My wife is trying to get us to go full-redneck and buy a travel trailer. Anyone have any experience with these and want to share general advice? I'm assuming this won't happen as the wife goes through these weird phases that I can usually wait out.
The Airstreams actually look really nice, but damn, they are expensive.
After witnessing more than one friend up close own these: Don't buy one, but do rent or lease when you feel like experiencing true mobile home living.
Maintaining a travel trailer is like maintaining a house and a large automobile at the same time. So not only do you have to deal with leaky roofs, clogged toilets, and malfunctioning stoves, you also have to change the oil and buy new tires, and wash & wax it occasionally. And most everything on the "house" side has to be fixed by someone who specializes in motor home crap, since it's all evidently slightly different than regular house crap.
Other than the week or two a year that you actually use it, where would the USS PFactor spend it's time? Most HOAs don't allow you to keep them at your house, and even if that's not an issue, you wouldn't want it making a big dead spot in your lawn anyway. Or you can pay a hefty chunk to make a concrete parking pad with one of those very attractive aluminum awning things for your land yacht to live under. Other option is to pay a lot of money for it to sit in storage for months on end.
And last reasons not to own one are the taxes, insurance, and licensing you pay for 365 days a year. Approximately 350 of which your battleship will be sitting unused.
(Oh, I lied. There's another reason not to buy - much like they're trailer park siblings, the resale value on RVs is awful)
So, renting is good, owning is bad.
