Buying an RV

After tent camping across the US in the summer of 2016, renting several RV's as well as talking to a wide assortment of RV owners, I've come up with a fairly extensive list of what I'm looking for when shopping for an RV.

1. My wife has to be on board, and she has to like it.
2. It has to be something we can afford and won't go into debt over.
3. I want to be able to park it in the driveway of my house which is in city limits.
4. I love my 1997 Toyota T100 pickup which is in great mechanical condition, and want to use it versus having a 3rd vehicle.
5. I want to be able to work/ride in it while driving.
6. I don't really care about bringing along my house, so just beds and AC will work fine for us. We would rather cook, eat and hang outside so we can meet people.
7. I want to be able to park in a rest area or wal-mart on those days where the weather is bad or we just need to make some ground.
8. I don't think I want it taking up half our garage. We use our garage alot for hanging out and letting the kids play.
9. It would be nice if it looked good. This is probably more my wife, but we have an interest in possibly helping sell these things online and things that look good sell good.
10. We want something that is a fast setup. Just park and climb in back to your beds. No slide-outs, pop-ups, etc. We've already tent camped across the US and one of the more difficult things was set up and teardown.
11. Its got to be able to accomodate 2 adults and 4/5 kids.

Yes, this list drastically reduces our options for an RV. Actually, I haven't found anything in the marketplace that fits all of these requirements which is why I continue to revise the back of my truck bed office/sleeper coupled with a gear trailer. The closest RV we found meeting our requirements was the Capri truck camper. 

We have flip flopped a few times on a popup camper. I was thinking one like the picture below might work for us with the front deck for all of our gear.

Fleetwood evolution popup campers

But after talking to a buddy of mine with similar interests who owns a pop up, I changed my mind. He was thinking of moving more towards the gear trailer setup like I already had. Even a 2200lb popup camper can have its challenges towing with a V6. If I drive down a dirt road that has no turn around, I can still unhook my gear trailer and spin it around to face the other direction if I have to. I might have to unload a few things or get my wife to push the back but it's a different story from a pop up like the one pictured above. 

I may need to first take a step back, and explain why we are coming to the conclusion we think we need to buy an RV for our family in the first place. I think that most people who know me would agree it doesn't take much to make me happy as far as money goes. I've experienced extreme financial stress back in the dot com crash of 2001, and vowed to change how I managed my money so I wouldn't be in that predicament again. I'm a huge fan of getting out debt and living below my means. I would much rather take a big pay cut than have to work at an unhealthy place of employment. I was able to talk my wife into tent camping across the US but we talked A LOT about just buying an RV to make things easier. Having said all of this, tent camping is not out of the picture yet. For example, we discovered on our cross US camping trip there are new tents that are instant setup. They are big and bulky but go up super fast. So, I do believe that the more you do it, the better you get. The last thing that I want is to be RV poor where you can't travel because you don't have any money left over to pay for gas or campsites. So here are my list of reasons for why I think we need to get an RV, versus just trying to get better at camping.

1. We find that with tent camping, that we opt out for staying at home when we think of the level of effort. It seems like too much work to get everything ready for a weekend mountain bike race, so we end up staying at home most of the time.
2. We are a big family of 6 now. In order to fly, we have to buy 6 plane tickets
3. My rule of thumb for driving with 4 kids, anything longer than 5.5 hours (this is Panama City Beach for us) is going to suck. Between potty breaks, diaper changes and feedings, a 5.5 hour trip turns into 8 hours. Then the kids have been in the car all day, and stored up all their energy for the evening you arrive
4. Most of our kids under the age of 4 wake up in the middle of the night crying. On our trip out west, our 1 year old daughter learned it was harder for us to let her cry it out in a tent so she started crying more in the middle of the night.
5. My wife and I love mountain biking. Packing bike gear and doing rides/races adds another level of difficulty to tent camping.
6. Fruita, CO is a mecca for mountain biking. Tent camping in 99 degree heat doesn't help put kids to sleep.
7. It doesn't get dark out west until 10pm in the summer. Our kids had a hard time falling asleep when it was still light out. You can't black out a tent as far as I know
8. Bad weather. We hardly had any of it out west. The summer of 2016 was crazy dry. Only one super scary severe storm in Kansas that broke apart right when it got to us. It took a couple of hours for me to fall back asleep after that one passed. Bad weather creates a whole other element with tent camping
9. Staying at a friend/family members house with 4 kids causes us a lot of stress. People will like us and our children more when we aren't inside their house all the time.
10. My wife and I have really enjoyed seeing what camping has done both for our marriage and family. It forces you to become a team. My revision 2.0 changes for our trip in the summer of 2018 was still a challenge. I think I've given my current set up a really good chance, and now it's time to hand it over to someone who is less of a hack than myself.