[DutchmenSport]

Welcome to the forums and good luck and good success on your decision making process to purchase a camper. The best advise I can give you, is to purchase the camper at least a year before you plan on hitting the road full time. New or used, it does not matter. You'll need that year to flush out any problems. It's easier to fix things sitting in YOUR driveway than on the road.

Second, it give you a learning curve over the year to truly understand your, new to you, camper. To be 100% familiar with all the systems: heat, air conditioning, electricity both AC and DC, fresh water, and black and grey holding tanks. It will also give you an opportunity to learn how to camp in all 4 seasons of the year so you'll know what to expect and can prepare for it before you find yourself in zero degree weather with frozen pipes and no where to go for help.

So, over that year, travel locally, every week-end you get a chance and 2 week vacation trips to experience a longer term camp-out. Plan on camping at a Private Campground, a State Park Campground, a National Park campground, try a boomdock over night at a Wall Mart (for the experience), and try this during different times of the year. All of this is a learning experience, preparing you for when you are on the road and will have no stick n brick home to return to. It will help you better equip your camper, knowing what you really need, eliminate the stuff you don't need, and streamline your experience when you do hit the road.

This is my best advise. The choice of camper is yours. I am at a private campground right and and there is a fellow and his wife camped here, right now, who has been camped here, full time ... believe it or not ... in a pop-up. He's explained to me how preps his pop-up for the winter, deals with no water because this campground is in frozen Indiana beginning Nov 1 through April 1, and the shower house is locked shut. All of this in a pop-up tent camper. He and his wife are happy as two peas in a pod.

So, the size of your camper is not so important. It's really how you learn to use it. And that takes some time to figure it out. Thus, the reason for the year of prepping.