VW camper van via Smitten Studio
Our sister and brother-in-law have taken trips through New Zealand and Alaska in RV’s and they swear by this method of travel. You can cook when you are hungry and stop whenever you get tired and sleep for the night. You don’t have to always be on the lookout for a restaurant or a hotel with vacancy or plan out your trip and make reservations before you’ve even left. You can just go with the flow. Lately I’ve been seeing all kinds of gorgeous trailers for rent in different places. I’m all for roughing it in a tent. But I’m not one to turn down luxury, either, especially when it still involves being outdoors in gorgeous places. Sometimes finding available campsites can be difficult. RV’s can’t be parked overnight everywhere, but they offer a bit more flexibility. Maybe it’s time we tried this traveling “RV-style” thing.
VW camper van via Smitten Studio
Here and here are beautiful photos of Smitten Studio‘s RV trip in New Zealand. You can rent VW camper vans! I’ve always been worried that if we rented a big clumsy RV and then tried to drive over mountains, it wouldn’t make it over a pass and the gas would cost a fortune. This small version of an RV seems like a much better solution for drives with elevation–not to mention its good looks make for some fantastic photo ops.
Teardrop Trailer via crushculdesac.tumblr.com
Or you could go the route of a teardrop trailer. You can rent a car with a trailer hitch, if you don’t live in California and have your own, and then you can rent one of these from Vacations in a Can and cruise around Yosemite or the Redwood forests. I love the kitchen in the back. Wouldn’t it be fun to cook a gourmet meal, snuggle on a picnic blanket under the trees, and then have a good night’s sleep on a real mattress?
A few years ago we were camping off Hwy 1 in Big Sur in California and a bunch of guys from Sunset magazine pulled up with a fancy Airstream trailer. They offered us drinks if we would please leave our campsite early in the morning so they could park their trailer there to take photos for the cover (July 2010). Guess we picked a good spot!
Check out Sunset’s guide to RV’s here. Which would you use?
Have you ever traveled RV-style? Do you have any suggestions or tips? Did the cost of gas outweigh the savings of avoiding a hotel?