As OP, I thank you for all the postings. My friends and I were thinking of traveling caravan style not all in one vehicle. I don’t know one class from another and was thinking along the lines of a VW (or something), when one of my friends (we’re women) suggested that VW’s weren’t all that reliable. I was listening to car talk one weekend, when some guy from Portland was saying that someone stole the linkage out of his Westfalia and C&C had a good laugh about trying to replace it. Those factors made me want to rethink my plans. So I thought I’d try to get some feedback. Work, travel, company from out of town, etc, etc, etc, made it difficult to keep up and I apologize — I’m not a flyby poster. I’ll read "Travels With Charlie"
before I go and am a little concerned w/old school’s remarks about the lift. I don’t have the know how or any of the other stuff needed to do a conversion and wasn’t thinking cab over pickup.
Welcome back 
If you’re all going in separate vehicles your options open up quite a bit. I’d definitely stay away from any motor home (except perhaps a class-B, which is just barely larger than a regular van) (class-B, not B+, which is a class-C without an over-cab bed) just because of the pain in the butt factor.
Class B:
Class B+:
How much room do you need? If you just want a place to sleep, you could even take a regular sedan and a teardrop camper. They’re big enough to hold a queen-sized bed, and that’s about it. You pop a hatch on the rear to access a small stove if you want to cook. You can pull them with pretty much anything because they’re extremely light. I know a guy who pulls one with a CRX.
Otherwise, if you want a little more room but still want to go light, check out Scamps. They’re also very light trailers, but there’s actual room inside them:
Thx, no to towing. More along the lines of class b was what I had in mind, but I like my vehicles a little higher off the ground—guess they don’t make them like that anymore. Standing up and sitting down would be good. In my college days I lived in a regular VW van with only the rear seat, a foam mat down the center w/boxes on each side for storage/tables, candle light and propped up against the rear seat for reading–parked behind the library, showered in the gym. When I traveled out of the country, I threw all my stuff in the van for storage and parked it at a friend’s house. It was a simple life, which I sometimes long for. Turns out that I have a couple of friends who are dreaming about the same thing. Reading up on a website named “The Life,” where people travel about and find temp jobs, disaster relief and such. I don’t need a lot of room, but I would like to be able to make coffee and fry an egg. Thanks for your response w/picts! I learned something. Gots to go to work now—later!
How many people, total? You could be $$ ahead renting a class C motor home and eliminate the caravan. One vehicle would be transporatation, restaurant, and hotel. Hard to do that otherwise, if you’re not wanting to tow a travel trailer. If you are wanting something for weeks/months, then you’re talking tent camping/coleman stove/cooler kind of stuff, and no special vehicle is needed.
Note, though that most class C’s sleep 8-10 but are only rated to carry 6 on the road. No seatbelts on the side-mount couch/bed or in the rear bed. And 4 of those 6 have to sit at the table on a relatively uncomfortable bench with a vertical backrest.
tteane: By higher off the ground, do you mean ground clearance, or do you mean interior room? If you want more interior height, look at Sprinter-based class B’s. They’re taller than the other types You can easily stand in them with room to spare, even if you’re tall. If you mean ground clearance, they do make them, but they’re more expensive:
But rigs like that start at around 90 grand and rapidly go up from there as you add features.
I meant ground clearance and yeah, 90K is definitely out of my price range. Renting is not something I would consider, due to the fact that this would be a year’s commitment to start. There’s not one of our group that would want to be tied to someone else’s schedule. We’re all pretty independent types that might want a side trip here or there, or to cut out for family priorities, but with three vehicles traveling, not likely that you’d be stuck on the side of the road for too long (safety in numbers).
This trip is a year off—I’m on a fact finding mission.
I was in love w/that VW conversion w/the fiberglass top, that you see occasionally on ebay and talked to someone who had one for sale, who said it would be ideal w/a Subaru engine. The idea that VW’s might be hard to fix is scaring me off. My first new car was a 1971 Super Beetle and I LOVED that Robin’s Egg Blue car, because in the 13 years I owned it, not once, did it ever leave me stranded. It died of Rust, but it was still running when I parked it for the last time with eight-five thousand miles (not a lot for 13 yrs), 3 generators and a clutch replacement. I think the air-cooled engine is under-rated. It seemed to have a cruising speed of about seventy-one mph and when they lowered the speed limit to fifty-five, that seemed to be right between 3rd and 4th gears. Dangerous? Yes, but I never tail-gate and I don’t like tail-gaters and let them pass at every opportunity. Should I give up on the idea of a VW camper?