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Subject is self-explanatory
starting over in RVing - what you would do different?
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I've had my GMC Savana van (non-extended) for 9-months now, with a very minimalist self-built conversion. It's a fairly late model used van and I'll be paying it off over several years. I have spent about 12-weeks total traveling in it so far. It's actually been working out extremely well for 1 person, so I have no real regrets at all.
However, the one thing I did not really know about beforehand is how rotten in general the BLM roads are. Nasty rocks all over the place, deep sand to get stuck in, you can only go so far down the roads and then you worry about not being able to get back out, &etc.
In Bob's video today, he blasted the heck out of the following idea, but ....
I think I might alternatively have gotten a 4WD pickup truck and then put on one of those low-rider popup camper shells, the stripped down version weighing 800-pounds costing about $10K. One reason I might choose this route is because I had 4WD Jeeps for 20-years, so off-roading is something I know.
https://www.fourwh.com/product/empt...k-camper/#STANDARDFEATURESINCLUDEDINBASEMODEL
With this rig I could go anywheres, and not have the normal big heavy 3000-pound truck camper that would probably not be so great to take deeply into off-road areas. I prefer minimalism in any case. The problem with the popup shell is two-fold: it would be colder in the winter (more of a worry for Bob than for me), and more importantly, a grizzly bear could tear the hell out of the popup vinyl siding and rip the roof right off the rig. One reason I got the van was so I could camp out in grizzly country without a huge amount of worry (note: I never carry bacon, no matter what).
However, the one thing I did not really know about beforehand is how rotten in general the BLM roads are. Nasty rocks all over the place, deep sand to get stuck in, you can only go so far down the roads and then you worry about not being able to get back out, &etc.
In Bob's video today, he blasted the heck out of the following idea, but ....
I think I might alternatively have gotten a 4WD pickup truck and then put on one of those low-rider popup camper shells, the stripped down version weighing 800-pounds costing about $10K. One reason I might choose this route is because I had 4WD Jeeps for 20-years, so off-roading is something I know.
https://www.fourwh.com/product/empt...k-camper/#STANDARDFEATURESINCLUDEDINBASEMODEL
With this rig I could go anywheres, and not have the normal big heavy 3000-pound truck camper that would probably not be so great to take deeply into off-road areas. I prefer minimalism in any case. The problem with the popup shell is two-fold: it would be colder in the winter (more of a worry for Bob than for me), and more importantly, a grizzly bear could tear the hell out of the popup vinyl siding and rip the roof right off the rig. One reason I got the van was so I could camp out in grizzly country without a huge amount of worry (note: I never carry bacon, no matter what).
