Our Search For a FullTime RV

If we sell our house, where will we live?! 

While we love our little ranch house, and it has served us well for almost 10 years now, we aren’t sure that it really fits our needs anymore. We want to travel more. Lauren wants to train more with Stella for the horse shows, so they can be more competitive. Leaving an entire ranch is cumbersome, to say the least. Not to mention, the routine maintenance and daily tasks are quite time-consuming, which leaves little time for everything else. Our goal, in one word is FUNCTIONALITY. Whatever change we look at making needs to be more functional for our goals, so that is the common thread throughout our decision-making process. Maybe staying in the house really is the most functional option, but we won’t know until we explore the other options. 

Layouts

We narrowed the entire search down to roughly a dozen floorplans under a few main manufacturers: Grand Design, Vanleigh, and Alliance. After our first day at the 2022 Florida RV Supershow, we settled in on Grand Design, and here were our top competing floorplans:

1.     Grand Design-Solitude-390RK

2.     Grand Design-Solitude-375RES

3.     Grand Design-Momentum-399TH

We spent months looking at RVs in attempt to educate ourselves. Some of our biggest concerns have been:

·      We need a dedicated work/dining space, with a table of some sort.

·      We need functionality for Mishka’s crate and other dog needs (food, beds, room to play).

·      We may not be on the road every day, but we will occupy the rig full-time, so adequate storage is a MUST.

·      We want residential-style amenities for the kitchen/cooking

·      Quality. Being in this rig full-time, we need to know it will stand up.

·      Finding a place to park it, in a community where we are comfortable.

·      We need a truck that can tow this thing! (A LOT of math went on here!)

·      Brand considerations: overall quality, customer service, warranty, and coverage for full-time use in our highly varied climate

·      Dealer considerations: service department, locations

·      And given the current manufacturing climate, can we even get the one we want?

·      Budget!

So what do you think? Will we find an RV that meets all our needs? Will we actually sell the house and live in an RV as full-timers? What floorplan would you choose? Did we miss something in our research?