need advice

[wharfrat]

Hi Folks,

Since I'm here I'm obviously new. We're headed for retirement soon and we're ready to travel. She want to do the Northwest US, Canada and Alaska, I'd like to see Eastern Canada, the Maritimes, etc. We are buying a small piece of property in North Central Washington [Ferry County] which will gve our home base and we'll either winter over in Seattle with the kids or boondock in Southern Utah area. I have an 84 E350 6.9 diesel, banks, gearvendor od, dually, cutaway extended van for built for extended range/rough condition towing.

I need your advice on a suitable Airstream [Argosy or Avion maybe]. I'm thinking about 30+ ft, 2/3 axle, queen bed [gotta have this], open style floor plan. I'd like to spend between 6 and 10,000. I'm an auto shop teacher in high school and so have access to our wood and metal shops and kids for slave labor to do any refurbishing. Could you guys point me towards suitable models to start looking at.

best regards

[Stefrobrts]

Howdy! Welcome to the forums. What you get is going to be a matter of what you can find. Luckily it's a bit easier to find the big Airstreams than the small ones (it can be very competitive to snap up the small ones). You'll probably be looking at an Airstream, as they are more common than finding 30ft models of Argosys. I don't know about Avions, I rarely see them for sale up here.

Keep an eye on your local craigslist and the newspaper, and let everyone you know know that you are looking. You might be surprised what a bit of word-of-mouth does. You also should contact your local WBCCI unit, if anyone in the club has one for sale they might be able to help you find out. Also, since your kids are in Seattle, maybe have them help out by getting in touch with the folks at Land Yacht Harbor (the local WBCCI/Airstream community) because there are often good deals to be found up there from folks who are retiring from traveling.

Good luck!

[Splitrock]

For me, I'm thinking if I'm going to spend a lot of time living in the trailer, bigger is better. I'm thinking that if I'm going to be driving a lot of miles and spending a lot of time in the trailer, then a bigger tow vehicle is better too.

Gary

[Lumatic]

It sounds like pulling a bigger AS will be no problem. A bigger rig will limit some of the campsites you will fit in, like in national parks.

Airstreams don't like a tow vehicle with stiff suspensions. They tend to pop rivets and have other similar problems. You can solve this with an Air Ride or Air Safe hitch.