Coachmen Freelander 31SK - any advice?

[BigBaron]

Hello!
We are renting a 2010 Coachmen Freelander 31SK in July for a 3,200 mile trip. We are pop-up campers and have always camped dry.
I welcome any and all suggestions and tips, especially regarding gray water and black water.
We will have full hook-ups at most of our stops, so I am curious about things like:
How much water to lug around for potty use between stops?
Generator usage tips.
Expected gas mileage.
Things to lookout for.

Thanks in advance!

[go6car]

Sounds like quite an adventure!!

Finding creative ways of packing will definitely be part of the plan. I think that particular floorplan has the bigger outside back storage area, if I'm thinking of the correct one. If so, that's a big plus since you can fit oversized items in the rear fairly easily. If not, you may have to creatively use some of your inside space (i.e., inside shower, etc) to pack some of your larger sized outdoor items.

We always travel with a good amount of fresh water to and from our destinations. I had gotten a lot of good advice early on about that. Even though you're going from full hookup to full hookup sites, if anything ever happened unexpectedly (broke down, stop for a day due to bad weather, etc.) you're covered there with enough water. If we're traveling a long distance, we just about fill up that fresh water tank; if a shorter distance, less than half. You can, of course travel with just a few gallons as well. All a matter of preference.

There's tons of advice online about dumping tanks, but we always dump black first, then gray, and always have empty black/gray when traveling. We add a bit of toilet chemical solution to the black tank via dumping down the toilet (and then add some fresh water by flushing the toilet for a bit) prior to travel.

You may need what's called a "sewer donut" as well - ask your rental agent about that. It's a cheap round device that attached to the end of your sewer hose and where it goes into the ground at your campsite. Some places require these.

I'm not as well-versed about Class Cs, but I would not expect that great of gas mileage (I know in our rig, it's not that great either! But traveling in comfort makes up for that!). We get anywhere from about 6 -9 miles per gallon. If you have a led foot, you'll get less; if you travel at an even 60mph or less, you'll do a bit better.

We run our generator when traveling if we want to use the rig air conditioner in addition to the dash air. It doesn't take too much gas; figure as a very general rough estimation - about 1/2 gallon per hour to run. Ours automatically will shut off if our gas tank gets down to about 1/4 full. It's a preventative measure so that you don't get stranded by accidently running out of gas. Definitely ask the rental dealer about that too.

You may also want to check out getting a disposable fresh water filter as well that will hook up externally to your fresh water hose. One of these typically lasts for a season and a lot of them are very reasonably priced. Since you're going from place to place, you'll be filling up your fresh tank at your current stop before going to the new place. Since water quality can vary, might not be a bad idea to get one of these. We also bring lots of bottled water for actual drinking.

Hope this helped a little!

[BigBaron]

That helps a lot!
Thanks!
It is going to be an adventure. Our RV is as long as the bus we use for our school!

[Roll]

Go-Six hit the important points...

I'll add one item that sometimes gets overlooked by new owners or renters.

Watch the height of the unit. You don't want to scrape equipment off the roof by going under a low hanging awning at a service station as an example. Stay tuned in to this risk. After a while, you grow comfortable with a motorhome and then forget its much taller than a car or van.

When we first took delivery on our coach I measured the total height of ours, added 6 inches and wrote the number on a post-it in large print and placed it on the dash where I could easily see it while driving. Might be a good idea for you when driving a rental unit which will be new and unfamiliar to you.

Roll

[BigBaron]

That's exactly what I planned on doing! Thanks