We get asked this question often from friends who have RV's or who are looking into the RV lifestyle. We knew when we left Florida that we would be trading in our boat for an RV but we had no clue on where or how to start the research. A few months after Chris recovered from his brain hemorrhage, he obsessively talked about living in an RV full time and traveling the country. I, of course, thought he was crazy. But knowing our house in the Keys was on the market and we would be eventually headed west, we started to research as much as we could. My parents had a truck and camper when I was a kid but Chris did not have any camping experience except in a tent so we decided we should dive right in and head to the Hershey RV Show in Sept. 2019. We spent three full days looking at mostly fifth wheels (with the full time idea in mind). We looked at toy haulers, bunk houses, luxury larger fifth wheels and everything else in between. We literally looked at everything. We even wandered off and checked out Class As, Cs and tow behind trailers including Airstreams.
We collected brochures from the RV's that we really loved. We took notes on our phones while talking to each manufacturer. We took a ton of photos and videos of our favorite RV's as well as features and upgrades that we really liked. Once we got home, we realized we were in information overload and extremely overwhelmed with all of it. We saw so much that we liked and wanted but did we really need it? We were not even sure what our budget was going to be once we sold the house and moved. We eventually also decided to buy another house so we were not going to be full time. So we decided to make a "must have" list to help narrow it down.
What we did confirm is that a fifth wheel is what we wanted and we had it narrowed down to a couple of brands, Forest River being one of them. Here is our "must have" list:
- King size bed
- Full size shower so Chris could fit (over 6' tall), no corner shower
- Bunk house
- Second bathroom
- Outdoor kitchen
- Self leveling
- Fiberglass exterior - all weather
So we ended up moving to Phoenix on a temporary basis while we further researched our permanent home location. We started looking in Phoenix and decided the market was not for us and started looking in the Reno/Tahoe area. We ended up buying a fixer upper that Chris could work on. So now we needed an RV to live in while he gutted the house and flipped it. We started visiting every RV dealer in the Reno area looking at inventory. At this point, we know what our budget is and we did not think that we could afford a fifth wheel anymore. But we needed something big enough for the two of us and my youngest daughter (who no longer lives with us) and two cats.
Our search for the perfect RV (within our budget) officially started in February of 2020. We were holding out for an RV show in Reno in March hoping to buy at a discount. Well, as the pandemic started to become a thing, dealers started to close and the RV show was cancelled. We ended up at RV Country in Sparks, NV. The salesman had shown us tow behinds because that is what we asked to see not realizing we could afford a fifth wheel at this point in time. The tow behinds with our "must haves" were expensive. So then this salesman asked us if we were interested in a fifth wheel and we both said "can we afford one?". He took us over to the Crusader Lite. It checked off most boxes. It did not have a king bed or self leveling system and it is not all weather but it had everything else on our "must have" list. And because of the pandemic and everything shutting down, we got a huge discount on the fifth wheel and everything worked out for us in a weird "forced" kind of way. We are firm believers in everything happens for a reason!
We had traded in our F150 for a F350 prior to leaving Florida in preparation for towing some kind of RV so all we needed was the hitch which the dealer installed for us. Our Crusader Lite is 36' and is the 33BH.
We had 50 amp power installed in the back of our house and hooked it up to power and water and lived in our fifth wheel stationary for three months while Chris flipped our house (we used the bathrooms in the house). Our plan was only two months but the pandemic delayed a lot of shipping of materials and trying to get sub contractors into the house was challenging as well. I work remote so I lived and worked in the fifth wheel for that three months and by the time we moved into the house, I did not want to. I was quite comfortable in the RV.
It was quite the ordeal how we ended up with our Crusader Lite and definitely was not our first choice but we could afford it and after living in it for three months we absolutely love it and could not imagine having anything else. We had a great experience at RV Country and have not had any major issues with our RV (purchased in March and landed in our backyard April 1,2020).
We spent one week moving into the house end of June and cleaning up the RV and packing it for our first actual road trip (6 weeks long). More to come on that in our next blog.
If you would like to know more about our decision making process, research that we did, need some additional advice or think that we can help you in any way, please send us a message. We'd be more than happy to help!
Thank you for wandering off with us!
Chris and Brandi
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