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Old 06-21-2012, 07:21 AM   #1
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Hi Everyone! I hope this isn't too long, I wanted to give a background and ask some questions.
My husband and I are considering buying a motorhome but have so many questions. We have a dog and have a hard time traveling b/c we have to find a hotel that will take pets, then we worry about leaving her alone in the room. We love to play golf but can never go to golf courses very far because we are gone from home too long. What we were thinking was being able to travel more with the rv and go to different golf courses and take our pet with us.
Questions:
*What are general costs that pop up that we may not be thinking of?
*Can you drive an rv to places (especially golf courses) and leave it parked there while you play?
*Is it safe/feasible to leave a pet in the rv for 3-4 hours alone...air conditioner?

I'm not even sure if there are other questions I should be asking so if anyone has other comments it would be greatly appreciated. The thought of being able to travel in our own home is very exciting, but a little intimidating too.

Thank you!
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Old 06-21-2012, 06:31 PM   #2
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Hello, welcome to IRV2. I think you would need to call ahead to the club and see if they have the parking space available for your RV. We travel with our dog and do leave her for very short times with the generator running the A/C, but I would not feel comfortable leaving her for that long. What if the generator quit? These RV's get pretty warm when closed up in the summer. I am more comfortable leaving her in the RV at a campground, leaving word with the CG in case the power goes out. I am sure you will get more info from others. Good luck.
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Old 06-21-2012, 06:40 PM   #3
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Stebby,

It's difficult to answer the first 2 questions because I don't know which costs you have already considered. Coach maintenance, fuel costs, insurance, rv park costs, tires, etc. are costs you should consider. The most common "surprise" cost on used coaches is for new tires. They are expensive and should be changed around seven years of age. You can't go by tread wear, because an RV almost never travels enough miles to wear out the tread. Gas versus diesel is another consideration. If youplan to travel extensively or in the mountains, I would suggest a diesel pusher ove a gas coach. the diesels in generarl get better fuel economy and do betteer in the mountains. Tge gas coaches cost less, and are more noisy and a bit less stable on the road.

There are many places you can go and park your RV, Walmarts, Cracker Barrel stores come to mind. also many attractions have parking places for RVs. I don't know about golf courses.

As to leaving the dog, we travel with 2 dogs, and they love it. We often leave them in the coach for several hours when we're parked at an RV park. We will always notify the rv park owers that our dogs are in the RV, and if anything happens, take them to the office. In our many years of travel we have never had an incident. There is a safety device you can install that will start your generator if the shore power is lost. This should cover power loss to the RV park. We also have a surge protector to protect the coach from power surges like what you might get in a thunderstorm.

Hope this helps some.
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Old 06-21-2012, 06:56 PM   #4
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Hi and welcome to the forum.

I think you'll find that a very large percentage of us who already travel in motor homes do so because of our dogs. We were full time with our three dogs for the better part of four years before purchasing a small stick house in Arizona.

IMO you've gotten good advice so far. For pet owners wanting to be free to leave their pets in the coach while they are out and about... assuming your pets are well behaved... is a power failure during the summer months. Without air conditioning, these things become Dutch Ovens in a heartbeat and none of us can bear the thought of leaving our dogs in such a harsh environment.

Having said that, we've never had a problem and have left them unattended for nearly eight hours at a stretch... although four is much more common. As mentioned, there are toys on the market to automatically start your generator to run your AC if the campground power fails. Some have set up devices which will send a message to their cell phones if the inside temp goes too high, etc. I even considered getting an app which would activate the web cam on my dash mounted netbook so I could check in on them (and the internal temp of the coach) via a smart phone... but never installed it.

The comments on costs which pop up were good. Tires is a big one if you buy used. If you buy diesel, you'll probably love the space, the ride, the handling and the cargo carrying capacity... but you'll pay more initially and it will cost more to properly maintain.

Lots of decisions to make but it's a fun journey learning all that needs to be learned and getting ready for the big day when you can hit the road with your clubs. IMO, if you're in a very mild climate you could leave the dog in the coach while parked at a golf course but it's a little scary to me to rely on the generator to provide the power... and I don't think the club would like it either.

Best of luck

Rick
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Old 06-21-2012, 07:02 PM   #5
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Howdy and welcome aboard. Glad you joined us and hope you enjoy the site.

I too feel uncomfortable leaving a pet for extended times in your vehicle, unless it's a cool day.

Van.
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Old 06-21-2012, 08:20 PM   #6
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Thank you all for your comments, it's a lot to consider and think about, our dog being the biggest. Thanks for tips regarding letting the manager know about your dogs being in the rv. We do have a monitor at home that sends a message regarding the temp and even have web cam so we can check on our dog if we are gone long and was wondering if we could set that up in an rv so that definately helped.
Ricko, you posted that the golf courses wouldn't like the generator....are they loud (sorry if my questions are elementary)?
A little more about us...I work 3 days/week and my husband is self employed so really we are wanting to be able to make short trips for now (2-3 days at a time) until we get the hang of it. Tomorrow we are going to look at a Winnebago class B 26ft and a Itasca Spirit 24V. These looked more like something we would be able to travel with a little easier as beginners. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions for newbies who plan more short trips to start with.
And thank you for the info on the expences. We did check into insurance, storage, fuel, etc. The tires needing changed every 7 yrs even with good tread was something I didn't know.

Thank you all again for replying.

Tammy and Pat
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Old 06-21-2012, 08:39 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stebby View Post
Ricko, you posted that the golf courses wouldn't like the generator....are they loud (sorry if my questions are elementary)?

Tomorrow we are going to look at a Winnebago class B 26ft and a Itasca Spirit 24V. These looked more like something we would be able to travel with a little easier as beginners.

Tammy and Pat
"Loud" is a relative term. Many courses... especially ones in more rural areas... probably won't have a problem at all. In more densely crowed areas, the course will probably want you to park at some far end of the parking lot which could be by homes or businesses which might object to a motor running outside their door for over four hours. I'm just taking an educated guess here.

Thanks for providing the size rig you're thinking of to start out with. That'll help tailor the responses you get.

Best of luck

Rick
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Old 06-21-2012, 08:57 PM   #8
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Our class a diesel, has a real quite generator. I am an avid golfer, and if I owned a dog, I would feel fine leaving it in our rig for 6 hours or so while we were golfing, we bought a 2000 Diesel Pusher for less than 50 thousand. You do do even better for a gas unit, and still have a great unit with plenty of room and a a generator.
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Old 06-22-2012, 04:08 PM   #9
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Well....we are official newbies (very new newbies). We bought the 2007 Winnebago class B 26', my husband and I saw it and fell in love with it. We will start by taking short trips to get the hang of this RV world, very exciting. Thank you for the experienced advice so far, I'm sure we will be asking a lot more questions as we venture out.
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