The RV Sabbatical Journal

April 2007

Everyone who contemplates fulltiming has to confront, at one point or another, the question of the type of RV that will be your home. Usually, this boils down to either a fifth-wheel or a motorhome since they both have the capacity and systems most people want for their fulltime experience. I’m sure there are people fulltiming in regular travel trailers, class C’s, or old converted school buses, but for the purposes of this article, I’m restricting my comments to fifth-wheels and motorhomes. This subject is one of the most perennially discussed topics among fulltimers and fulltimer wannabes. But the fact that it remains a big topic that produces long passionate discussions is evidence that there is no single best answer to this conundrum, and the decision is clearly one that’s personal and individual. A number of factors are involved and in the following paragraphs I’ll go over how we made our decision.

Mode of Use: What I mean by mode of use is how you’re going to live over the course of days, weeks, and months. Will the unit be driven to a warm spot in October and left there until April when it’s brought north and left there for the summer — only two moves all year? Or will it be on the move every week or so? Depending on who you are and what you’re planning to do, the way a unit will be used varies a lot. When making our decision, we anticipated being on the move an average of once every week or two — maybe 25 or 30 moves per year. We’d like to park, set up camp, and then travel outward from that central point to explore and recreate. The factors that were most important for us were 1) the ability to set up quickly, and 2) the type of vehicle we’d prefer for those shorter exploring and recreational trips.

Capability/Capacity: This is an un-glamorous but critical element of the decision. While it’s easy to see the size of the spaces available for your stuff, the more important part of this point is the rig’s weight carrying capacity. The RVSEF (Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation) says most RV’s on the road are overloaded or beyond the safety rating of some component. They also say the average fulltimer carries about 3,000 pounds of stuff with them — and the weight of water, propane, fuel, wastes, and their own bodies should also be considered when calculating what you’re asking your RV to do. This is important not just for safety reasons, but for road-handling as well. We consider this is an extremely important point and for our decision we carefully analyzed the weight capacities of the various units to which we were attracted.

Power/Drivability: When all is said and done, a fulltimer’s rig is going to be heavy. It’s possible for fifth-wheel rigs (fifth-wheel and tow vehicle) to total out near 30,000 lbs. Motorhomes of 36 to 40 feet long can weigh 36,000 lbs. or so, including the weight of a toad. The ability of the rig to climb hills and efficiently move all that weight down the road is important to driving effort and comfort. When making our decision, we made sure we compared the motors of the different rigs. To pull a full-timers-sized fifth-wheel down the road with all the 3,000+ lbs of stuff you’ll have, a truck like a Ford F450 or F550 will be necessary. The diesel in a truck like that will produce more than 300 h.p., and close to 600 ft. lbs. of torque — torque being the more important number when pulling a load up a hill. On the other hand, a motorhome with a Cummins ISL diesel can be 400 h.p., and a whopping 1200 ft. lbs. of torque. For our decision, we considered power important, but not critical. Keep in mind that there are many people with fifth-wheels that are perfectly happy with their power.

RV Prejudice: What I am referring to here is the prejudice people have for or against a certain kind of rig. For who-knows-what-reason, people often have strong preferences for one type and/or strong objections against the other. These feelings don’t have to be rational — they may exist but aren’t explainable. It may be a perceived “stigma” about living in one or the other. Some people could never see themselves driving a big old bus-like motorhome; it’s size is intimidating, it’s sooo wide, it’s long wheel-base makes turns difficult, it’s just too much to handle! Other people have a fear of pulling a huge fifth-wheel; it’s so high, it’s a trailer and I’ve never liked pulling a trailer, it’s just too much to handle! Some people like the idea of a pickup truck, they may have one already, it’s something they know they can handle even if it has a big fifth-wheel behind it. For our decision, we didn’t have a prejudice one way or the other, and there was no deal-buster on either side of this point. We’ve had pickup trucks in the past, and I’ve driven larger trucks as well. We could have gone either way.

Conveniences/Amenities: Either type of unit is very livable. A basic difference, due to design, is the lower floor level and higher ceilings of the fifth-wheel. There’s usually just two or three steps and you’re in. Conversely, the lower floor eliminates a key storage area found in motorhomes — the “basement”. Of course, the fifth-wheel usually has a large storage area in the lower nose, but it’s more “cubic” with less floor space. Compromises all around! Consider these factors as well: access to living space while traveling; built-in generator; washer-dryer units; two motorized vehicles to maintain instead of just one; and self-leveling capabilities.

Systems: For us, good basic systems are more important than glitter, glitz and flash. We’d much rather have extended cold-weather capabilities (thermo-pane windows, extra insulation, aux. heater, water tank heaters, etc) than a fake fireplace. We’re relatively handy and will do most of the small maintenance and repair ourselves, so access to systems is another important point for us. Additionally, we want the capability to boondock for extended periods of time… perhaps a week or two. This means the ability to carry a lot of fresh water, long-lasting battery power, and a means to recharge those batteries occasionally. In general, we felt a motorhome gets the nod on this point.

Cost/Value: There’s no question, a fifth-wheel dollar will buy more living space than a motorhome dollar. The gap narrows however when other factors are considered: built-in generator, battery capacity, power, storage, weight carrying capacity, ease of set-up,

Bottom Line: I’ll say it again: the following comments relate to our specific decision, based on the factors I went over above. I’m NOT suggesting that our decision should be your decision. This is a very individual and personal thing — and every element discussed above involves a compromise of some kind. “Fulltiming” should perhaps be called “compromising”.

That said, we decided to proceed with a diesel-pusher motorhome which, for us, presented the best balance of the factors described above. The elements that were most important to us while making this decision were these two, in this order:

1) We just didn’t see ourselves exploring and recreating with a large, 8,000 lb. medium-duty diesel truck. Our anticipated mode of living will mean we’ll be driving more miles exploring and recreating than we will traveling with the RV, and the nimbleness and handiness of a smaller vehicle trumped some disadvantages of flat-towing a second vehicle — like the towbar and braking system. In addition, while two vehicles can be seen as a complication and headache, there’s also an important element of redundancy — it’s still possible to transport yourself if one or the other poops out.

2) The ability of the motorhome we’re buying to safely carry and handle the weight of us and our stuff was greater than what we were seeing with fifth-wheels. “Net Carrying Capacity” (NCC) of our rig is projected to be over 5,000 lbs, even with some of the extra’s we added like a washer/dryer. In addition, all this weight is being carried by a heavy-duty truck chassis with a strong Cummins diesel.

If you’re considering this lifestyle, I hope these thoughts helped. Since this is being written in April of 2007, as we’re still working at getting set up and actually going, I plan to update this page after we’ve spent a few months living exclusively in our motorhome.