Great starting point

[Zinger]

Popups are a great starting point but i wish we had gone straight for the trailer the first time. I am I alone or is this common?

[skipnchar]

I don't regret our pop up years one bit. We were towing with a 92 Mazda when we were pop up camping and the combination was not only comfortable to drive it was pretty good on gas (over 16 MPG towing). We'd had a couple of trailers and a slide in truck camper (actually two of them) previously but had been OUT of RVing in the traditional sense for about 10 years. Our RV during those years was a sail boat.

[Zinger]

They do beat the heck out of a tent .

[PrivatePilot]

I think that there's lots of people out there who have made the mistake of jumping into RV'ing feet first, spending boatloads of money on a top of the line TT brand new off the lot (not realizing the massive depreciation), and then discovering after one season that they really don't enjoy camping much. They then try to sell the trailer and get hosed top to bottom on the whole deal, loosing a ton of money.

I bet that a few of those people are wishing they'd spent a few thousand on a small used popup first. It's a cheaper learning curve.

Safe to assume if anyhow who starts out with a popup loves the RV'ing experience, upgrading is easy, and if you got a good deal on the used unit you should be able to at least recover your costs on it.

[fla-gypsy]

I started off in a tent then moved to a PUP and loved it. To me it was the best of all camping worlds. Still effected greatly by the outdoor elements but a comfortable place to retreat to for some sleep. With the TT I have now (32') it sometimes doesn't seem so much like camping although I try my best to keep that feeling by cooking outdoors and spending my time outside. I love sitting around in the shade with a premium cigar or a fire at night.

[Justardnck]

Pop ups is how I started even though I never owned one, we used to ride quads in Big Scrub Ocala National Forest. I used to tow the bike trailer and my buddy used to tow the pop up, it sure beat the hell out of tent camping

[jp rver]

Our first RV was a 1987 Coleman Chesapeake popup. I bought it for $2000 back in 1997. We used it for 2 years before we bought our first TT in 99. I had added a little window A/C unit to it and put new tires on it and sold it for $2300 in 99. We loved that popup and it didn't really cost us much of anything. I pulled it with a 1994 Plymouth Grand Voyager and sure do miss the fuel mileage we got back then!

We sold our first TT in 2004, and bought another popup in 2005. We bought a used Palomino Yearling for $2500. We used it twice, and my DW decided she missed having a TT badly so we sold it and bought our current TT in the mid summer of 2005. I sold it for $3000, so it actually made us a little money. If it were up to me, we would have kept it probably longer, but with us and two kids, it was a little tight at times.

Still, I think popups are a great alternative to couples and small families, and as fuel prices rise, they offer the benefit of having a more efficient smaller tow vehicle.

Here is a pic of our 2000 Palomino.

[Fire Instructor]

We did our first trip in a borrowed PUP, before we bought a used one! Used the used one for 6 years, and then sold it for $400 less than I paid for it... I guess we got our $$$ worth. We then upgraded to a bigger PUP in '98, which we used through the '05 season. ' 06 and '07 in an HTT, and now we've upgraded again to a full hard-side TT.

The PUP's were a great start for us. We could tow them with the vehicles that we owned, so we didn't need to go out and purchase a specific TV, they allowed us to go places and do things that we wouldn't have done from hotels or other accomodations, and they gave the kids a great camping experience, as well.

[wintek]

I don't regret purchasing my PUP first. I paid $3,600 for a brand new 1990 Coleman Roanoke royal and sold it for $2,700 last year when I bought my HTT. It provided years of fun for my growing family with our tight budget. The main reason I moved up was the PUP did not have air conditioning. I could get by without when I lived in cooler climates but now that I'm down south I really really need it!

[catmom]

We actually went through the progression inside out & backwards: started off with a tent, then went to a small older Class C motorhome, then to a new popup. Got tired of taking the MH in for repairs - there was always something needing fixing! Spent 17 happy years with the PUP and decided we were ready for something a little more comfortable - our PUP was rather basic: no a/c, no heater, no shower, no fridge. It did have a portapotti with a customized cabinet to store - and use - it in. Traded for a hybrid trailer (HTT) 3 years ago, but as I get older it gets harder to climb on & off the bed, make it while I'm sitting on it, etc. so we're now looking at regular trailers.

Anyway,popups are great for first-time RVers, even first-time campers, and IMO are a really good way to start learning how to tow something, especially with the smaller ones because you can often see over them. You can get the logistics of backing in before having to learn to do everything by mirror image! We really weren't ready for the leap to trailer for quite a while.

[PrivatePilot]

Speaking of making money on TT purchases, we bought a 21' Terry last summer for $6000 and ended up selling it in November for $7500. $1500 profit after <6 months of ownership wasn't bad.

Unfortunately it seems like we're going to suffer the opposite effect with our current TT (which constitutes a very, very long and painful story), but let's not go there.

[jp rver]

Speaking of making money on TT purchases, we bought a 21' Terry last summer for $6000 and ended up selling it in November for $7500. $1500 profit after <6 months of ownership wasn't bad.

Unfortunately it seems like we're going to suffer the opposite effect with our current TT (which constitutes a very, very long and painful story), but let's not go there.

Oh,, that answers my question to you on another thread. I asked if you were unhappy with your Award since you are now contemplating purchasing a different fiver. I guess you are. Sorry you had bad luck with it and hopefully your next trailer purchase will come out better.

As a side note,I will share a bad buying experience I had recently. A couple years ago I was looking for a cheap beater car to commute in and found a good looking and at the time a good running high mileage 1997 Olds Achieva coupe. I took it for a test drive and it was a fun little car! The guy sold it to me for $900 and off I went. I drove it for about a month when things started to go downhill. First it would overheat, then it started running rough. I did a little research and found out some of the trouble spots with the 4 cylinder motor that was common to those cars. To repair the cracked head and other problems my car had would have cost me more than the thing was worth so I sold it for $400. I told the buyer everything I knew that was wrong so he didn't have any surprises like I did. That car cost me $500 in the two months I owned it, and wasn't even very reliable for the second month. Like the old saying goes, "sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you".

[zuley]

Once we sold our boat we started doing the tenting thing. By the time we stopped tenting we were into pretty high end tent camping with all of the kibbles and bits we had acquired over the years. At our age, pushing 50, it was getting too damn cold and damp getting up in the mornings. We laughed initially when friends suggested a pop up. It took us three years to finally purchase one. We did the research and bought a Coleman Cheyene. I can honestly say I wish we had of done it years ago. The logical progression would be to move up to a travel trailer at some point. We've done the trailer shows and finally said not a chance. In our opinion that is not camping in the true sense of the word. I'm sure there are people who would suggest a pop up is not camping. To each our own eh? The Cheyene is fantastic for our needs and requirements. Perhaps the next move might be to a high side pop up with a porta potti and an electric lift once we get a little older. Until then we are quite content.

[catmom]

We now have our big trailer, with the fixed bed I don't have to climb to get into, and we really enjoy it. However, we have talked about possibly ALSO getting a popup sometime in the future, as there are some places we'd enjoy camping that our trailer just won't fit. It's also easier to dry camp with a PUP (at least in my opinion) - it's a simpler machine and just hard to live as simply with all those nice amenities around us that the trailer has. So - perhaps we'll be TTing sometimes and PUPing sometimes, in years to come.

[fla-gypsy]

I loved my little used and cheap pop up. I wouldn't want to change anything I did. Pop up camping is so much like tent camping and a lot of fun.

[Gunship Guy]

We are about to embark on something I've been itching to do for quite some time...tent camping.

Our Mobile Suites was very house-like and really sheltered us from the real reason we started camping...to get close to nature and spend quality time outdoors. Our trailer was so well insulated that we couldn't hear the frogs and crickets at night unless we opened the windows. It really sucked us into a world of camping I was beginning to resent.

I've lived in tents for up to 6 months at a time in various parts of the world since 911. I'm use to a tent's limitations and shortcomings. I want my family to experience a more basic type of camping and gain a better appreciation of the outdoors. My wife and sons have been spoiled by our previous rv's but are finally on board with this new adventure I'm planning.

I've been researching family tents and related equipment we'll need. I'm really looking forward to our first outing in a much scaled back set-up. It will be culture shock for the family. It will be great!