The Beginning...
Perhaps you've heard the old saying that goes "the two best days in a boat owner’s life are the day they buy the boat and the day they sell it". We're hoping that doesn't extend to camper vans, because in March (after about two years of meticulous research and hand wringing) we "pulled the trigger" on the purchase of a 2023 Winnebago Travato 59GL!
You can view all the official specs on the Winnebago site, but our particular Travato is built on a 2022 RAM Promaster chassis (it's not uncommon for the chassis year of a camper van / Class-B RV to run a year behind the coach year, because of the time required to do the conversion), and being one of the last COVID-era build units she's something of a unicorn among her Travato siblings (i.e. due to supply chain issues, the chassis doesn't have the usual ParkSense front/rear sensors that beep to let you know how close you are to things when parking - but does have Adaptive Cruise Control instead of standard).
"Why a camper van?" you might be asking. We've enjoyed tent camping for decades now, and love how campgrounds in national and state parks let you stay so much closer to nature and the activities we like doing than a hotel typically would. But our style of tent camping works better for trips where we're not moving around a lot (it typically takes us a minimum of 2 hours on arrival to "set up camp", and 2+ hours before departure to "tear down camp" and re-pack - and that's assuming daylight and favorable weather conditions) and in 2024 we plan on traveling "most of the Eastern half of the US" which will involve a lot of short stays and moving from place to place. Our younger selves were better at dealing with some other aspects of tent camping than our current versions are too: sleeping on the hard/bumpy/unlevel ground, the bitter cold and/or sweltering heat, the mosquitos that seem to find Tom so appetizing (although Christine less so), etc. Becoming "hotel travelers" was an option - but Tom doesn't sleep well in hotels (strange/uncomfortable beds, noises) and it would also mean relying on "eating out" for most meals, which neither of us like doing for various reasons. Some sort of "bed on wheels" solution seemed required.
Our earliest research had us looking into van conversions. While we saw some truly impressive van build-outs online, our trusty tape measure showed us that we were going to have to be much less ambitious if we intended to use our Sienna as the base. We prototyped a solution to try out on our week in Death Valley back in Feb ‘22:
In Oct ‘21 we came close to buying a used 2020 Aliner Classic (the smallest practical towable on the market at the time). But even its collapsed form was much larger in person than its specs / measurements made it sound, and Tom - who has never towed a vehicle in his life - has reservations about starting now. Being able go to/from the driving compartment from/to the living compartment without “going outside” was bubbling up in importance in our minds as well. Having some sort of traditional RV was looking like the probable viable solution. But there was still a dizzying array of RV choices out there...
In Jan '22 the annual Manufacturers RV Show returned to Pleasanton (after a COVID-induced hiatus), so we took the opportunity to attend and see in-person as many RVs at once as possible. Quite quickly our bias against Class A RVs was confirmed - we had no intention of becoming bus/truck drivers. Class Cs came smaller and still could be quite spacious and homey inside, but for the most part were still larger than we saw ourselves wanting to drive (and park) around the country. The Class B (camper van) seemed to be answer. But there was still the questions of manufacturer, model (partly driven in turn by the "cassette toilet or holding tank" question), and "new or used". We played in our first Travatos, though, and we left thinking "probably one of these".
Most importantly of all, though: we learned about the "Travato Owners and Wannabees" Facebook group (now also known in our house as "the big time suck") - a community of 15k users (dating back to owners of the original 2014 model) asking for and getting help when problems arise, showing modifications they've made to their coaches, sharing travel stories, etc. It's there we read the debates on the G vs K floorplans and generator vs. lithium (aka non-L vs L) power options, pored over all the changes made over the model years, fretted (mostly Tom) over all the things than can go wrong in these coaches (and then made notes on how to fix them), and saw how helpful and supportive the community was in general.
In the end, we went with the G floorplan:
because we liked the idea of having a separate dinette/sitting area (so we have a place to eat if the weather or mosquitoes get too bad outside 😉), and being able to leave the bed "down" and still access the bathroom from inside the coach. The larger freezer was a plus too.
We went with the L (lithium/Volta) variant over the generator because we liked the flexibility of having 110v power throughout the coach on-demand without having to bother our tent neighbors by running a generator. Power is stored in a a 9.6 kWh capacity Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (NMC) battery pack, which is mainly recharged by a second (high output) alternator in the engine as we drive, but can also be charged when parked by (manually or automatically) initiating a "high idle" charge cycle (which we're not really planning on using, since that would be akin to firing up a generator). There are also 215 W of solar panels on the roof, but many report that those aren't sufficient for even keeping up with the baseline draws of the Volta itself in some parts of the country. Of course, the coach can also be powered / recharged from shore power when it's available.
Time will tell, but we think this Travato is the best/right fit for our new intended travel style (truth be told, our biggest concern at the moment is cargo capacity). Let the adventures begin!
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