We have officially moved into our motor coach. We have been getting it ready for the last couple of weeks and today we moved the coach to an RV park a few miles down the road and started our full timing.
This had been something we have been discussing since 2015 when we made the decision to switch from our 5th wheel to a motor coach. While on a 3 month trip during the first half of 2015 we visited many RV dealers and talked with lots of other RV owners to get feed back on various motor coaches. We eventually decided on two different models, the Ventana by Newmar and the Phaeton by Tiffin. Both had features we liked and had good reputations based on feedback from the owners we met. When we returned home around the first of July we decided to go with the Ventana primarily because of the tag axle that my husband wanted. We could get that on the Tiffin but at a much higher cost.
Since we were thinking of going full time we wanted to make sure that it had everything we felt we needed to be comfortable for year. We enjoy traveling in our RV but we want to do it in luxury. We are past the years of tent camping, traveling in a tongue pull travel trailer that had no slide outs (kids were still young and with us then so it had bunk beds) and going through two different 5th wheels over a 10 year period. While the 5th wheels were nice, the second one even more so since we ordered custom from the factory, it was time to get into something easier to setup.
As mentioned we wanted luxury, full size residential refrigerator, bath and half, lots of closet space, washer and dryer (had that in the last fifth wheel and got spoiled), tile floors, leather seating and more TV’s than I thought we really needed. Since our kids are now in their mid 30’s we no longer were concerned with the need for space for anyone besides ourselves. We were able to get everything we wanted and only made a few changes. Had to add the Blue Ox tow bars and brake controller to pull our 2015 Explorer behind the coach. We also changed out the radio/GPS system in the coach as the one included was pretty useless. We switched to a system that supported Apple Car Play as we use Apple iPhones, iPads and of course Apple laptops. We already had a new Garmin GPS that was designed for RVs so we continued to use it. The GPS for RVs is critical as it helps us ensure we don’t travel down a route that will not handle a 44 foot long coach with a car being towed behind.
We will be living at the RV park for the month of April while we get our house ready to sell. We rented a climate controlled storage unit in December 2016 and started moving items into it as we packed up our Christmas decorations. We also moved some of our more fragile items and have packed everything else for the movers to handle. We have managed to downsize by giving away lots of items and getting relatives to keep some items until we return from our year on the road.
