Our path to choosing our new (rolling) home

We’re thinking about a new RV – even though its been less than a year since we bought our last – we’ve been bitten by the RVing bug pretty hard!

Our existing RV (Boomer, a 2016 FR3 28DS – an awesome entry-level/small Class A) was chosen with the expectation that we’d do weekends, maybe the occasional week/long weekend.  Its perfect for that – not too large of an investment, easier to maneuver, and generally pretty spartan.  We thought we’d like the RVing lifestyle, but weren’t sure.  We didn’t want to go whole-hog without really testing the waters some.  (Though we did jump in feet first with a purchase, rather than renting)

Now that we’re infected with the RVing bug, we are looking to do some more extended trips – weeks, maybe a month at a time.  Not permanent, but longer.  Since we’re both employed, and our expected forays will be longer than our allotted vacation time, we’ll be working from from the road, so the RV needs to support that.

We’re not sure when this will begin, though it should be within the next two years. So, we have some time to plan, and try to get as much right as possible.

I work for a Cloud Provider as a Security Engineer/Developer. Therefore, we really need to be pretty well connected, and to have an RV that has appropriate indoor space to work, as I will be spending many hours a day inside.

For me coding is a fairly cerebral enterprise. I need to have fewer distractions and interruptions – at least while I’m trying to figure something out. I need some larger-than-normal screen real-estate to get as much code on the screen at a time as I can too.

For example, at my desk in the office in Northern Virginia, I have a really nice Apple Cinema Display (27″, IIRC) we got off of Craigslist.  It’s still very very nice, despite being several years old. I would like to be able to continue to use this monitor (well, or more, space permitting) while on the road – as I won’t have a need for a desk in the office at work anymore.

This, and some other considerations, have helped us determine the requirements for our new house-on-wheels.

(It should be noted that our preconceptions about what we think we’re going to need, and what actually comes to pass are very unlikely to completely coincide.)

I’ll go into my thinking about each in subsequent articles, but here are our basic requirements:

• Diesel Pusher

• Bunkhouse (Here is our inspiration from the awesome RV Love folks), turning that into an ‘office.’)

• Barring a bunkhouse, some area I can turn into an office, or make office-like and be quiet. Maybe a large closet? Space between the foot of the bed and the wall?

• RV ‘Fridge (EDIT:  This has been reconsidered, see our post here)

• Good TV watching position

• Good basement storage

• Decent storage tanks

• 2010/12+ (Whenever the DEF requirements for the much-cleaner diesel made their way onto the market)

• < 40′

• Inverter (2KW+, pure sine, if possible)

• Shades, not drapes

And we have some ‘bonus’ items too:

• On the shorter side

• ‘Facing’ Dinette – with real chairs,  instead of a booth dinette

• Washer/Dryer

• Separate Lounge Chair

• Day/Night shades (MCD would be nice too)

• Tankless hot water (not for infinite showers, but for not having to manage the hot water tank)

• Good Surround sound (5.1 please!)

• Solar (either in place, or pre-wired for it)

Some ‘anti-patterns’ we really want to avoid:

• bath-and-a-half

• Lots of Carpet

• TV over the front window

• FRED – A front-engine Diesel

• Mid-entry – entry door in the middle of the coach, vs in front of the passenger

• Fiberboard/Laminate furniture

think there is a bit of depth to some of these decisions, and since I can be long-winded, details will be left to future articles.