Renting - part 1 (Terminology)

We decided that it would be wise to try renting a motorhome first to see if we liked it (and just as importantly, did the CATS like it!).

The type of motorhome we were interested in, Safari Trek, is no longer manufactured, so we knew we would not be able to rent what we were interested in purchasing. So, we looked up on CruiseAmerica and decided to rent a "Class C" motorhome for a long weekend.

Terminology:
There are many classes of recreational vehicles:

• Towables:  trailers and fifth wheels -- 
• Trailers just have the hitch that connects to the back of a vehicle
• Fifth wheels have the gooseneck kind of hitch that connects to the middle of a truck, usually a heavy duty pickup truck.
• The advantage to a towable is that the whole unit is "house"; there's no space (or maintenance) required for an engine, driver compartment, etc. 
• Compared to technology that I already knew:
• a towable would be more like a laser printer - doing one task well
• a motorhome would be more like an all-in-one - the printer may work well, but if the scanner goes out, the copier and fax are also not going to work. 
• However, the disadvantages of a towable were:
• we would need to purchase two vehicles
• the thought of towing a huge trailer behind a smaller vehicle was scarey!!!

• Motorhomes:  Class A, B, and C (there are others like B+ and C+ too)
• Class A: biggest motorhome type, look like a "bus" type of vehicle
• Class B: smallest motorhome type, look like an oversized van, often a van conversion
• Class C: larger version of van camper, usually with a sleeping area over the driver compartment.

The Safari Trek is a small Class A; there are some companies that rent class As, but they are generally larger, so we decided to rent a Class C.