MySwag.org The Off-road Camper Trailer Forum
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: gordo350 on February 17, 2014, 07:43:43 PM
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Does anyone have any experience with renting an RV in America. Wife and I are looking to rent one for about a month this year and wonder if there are any pitfalls (other than the fact that the f@#$ers are 30 ft long) ie are the parks crap, fuel consumption, , driving lhd etc. Thanx in advance
gordo350
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maybe this will help
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449089/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449089/)
Cheers
Evo
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Yeah seen that movie. Thats what worries me
gordo350
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Yeah seen that movie. Thats what worries me
gordo350
Meh I wouldn't stress too much.
A few mates from my old unit took 6 weeks off driving around in an RV over there. Upside was one was a truckie so used to big vehicles.
Cost was pretty negligible considering all costs were divided by 4.
When they hired the bus, the shop dude was really helpful. Showed them how everything worked, gave lots of maps, even took time out to take them down to a local RV park to demonstrate setting up and packing up. Even showed them how to empty the crapper.
Most of it was recorded by cameras (go pro, still etc etc)
The biggest thing they said to make sure of is getting a really good dash (accident) cam for the windscreen. This was mainly due to the really high excess costs on the insurance.
I'll see if I can dig up some old emails from them, they had a ton of info in them.
Cheers
Evo
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We hired one for 8 weeks and drove coast to coast (well almost) in 2012. we used Cruise America and hired their 19ft (only two of us)
First up i would say they are great for being able to be on the 'road' for most of the day and not having to worry about food, beds etc.
If you are going near large cities they can be a pain in the a*se, as some cities do not allow RV parking in the main areas you are likely to want to visit in a large city. so if you can stay near public transport thats a big bonus - or squeeze push bikes in (some do rent them) that way you can park on the outer of the city and then make your way without the parking dramas
We had some serious problems with the black water and ended up returning the vehicle (actually the second or third vehicle) about 2 weeks before the end
I cant say that Cruise America went out of their way to help us, until i really turned it on then we got personalised service and to their credit they gave us remaining time money back, plus, expenses, inconvenience and some additional money
National Parks and State parks are well equiped for RVs (in fact seem to make their existence off having them there), most are reasonably priced and decent facilities, parks in general seem to deal with late night arrivals far better then they do here - most have a system that is clearly explained at reception - essentially money in an envelope pull up to either a nominated site or find your own
Woodalls have a great app that is similar in function to Wikicamps - allows to find camps before and mark them as well look on the road what camps are in your general area so that you can plan how far you might want to drive into the night.
We found on the days we were going A to B there were reasonable number of parks along the interstates (usually close to it, a bit noisy but easy to find and get back on your way again)
Happy to answer any other questions .. our trip is documented on our blog (link below) and if select tag USA 2012 you can trawl through that, if it doesnt mention the park, im pretty i have them recorded elsewhere if you are interested to know where we stayed
Overall despite the trouble we had (which really i think was probably just really bad luck) we had a blast and found it so easy to get around and do what we wanted to do, there were very few things we didnt get to because of the RV
Enjoy your travels, we just love the states and i hope that this has helped in some way.
E.
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Can't help with the RV specifically, but when we went I thought it was cheaper to hire a car and Motel it rather than using an RV - but then you're not camping.
Think about where you pick it up because you will have to drive out of the city/town when you are still not used to it. We flew in/out San Francisco rather than LA for that reason, a smaller city would have been better.
Do take or hire a GPS system, this was invaluable for finding our way. I would never have found my way on the 1st day using maps. Stops a lot of arguments as well
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Can't help with the RV specifically, but when we went I thought it was cheaper to hire a car and Motel it rather than using an RV - but then you're not camping.
Think about where you pick it up because you will have to drive out of the city/town when you are still not used to it. We flew in/out San Francisco rather than LA for that reason, a smaller city would have been better.
Do take or hire a GPS system, this was invaluable for finding our way. I would never have found my way on the 1st day using maps. Stops a lot of arguments as well
Yeah I agree, on top of driving a vehicle you are not used to,in a city you are not used to, you will also be on the wrong side of the car and road, which is fun, the first time.
X2 on the gps, we would never of got around LA without it.
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X2 on the gps, we would never of got around LA without it.
LA is up their with the worst too oldmate. Driving the Midwest is a lot more relaxing. And they are very courteous drivers generally. Again LA bit less so. I use the Tom Tom GPS app on the phone. Their is cheaper but they can be dodgy with some longer route selections and You don't want that. Purchasing a cheap GPS when you get there from lowes or walmart is an option too. I always find driving on the right okay, you just have to be switched on when turning from a driveway or lane and no traffic is around.
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Yeah seen that movie. Thats what worries me
gordo350
What about this movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1723121/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1723121/)
Cheers
Steph
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Thats more what I was thinking
gordo350
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LA is up their with the worst too oldmate. Driving the Midwest is a lot more relaxing. And they are very courteous drivers generally. Again LA bit less so. I use the Tom Tom GPS app on the phone. Their is cheaper but they can be dodgy with some longer route selections and You don't want that. Purchasing a cheap GPS when you get there from lowes or walmart is an option too. I always find driving on the right okay, you just have to be switched on when turning from a driveway or lane and no traffic is around.
Yeah. I had no drama driving down to San Diego then out to Vagas, but LA traffic is a nightmare from about 2:30 pm in the arvo all the highway just stop. Lol. Good times
Agreed about the turning out of drives etc.
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If you really want something different, go to Alaska towards the end of the season ( their Autumn,about the end of August I think) and you can get rv's to be returned to the lower states for about $10-00 p/d, and I think you have about 3 or 4 weeks to get them there. If you do this get a book called "the mile post" from http://www.themilepost.com (http://www.themilepost.com/)
You will find that most of the parks are nothing like our caravan parks, no grass and no trees, just a big gravel parking area with power/water/sullage connections.