Age of RV - Parking & Work Camping

Van Living Forum

Help Support Van Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

AtRest

New member
Joined
Aug 9, 2018
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
New to the forum, so first a little about myself.  Currently in GA (can't wait to leave), over the last few years we have lived in the Miami area as well as San Francisco.  Most of our lives we were in Southern AZ and NV.  Spent several years in a 70's era RV as a kid, but it was always stationary on our own land.  I have certainly been thinking about an "alternate" lifestyle for the past 10 years or so - tiny houses that are mostly remote, etc.  Basically, finding myself here has been a somewhat natural progression that roughly goes as such, (decades of experiences in one sentence for brevity): go to college, get job, buy house, buy bigger house (rinse & repeat), have "shakabuku" moment - realize that we don't care about stuff nearly as much as we thought, and it's expensive / silly to heat and cool a mostly empty house in the middle of the desert, downsize, downsize some more (all the while feeling more liberated by the pared down amount of "things" in our lives).  Was recently considering a fifth wheel in Pac NW (was on youtube looking at them and then this guy with a big white beard was one the side panel, hey I'll give it a click :) ), but this nomadic lifestyle seems to resonate with the wife and I, there is so much to see and we're just not excited about being in one place.

Our goal is to get to a break even point and perhaps even a little in the black with a fairly modest lifestyle on the road.  Work camping looks to have some pretty decent potential for us.  My question is this, I'm considering a B+ built in the late 90's that seems to check most of our boxes.  How much has an "older" RV like this affected your ability to work for CLM (or other west coast counterparts), or outfits like Thousand Trails (or individual private parks)?  In the first year we may also get a pass and camp at something like a Thousand Trails.  I'm not crazy about the idea of throwing unnecessary money at a depreciating asset that will forever be moving closer to an arbitrary age, i.e 10yrs, 20 yrs.  Some of the RVs on the E 350-450 frame are almost hard to discern when they were built by looking at them, could you just say that it was 10-15 years old when trying to apply for a position or camp, is someone really going to come look inside the door jamb at the manufacturer's sticker or run a VIN?

Thanks in advance for the responses.  I have read many of the threads and have been moved at the civility, kindness and compassion.  Kudos to the community.

CJ
 
If your rig is in great shape, good paint job, everything shipshape, no one is going to care how old it is. Yes, they advertise "nothing over 10 years," simply to put up a barrier to those old wrecks, pieces falling off them, that they don't want in their spiffy parks. If your rig is tip top, you can be honest about its age, and add that it's in like-new condition. Beautiful vintage vans are always welcome.

The Dire Wolfess
 
Welcome AtRest to the CRVL forums! To help you learn the ins and outs of these forums, this "Tips, Tricks and Rules" post lists some helpful information to get you started. We look forward to hearing more from you. highdesertranger
 
Ours is a classic 1983 Barth motor home and have never had a problem but one place that had a ten year rule suggested I buy a cheap new small camping trailer to pull with my motor home if it ever became an issue and someone complained. Never happened.
 
Top