So after purchasing our RV and finally getting out of the finance office we were on the road, late in the day mind you. Neither of us had ever driven a 40 foot motorhome, except for the test drive back to the dealership. I would add that it was very intimidating at first, a lot of low speed wobbling down the interstate, I felt like I was going to butt my head against every overpass! We drove from Tampa Florida back to Homer Alaska, by the time we were in somewhere in the midwest driving was pretty...

My wife and I moved from Arizona to Alaska as school teachers. When we left Az back in 2013 we went to Alaska in a 1980 Jeep CJ5 pulling a homebuilt harbor freight trailer with everything we owned.
We made the trip from Alaska to Arizona in that jeep every summer for our first 5 years of living up here. It was rough, we didn't even have a real tent but more of a screened in tent with a rain fly. Our sleeping bag which we had custom made was the biggest item we had in our little trailer....

We are totally new RVers, who are young recently retired, fun, adventurous couple, who live at The Lakes Country Club in Palm Desert and also have a summer ocean front beach condo that we go back and forth between winter and summer. We just bought a 2020 Newmar Dutch Star 4081, with every bell and whistles you could possibly add.

We are planning our first trip from Palm Desert, California to Naples, Florida on April 2, 2021 to play in the U.S. Open Pickleball Championship. We are...

One of the things I was going to get at Wally World was a small space heater for the lithium batteries, because I know they aren't supposed to tolerate cold very well, but since we are here at Flying J, and I don't want to unhook the toad, I just plugged in my 75 watt drop light and put it in the compartment. We went to bed, and the temps got down to 9 degrees. BRRR!!! I set my alarm for 6, to get an early start, and when I was awakened by my iphone, i noticed it was still warm, but dark. No lights...

Sorry this has taken so long to write. On our return, I made several mistakes, one of which could have been bad. When packing up for the return at the KOA in Banning, I reminded myself to get propane. And, as I was disconnecting the water line, I thought "maybe I should check the fresh water tank". Nah, It'll be ok. Got everything packed and dropped the rig off the jacks, hooked up the dolly and loaded the car. Got in the rig and drove out, completely forgetting about the propane. Doh!...

We just got back from a whirlwind trip to California in the MH to visit my parents. Left from Eastern NM on the 5th, late in the PM, and didn't get but to Ruidoso the first night. We boondocked at the Walmart there, and even though the temps got down into the 20's, we were comfy and the Lithium batteries performed great. No issues. Still had about 12.6VDC in them when I got up. One issue we had, however, was that using the microwave, on 2 occasions, the 250VDC breaker would pop, even though the...

RV Basic courses are a MUST have for new RVers.

I didn't know this before I purchased my RV. If I had taken one when I started planning for my retirement 4 years ago I might have made some different decisions. I had towed before so I thought "No problem! Buy a 1/2 ton vehicle (Suburban in my case), get a trailer and hit the road." Right? Isn't that what you think?

BOY is there a lot more to it than that!

I bought in Oct 2017 (my 60th...

After flying up to Lakeview OH, we took possession of the motorhome.

I'm going to tackle the biggest issue of the whole experience right off the bat. The biggest issue was discovering, after getting on site, that our coach was built on an E-350 chassis. When all issues then and now are listed, it was the largest and it's one that RVW & Forest River both indicate that is a right reserved by Forest River to change the design of the RV at their discretion. So, here's the biggest...

My wife and I are in the preparation stage of becoming full-time nomads. We plan on staying mostly in State Parks, National Forest, Corp Of Engineer, and some Bureau of land management spots. We will have solar power and possibly a generator if we find that we need it.

We want to Boondock as much as possible but not really interested in parking out in the wilderness. So actually we would be more “dry camping
” that is to say staying on a level improved spot. I recently discovered...

For the travel trailer and 5th wheel, we had a Progressive Industries 30amp EMS system that plugged in at the power pillar. For the Allegro, I wanted a fixed unit that mounted inside the coach.

The PI unit had worked very well for us, so I went with PI again, this time their EMSHW50C 50amp EMS system. They're pricey (~$500) but that's pretty good insurance to keep your rig from frying due to poor wiring at some campsite.

One nice feature of this unit is the remote...

The side/rear view camera system on Big Al was bad when we bought it. The black and white system was fuzzy. Fiddling with the contrast improved it, but...it was still not good.

Tiffin had the parts to upgrade - a 7" LCD, two side and a rear camera - that used the existing wire cabling. Unfortunately, the Triplevision CC45 side cameras didn't work well with the LCD, and had a really grainy low res image.

I sent them back and picked up some nice (and less expensive)...

Some of the better pics taken on the trip - Link to Flickr.

The route we took for the trip. I use RVTripWizard for route planning and looking for stops. I've been a subscriber since they came out many years ago.

I-20 sucks over near Midland/Odessa/Monahans. Too many oil trucks, not enough repairs. The same goes for Hwy 18 from Monahans down to Ft. Stockton.

US 90 in south Texas was wonderful - few people on it, pretty straight.

Yes, I could have taken 90 out to San...

We had a great stay down at Maverick Ranch RV Resort in Lajitas, TX. It's conveniently located between Big Bend NP and Big Bend Ranch SP. It's also a much better RV park than the on in BBNP. The park was maybe a quarter full, and unless you were with friends they kept everyone spaced out (I kinda remember them doing that on our last visit 10 years ago, so maybe it's normal policy). Lots of amenities, including a wonderful pool. (We didn't use this time due to Covid, but the wife was looking...

Good afternoon RV'ers! A while back, when I first joined this forum, I promised that I would do a report on our experience with RVW and expose the good, the bad and the ugly. So, allow me to create this blog so as to help anyone out there whether purchasing out of state is worthwhile, as well as the in's and out's of doing so.

A little background...

We originally camped with a 27' Starcraft travel trailer. It was a good little unit. Behaved itself and had relatively...