Thor Forums

[EA37TS]

In the last 12 years we have pretty much done all aspects except trailer tow.

First a 28 foot Class C without a TOAD. We had issues finding parking spots along the route or once we got to where we were going. Constant connect and disconnect to sight see at various locations is a real pain in the butt after awhile. This alone caused more arguments over what we would do or what we would see.

Class C with dolly towed Ford Fusion or Ford Flex. Eliminated the constant connect disconnect issue and brought peace back into our lives. No longer had issues finding a large enough area to park at sight seeing locations. We did encounter 2 campgrounds that did not have pull throughs so we had to disconnect and store the dolly before backing into the site. One of these locations was Fort Wilderness at Disney World. The dolly also allowed us to select which of our front wheel drive cars we wanted to take on any given trip

Class A using Enterprise rental. Had to arrive and depart based on the schedule of the Enterprise rental location. Not all locations will pick you up or drop you off since it depends on the RV parks distance from the Enterprise office and how many people they have working at the time. Not all locations are open on the weekend and even fewer are open on Sunday. This is changing but it is still limited. We did get a family discount because our daughter works for Enterprise so a weekly rental for us was normally under 200.00 to include all insurance. In 4 years we returned 2 cars with busted windshields and there was no charge or personal insurance claim to us. Using the rental method we no longer had storage requirements or maintenance to perform on the tow dolly.

Super C flat towing a Jeep Grand Cherokee. We set our arrival and departure schedule and sight see as we choose. We are not trying to get accustomed to the controls and functions of different model cars with every trip. Hooking up and unhooking is accomplished in a few minutes. There is some minor maintenance that must be performed to moving components periodically but is done in minutes. Our setup includes a Sterling Towbar and InvisBrake so it was moderately, but not overly, expensive. Since October we have put over 7,000 miles on our rig and TOAD and stopped in about a dozen states. Many locations in which we stopped there were no rentals available because it would be considered the boondocks.

Of all of them the only one I would say we would never do again is the travel without a TOAD. I have no intentions of doing a complete disconnect and reconnect because we forgot to stop and buy burger buns or a six pack of beer.

That is my take on the TOAD vs No TOAD scenarios.

Disclaimer: On Friday we close on a Park Model RV setting on a private lake in South Carolina. That park model will become our winter home (4 months) and the Accolade rolling will become the summer home (8 months) after I retire on December 2. We have not yet sold the sticks and bricks and may not do so for a few months to make sure we are happy with the above situation.