The RV life offers a lot of choices. From travel trailers, to fifth wheels to motorhomes, there is a vehicle to suit every style. And when it comes to motorhomes, there are essentially three choices – a big Type A (as long as 40+ feet, usually with multiple slides), a Type C (less than 30 but tall and wide, sometimes with slides) and a Type B, often called a camper van and anywhere from 20-25-feet or so in length.
You may know them as Class A, C and B. The industry thought the term “Class” soun
It’s time to head west to Wyoming and, eventually, Yellowstone National Park. And this year, instead of repeating past routes, I thought it would be fun to get your suggestions, to crowd source our trip by drawing on the collected wisdom of our readers.
In other words, tell me where to go.
Here are the particulars:
’ll be leaving Kalamazoo, Mich., about 9 AM Friday, June 14. I need to be in Gillette, Wyo., by mid afternoon Monday, June 18, for the annual Family Motor Coach Association Reunion
One of the most confusing aspects of buying an RV is the vast differences paid in sales tax and various licensing fees.
And many states do what is called “double dipping,” charging full sales tax when you buy the vehicle, and then again charging you tax on the full purchase price of a new one when you you trade it in, ignoring the trade-in price.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that it is patently unfair.
In Michigan at least, that double dip tax is about to go away. State lawmakers are gett
Tarry gunk still evident on Gulf beaches
More than two and a half years after the disastrous Deepwater oil spill by BP, tarry, gunky deposits of what appears to be dried oil are still all too evident on stretches of Northwest Florida gulfshore beaches.
“This is atrocious,” reports RT Campskunk, a fulltiming RVer in a Roadtrek 190 from St. George Island, Florida. “It’s just a shame. These were the best beaches in the country. I was used to tar on the beaches out in Texas and Louisiana where all
The one thing that I most dislike about this time of year is holiday shopping.
Usually, I’ll do anything to avoid a shopping mall. If God intended us to go traipsing through crowded shopping centers he wouldn’t have had Al Gore invent the Internet and online shopping.
So you can imagine Jennifer’s surprise this afternoon when I actually volunteered to drive her to the mall to look up some Christmas gifts.
I took my Roadtrek Class B RV motorhome.
Heh heh heh.
It’s a diesel, so it needs to
http://youtu.be/5A4VtXUCStA
The hardest thing about finding a spot to camp in the wintertime in the north is finding an open campground. As we toured Michigan's beautiful snow covered Upper Peninsula in mid-February looking for a place to spend the night, all we found were Wal-Mart and Indian casino parking lots.
Sorry, but those kind of environments are not our idea of camping. All the regular campgrounds we passed were closed and unplowed. The unplowed part is a big deal. Because on the leve
Stroller Dogs: RVers love their dogs
Find a group of RVers and you’ll find dogs.
And you won’t have to look too hard to find some very pampered pooches.
Long after many RVers have raised their own families, many are back pushing strollers. This time, instead of their own babies or grandkids, they’re pushing strollers with their new babies – dogs.
RV shows draw huge crowds. From the inside exhibition space to the outdoor displays, it can get very congested at times and if you are accompanied
Stranded in Montana: It’s all good
So, what’s your worse nightmare about an RV trip? Having a mechanical breakdown in the middle of, say, Montana, at the start of a weekend? Trust me, it’s not so...
Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome
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So, what’s your worse nightmare about an RV trip? Having a mechanical breakdown in the middle of, say, Montana, at the start of a weekend?
Trust me, it’s not so bad.
I can say this because it happened to us last weekend, just as we were leaving Glacier National Park and the Many Glacier area, about as remote a place as you can find, where even the cell phones don’t reach.
This was the culprit … the sensor (black) at the right of the fuel rail.
There is one inescapable thing about RV trave
I’m a sucker for hats. Ball caps, cowboy hats, straw hats, watch caps and lately, Stormy Kromer hats.
We picked up our first Stormy Kromer hats while doing some winter camping last February in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Seemed like every Yooper we saw was wearing one. So Jennifer and I both got one, me a rakish black, Jennifer’s a demure grey with pink trim.
As we returned from that trip but kept wearing our hats, we met lots of other people who either had one, knew someone who had one or
Dennis George couldn’t believe his eyes.
It was the morning of Tuesday Jan. 28, and he was staying at a Hampton Inn in Lakeland, FL He looked out his hotel room window and saw an empty parking spot where he had parked the brand new Roadtrek CS Adventurous the night before.
“I thought maybe the hotel had towed it for some reason,” he said. “So I ran down to the desk and asked them. The clerk said no. Then one of their workers came in and said there was all sorts of broken glass out on the asph
Spritzzing up your RV with Lavender
Lavender. Just the word brings olfactory recall, doesn’t it? Such a pleasant smell, such a pleasant flower. While we were RVing in the Pacific Northwest, I saw a notice in a local...
Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome
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Lavender. Just the word brings olfactory recall, doesn’t it? Such a pleasant smell, such a pleasant flower. While we were RVing in the Pacific Northwest, I saw a notice in a local publication about a lavender farm that invited visitors. Before Mike could say “where are we headed today?”, I had the GPS programmed.
The Tumalo Lavender Farm is located just outside of Bend, Ore., and is a 10-acre garden filled with the sweet fragrance of 10,000 mature plants, all grown organically, pollinated by s
Sprinter RV lineup joined by new Roadtrek CS Adventurous
A major reason for the huge spike in Class B motorhome sales over the past year or so is the Mercedes Sprinter, a rugged and flexible van that offers RV makers all sorts of customization opportunities. Roadtrek Motorhomes is about to introduce a new full sized Sprinter model, joining its popular RS Adventurous and the new all-electric, solar powered eTrek.
For 2013, there’s a third model – the CS Adventurous… CS for Camping Series.
Spontaneous Roadtreking
We’re the traveling trio- Olga, Laura and Ruka. Olga (stands for Old Ladies Get Aound) is my comfy-ever-ready-super-cool-traveling machine that makes me feel a little bit like Dr. Who?, because...
Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome
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We love to take our Norwegian Elkhound, Tai, with us when we go Roadtreking.
Except for one thing.
His breath.
It stinks. Literally.
In the confined space of an RV, dog breath can get pretty disgusting. We’ve tried chicken-flavored dog toothpaste and brushing his teeth. It works a little. But chicken flavored dog breath is almost as bad as regular dog breath.
So it was with great interest that we just discovered something called Orapup – a dog breath brush.
It comes with a couple bott
The annual Recreation Vehicle Industry Association trade show in Louisville is the big one for the RV industry, providing a sneak peek at what’s new aimed at dealers and industry insiders to help them get ready for the next year. Held at the Massive Kentucky Exposition Center, this year’s 51st edition of the show opens Tuesday. But Jennifer and I got in early for a sneak peek of our own.
The RVIA expects more than 8,000 attendees this week. Over 300 acres of display space will be filled by 61
Michigan’s Sunrise Side is one of the best-kept secrets in the Great Lakes.
The state’s west coast Lake Michigan PR machine has done a better job of promoting the beaches and trendy little communities there while the Lake Huron coast along the state’s east coast has stayed purposefully low-keyed.
And that has been just fine with the locals and the sharp-eyed tourists who love the area. That means there are no traffic jams. Prices for food, lodging and the like are usually more affordable than
We were deep in the piney woods of Southwest Georgia, a half mile off a red dirt road, parked in a small clearing not far from our deer blind.
It was the last weekend of Georgia’s months-long deer season and Matthew, who just took up hunting as any good Southern boy does, had invited me down.
Since we were heading to the big Florida RV SuperShow in Tampa Jan.16-21, the hunting trip made for a perfect stopover. We were seriously boondocking. There was no power or sewer hookups, no cable TV, n
Two-and-a-half weeks of the Great Roadtreking Family Vacation of 2013 in two-and-a-half minutes – that’s the just-finished movie version (see below) that highlights the recent Roadtreking caravan that was our family vacation to Colorado this summer.
We traveled in four vehicles: My Roadtrek eTrek pulling a 21-foot travel trailer, followed by a Roadtrek SS driven by my son and, following us all, my daughter and her family in an SUV.
We made a great circle tour of Colorado. Here are some of the
Save the Planet – Be a Fulltime RVer
We were chattering away on the Roadtrek Facebook group about solar, and it got me to thinking – what is my energy consumption and carbon footprint now that I’m fulltiming...
Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog - Traveling North America in a small motorhome
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People wonder why we prefer boondocking over campgrounds. Here’s why: Too many campgrounds are dirty.
Not all. But way too many.
In the bathrooms, there are almost always spiders, bugs, things in the toilets and stalls that disgust you, broken windows, mold, rusty pipes, grimy sinks. In Mississippi earlier this year, one of the showers I used this year had a cracked floor. When you stepped on it, blank gunk seeped out around your feet.
In Missouri, a long broken and unrepaired window had the
Okay. Do not panic. So the groundhog saw his shadow here atop Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa. The rodent, if you check the history books, has been right just 39 percent of the time since this little community in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains .
But that didn’t stop tens of thousands of people from all across the U.S. from traveling here, many in RVs, like us. While the campgrounds are closed, the local Walmart welcomed them. For us in our Roadtrek eTrek Class B, wherever we stopped
Canada is a very popular destination for American RVers.
And it’s home to several of the world’s best-selling Class B motorhome makers.
So a lot is us travel there. Canada feels very much at home. It’s people are open and welcoming.
In the last year, I’ve made over a dozen visits to the Kitchener, Ontario, headquarters of Roadtrek Motorhomes. And while I am very comfortable in Canada, there are some cultural differences.
I’ve been taking notes. Here are 15 things to know about Canada:
It’s
I’m not going to lie to you. We didn’t sleep in the Roadtrek eTrek last night.
We spent the night in a motel in Escanaba, at the far western end of the Lower Peninsula’s northern Lake Michigan shoreline. I suppose if I looked around long enough I would have found a place to camp. But all the state and federal forests where we normally boondock up here in the UP were all but inaccessible because of unplowed roads.
Somebody told me there was an Indian casino a dozen miles out of town but they we
