable this time of year.... even mid-week.

I watched people in small Class C's and even larger Class C's (~30 - 32 Feet) trying to site see on narrow and winding roads as well as trying to find a place to park. Watching motorhomes going up to Clingman's Dome in bumper to bumper traffic and try to park in a small lot was actually comical.

In my book.... those people were insane. I could see doing it in a Class B or a very small Class C but anything larger is going to be difficult, frustrating and even dangerous.

We are staying in Townsend, TN, which has much less traffic than Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg. There is no Uber. There is no taxi. The nearest rental car place is 45 - 60 minutes away depending on traffic. Without a toad, we would be sitting in the campground for a week. Or I would have had to stop in a city with a rental car place and have my wife follow along until we got to our destination. Then we would have had to go back the same way to drop off the rental car.

Could you be full-time and not need a toad? Depending on where you want to go, what you want to see and where you want to stay.... it might be possible.

Personally, I can't see it. I think anything over a very small coach would be hard to use as your primary mode of transportation in a lot of places unless your plan is to park the coach only in urban areas, rent a car and then go out to remote areas or use a cab or Uber to get around town. Over the long haul, that will be more expensive than owning a toad over the long haul as a full-timer.

One last thing to consider.....

I travel all over the US and Canada for a living..... been doing it for 30 years. I can tell you that before COVID rental car and Uber prices were going up. That may change as a result of COVID but it is not cheap in many places. Even if you find a rental car for $25/day, the taxes and fees and can be half the cost of the rental charge in some places. If you plan to do a one-way rental and drop the car at another location if you're using a big chain like Hertz, you can pay a small fortune.

That^^^^.

[GVP-The Boxcar Children]

We always have our Toad on trips, for the convenience once we've set up base camp; some of our excursions are off-road; hence the Jeep Rubicon is our Toad. Also, if your rig breaks down on the road you can uncouple and drive your Toad to go get help face-to-face.
Gary
GVP