Traveling Options- The Vehicles!

Traveling Options

There are SO MANY options for how to do this trip- here is what we looked into so far:

Option 1: Motorhome

Pros:

*It is a tow vehicle and living quarters in one.

*The kids could play games at the table while we drove

*We could drive at night, potentially, while everyone slept- in their bed.  (but we wouldn’t feel real good about the safety of that so maybe that is a con- for us)

*No “unhooking” and “rehooking” to go from place to place.

Cons:

*Expensive and the ones that were in our budget were unreliable.

*Every state has different carseat laws and technically with 4 kids there is no arrangement that would allow us to even possibly follow the California carseat laws (with rear facing and forward facing etc).  We are pretty overcautious about carseats and the “roaming” around the RV while we drove, or even nursing the baby on the road wasn’t something we anticipate doing).

*Carseats (even though not legal) would be placed on the table and couch – which would mean a lot of rearranging nightly for sleep- OR we would have to get a class C with the queen bed ontop and it wouldn’t have the engine to pull a vehicle.

*We would have to tow something else to do excursions in the city.  The vehicle we would tow would have been our van, but at a weight of 6,000#s it is too heavy to pull behind and so was any other 6 passenger vehicle we would need to tow. 

Bottomline:

We would have to pull a vehicle that fits 6 people and that forces us into an motorhome that is pretty powerful and therefore a bit more expensive than we were comfortable with. Option 1- sadly out.

Option 2: Fifth wheel and Truck

Pros:

*Fifth wheels are built really well, and are generally bigger with slide outs etc.

*We could “unhook” and go on excursions in the truck pretty easily

Cons:

*A 6 seatbelted truck would require Savannah, as the oldest, to sit in the middle front.  She is the one the “helps” the most with the other kids in the car.  Also one of us (Josh or I) almost always sit in the back with the baby in the van- to soothe her or just keep Levi from dropping his hot wheels car on her head.  3 little kids together in the back sounded like disaster to me.  

*A 6 seatbelted truck would require me to always sit in the front- I like to sit in the back with the kids and help them with snacks, entertain the baby etc- and we are going to do school on the road- which we have already started with all the traveling to see this and pick up that.  I need to be able to sit with the kids and share a computer screen.

*A 6 seatbelted truck means NO room for anything else- no stroller, cooler, barely room for games by our feet, no room for blankets, toys, and no space to change a baby quickly or use our car potty (yes we have a port-a-potty in our van for whomever is potty training at the time- its from IKEA and has been a LIFESAVE for us even before the whole plan to travel the country so we are bringing that for sure)

*5^th wheels are heavy and therefore require a heavy duty truck- diesel is what we would want for that purpose and a 7.3L (not a 6.0L) is what is most reliable.  Actually Josh really wanted the Cummins engine with Allison Transmission BUT all of the above are not cheap.

Bottom line: Diesel trucks aren’t cheap, trucks wont be comfortable for our big family, 5^th wheels are a bit more costly…. Option 2 –out.

(we didn’t even consider the pop up tent option- but I guess that could be inserted here)

Option 3: Large 6 –or-more passenger vehicle and pull behind trailer

Pros:

*Tow vehicle similar in functionality to our mini-van. 

*Ability to “unhook” and go out into town- with all the kids!

*Pull behind trailers are reasonably priced.

Cons:

*We wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the “house” while driving.

*It requires, according to google, the most skill to drive

*Not as beefy as a fifth wheel

Option 3 for the win!  Now for more decisions related to it- what truck and what trailer?  We went back and forth over a Ford Excursion or E350 and equally looked for both.  We were hoping for a diesel but were willing to take a v10 after learning that the trailers we were considering were within the tow capacity.