Florida Newbie!

[Fishdeth]

Hi everyone,
Jim and Sandy here.
We’ve had boats of different sizes for 30 years and have decided to sell the boat and direct our recreational dollars towards RVing.
We purchased a 2019 Viking 17fq, a nice little starter TT.
We run an upholstery business from our home and were thinking about retiring very soon.
So we got to thinking that if we retired, we wouldn’t need all this house (sick and tired of all the maintenance) and maybe we should look at a little condo?
But we were watching all the camping videos on YouTube and we’ve decided to sell the house to our son and upgrade our rig and go full time RV!
We were pulling the Trailer with a V6 Toyota Crossover, so that will be upgraded soon to a F-150 V6 turbo diesel to pull our next rig, a Keystone Cougar 26RKS.
We are crunching numbers now and have some property that is also in the process of being sold, so the purchases will be soon.
Then we will have a good solar system installed on it for lots of boondocking.
Looking forward to the ride !

Thanks for lookin,
Jim

[Firewall]

Sounds like a lot of fun in your future! Welcome and have a blast!

[sourdough]

Welcome to the forum! We have friends from MI that winter in the same park as us in FL. They spent several years living on boats in the Virgin Islands then moved to a house in MI and winter in an Airstream. They love it and hopefully you will too. You may be like him though, he had to buy a small boat/motor so he could continue to fish the bays - which he does virtually daily - he is from Norway and fishing is truly in his blood.

[JRTJH]

Hey Jim,

First welcome to the forum. Hopefully you'll find lots of valuable information here to help you enjoy your transition from the water and S&B housing to full time RVing.

Have you by any chance read the Trailer Life article in a recent issue (I think Jan but not sure) where they did a test of the new F150 diesel? Lots of good information in it. One thing I found surprising was the diesel option is only available in the Lariat and above packages. That makes the cost of a diesel F150 start at about the same price as a "well equipped" F250 diesel XLT.

I'd urge you to "run the numbers" very carefully on your trailer and the proposed truck. I'd guess that you'll find that with full time loading, you'll be at/over the payload on your truck and be critically limited on cargo capacity (payload) to keep the necessary items that you'll want for traveling in the truck. You might want to compare the F150/F250 trucks and see which one best suits "heavy duty towing" when "most of your stuff is always with you (full timing).... Maybe you can make the F150 work, but I'd suspect you'll find it inadequate if you plan to put a cap on the truck bed and maybe a tool box with "heavy goodies" in the bed as well.

Again, welcome and if there's any questions, post away, hopefully someone will have already had the experience you're concerned about mastering....

[5J's]

Welcome to the forum from SE Texas. Congrats on the new rig.

[travelin texans]

Originally Posted by JRTJH

Hey Jim,

First welcome to the forum. Hopefully you'll find lots of valuable information here to help you enjoy your transition from the water and S&B housing to full time RVing.

Have you by any chance read the Trailer Life article in a recent issue (I think Jan but not sure) where they did a test of the new F150 diesel? Lots of good information in it. One thing I found surprising was the diesel option is only available in the Lariat and above packages. That makes the cost of a diesel F150 start at about the same price as a "well equipped" F250 diesel XLT.

I'd urge you to "run the numbers" very carefully on your trailer and the proposed truck. I'd guess that you'll find that with full time loading, you'll be at/over the payload on your truck and be critically limited on cargo capacity (payload) to keep the necessary items that you'll want for traveling in the truck. You might want to compare the F150/F250 trucks and see which one best suits "heavy duty towing" when "most of your stuff is always with you (full timing).... Maybe you can make the F150 work, but I'd suspect you'll find it inadequate if you plan to put a cap on the truck bed and maybe a tool box with "heavy goodies" in the bed as well.

Again, welcome and if there's any questions, post away, hopefully someone will have already had the experience you're concerned about mastering....

I agree with John!
That size TT is going to get very small very quickly fulltiming in it & I could see you looking to upgrade almost as quickly, so upgrading now to the diesel F250, or even F350, the cost, ride, size difference from the diesel F150 will be minimal to go bigger now.
Again welcome, enjoy your retirement & travels!

[Fishdeth]

Originally Posted by travelin texans

I agree with John!
That size TT is going to get very small very quickly fulltiming in it & I could see you looking to upgrade almost as quickly, so upgrading now to the diesel F250, or even F350, the cost, ride, size difference from the diesel F150 will be minimal to go bigger now.
Again welcome, enjoy your retirement & travels!

Thanks to both you and John.
I've been thinking heavily on this.
Also watching some very informative YouTube vids on the subject... especially by full timers.
Thinking seriously about the F-250.
I'll keep ya posted!

Jim