Interstate or Roadtrek

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by restretch

This model worked well for my wife and I. It seats 5 and sleeps 2.

Originally Posted by Rosie39j

Love the layout on a Sportmobile which has two couches facing one another longways in the rear - opens up the rear and hauls more people.

Novelist Ernest K. Gann once owned a 36' trawler yacht, that he said was the ideal size— sleeps two, feeds four, drinks six. I submit that the ideal B-van is similar— sleeps two, feeds four, hauls six. There are always trade-offs involved in trying to squeeze more utility into the same space. The more people you want to carry, sooner or later you reach a point where a plain-Jane Sprinter passenger van hauling a travel trailer becomes the optimum choice in terms of price as well as people-carrying capacity.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by Protagonist

... sleeps two, feeds four, hauls six. ....

^^^ *LOVE* that. As for the utility factor, here's the thing: If you have a singles or a couples lifestyle, the moments when you need to haul six are probably rare. It will be the extended family gathering or the college reunion or the office picnic or something of that nature. So the way I see it, you don't want to buy your Class B as if your life revolved around those moments. Therefore I would not want to sacrifice the open airy feeling by getting a newer lounge model with its legal front-facing seatbelts. The older smaller T1N Interstate has the six seat belts AND the open-ness.

Rosie, here's a pic of our 2007 in case you haven't see this lay-out anywhere else, given that there are apparently none in the resale market right now (the four rear seat belts are tucked into the couch creases in the fold-down photo so you can't see them). The other thing that was important to me besides a non-claustrophobic rear end was the big removable table. I own a small business and I have to be able to spread out computer, peripherals, files, etc. on the same generous table that easily feeds four people. Most Class B's have tiny tables that would not work for me, but the proportions you see here are absolutely perfect for what I do. As has been noted many times previously, Airstream knocks it out of the park on design. As long as you can live with the challenges of execution, it's a good way to go.

[Rich Jenkins]

Lots of good info here.

We just sold our 2009 Roadtrek RS Adventurous. We bought it used from Fretz in 2013, and put 25,000 relatively trouble free miles on it.

We've done extended travel in it, and only sold it this year because we were moving up to get an AS trailer with a bit more room.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is resale value. If you ever plan to sell it, you might want to look at what used vans go for. The new Class B prices are astonishingly high, so a used van makes a lot of sense. We sold our five year old Roadtrek for 94% of what we paid for it in 2013.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by Llando88

Lots of good info here.

...
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is resale value. If you ever plan to sell it, you might want to look at what used vans go for. The new Class B prices are astonishingly high, so a used van makes a lot of sense. We sold our five year old Roadtrek for 94% of what we paid for it in 2013.

That was the factor that sealed the deal for my husband and I. We weren't sure if the Interstate would be right for us but we said what the heck? If it turns out that we don't like it, we can re-sell it for about what we paid. Not a lot of risk.