Seems like the places we want to go are enough more than a day's drive it would be great to be able to refresh with 4-5 hours of sleep and then roll on. While we are still working we tend to try and leave the evening of the last day we worked, and drive for 4-5 hours, it would be nice to not bother with a hotel until we are at the destination.Originally Posted by rob_s
Travelling with kids (12 and 9 year old girls) there are so many benefits I can think of to having an extra bed/bath/kitchen/fridge/etc. Hell, even just in terms of hurricane evac and house guests! (and we already have a 1800 SF guest house on the property!)
One local range that's only an hour from here has cabins that we've stayed in before. with the kids, stuffing us all in one cabin with one bath and two double beds... not so fun. Park RV out front, stick kids in there, get one queen-bed room? Super appealing!
(the facility is locked and gated, and obviously I'd take other security precautions as well). Stop at camp ground, wife and I stay in "RV" kids stay in tent out front? super appealing!
Add in Wi-Fi and the kids are gonna like it a lot more too!
We went to North Trail RV last weekend to see a PW OnTour 2.0. I will post some pictures, and some pluses and minuses based on running our 2009 Roadtrek Adventurous RS for a year or so, later today. Shootin' Partner and I were favorably impressed.
That would be great. I spoke to the wife this morning about this whole endeavor. She is about to embark on a road trip with the girls in the coming weeks, driving her Honda Pilot and trying to camp/hotel stay, so while I was mentally operating off a $50k budget we might get ourselves up to OnTour prices pretty quick!
Are you aware of any other factory Class B options with a sub-20ft OAL on the Transit?
FWIW, Ford doesn't appear to offer the more desirable 3.5L Ecoboost but the OnTour must be built on the "long" as it's the matching OAL. If I could buy a factory Ford Transit Short Low with the rear-seat delet (8 passenger) I'd probably buy that, build my shitter, and make future changes based on actual use/need.
BTW, thanks for turning me on to Roadtrek. Wasn't aware of them. The Zion, even though Ram-based, looks really interesting and does have an option for a forward-facing rear seat, and looks like it might have some good interior storage thanks to reducing the overall "bathroom" space.
My experience is limited but we bought the 146" for the ability to place a 60x120 sheet of substrate flat (once a platform was installed at wheel well height) and it is not too difficult to manage. I think this also gets you the rear doors that flip around to the sides. If your wife is comfortable with a Pilot, that is not exactly small.
You guys that have Sprinters/RVs, what are thoughts about kids and adults riding unsecured in the back
I was thinking about renting a camper van to make road tripping in some western National Parks more tenable with kids.
I reckon most kiddos aren't being strapped down in the car seat in these things, but it doesn't make sense to me to let them run around in a RV on a road trip when I wouldn't take them to the corner store without their seatbelts at home.
As far ‘legality’ goes, it isn’t legal to travel unbelted in private vehicles, as far as I know.
Obviously you do get up to go wash your hands or whatever ‘on the go’ from time to time.
Actually riding in the rear of our Sprinter sucked. The stiff leaf-Springs of the van-based suspension transimitted every bump. The long wheelbase meant the amount of pitching fore and aft was almost nauseous.
It was not fun.
Be great for kids tho!
Good info for sure!As far ‘legality’ goes, it isn’t legal to travel unbelted in private vehicles, as far as I know.
Obviously you do get up to go wash your hands or whatever ‘on the go’ from time to time.
Actually riding in the rear of our Sprinter sucked. The stiff leaf-Springs of the van-based suspension transimitted every bump. The long wheelbase meant the amount of pitching fore and aft was almost nauseous.
It was not fun.
Be great for kids tho!
My understanding is that even belted, while perhaps legal, front-facing is safer than side-facing. Can’t recall all the details on that, but that’s driving my desire for front-facing kids seats. The little one does get car sick sometimes so maybe the bouncing would be an issue.
I’ve seen a few plans that put the passengers directly behind the driver in a two-person bench seat but that’s likely a little cramped and may lead to multiple hand-to-face injuries that might make side-seating preferable
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