Kirk W

I think that he is looking for an opinion on the FICS agency as it is one that has been used by many Escapees over the years. I have no personal experience with them but have heard good reports. They are the parent of RV Advantage, a department that specializes in coverage for RVs and RV owners.

I suspect that I am a bit older than you.Here is a link to a bit of where I spent my time. Holy Lock submarine base

While I do enjoy the diesel, I don't know that I would buy one if shopping new for only occasional towing. I bought mine from a neighbor/friend that I had known since it was new and because of our long relationship, I was sold it for wholesale price. The truck was 12 years old at that time and had 98k miles but was a 1 owner truck, that had been purchased by a retired owner of 4 18 wheel trucks. I knew the history well and was given a very attractive price in return for having helped the widow for several years and I had driven the truck numerous times before. For towing the diesel has many benefits because of the higher torque and under load it gets better fuel mileage than a gasoline powered truck would. But the maintenance costs are significantly more than the gasoline powered tow vehicles that we have owned in the past. That is even more true with an older truck than it would be if new, but the purchase price of a diesel is also significantly more. Because our diesel is a second vehicle that is used mostly for towing, I really like it but if we should sell our RV the truck will go as well because of the higher costs of maintenance. If you will be using the truck for towing half or more of the use, then I would recommend going with diesel but if you use it mostly as a daily driver then the gasoline if probably a better choice. The gasoline SUV that we towed our travel trailer with at first would get about 22 mpg without the trailer (highway mileage) and towing it averaged 11 mpg and at times it was a chore to drive. With the diesel truck we get about 18 mpg when on the highway without the travel trailer, and we get about 14 mpg with it and we hardly notice that it is back there.

You may want to leave yourself latitude to arrive and depart from different cities. Some friends of ours who live in Israel used to do things that way, storing the RV in the area they chose to depart from, then returning to the US to continue on the nest trip and so slowly worked their way around the US and Canada. Many years ago I was in the US Navy and spent quite a bit of time in Holy Loch, Dunoon, & Greenock. I very much enjoyed my time spent there and have hoped to one day get back as part of my family came from there 5 or 6 generations ago.

We tow our travel trailer with a 2003 Dodge diesel, 2500 (3/4 ton) truck and we love it as a tow vehicle. Ours is a 4 door, crew cab medal with a 6' box. When you look to weight that you will be towing, you need to consider GVWR which should be the total of what you have posted, or 6548#. It is always wise to keep your normal weight being towed to 80% or less of the truck's tow rating because you will find it much more comfortable to drive and it will handle better. I have owned 4 different 4WD vehicles over the years but would not recommend one as a tow vehicle for most use. If you expect to spend a lot of time in muddy situations or plan to go off road, then perhaps. It is important to know that not only does it cost more to buy a 4WD model, it also costs more to maintain one, to insure it, and you get lower MPG.

The issue of where you store the RV is one with more than one possible answer. States do have laws about how long a vehicle can stay in the state without being registered there, but in many cases the laws are not strictly enforced, particularly toward storage facilities, so it probably won't be an issue. Sales tax will have to be paid in the state where you register it, if it has not been previously paid. The amount of that tax varies by state and in the case of SD, the tax is currently 4% of the purchase price and it will have to be paid when you register it in SD.

There are two types of extended warranty, inclusive and exclusive. The inclusive ones cover everything on a list of things covered and nothing more. The exclusive contracts cover everything except the listed items. You want to have the type that covers all items except the ones listed, and be sure that you read every word of that contract before you buy. What we did was to ask for a copy of the contract to take home and study prior to purchase. If the sellers would not provide a copy to take home I did not do business with them.

In order to license and insure any vehicle in the US, you must first have an address to use for that purpose. Many people from UK and other countries find that the best way to do that is by first joining the Escapees RV Club and then getting an address through them. In addition to the provision of an address to use, Escapees have an extensive support system for RV travelers. While you can use your present driving license to travel by RV here, most find that the cost of insurance is enough less to justify taking the trouble to get a US license in the state that you choose to register the RV in. You will also need to have a place to store the RV when not in the US and many find it much more practical to use either Texas or Florida as an address because of the access to an international airport. I have known folks who used TX and flew into either Dallas or Houston. You could probably do the same thing from Miami. Until you have an address there is no way to register any vehicle here. There is also a very large dealer of used RVs in Houston who sells to folks from overseas and is familiar with the use of an Escapees address. I would suggest at least considering PPL Motorhomes, as they have locations in both Houston and Dallas.

Backing will be the biggest challenge, or it is for most of us. The main thing to remember is to take your time and get out and look frequently. Many years ago, in order to learn about backing more easily a friend loaned me a flat-bed trailer that was empty so that I would be better able to see what the trailer would do in response to my actions. If you can do that first, it is much less difficult than backing a trailer that blocks your view.

The other part of the question is, would school districts be willing to hire a substitute teacher who was only planning to be available for a few months before moving on to the next community or state? I suspect the answer to that would depend upon how difficult it is for that district to find qualified substitutes. I have known quite a few retired teachers who substitute and even one retired engineer who does but none of them travel around during the school year. I would state by asking at the district office where you now work to see if they would consider someone from another state who was doing as you hope to do. They probably could at least give some advice.

The ownership of a house does not make you a resident of that state. There is nothing to prevent you from moving to SD before the house in another state sells and that is what I would do. If you cut ties with your present domicile and move things to SD, there will be no problem in doing this before the sale of the former home is completed. You could even own the property and rent it to someone else and not be domiciled there as many people do that. Your domicile is the place where you reside and do business and that may or may not be where you own real estate.

An extended warranty is actually a health insurance plan for the RV. You should look at that much as you would for any other insurance. You buy insurance on your stick house because if the worst should happen with your home the result would be a financial disaster. But only rarely does anyone save money when they buy homeowner's insurance. The same is true for any extended warranty. How critical would it be if your RV should have a major failure? For the first year everything is covered by an existing warranty that came with the purchase, so you don't need it until the second year. If you have the financial ability to pay for any needed repairs after that, then you probably should not buy one, but if the need to repair or replace your most expensive appliances would spell disaster, or if you would lay awake at night worrying about the risk, then you probably should buy one. Remember that all insurance is sold buy a business which means that the total changed must exceed the total paid out in any year so only those who have a major repair, or a series of them, even actually save money by buying insurance. Yet there are times when that expense is justified in order to remove the risk involved.

Texas DMV also has a form available online that you can use to notify the DMV that your vehicle has been transferred to a new owner. That is important because it removes you from any liability if the RV is used while your license plates remain on it.

If there is an RV show anywhere near you, plan to attend and spend at least a day there and try to see everything that is offered. RV equipment and options have changed dramatically over recent years and I think it would be a mistake to restrict yourself to one type of RV without spending time looking at all available choices. I know that both KZ and Jayco build hybrid RVs and there are several others. Rockwood, & Aerolite & Coleman & Kodiak You can get some ideas from visiting this link.

The tandem axle (two sets of wheels) trailers tow much better and do not impact the tow vehicle nearly as much as a single axle trailer. That does increase the cost but it also has a great effect in increasing the safe payload of the trailer because two axles can carry much more weight. Notice that the tandem axle model has almost twice the cargo capacity (CCC) of the single axle model. It also has to be some longer in order to accommodate the second axle. An expandable trailer, sometimes called a hybrid, has a number of advantages as they weigh much less and require less space to store and they cost less. I would strongly encourage you to shop as many brands as possible before you make your choice as there are several companies that build models of that type.

We both joined Facebook because our kids and even more our grand-kids use it so much to communicate. Over the past several years, I have slowly accrued more and more "friends" from various contacts like Escapees, church, neighbors, and such places. It seems that I get friend requests several times per week and I am becoming much more selective in who I accept. Recently I have also begun to take advantage of the "un-follow" feature more and more. About the only group that I am active with is the Escapee page, which is monitored and controversial subjects and political junk are never posted. The admin must approve all posts there and so it has become more and more the place I spend most time.

Not if they stated in new condition but they may not have been. To measure battery voltage accurately you should let it rest with no current flow for at least an hour or two, both after changing and when in use. Quite likely, if you open circuit the battery and let it sit the resting voltage will rise.

Both Passport America and Happy Camper RV Club are discount associations that give a limited number of nights at half price. Good Sam is a market group that gives a 10% discount at member parks. Coast to Coast and RPI are associations much like TT. Escapees RV Club is a full service organization for RV travel which supplies many services from mail forwarding to RV parks, to a magazine and much more.

I don’t remember ever hearing of anyone listening themselves as RV buying consulting. There are pre-purchase inspectors around who might be interested in the job. I agree that you could get a lot of guidance on these forums if you are willing to spend the time and do the research as members point you to information. To do that we would need to know how you plan to use the RV, what budget you have, and a little about yourself. There are many members of the forums who have found the RV which is perfect and probably no two are exactly alike because the people who travel in them are not alike.

If you will share the make and model of the travel trailer, we could probably give you better guidance.

Welcome to the Escapee forums! We are pleased that you have joined us and we will do all we are able to help and support you. It is impossible for us to give a definite answer to your towing question, without specific information on both the Tahoe and on the travel trailer. From the little amount of information given, I suspect that you should be OK but that is only a guess. To know for sure one must first verify the maximum weight of the travel trailer. Is the gross weight rating and not the dry weight which is often listed by RV manufacturers. If the trailer weight that you are listing is the dry weight, that means that you can only add a total of 1000# of water, food, and belongings to the total in order to stay under the Tahoe ratings. Water has a weight of 8.34# per gallon so a tank of 50 gallons will add 400+# to your listed weight. If the listing is dry weight When you consider propane bottles, (you probably have two of them on the tongue) they will add about 50 - 60# each, so now that 1000# available for your belongings and supplies has fallen to less than 500# and you haven't yet put anything into the RV. As you can easily see, this is a fairly complicated subject but if you take your time and do a little study you will be able to figure it out. Take some time and look over the links provided by Trailertraveler and you can do this. It is better to do your study now to be sure that you do not later regret your choice of RV. While there is a learning curve to the process, all of us go through this and it really isn't rocket science, it just takes a little bit of time and study. We are happy you are here and do not hesitate to ask any additional questions.

I just saw these guys on Shark Tank and so visited their website. Even though they did get an investor, I really doubt that Winnebago management is at all worried. Anyone seen one of these yet? What do you think?

Interesting. Thanks!

Looks like I'll give LibreOffice a try. My son the programmer says I should stick with Google documents but I'm not sold on it.

And it will give your heirs a nice boost to retire early and enjoy life! When we became friends with a couple who are both attorneys specializing in elder law, we took their advice and began to spend those payments to whittle down the amounts our kids will have to divide. It is amazing how frequently estates cause family fights.