Don Schwanke: Fifth to Camper in Ten |
| Angela White | Thursday, 10 September, 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||
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In part two of our "Ditch the Fifth" week, Don Schwanke tells us why he took his fifth, sold it, and upgraded to a truck camper. Don's decision took less than ten minutes.  Compared to fifth wheels, truck campers are more fuel efficient, cost less to maintain (no wheels), are less expensive to insure, and cheaper to store. And that's before we get to all the places a truck camper can go that a fifth wheel wouldn't dare. As we like to say, you can, "Do MORE and Spend LESS with a Truck Camper". Sorry fifth wheels. It's the truth. Don Schwanke can back up our claims. In fact, now that he's a proud truck camper owner, he can back up where ever he needs to. After selling his fifth wheel, Don has become one of the most passionate truck camper owners we know. So how is it after fifty years of RVing with every type of RV imaginable that he's now a passionate truck camper? Don tells us his story, something about Hurricane Ike, using is camper as a Family Emergency Vehicle, and a Christmas snowstorm adventure he hopes to never repeat.
TCM: You told us that you bought your Host Yellowstone within ten minutes of seeing the camper. How did that happen? Don: Ten minutes is probably stretching it. It was less than that. All other RVs and campers had been dismissed as not meeting our needs. We wanted a Host, even though we had never seen a Host in our lives. TCM: So how did you go about finding your Host? Don: I’m an internet junkie. I searched eBay and Craigslist online trying to find one. Finally, I found a Host that was on our traveling route while we were in our fifth wheel. The camper was in Kingman, Arizona. When we got there, I offered to trade our fifth wheel for the truck camper. I even brought camper tie-downs just in case. Unfortunately, they didn’t want my fifth wheel. Since I had decided to buy the camper, I then had the problem of how to get the Host and our fifth wheel back home to Texas. We had another trip already planned, so it would be a couple of months before we could return to pick up the camper. To my surprise, the guy with the Host offered to deliver the Host to us. That sealed the deal. Two days later, the camper was in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, in my driveway. TCM: What model truck and camper do you now have? Don: It’s a 2005 Host Yellowstone. Our truck is a 1997 Dodge one-ton diesel dually. This all happened last July. We came back from Europe in September, but had to cut our trip short because of Hurricane Ike threatening the Rio Grande. We were real worried that our truck camper would be blown over in the yard. The hurricane wound up hitting Galveston instead. TCM: What did you do with your fifth wheel? Don: I sold it. With the hurricane just coming through, it was a good time to advertise in the Houston area because people could live in the fifth wheel as a house. So, I put the fifth wheel up on Craigslist at 7:00 AM. By 10:00 AM it was sold.
TCM: You told us about how you used your camper as a Family Emergency Vehicle (FEV). Tell us about that. Don: Soon after we bought our camper, our daughter in Maryland became sick and needed us to be there. We flew my son in from Nevada while I was delivering the fifth wheel and then we drove to Maryland in our truck camper. It was a shake down cruise for the camper because we hadn’t really used it yet. When we arrived, we stayed at the RV park at Andrew’s Air Force base. We would drive to the hospital during the day and come back to the base at night. We stayed at Andrew’s RV park for a week and a half. There were two pets and three adults in our Host for this extended trip and we had plenty of room. TCM: Where do you typically like to go with your truck camper? Don: We enjoy visiting friends and relatives all around the United States. We stay in their driveways and don’t have to make advance arrangements. We also like to go to points of interest like Loretta Lynn’s place and the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. We tend to be very relaxed in our schedule. We worry about where were going to stay in the evening when we get tired of driving. We just punch campgrounds into our GPS. If we can’t find one, we go to a grocery store parking lot, a truck stop, or look in the Woodall’s book. Generally we find a place at about four or five o’clock. We used to be over the road truckers so we pretty much know where everything is. When we were truckers, we never got to see what we wanted to see, but we knew where everything was.
TCM: What’s the most memorable camping experience you’ve had with your camper? Don: My son and his wife wanted us to come visit them for Christmas in Nevada. Of course I said, “Yes”, but knew that it could be an interesting winter weather situation. My son and his wife live up on I-80 near Oregon in Nevada. We were wondering how well the dually was going to do with snow with no chains, but they were fine. We hit snow somewhere in New Mexico and drove through lots of snow all the way to where they live in Winnemucca, Nevada. We stayed for ten days and it snowed every night we were there. At night it was at about ten degrees outside and it took the Host furnace running non-stop to keep the camper at seventy degrees inside. We had brought along a fifteen-hundred watt ceramic heater and that certainly helped. We survived it. On the way home, we found that Interstate 80 was closed, but we decided to drive it anyway and play dumb. We just had to get as far south as possible as fast as possible. The rig handled wonderfully in the snow packed roads. That trip was definitely the most memorable, so far. TCM: You’ve been RVing for over fifty years. What advice would you give to someone who is starting their RV adventures now? Don: My advice is to not get too carried away with thinking you have to spend money to have fun. That’s a fallacy of younger generations. You don’t have to spend $50,000 on a truck and $50,000 on a camper. You can have fun in any truck camper. I think people put it off because they think they have to spend all that money and then never get around to doing it.
TCM: Good advice. Our first truck and camper combination was well under $50,000 and we had the time of our lives with that rig. As someone who’s owned a lot of RVs, what do you think are the most important advantages to owning a truck camper? Don: With a truck camper you can get easy access. I parked right next to the front door at the Air Force Museum. I wouldn’t be able to do that in another type of RV. It just makes things that much easier. And like I said before, having a truck camper makes visiting friends and family easier because we can stay in their driveways and don’t have to go to a RV park. We couldn’t pull our fifth wheel into a Wendy’s or McDonald’s. There’s no place to park something that big. With our camper, we can always stop. That’s a great advantage of having a truck camper. You can pull in anywhere. Something else we’ve found is that nobody wants to work on the bigger motorhomes. We had a couple of times I couldn’t find anybody to work on our motorhome. Nobody would touch it because they didn’t know what to do or hadn’t had experience with it. With a truck camper, you can always unload the camper to get the truck serviced. At least you would still have the camper to live in and it’s pretty easy to find a truck dealer. I’m a bit of a tight wad. One thing with a truck camper is that I don’t have to have separate insurance, tags, or tires. Here in Texas, insurance becomes part of the truck’s load, so there’s no insurance premium. Some states do require tags, but Texas doesn’t. Fuel milage is another advantage. On my last trip I got in between fourteen and nineteen miles per gallon in my 1997 Dodge with a 12-valve Cummins diesel. TCM: Where do you still want to go that you haven’t been to before? Don: I don’t think about that too far in advance. I like to travel in the summer because it’s nasty up north in the winter and nice down here in Texas. I also gravitate to Kansas City and Nevada because of my kids living there. We have been all over United States and Alaska a few times. I’d love to roam around Western Canada. With a pick-up camper, that’s very feasible. TCM: Western Canada is wonderful, especially the Okanagan Valley. Is there anything we didn’t ask you that you’d like included with your interview? Don: Look beyond what’s near you. Don’t be afraid to explore new places. There’s a whole world to see! TCM: We can attest to that. Thank you Don. And keep on truckin’. Don: We will.
For more information about the truck camper manufacturers and gear companies, please visit our Buyers Guide. If you liked this article, check out: Ken Harris: Kissing the Fifth Goodbye In part one of our "Ditch the Fifth" week, Ken Harris shares his story of how he and his wife, Ina, ditched their fifth wheel for a truck camper. So long fiver! |
