You might not have all the “comforts” of home -- unless you live in a really small home --  but you pretty much have all the “stuff” of home, including a propane stove, a bathroom and a shower.  You have a bedroom, closets, table and seats, and... well, not much room to move otherwise.  There’s a finite number of square feet in any vehicle, and the more comforts you put in, the more square feet they will occupy.   There’s enough to live and breathe and to squeeze past another person, but, and my friend’s dad once said about his own RV living, “You really gotta like each other to survive living in one of these.”

Nice when you’re on the road, though, to have a place to chill or snooze while Person 2 drives.  You probably won’t be taking a shower on the move: might get a little rough in there on an exit ramp, or in sudden braking.  Pretty sure it’s not legal anyway.  Try telling your insurance adjuster how you got injured and check out the look on the dude’s face.

I'm sure The Law wants everyone seated and buckled up when in motion, but I'm equally sure that's not always the case.  It is with me, though!  If my vehicle is in motion, I am belted in and attentive.  I better be; I'm driving.  One of the shortcomings of solo roadtripping:  you never get to hang out in back and watch out the big windows as the world rolls by. 

The efficiency of space in RV bathrooms is amazing.  You have, maybe, a 3x3 space and you somehow cram a toilet, a sink, and a shower – with proper drainage – in there.  And we think it’s great.  And it is!  But can you imagine if you rented an apartment and your landlord opened a closet like this and said, “and here’s your bathroom!”  You’d be outa there in a Sacramento second.

[That pic is actually from a van conversion.  Most Class C bathrooms are a good bit roomier, but still not what you’d call “roomy.”]

As far as where you can take them, campers are not as limited as motorhomes, but, at 23’ and longer, standard parking spaces are still too small, parking lots too tight, parking garages too short.  Aside from those places, though, negotiating corners, backing up, and pulling in/out of campsites are all easy-peazy breezy. 

They don’t automatically have solar power either.  Some come with it, but others just use generators and inverters, and they rely on regular stops in campgrounds to plug into shore power.  Jason and Dawn added some solar to theirs.  The 100W panel fuels their xxxxxxx.

When I first started reading up on all of this, the term “shore power” baffled me a bit.  Then I got the metaphor:  the vehicle is like a small ship at sea, disconnected from all utilities, and the campgrounds are like coming ashore, and tying back in to the modern conveniences. 

Another thing I love about the Class C’s is the fact that you just get out of your driver’s seat and step into the living quarters, like the pilot leaving the flight deck.  (I guess we can all understand why the airline industry phased in that term and phased out the word “cockpit”.)  

So, these are a great way, for sure, but I really didn’t even bother shopping for one.  I took a quick look, but nope:  still well outa my price range.  There were a couple out there under $50K, but they were 20 years old – which screams “Repairs!” at me – and I’d still have those parking issues.  At least, that's how I console myself.    =)