What We Love and Hate About Our Rig


Prior to now ten years, we’ve got owned and lived in 4 totally different RVs: a tiny journey trailer with no slides, a big journey trailer with a brilliant slide, a bunkhouse class C motorhome, and our present medium-sized journey trailer. If I’m being trustworthy, the category C was by far my favourite home-on-wheels we’ve ever owned. That mentioned, journey trailer execs and cons are value excited about as you determine which RV sort is best for you.

On this article, I’ll discover journey trailer execs and cons. My hope is that my experiences will allow you to resolve whether or not that is the kind of rig for you. 

Our first travel trailer, which helped us learn about travel trailer pros and cons
Our first journey trailer parked in Albuquerque, NM. Picture supply: Marvel Wherever We Wander

Execs of a Journey Trailer

What journey trailer execs and cons ought to ? Let’s begin with the professionals. A few of my favourite issues about our present rig are as follows. 

Fewer Engines to Care For

One of many issues I actually didn’t like about dwelling within the motorhome was that we needed to take care of each our motorhome engine and our automotive engine. As you may think, this will get costly shortly. Not solely that, however when the motorhome did should go to the store, we had been and not using a place to reside. For those who don’t reside in your RV, this isn’t an issue—however in the event you do, it’s a main inconvenience. 

Being in a journey trailer means our home-on-wheels by no means has to go to the store for engine-related repairs. It additionally means we save some huge cash on engine upkeep since we solely have one car to take care of. 

Cheaper Tires

There’s no means round the truth that tires are costly, and since we journey a lot, we undergo quite a lot of tires. Fortuitously, the tires for our journey trailer are a lot inexpensive than motorhome tires and our present rig requires fewer tires whole. This protects us fairly a bit of cash every time we’ve got to exchange the tires, one thing I actually recognize. 

Simpler to Modify Safely

As a result of we reside in our RVs full time, we like to change them to swimsuit our tastes and way of life. In our journey trailers, that is comparatively straightforward.

As a result of no person rides within the trailer, we will change to common family furnishings with out security issues. And whereas we do attempt to safe every little thing, if one thing isn’t bolted down effectively, it isn’t going to harm any person. 

In the meantime, safely altering issues in a motorhome—just like the sofa the place the seatbelts are—is an entire affair. Likewise, each time we add one thing to the rig, we’ve got to contemplate whether or not it may be secured in such a means that our passengers will likely be protected throughout journey. 

Much less Costly 

The rationale we ended up in a journey trailer once more after our motorhome broke down was not as a result of we notably needed a journey trailer. It was often because it was what we may afford. 

Typically talking, journey trailers are probably the most budget-friendly RV possibility on the market, and since they are typically lighter than fifth wheel fashions, they’ll normally be towed by smaller, inexpensive vehicles. This makes a journey trailer a wonderful possibility for an RVer on a finances.

Our second travel trailer hitched up to our truck.
Our second journey trailer hitched up and able to go. Picture supply: Marvel Wherever We Wander

Cons of a Journey Trailer

The drawbacks of a journey trailer? Nicely, there are many these as effectively. Under are the most important drawbacks. 

Hitching Up and Towing

My least favourite factor about bumper pull trailers? The hitching up course of.

In our motorhome, we had been capable of pack up and go in half an hour or much less. Within the trailer, transferring is an entire ordeal that may take an hour or extra, relying on how a lot stuff we’ve got to collect up and put away. That is particularly annoying for folks like me who don’t like getting up within the morning, as a result of it means getting up sooner than traditional to get every little thing packed away and hitched up earlier than checkout time. 

As soon as we’re hitched up, we then should tow the trailer. To be trustworthy, I don’t do that job. It scares me an excessive amount of. That mentioned, I do know from what my husband tells me that driving and parking the trailer is far trickier than driving and parking the motorhome ever was. 

Giant Truck as Day by day Driver

Clearly, we’ve got to have a method to get round as soon as our RV is parked. Since we’d like a giant truck to tow our trailer, and since towing a automotive behind the trailer is a terrifying thought, our large truck is our each day driver.

On the one hand, that is good as a result of it’s the one engine we’ve got to take care of. That mentioned, I completely despise driving the massive truck in all places, particularly after we’re visiting large cities. The fuel mileage on the truck is abhorrent and parking it requires far more work, and generally takes some pre-planning at any time when parking garages or tight areas are concerned. 

On a few events, I’ve pushed our automotive behind the truck and trailer. This allowed us to have the automotive as a each day driver, however elevated our fuel prices by quite a bit and meant we couldn’t journey as a household, one thing that positively took away from the enjoyable. 

Smaller Area and Much less Storage

I’ve discovered that general, journey trailers are likely to really feel far more cramped than different kinds of RVs. The ceilings are decrease than they might be in a fifth wheel or motorhome, and this positively contributes to that feeling. On prime of that, each trailer we’ve ever owned has had far much less space for storing than different RVs of comparable lengths.

There are typically fewer outdoors storage bays, and they’re usually much less insulated and extra leak-prone. On prime of that, the storage inside our trailers has usually been troublesome to entry, one thing we didn’t expertise a lot in our motorhome (or in our good friend’s fifth wheel once they allow us to use it for per week).

Much less easy-to-access space for storing means issues don’t get put away correctly on a regular basis, which ends up in an area that feels cluttered and cramped. 

Decrease High quality

One other huge disadvantage on the subject of journey trailers? The construct high quality. Generally, RVs actually aren’t constructed to final, however as a result of bumper pulls are the budget-friendly possibility, they are typically among the least sturdy RVs available on the market.

Even simply strolling round in our trailer, I can really feel that it’s cheaply made compared to a motorhome. The flooring bend underneath our toes, the counter tops peel once they get moist, and the cupboard doorways really feel flimsy. None of these items makes the RV unliveable, however they do positively make the area rather less comfy. 

On prime of all of that, we’ve got extra points with leaks in our trailers than we did in our motorhome. That is most likely additionally because of the construct high quality, and it’s one thing we’ve got to essentially keep on prime of to keep away from water harm. 

Last Ideas

There you’ve it, the journey trailer execs and cons. As talked about above, I actually did favor our motorhome over our present trailer trailer. It simply felt sturdier and the flexibility to stand up and go shortly with out worrying about hitching up was wonderful. For that reason, I’d advocate a motorhome to anybody wanting to spend so much of time of their RV, particularly in the event that they plan to maneuver usually. 

That mentioned, after we stayed in our good friend’s fifth wheel for per week, I discovered that whereas it did provide extra space, I didn’t really feel prefer it was actually that significantly better by way of high quality or livability. Due to this fact, in the event you’re in search of a towable and are on a strict finances, a journey trailer might be a high quality alternative, particularly in the event you solely plan to be within the rig a part of the time. 

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