on this episode of RV hunters I've got a big question mark in my mind as to what direction
we should go this is actually pretty roomy wow a lot of space stacey you're gonna love this one
oh you know that could be nice over a long road trip to mix it up tim and stacy are ready to get
started with living rv life so we are meeting them at the tampa rv super show to help them find the
perfect RV to fit their travel style and season of life hi I'm tim i'm stacy we're from uh tampa bay
we've not had a camper before no so we're out looking we have six kids between us
and they're all over the country and we're trying to find a way to go and see them and come explore
see what's out there so we're looking around both at uh motorhomes and tow behinds not really sure
what way to turn at this point so a lot of choices out there he wants something large and spacious
why she wants something smaller and easy to drive tim is also concerned slide-outs could
present problems so he's not sure he wants an rv with slides you know for me the must-haves
really would be something that's comfortable for driving spacious I I don't want anything that
I have to do a lot of setup on when we arrive somewhere or a lot of tear down and keep it very
simple I guess my main perspective I'm a little bit worried about driving an RV and I want to take
some of the responsibility of driving so tim isn't always driving so and then we
can probably go more places and go farther so size is a big issue for me I kind of would like
a slide out I feel like that is going to give us some more room not sure how Tim feels about that
and a decent amount of space in a kitchen area so that you know we can make some food and feel
comfortable having a fridge that carries the food that we want helping them find the perfect RV
could be more difficult than we thought all right well there's some bee vans over here so let's take
a look at these and see what you guys think I'm going to start with showing them some class b rvs
because these are a little bit smaller stacy would feel more comfortable driving them but are they
going to have the space that Tim really wants on the inside wow there's a lot of room in here too
more than I thought yeah oh my there's a lot of room
so the nice thing that I think about the bee vans is again other than having to you know
kind of hook and unhook to go somewhere right right you're going to fit into parking spaces
fairly easily it's like a van this is just like having your own van and yep and then you know
that back part is going to fold down into a bed so you've got that lots of closet space well
most of these have what's called a wet bath meaning that the bathroom and the shower are
all in one area I'm not sure how I feel about it I know I call it the toilet first of all oh wow
um by putting enough moisture in the black tank right where all of your waste goes it shouldn't
stink but the other thing is is they you have like chemicals that you put down into your enzymes
it helps to digest any waste and turn it into liquid so when you dump the tank it all comes
out but it also um mitigates any sort of smell or stink no I mean there's enough room to get in here
and wash up and sit down I guess uh where's the nozzle for the ship or is it this yep
yep there you go go here yeah okay sure when I was in the navy this is the same thing so
the one thing that is kind of interesting without this particular style is if you do have something
where you're going to be more outdoorsy maybe you have a kayak or a bike or something that you
want to put in it becomes very easy to just put in through those back doors and lay in the back area
so let's look at some of the class c's um that'll give you a better idea of kind of the space
that you would possibly have in something like that now I know that you're a little bit concerned
about length so yeah we can look at what some of the different length options are in this next I'm
going to show them some class c RVs class cs come in shorter overall lengths and feel easy to drive
but since they can have slide outs they can have a significantly larger layout and living spaces
I know Stacy will love how easy a class c feels to drive what do you think about how the thought
feels from a driving person it feels okay and I think if I could raise the seat I don't know if
there's a button for that yeah somewhere but I'm sure there is yeah if I sat up a little higher it
feels a lot like the front of the minivan from from what I can see out here so that doesn't
feel scary I'm not sure how Tim will feel about slide-outs once I show him how much space that
slide-outs can create I'm hoping he'll change his mind remember the one that we were just in right
that other van that we were just in yeah did not have a slide out right it was just the van
right this one's got a full-length slide that goes all the way deep oh the whole link yeah
right now so this one would be a great option like what you were saying where eventually if you
wanted to bring a green kiddo or a kiddo along because um this can be used as sleeping space
okay and then you've got the bed there as well yeah this feels a lot more spacious and the other
thing too is with this slide out you could always put an inflatable mattress down or something like
that too for an additional person if you needed it so how do you feel about slide outs yeah is how
they hold up are they do they feel safe yeah so um slide outs I mean it is more moving parts right
but in general if as long as they're maintained properly they do need some maintenance they do
need some lubrication they do need to be adjusted from time to time as long as they're maintained
properly they're not problematic i know you talked about not really liking slide outs but
having the slide out gives us having a slide out gives you so much more space if these are
all motorized there's going to be a switch that pulls it in and out on a motorcycle transformers
so my thing about it that i'm not sure about i mean i i do get
you know stacy's liking the space but what i wonder about is when it's closed
you know how much space do you have to walk around when it's closed it seems
almost like you couldn't even hardly get back to the back yeah so there's not a real good
definitive line like to be able to kind of have an idea of where this comes in but the majority
of them where it does come in at you do still have plenty of room to get to like the bathroom
so that's almost always accessible yeah jump on the bed this way at least yeah most likely that
this bed um because this is like the slide is out right now most likely this bed is going to somehow
maybe fold up okay so in a little bit we'll go look at some class a's that are the shorter length
because i know that you're concerned with length right um but one thing i want you guys to remember
and consider when we're thinking about this like class c versus a class a is you can get class a's
that are in that shorter length you know in the 20-ish 30-foot range but the driving experience
in a class a with the really big windshield is so much different when you're wanting to really
enjoy that drive you know especially going through just beautiful country whether it's
mountains or planes or whatever when you have that really big windshield that just feels so
different one of the things that we've been talking about a lot is having workspace because
we both do some writing and you know uh editing and different things you know on our computers and
work type stuff and i just saw there was only a place for one table in there so that's one of the
reasons why i'm not so sure about the smaller unit but it's all such a big trade off a bigger unit
we might have more work space now that i've shown tim and stacy the class b and c rvs i really want
for them to look at a class a motorhome i think with what they want in an rv a class a might be
the perfect combination of space and comfort but will it be too long for stacy to feel comfortable
driving it so let's go look at some of these class a's now and see where we're at on length on these
and how tim and stacy feel about a class a versus some of the class c's we've been looking at
wow a lot of space
stacey you're going to love this one wow this is huge so think about that this is only a 28 foot
why does it feel so much bigger oh look at this they are still separate
but it's just beautiful so that other classy that we were looking at that was a 31 foot yeah
this is shorter than that one was as far as the length is concerned okay it doesn't feel good
at all it feels so much more open and then for sleeping you've got this booth dinette
but then this is actually a bunk oh so when you're not driving this will drop
down you can see there's the mechanical rails there it's it's a it's a push button okay but
this will actually drop down and then you have this space that can be used for sleeping too
so as you're traveling with kids or grandkids you've got this that can be used for sleeping
your dinette that converts for sleeping and then that back bedroom too so it could easily sleep
you know five to six people in this particular model and you're still under that 30 foot length
didn't get felt humongous and then now it feels great after comparing it it's got a stereo in
the bedroom look at these cabinets and everything king-size bed it's gorgeous yeah this is actually
pretty roomy i i think this is great to be able to put it away yeah when you're driving and
yeah and uh take it down at night if you want it or yeah or even kids up here you are out and
it's just the two of you and you don't have the grandkids it can just be up and out of the way
but it's an option for when you do have the grandkids got it you take the driver's seat
you can work from the passenger seat look at that nice space oh my gosh yeah one thing that's really
nice about the clasp is is tim you were talking about wanting to have a work space and a place
to work is that these can be very comfortable for workspace in these seats that are up front
here as well why do you work right here easily yeah you can also we talked about too like this
steering wheel kind of will flip up and over but you can also get um like little tables that would
just sit on top of that steering wheel to be able to use that for a space for a laptop or whatever
look at this one has one built in yeah okay pull out that you can use for workspace we could put a
lot of miles behind us this way without ever you know having to take long stops or anything i mean
spot for your your coffee or your iced tea or your margarita coming into this i think we have to talk
about you know what we're looking for is it just for us to go travel around or is it for us to go
travel to our kids or take our kids and grandkids with us and so the size will
make a huge difference yeah well like stacy said we have six kids they're in multiple states none
of them are here in florida with us so right it's all about traveling to see them and and we've got
one grandchild hoping for more so then space is a question how much do we want how much can
we afford and and how much can we drive down the road so a lot of things we're looking at
the last type of rv i want to show tim and stacy are travel trailers and pull behinds
they currently do not own a vehicle with the capacity to tow anything so that would be
a large factor in considering a tow behind model of rv the pole behinds don't seem as
they don't seem to have as many creature comforts because the thing is too is like if you're in a
drivable you're gonna be in it the whole time yeah right this is kind of going back and forth
between the vehicle to this to your vehicle so i do feel personally i feel like that the drive
levels do have some more of the creature comforts and things like that than the whole behinds too
so grand design does have one of the better like they kind of have a little thing here but
uh on their construction like how that they do the actual construction of the exterior um is
pretty much kind of like the top of market as far as how well it's put together from a standpoint of
just the overall structure okay so what's the i mean the experience going to be like for someone
pulling a pull behind like this versus like the class a yeah so it's a lot more nerve-wracking
when you're pulling a trailer when you are like on a highway and you have a semi that maybe comes up
you know the opposite direction of you and you get that kind of gust of wind
yeah you really really feel it when you've got you know pull behind versus when you're just drivable
you still feel it in a drivable but it's a little bit different from a control perspective where it
doesn't really feel scary um the other thing is is things like wind right that you have to
think about any sort of road anomalies that can just make it a little bit more nerve-wracking
so you know when we talk about how long do you want to travel in a travel day driver fatigue
can be a big part of that if you're nervous the whole time that you're behind the wheel
if you're stressed it's very easy to become fatigued in a short amount of time
which shortens that length of time you want to be behind the wheel
versus if you're not feeling as fatigued because you're not as stressed or whatever
so driving an actual drivable even if you're telling you know a tow vehicle behind you it's not
a lot of length compared to the length of the vehicle that you're driving it's a little bit
easier to recover from those you know pushes from wind gusts or oncoming semis or something like
that now that we've shown tim and stacy class b class c class a and pull behind rvs it's time for
them to decide which rv best fits their style for rv life which one did they choose stay tuned to
find out what do you think that you want to look at more of as far as maybe where are you leaning
i don't know still maybe the smaller ones but with with the slide-outs yeah probably a slide-out
now that that's a good thing for us it's changed yeah okay so something was laid out and something
that's a drivable i think different driving yeah okay so we'll go that puts us into probably then
like class c classes yeah so the flare you've got an extra four foot of space at least on the 28
foot one because this is a 24 versus that was 28 foot and then the flare also had a
29 foot model too if you remember there was and then they went up from there but
so you've got price the extra length but with the flare you also kind of have that ability to
possibly tow a vehicle behind that at some point if you wanted to before we came to the show today
my biggest interest was in a class b motorhome but i was also kind of thinking about a pull behind
then we got looking at the cost of a vehicle to do the pull behind so that raised some questions
so really walking in here today i've got a big question mark in my mind as to what direction
we should go so one of the craziest things is that we actually really fell in love with the
class a's which have beautiful front windshields i never thought that that would be something i would
feel comfortable with it it gave us more space inside the rig the view out the front looks
beautiful and um yeah so we actually fell in love with the class a it really didn't take us too long
to rule out the pull behinds for a lot of reasons you know but and i had not thought about a class a
before and hadn't been introduced to one before but we love the panoramic view in the front and
and the seating and it feels pretty spacious in the front on the class a's and the class b that i
thought we were going to be most interested in we kind of veered away from that because the i didn't
feel like having a box over our head and and all of that so we're really kind of leaning towards
the class a at this point what's really nice is that he found out that the slide outs aren't so
bad so get a lot more space that way that is a new development for us yeah the slide out definitely
is something i'd like to have now as well so in terms of you know kind of adjusting fire here
kind of compromising on what it is we're after i think you know we're both interested in the you
know the class a now you know for the reasons i mentioned but the length is still an issue and
i think we're gonna have to compromise on that somehow some of the longer ones they have washer
and dryer yeah some of the shorter ones they don't so i think we're still looking at you know the
actual length and drivability so we're gonna have to kind of work through that right