What luxagraf said. We lived in an almost always stationary RV between fall 2008 and winter(*) 2011.
(*) ... which in the east bay meant 32F lows in the winter. I saw snow once and people were running around taking pictures of it. The worst part was "monsoon"-season where it would rain constantly (22hrs/day) for three weeks straight in the spring.
If you're stationary (i.e. full hookups in a mobile home park), dealing with blackwater is just a matter of going out once a week (obviously depending on tank size and the number of people) and pulling a handle. This sends it all into a hole in the ground. Then close that handle and open the gray water tank. This flushes everything "clean". Of course on can do any number of stupid things such as pulling both handles or not securing the hose. I've never done that nor do I know anyone who has every done that, but I did see it in a movie once. Incidentally, when hooked up you can leave the gray water handle open to flush directly into the sewer. Don't ever do that with the black water. You need to retain the piss to move the shit so to speak
+1 to avoiding electronics and fancy solutions as much as possible. I have the same low opinion of house electronics, but RV electronics is worse. RVs are not designed for full time living so doing that will be wearing them hard. Also, RV appliances are 2-4x more expensive than domestic ones. Ditto marine stuff. Go to campingworld.com or westmarine.com and see what a fridge costs. For example, our RV came with gray/blackwater tank indicators that showed how full they were. Fancy fancy. Within a few months there were fouled. Of course you can buy a solution for that. Tank wands and sprinklers and all kinds of chemicals every time you empty the tanks. Or you can just say screw it and realize that it's possible to tell how full the tanks are by the sounds they make when running the plumbing. This is a good argument for building your own RV out of a van. You know exactly how it's wired. You can get a simple/practical solution.
Avoid a flat roof. I repeat, avoid a flat roof. Water will pool on top of it and once it does, it'll sound like you're living in a submarine when it rains. You must get a curved roof so water will run off!! Pooled water makes leaks worse. The more "holes" you cut/have in your roof, the higher the risk. This goes with the "convenience electronics" too. We had 2 A/Cs, 2 skylight/fans, a CB antenna, and TV antenna. Having nothing or just one A/C would have been better. IMHO, holes (if you must have them) are best made in the side of the RV. Hunting for leaks is somewhere between annoying and impossible. Water will find a way, so water might be coming down the front while the actual hole is in the back. Eventually we bought two billboard tarps on ebay (search "used billboard tarp"), hammered in some grommets and strapped them over the roof. We used those during rain season and winter. It cut our heating gas usage by 75%!. IIRC we were advertising for AT&T + some cheap credit company to the sky. You could tell on google satellite
I once had to battle those tarps in 60MPH gusts. That was not fun.
Leveling jacks are awesome. Unfortunately ours came with a fancy automatic push-a-single-button system that never worked. (Refer to comments about fancy electronics above.) Get manuals (permanently installed scissor jacks). They're much cheaper and there's not much that can go wrong. This also avoids rocking the boat in the wind.
If you park under a tree, you'll get shade which is nice. Without it and without A/C, the interior will get real warm. We once had a power outage in CA in the summer and interior temps rose to 140F! Careful about leaving pets home. However, if you park under a tree you will also get sap on the roof which is very hard to clean off! Add dust to sap and it turns black.
If you park on soft ground (boondocking) over vegetation, the dew will eventually rust out your bottom. Also oils leaks, etc. Hard top is better.
Size matters. Most people err on the large side (same with boats) rather than the small side. Ours was 34' long. This meant planning the approach/ingress on gas stations because there were some turns we couldn't take. We once had to drive the damn thing through downtown for a smog check. That was a high stress situation. Keep in mind that our 34' size was a compromise. DW wanted something around 38' (because she "needed" the space). I wanted something around 26-28'. Today we both agree that something around 21-23' would be better because we don't really need the space and we "want" the mobility. There's a lesson here
Living in a motorhome, it means that when we had to take the "motor" to the mechanic, it also meant taking our home to the mechanic. This meant means losing both your vehicle and your home until they get it fixed. That's a strong argument for keeping those two separate i.e. truck+TT/5th. Also, few mechanics will take RVs (you have to look for an RV mechanic) but everybody will take a truck or a van.
Some people get three-way fridges + washer and dryer. That's insane! Don't. Always follow the KISS principle. The final S is what costs $$$$.
So why didn't we sell the car back then and buy a truck and a TT? IIRC, the main reason was that gas prices in CA at the time were $5+ and DW had a commute. Why didn't we move closer to her work seeing as I was retired? Because the local and only RV park in that town didn't allow dogs. And because of the size "requirements" mentioned above. Also we hadn't learned the above lessons yet. If we had to go back and do it again, we would have done the truck and the TT even as gas prices were above $5/gal.
On my
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/frequ ... -questions I mention the wall tent. We've done quite a bit of car camping in a three person tent (cheap dome tent) while cooking on an MSR whisperlite. A "small" wall tent weighs ~60 pounds. If you want a stove, that's another 40 pounds. However, what this gets you is the ability to sleep on cots which is certainly nicer than sleeping on pads. It also gives you the ability to bathe
inside the tent. You can sit upright on a small chair. Having been rained out in a dome tent, the wall tent sounds like a more "comfortable"(*) option when you have the car/horse to carry it. An alternative to the wall tent would be a teardrop trailer.
(*) Yes, I hate/resent it when comfort is used to justify something ... so I guess it's just a matter of degree