The Death of the Class A

I moved the ole rolling house to the mountains for a fishing weekend, which was a grand time. Moving this 26 foot long beast of a vehicle was quite the chore, though. I was only able to estimate gas mileage, but I was able to do so with reasonable accuracy. It appears that my rig gets somewhere in the 8-10 MPG range. With today's gas prices, this tells me the Class A is dead.

I don't mean to pound the nail in the coffin of an entire class of RV, but let's face it -- $50 per 100 miles isn't sustainable for anything but prolonged "stay-cations." The fuel economy alone is enough to push me away from any thought of using this beast in a recreational capacity, but there's more that make the biggest RV's undesirable to an active audience.

My first time away from town using the RV nearer to its intended purpose showed me just what I had expected -- that big, house-like RV's are lumbering gas hogs. Strangely, my relatively modest 26 foot Class A is tiny by many standards, but coming from a truck and tent and backpacking background, the thing is cumbersome. It's cumbersome to drive. And it's cumbersome to try to find solitude when parking.

The bottom line is that I cannot imagine traveling in a Class A and putting on any significant miles. When I bought the RV, I knew the market for them was dead and so re-purposed one as a house during grad school. In effect, I simply chose to benefit from the dwindling market by finding a viable use for a totally unsustainable device.

If I were to live in an RV year around and was planning to really be on the move, I would definitely get a medium-sized fiberglass travel trailer, or even an Airstream-type trailer, and a moderately powerful, but capable truck to pull it. Think, Toyota Tacoma plus 17' Casita travel trailer. It's the only way I can even remotely envision actually RV'ing and still having money left over for something other than gas.

I'm afraid the days of sub-$4/gallon gas have made the Class A RV an impossibility for most of us, except as a re-purposed house for those of us crazy enough to live in one. It's great for moving relatively short distances, but as the miles add up, so do the $$. I find it perfect for my uses, but I just can't imagine moving very frequently with such poor gas mileage.