Thor Forums

[Joe-FL]

Travelin'Texans makes some valid points, even though I don't agree with everything he says. And as much as this pains me to type this, Chance also makes some valid points, especially when taken from traveling in a smaller vehicle.


When we were full timing we rarely stopped overnight at a Walmart or C-Barrel. The main reason was due to the fact our fiver did not have a gen set, plus our standard rule was to be off the road by 3pm.


Now we are only part time and have the Challenger with gen set. We have used a Walmart but only pull in at dark. We put slides out but nothing else. This has less to do with saving money and more to do with trip planning. If we have a day where we need to travel from 10am to 6pm then I am not a big fan of pulling into a strange CG after dark. Can't see low hanging branches or electrical lines plus hooking up utilities isn't that much fun at night. If I am using a CG then I am going to enjoy being there from about 3pm to 9am the next day and take advantage of their water, sewer, and electric.


We would never attempt to overnight in our RV in a rest area. We would have to be on the truck parking side and it would be extremely noisy, plus many rest areas are busy at night with over-the-road truckers and I certainly don't want to take a space one of them could use. They are out there making their living and that would be the ultimate rude in my book.


On the other hand, we make at least one 1,350 trip from Florida to Illinois each year. On these trips it is in the SUV and I like to drive the first day from about 10am to 10pm. Depending on where we are, we might sleep 5 or 6 hours in a rest area or a pre-inspected Walmart. The last SUV trip two weeks ago we did one night in an Alabama I-65 Walmart. We pulled in between two large RV's that were already in for the night.


So a statement like "if you can't afford to stop & pay for a site while traveling then maybe rving was the wrong choice" may not fit everyone. I'm sure there are folks on here that paid cash for their rigs and have six figure incomes, then there are probably ones on here that are upside down, struggling, but still love to RV.


I now will probably catch hell for this post, but here goes. For 3 years we traveled through the country in a fiver. We met all kinds of folks in all kinds of places. Some of the most friendly and interesting people I spent time with were campers in 10 year old fivers, or small older TT's or Class C's. Some of the most stand-offish stuckup folks were in larger Class A units. Actually looking back on the friends we made during our RV travels there is not one Class A diesel pusher in the bunch.