live. work. dream.

Here’s another reason to get a fifth wheel instead of a bumper-mounted travel trailer. The last few legs of our roadtrip have confirmed that we made the right choice…

When we researched purchasing a travel trailer or a fifth wheel, we discovered that fifth wheels are much less likely to sway in high winds as the weight is centered over the axle instead of hanging off the bumper.

Over the past few days we have experienced some pretty high winds. Traveling south on CA highway 395 and then up out of Death Valley, we experienced strong winds from all directions. Not once did I feel instability in the trailer. I never noticed the fifth wheel sway or fishtail from side to side. It felt steady even in the strongest winds and was always rock steady in the rear view mirror.

We followed some friends in a Jeep liberty with a Chalet RV Trailer for a while from Silver Lake in the Sierras to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport. At one point we became quite alarmed to see how severely their trailer was swinging back and forth. We noticed them slow to try and correct the situation and later heard them describe how scary it was.

Now, I know there is no comparison to between a 24′ fifth wheel and a 14′ bumper-mounted folding trailer, but it was enough to confirm that we’ve made the right decision by choosing a fifth wheel for our full-timing RV adventure.

Some other reasons we selected our fifth wheel:

• It was twice the size of the truck bed camper we originally consdiered (and nearly $10,000 less!)
• It seems much easier to hitch and unhitch than a travel trailer
• It is easier to maneuver than a trailer
• It has a greater wight carrying capacity than a trailer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 at 11:00 pm and is filed under RV Tech, Full-Timing Tips, Work, Live. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.