Travel Dreams: Means of Travel

 

            Last month I shared with you about the lure of the world cruise and how it has (so far) given me the only deep desire for world travel that I’ve ever had. My heart is still largely drawn to this country in which I live and all the many rich things it has to offer from sea to sea and border to border.

            We have absolutely no clue what God has ahead for us. Perhaps we will settle in at the lake and stay there always, except for small trips close to home. But perhaps we will get to see some of our travel dreams come true in miraculous ways. (And for some of them to come true, it would indeed take a miracle.)

            One of the things I declared during 2022 was that I would devote time in the months to come to designing trips I hope we can take someday. In the traveling we have done, small though it may be, I have recognized multiple times that planning way in advance always turns out to be a blessing. I plan early and nearly roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of the early preparation, and then something happens, and I realize if I hadn’t done it then, I would have run out of time to do it at all.

            So I shall use my time here and now to plan for someday. If the trips come to fruition, it will be a blessing to be ready. If they don’t, I will have learned more about our country and its offerings and landscapes just from preparing, and time spent learning is never wasted.

            One of the things I have spent a decent amount of time researching is the best type of travel vehicle for our someday travels. Our dreams would take us on multi-week trips, so having a true home-away-from-home matters profoundly to us. We’ve learned much from our travels in Abby over the last few months, and here is what I’ve determined would work best for us. (I reserve the right to change my mind if I find better options!)

·         If we are going to travel across the country, we most certainly want to take an RV. Having the ability to safely transport our own food and use our own bathroom at any moment matters greatly to us. Being able to travel without packing and unpacking a suitcase every night matters to us. Having a place that is consistent in a season of daily change matters to us.

·         I’ve done endless hours of research on different sizes of RVs, campers, and truck campers. I’ve concluded that for us and for the type of travel we hope to do, driving a small RV (about the size of Abby) is the perfect fit. Large RVs are tempting for having extra space to call home, but the cost of the rig and fuel don’t work for us, and some of the places we have high on our list don’t accommodate huge vehicles. Pulling a camper would work (and would give us a vehicle to drive around without uprooting the camper) but some of our destinations involve tight curves on roads – and towed campers wouldn’t work out well. Some of the newer truck campers are pretty fancy and bigger than you might think, but I fear they wouldn’t be large enough for longer trips. (At least for us.)

·         The biggest downside in Abby is the wet bath. It works fine for the kind of camping we do with her, but a long-term trip with a wet bath isn’t our dream come true. So finding a small RV with a shower separate from the rest of the bath is paramount.

·         Having storage to take things we might need over a longer haul is also important – and can be hard to find in a smaller RV.

·         Having space for Lexi (because we hope this happens in her lifetime!) is very important.

Currently, my favorite find for an RV that would work for our travel dreams is the Coachmen Cross Trail. Have you ever seen one? Let me tell you what I love about it.

·         The ones I love most are considered a Class C RV, but they’re small – about the same size as Abby.  

·         They have a dinette booth inside, which is something Ryan really loves. (Abby has a table that has to be put up and taken down each time, and he has mentioned he hopes in a future RV, we can have a permanent table.)

·         It has a shower that is separate from the rest of the bathroom and doesn’t look unbearably small!

·         My favorite part is that the bed is in the back, and it raises and lowers to be as tall or short as you like. If you raise it up high, all the area underneath it is a garage for storage. It can be accessed from the inside or the outside, making it a perfect way to arrange Lexi’s bed and also other things we would need to carry for the long haul!

·         The only drawbacks I can see from my research are: no slides (which Abby doesn’t have either, but it does make it nice if you’re living in it for a long stretch…gives you a little more room) and a smaller refrigerator/freezer. But if you’re on the go every day, stopping to stock up isn’t as difficult as if you’re out in the middle of nowhere for a long time!

By the time we get to our travel dreams, this RV might be completely out of date, and we’ll need to start over. But if we were to leave today, this would be our pick, I think! Cute as a button and full of everything we’d need!