We’ve been tent campers for quite some time. Enjoy the simplicity of it. Ok, we do cheat a bit (always have an electrical hookup to power fans and blow up our beds). That being said, we had it down pretty well. We had several huge tubs specifically for our camping gear (sleeping bags, kitchen supplies, lanterns, fans, camp stove, you know the drill. So all in all, not too bad.

So why didn’t we camp more?

We noticed that we had gravitated to camping only 1-2 times during a summer/fall season. We tended to pick weekends with the kids (they go back and forth from our house to their dads), and would want to have at least 4-5 days to “make it worth the effort”. All those tubs were just the first part – I had to organize food, get pillows/sheets organized, get the kids (and us) to pack clothes, bring all the toiletries, figure out if we needed extra tubs (yep, we always did), and pack into the back of our truck (our Jeep couldn’t hack the volume of crud needed for one of these excursions). And then there’s the camp setup and tear down (which many times included a re-setup and tear down at home when it rained).  That, and of course – bring the boat along (or kayaks).

So, while it wasn’t a huge effort, we had unknowingly put a vacation day minimum before we’d proceed.  And with summer being a mere 3 months (and us not have that much vacation time), we thought we needed to change things a bit.

Of course, it had nothing to do with sleeping in an actual bed, having a bathroom instead of those nightly walks to the community toilet, relaxing inside while its raining outside… 🙂

So, our quest began.  My step dad, not surprisingly, would always say “don’t get a camper”.  Funny, since the two of them had gone through as many campers since they were together as I go through socks.  And although being around them, I had never much considered getting a camper, and didn’t know where to start.

To start our hunting adventure, we went to the Chicago RV show, since that’s no too far away (https://www.chicagorvshow.com/).  It was definitely a fun and high step count day (wear your gym shoes for sure!).  Although we weren’t sure what we’d find, we knew that whatever rig we purchased needed to meet the following:

• Must be able to pull our boat too  
• Big enough for the two of us without being claustrophobic (we have individual tents for the kids, so they would only come in with major weather)
• An actual toilet (not port-a-potty)
• 4-seasons rated (we wanted to try and extend camping seasons to match early/late fishing times of the year

A simple statement, but much more challenging.  So, you break campers down into major categories

• Class A
• Class B
• Class C
• Travel trailers
• 5th wheel trailers
• pop-up trailers
• Toy haulers
• Conversion Vans
• Truck campers

A lot of the biggies were immediately ruled out – didn’t really need the room and the thought of backing up a boat with a Class A motorhome sounds absolutely terrifying!  Travel trailers, while less expensive, would require us to have 2 vehicles.  Same with many of these.  It came down to mainly Class C RVs and Truck Campers.

From Gary’s perspective, he did not like the idea of having a truck not being used for several months of the year.  If we were full-timing, a small Class C would make sense.  We didn’t really look at conversion vans for the same reason, but those would have been do-able as well.  Instead, he (shockingly) wanted to focus on getting a bigger truck and to get a truck camper.

YMMV – our decision was based upon those original statements above, which may not apply to you.  One thing is universal, though – check out as many different options as you possibly can.  And ENJOY THE HUNT!