The Perfect RV

Is there such a thing as the perfect RV? I’ll tell you straight…NOPE! Just like there’s not a perfect house, a perfect car, or a perfect person. You might be able to get something that’s close to being perfect for you or your family, but I’ve never heard anyone say their RV is absolutely perfect.

We bought our new to us Open Road fifth wheel in July 2016. It has been great and has served us well. It has more storage than any camper I think I’ve ever seen. Even on our three-week trip to Florida, we had storage space that went unused the entire time. It also has solid wood cabinets throughout (none of the lightweight stuff you’ll find in RVs today).

There is one downside in this little camper. It only has 2 bunks, and we have 3 kids. Yep, that means one kid gets stuck sleeping on the dinette that makes into a bed. She chose it, and she seems to enjoy it, but that set up definitely won’t work for us for full-time RV living. So we’ve been on the hunt for an RV that will work better for our needs.

The first time I stepped foot into the Jayco North Point with the midbunk and loft, I absolutely loved it. But the more we looked at it and others like it, the more we just felt we needed something different.

Brent ended up liking the Open Range 3X that has a bunk room with 4 bunk beds. It’s also a little bit wider than most RVs and is more insulated which would work well for full-time living. But it just seemed really dark inside. What’s up with having all shades of brown in RVs? And those tiny windows? I NEED COLOR AND LOTS OF NATURAL LIGHT!!!

We actually spent hours over a few weekends at local RV dealerships going in and out of different campers getting a feel for all of the layouts. It seemed as though we either loved the front half OR loved the back half of the campers we went inside. It was never BOTH. We also looked at toy haulers but even those didn’t seem just right.

I don’t know why, but the first two or three times we went browsing at the RV dealership near us, we never went inside the Heartland Gateway model they had. I just happened to be curious one day and decided to step inside. “Oh, WOW!” was all I could say. It was the different I needed!

The openness of the Gateway 3712rdmb blew me away. In many campers with a midbunk, you step right up from the outside to a wall in your face in the hallway. This midbunk has double doors that are angled, so when you step inside you aren’t face to face with a wall. This makes the whole living space feel more open. It also has a rear living area with HUGE windows. This brings in the light that I most certainly want and need. And the kitchen is like it’s own separate area, but is still open to the rest of the living area. DIFFERENT!

I don’t remember Brent being completely on board with this one the first time he saw it. He thought it had some great features, but he wasn’t super excited about it like I was. But the more we went back and looked at it and the more he studied it online, the more it grew on him. He had to admit that he couldn’t stop thinking about the large windows and how open the living area felt.

So after looking on the Heartland website, we saw the floorplan for the new Gateway 3713ck. It’s the same exact floorplan as the 3712rdmb with one modification: one less couch in the living area. In its place, there’s a bit more storage space as well as a fireplace.   On the outside, there’s also an outdoor kitchen. This was added because when the couch was removed and the storage space extended inside, this left room for an outdoor kitchen that could slide in to the area of the storage space from the outside. PERFECT!

So here we sit, waiting on quotes for this new model. The manufacturer sent us pictures today showing the few changes that have been made for this model as compared to the 2017 Gateways. I’m excited for the bigger kitchen sink and the lighter colored countertops! Brent is just excited to get it ordered.

We’d love to hear about your RV if you have one. If not, let us know what features you’d want to have in your perfect RV.