Airstream owners - indulge me!!

[StaceyinLA]

So I'm in major life changing decision limbo. Not really, but I'm trying to make a few long-term goals for us. One of the things we are considering is buying a camper we can basically live in. We would build a nice apartment with an attached shop/cover for the camper, so we'd have a big family living area (and a kitchen/bedroom/bath) for when we're here and our kids/grandkids are over, and then we'd have the camper to travel in.

Other option is keeping our place we have (which is really just more house/property than we are gonna need in the long run - heck it's more than we need now), and buying a smaller camper for travel.

Either way, I'd like to go the Airstream route.

What are your experiences? Pros and cons.

 

[madteaparty]

Just don’t like the “airstream addicts” site on Facebook 😂 oh man. 

We are also considering this but it’s a couple years down the line...

[Pawz4me]

We've been RV'ing for about 12 years now. I couldn't do it full time. Just thought I'd throw that out, FWIW.

You might want to check out Long Long Honeymoon (LOLOHO) on YouTube. They're a couple who travels with an Airstream. They don't full time, and many of their videos are more general RV tips and not Airstream specific, but you might enjoy them.

There are quite a few motor coach resorts throughout the southern U.S. that sell properties that include an RV parking pad and a smallish cottage. All the ones we've seen (or stayed at--we did it a few times when we had our large RV) are for Class A's only. But you might be able to get some ideas for floor plans of small cottages that work with an RV. Here's one (they call their cottages "executive suites or "RV port sites.")

Edited April 26, 2019 by Pawz4me

[StaceyinLA]

40 minutes ago, madteaparty said:

Just don’t like the “airstream addicts” site on Facebook 😂 oh man. 

We are also considering this but it’s a couple years down the line...

 

Totally doing it!

27 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

We've been RV'ing for about 12 years now. I couldn't do it full time. Just thought I'd throw that out, FWIW.

You might want to check out Long Long Honeymoon (LOLOHO) on YouTube. They're a couple who travels with an Airstream. They don't full time, and many of their videos are more general RV tips and not Airstream specific, but you might enjoy them.

There are quite a few motor coach resorts throughout the southern U.S. that sell properties that include an RV parking pad and a smallish cottage. All the ones we've seen (or stayed at--we did it a few times when we had our large RV) are for Class A's only. But you might be able to get some ideas for floor plans of small cottages that work with an RV. Here's one (they call their cottages "executive suites or "RV port sites.")

 

LOL this is what I want! I want to sell our house and property, and purchase a piece of property and let people (family) build small cottages with RV covers!

[SanDiegoMom]

We bought a new airstream (yowzers, $$$). My husband takes the kids camping about three or four times a year.  I don't go because we bought a smaller camper -- he only wanted a single axle.    We aren't the type to live full time in an RV.  At all. We did camp across the country when we moved here and spent 2 1/2 weeks in it and were SO READY for civilization, hot showers, more space to move around .   But keep in mind we are a family of five (well, four now as one is in college) and this is a 19 footer.  So, tiny.  There is only one bed - the table becomes a bed and is a pain to do every single night.  

No slideouts is also the airstream's big detractor from other campers -- can feel claustrophobic.  The benefits to Airstream is its ability to maintain its value.  

I haven't found it, though, to be particularly reliable.  My husband has learned A LOT about repairs, which is awesome.  But we did not feel that the internal "workings" were necessarily durable.  For instance, brand new, two days into about big trip, a pipe burst.  My husband spent the day working on that one.  We have had to replace a faucet, fix the water pump, the refrigerator currently is not working, other pipes have been fixed, there have a been a LOT of other minor fixes that were just user error (fuses, inverter not working off and on, etc).  Some of the problems were due to not winterizing properly the first year, some were from higher wear and tear (we rent it out to offset the cost) , some from not knowing that the RV lot had mice. (eek)  Also one of our renters had a tire blow -out.  Very scary for them and we felt terrible. This is after 4 years. We just didn't know, the tires need to be replaced everything 3-6 years and we just had a lot of wear on ours. 

But it is so pretty, and when it works (which is still most of the time!) 

[Lori D.]

Not an airstream, but we did have a 25' "hybrid" travel trailer (canvas roofed pop-out bedrooms) for awhile. It's like having a boat on wheels. You throw a LOT of money at it constantly -- camp site fees, fees of dumping waste at a dump station, cost of propane for running the appliances and heating water, much higher gas cost because you're towing a heavy weight, tires, registration, getting a flat tire fixed, repairs, another flat tire, more repairs...

For traveling and staying at RV sites, plan on bringing lots of rolls of quarters -- for laundrymat trips but also to pay for showers at the camp site, as the hot water tank (at least on our travel trailer) was SMALL (5 gallons), so you take super fast showers with a water trickle, and it takes a while to heat up the water for the next person's shower.

And you do need to be handy, as previous poster said, as there are constant things to have to fix while you're on the road and using it.

Also, having pop-outs or slide-outs is a very nice feature that RVs and travel trailers have and an airstream does not -- it feels like you double your living space, and actually have a slightly "private" room (visually, if not aurally, lol). I have also heard, but don't know for a fact, that airstreams are very hot because they are so enclosed.

Oh -- and I was NOT AT ALL comfortable with driving and pulling the travel trailer, so I never did. Which meant poor DH had to do all the driving, backing, parking.

I think you have to really love the airstream/travel trailer/RV life style to make it work for you. We enjoyed our 2.5 week big travel trailer trip through 7 Western states -- but it would have cost about the same (in the long run) and been easier in most places we went to just drive and stay in motels. We used the travel trailer a few times for camping, and that was nice, but it's hard to justify all the costs just to use it 1-2 times a year. We ended up re-selling it for less that 25% of what we paid for it, and hardly had used it, so a lot of expense for for very little use, plus having to store it when not using it.

Overall, I think renting an RV or a cabin would have been more fun and less stress (although I don't regret our travel trailer experiences at all). JMO. 🙂

I'd strongly recommend "trying before buying" by renting one and going on a 2-week trip and see what you think. BEST of luck, whatever you decide! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Lori D.

[SanDiegoMom]

Ooh, also when it's something my husband can't repair, it can be in the shop for a long time.  The last time we had a bigger repair it was in the shop for two months. That was pretty standard for our area. People just drop it off in winter to get it repaired in time for spring I guess.  I'm not sure what people do who live in their's full time. Have someone come fix it? Go stay in a hotel? 

[Pawz4me]

Ditto about long wait times for repairs at RV dealers. We try to avoid using them. We aren’t particularly handy but have learned a lot over the years. We have a local mobile RV repair man we use when we can’t do something ourselves. And once we were in Williamsburg when temps were running around 100 and one of our AC units started acting up. We used a mobile repair man for that, too, and it worked out well. Most larger metropolitan areas and tourist areas where RVers are common will have at least one mobile repair, and some popular tourists areas have several to choose from. 

[StaceyinLA]

Thank you all! I think the Airstream is farther into the future for us anyway. I did go to a dealer and look at them (they are quite nice), but he actually suggested buying something used and inexpensive and trying it out for a while before investing in an Airstream, which I thought was pretty cool of him as an Airstream salesman.

For now, what I want is something really tiny I can pull with my Enclave and take a couple grandkids along. I need it to be small and lightweight. I'm fairly confident with pulling, having pulled horse trailers with horses back in the day when dd was competing, but I still want something light so it won't put a strain on my vehicle.

I'm thinking Scamp or Casita or something along those lines. I'd love an older one I could renovate - have you SEEN those cool renovations online? My husband is extremely handy, having done an entire home remodel basically by himself (and I mean something that would've cost $100K or more had someone else done it - cost us $38K), so as long as the structure is good, the guts really wouldn't matter.

It's probably gonna be a year or so before I get one anyway, but I'm keeping my eyes open in case the perfect little thing comes up!

Edited April 30, 2019 by StaceyinLA