Why We Downsized From a 43’ Big Rig to a 19’ Travel Trailer

For just over 20 years (from April 11, 2003, to May 13, 2023, to be exact), we lived and worked full-time on the road in our motorhome. Having happily RVed for so long, we obviously love it. So just because we decided to move into a “Sticks & Bricks” (fixed-location home), it didn’t mean we wanted to quit RVing. We don’t!

As much as we loved our 43′ diesel pusher, we’ve always known that it imposed limitations on our favorite way to RV: boondocking in remote locations, as well as camping in national parks and forests (which often have small, hard-to-fit-in sites). The switch to part-timing opened up a whole new world of opportunities to go smaller… much smaller as it turned out.

We invested a full year in serious research and planning, which ultimately led us to our 2024 Outdoors RV Creekside 19MKS Titanium Series camper. But how did we arrive at our decision? We’re sharing all the factors we considered and how we ultimately arrived at our rig. If you want to really understand the details that led to our choice of RVs, we go into much more detail in our YouTube video embedded below, where we also take you on a full tour of our camper!

Why We Chose an Outdoors RV Travel Trailer

Once we’d decided that downsizing to a travel trailer was the way we wanted to go, several factors kept bringing us back to Outdoors RV.

Quality & Reputation

Having been on board numerous smaller rigs over the years, we’ve observed that the overall quality of many travel trailer brands can be somewhat lacking (to put it nicely). If possible, we were eager to find a rig that had build quality more in line with what we were used to with our high-end diesel pusher.

Because cost and weight are such significant considerations, most manufacturers of smaller rigs (especially towables) use cheaper, lighter materials. They may cost and weigh less, but quality does suffer as a result. We understood that we needed to be realistic about trying to find a towable built to the standards we were used to in our motorhome. But just how far down the quality scale might we be forced to go?

In addition to the quality of all the components used in our new RV (from furniture to countertops, cabinetry, and appliances), the floor plan is what really sealed the deal for us!

The reputation of Outdoors RV as a high-quality brand consistently drew us back to explore their extensive selection of models, which includes both travel trailers and 5th wheels. Yes, we were considering almost every type of RV from truck campers, travel trailers, 5th wheels, Class B & C rigs, and even smaller Class A motorhomes.

In the end, Outdoors RV remained our top pick after being on the list almost from the start.

Owner Reviews

We have friends who own (or have owned) Outdoors RVs and loved them. They also have great buzz online, which has only been reinforced by the positive comments we received about the brand after we announced that we were getting one. Rather than the expected negativity we’d have likely heard if we’d chosen a brand with a poor reputation, the outpouring of positive comments has been truly gratifying. Fellow Outdoors RV owners have told us what a great decision we made, welcomed us to the Outdoors Family, and said how much we’re going to love it (we already do)!

Considering the amount of negativity directed toward many RV brands, it’s been great to hear so much positive reinforcement of our choice. Our first year of ownership has been fantastic (even though life events have gotten in the way of doing as much traveling as we planned), and we’re loving our little 19MKS more every day.

Our Thompson RV Experience

In addition to the Outdoors RV brand, we had a stellar purchase and delivery experience with Thompson RV in Pendleton, Oregon. Corrin Thompson and her entire family (who founded and still run the dealership) are fantastic and made the whole experience a pleasure.

In case you’re thinking it… we’re not blind to the fact that when people who have a pretty serious presence on YouTube, a popular RVing blog (the one you’re reading right now 😉), and 5 seasons as hosts of The RVers on Discovery and PBS show up to buy an RV, they might get special treatment. But we spent several days at Thomson RV, with plenty of opportunities to see other RVers taking delivery of their new rigs, getting service work done, or just shopping/browsing. Not only did we see the entire staff treating everyone incredibly well, but several people told us how much they love Thompson RV. They’re the largest Outdoors RV dealer in the USA and have an excellent reputation that’s well-deserved.

We bought our new Outdoors RV from Thompson RV in Pendleton, Oregon, and had an excellent experience.

FLOORPLAN!

As we mention (repeatedly!) in our video embedded below, the floor plan is one of (if not THE) most important factors in being comfortable in an RV. The Murphy-bed-over-the-dinette layout, which we’ve never seen on any other rig, is one of the key features that make our 19MKS work so well for us.

Because our camper seems so much bigger on the inside than it appears on the outside, you’ll see in the video that we admit to doing something we’ve never done before — and even have kidded fellow RVers about in the past — naming our rig. In our defense, the name is a really good one! LOL! Want to know what it is and why we chose it? Watch the video! 👇

The unique floorplan of our Outdoors RV 19MKS is really clever. We’ve never seen a Murphy bed over the dinette, and it makes a huge difference in the comfort and usability of the bed, dinette, and seating compared with Murphy beds located over the sofa.

Comparing Our 43′ Diesel Pusher With Our 19MKS

Making the move from a high-end Class A motorhome to a small travel trailer with a living space that’s only 19′ long seemed like we might have to accept a lot of compromises and downgrades. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find the many ways our Outdoors RV Creekside 19MKS Titanium Series equals (or even exceeds!) our old diesel pusher.

Here are 12 things about our new trailer that offer us an improved RVing experience compared to our large Class A RV. While we anticipated some of these benefits as part of buying a brand-new RV and downsizing, others surprised us.

19 Years Newer

One of the most obvious advantages of our new RV is the fact that it’s 19 years newer than our Mountain Aire — 2024 vs 2005. This offers several advantages including everything from a new warranty… to newer amenities and features… to newer mechanical components that are less likely to break down. We’re pretty handy and were able to keep up with our motorhome’s repair and maintenance needs. But as anything gets older, it requires more TLC. There’s something so wonderful and exciting about brand new and we love everything being in perfect condition.

Larger Kitchen Counter

We talk a lot about the importance of floorplan, and it’s amazing how much you can do with the right layout. A good example is the incredible amount of counter space our tiny little trailer has. The kitchen counter is a whopping 10′ 8″ long! Since the cooktop has a nice folding cover and the sink has two cover sections as well, it can all be used very efficiently.

UPDATE: starting with the 2026 model year, Outdoors RV has modified the countertop and cabinet layout to include an extended “L” section near the door. It still allows for walking through the RV with the slideout retracted, but it also increases the already impressive amount of counter space!

The kitchen counter in the 19MKS is absolutely huge, measuring over 10 feet long.

We’re of course no longer on board our Mountain Aire, so we can’t measure it, but we’d swear we have more counter space on the 19MKS than we had in our 43′ motorhome. It really is a testament to what you can do with a thoughtful, workable layout.

Access to Smaller and More Remote Campsites

Downsizing does have its advantages where RVs are concerned and one of them is the ability to camp in areas where we’d never be able to fit a 43′ diesel pusher. Lots of campgrounds in national parks, national forests, and other great locations (including private RV parks) have sites that can’t accommodate Big Rigs. For the first time in over 20 years, this is no longer an issue for us.

Being big fans of boondocking, our travel trailer can also take us further off-road into places most motorhomes can’t go. We’ve already experienced camping in more rugged places than our Mountain Aire could ever dream of taking us.

The experience we had in the Black Series HQ19 travel trailer made us realize how small, nimble, and rugged were important criteria for our next RV… allowing us to get to remote places we never could in our big motorhome!

Able to Back Up Without Disconnecting

We flat-towed a Honda CR-V behind our motorhomes for many years because towing four-wheels-down is a great way to go, but it does have one disadvantage: backing up while the toad is connected can damage the car and/or the tow bar. Now we can back up our new travel trailer without disconnecting anything.

This may not seem like a big deal, but when you combine the large size of a big motorhome with an inability to back up, you can really get yourself into a tight spot if you’re not careful. Over two decades we only got ourselves pinned in a couple of times. But the attention required to avoid having that happen in tight places can get old.

The combination of a smaller overall rig and the ability to back it up at will is a big improvement in overall maneuverability… and peace of mind. Now when we pull into a tight campground, a supermarket parking lot, or a gas station, we don’t think much about avoiding getting trapped.

Use of Convertible Space (Bed/Table)

If we had to pick one thing about the new rig that makes it so usable in such a small package, it would be the Murphy bed (or the “Wall Bed” as Outdoors RV calls it). We’ve seen lots of rigs with Murphy beds, but the 19MKS is the only one we’ve ever seen with the bed over the dinette. Normally, the Murphy bed is positioned over a sofa… which generally equals an uncomfortable bed being placed over an uncomfortable sofa (we’ve slept on one more than once, so we know first-hand).

Putting the bed over the booth was a brilliant move. The table is very large (even bigger than the custom oversized table Peter’s cousin David at Curl & Burl made for our Mountain Aire), with plenty of space for four. And the bed, especially in the Titanium Series, is super comfortable.

Unlike the uncomfortable mattress above an uncomfortable sofa that we’ve seen (and slept on) in other RVs with Murphy beds, the “Wall bed” in the Outdoors RV 19MKS sits over the dinette. This makes the bed, the dinette, and the seating area all more comfortable. It’s a great use of space and something we’ve never seen on any other RV.

Lower Propane and Power Use

Of course, a smaller rig has smaller power needs, saving on propane and electricity that would otherwise be needed to heat or cool a larger area. That, combined with the amazing solar and lithium battery system that MYT Solar installed (810 Ah of Battle Born batteries, 1,500 watts of Rich solar, and a complete Victron suite) allows us to stay off the grid for a very long time (no generator needed).

Battle Born Batteries

Battle Born Batteries harnesses the power of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) to bring you the most efficient, stable, and powerful lithium-ion battery on the market. Whether you're an RV, marine, or off-grid enthusiast, their batteries are built to...Show More

Battle Born Batteries harnesses the power of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) to bring you the most efficient, stable, and powerful lithium-ion battery on the market. Whether you're an RV, marine, or off-grid enthusiast, their batteries are built to help you get out there and stay out there. Show Less

Go to the deal

Fewer Drive Trains to Repair & Maintain

A motorhome towing a car has two engines, transmissions, and drivetrains to maintain and repair. Add the generator to that, and there are lots of expensive power plants to worry about. When towing our travel trailer with a pickup truck, we obviously have the truck’s drivetrain maintenance to consider. But that’s it when it comes to engines. So we now have one-third the number of power plants to buy, maintain, and repair.

Greater Ceiling Height

Believe it or not, our Outdoors RV 19MKS travel trailer has more interior height than our 43′ Class A motorhome. For a couple of guys who are both over 6′ tall, this is an advantage we’ve quickly come to appreciate.

The ceiling in our Outdoors RV 19MKS is actually higher than the ceiling in our 43′ diesel pusher. We’re both over 6′ tall and appreciate the extra feeling of space that the curved ceiling provides.

Better Fuel Economy

Downsizing to our GMC Sierra 1500 TurboDiesel pickup truck that we tow our ORV travel trailer with has a big fuel economy advantage. Where we got a steady 7 MPG in the motorhome, we’ve so far about doubled that to 14 MPG — when towing. That said, our ’03 Honda CR-V did get a consistent 25 MPG when we were using it to explore away from the RV. So you might think that it’s a wash, with the motorhome getting worse fuel economy, and our Honda getting better MPG than the truck. But you’d be mistaken, as our diesel GMC gets an absolutely amazing 30 MPG when we’re not towing the trailer!

Either way, we win big on fuel savings. That’s true even when considering the difference in price between diesel fuel and gasoline, especially since many areas we travel have diesel prices well below gas prices.

Lower Purchase Price and Less Depreciation in Real $$

Our Outdoors RV travel trailer had a significant cost advantage with a purchase price that was somewhere around 1/10 the price of a typical 43′ diesel pusher. And even after the purchase, there’s the cost depreciation when selling: even if a motorhome and trailer were to depreciate at the same rate, we’d still come out ahead, since the real dollars lost to depreciation when selling would be far higher in the motorhome.

As an example, assuming a 50% loss in value over a given period of time, a $500,000 motorhome would lose $250,000 in value, while a $50,000 trailer (1/10th the price of the moho) would lose only $25,000. That’s a $225,00 difference in real dollars lost to depreciation. Of course, the best way to mitigate depreciation is to keep a vehicle for a really long time and get as much of your money’s worth out of it as possible. We doubt we’ll ever keep an RV for 18 years again, so that’s not a realistic option for us this time around.

Reduced Complexity

Our travel trailer is a less complex piece of equipment overall, which means there’s less to maintain, less to deal with in general on a day-to-day basis, and less that can go wrong. Consider, for example, our slide-outs, which our Mountain Aire had four of. That’s four slides to maintain and keep in good working condition, and four slides that can present issues for us to contend with as we travel. Our new Outdoors RV travel trailer has only one slide-out room, offering 1/4 of the maintenance and 1/4 of the potential issues of the slides on our Class A.

Far Larger Nightstands

As large as our motorhome was, we never liked the tiny little nightstands on each side of the bed because there was almost no space on them at all. And, quite often, anything we DID put on them would get knocked off in the middle of the night. In comparison, our 19MKS has huge nightstands, with plenty of space for just about anything we need to put on them (eyeglasses, water bottles, phones/tablets, books, etc.). We know it may sound like a small thing, but it still amazes us how many ways this Little Rig bests our Big Rig.

The night tables on each side of the bed in our Outdoors RV 19MKS are absolutely HUGE compared to the annoyingly small nightstands on our motorhome. These measure a whopping 36″ x 16″ and have space for our eyeglasses, a water bottle, a phone or tablet, a book, and whatever else we might want to have nearby.

VIDEO: Interior & Exterior Tours of Our Travel Trailer

Words are great, but nothing offers a better understanding of an RV’s gear and layout than a full exterior and interior tour. The following video includes far more detail on how and why we chose our current RV. We also take you on a full tour of both the inside and outside of the rig, sharing the equipment it came with, as well as many of the special mods and gear we’ve added.

TRAILER TOWING & WEIGHT LIMIT POST, VIDEO & CALCULATOR!

We’ve released a video and blog post all about Trailer Towing & Weight Limits, including a FREE towing and weight calculator that we designed to do all the math for you, making sure your rig is properly balanced and within all weight limits. Don’t let a sagging trailer alert everyone in the campground that you’re overweight, and don’t let the dreaded trailer sway ruin your trip (or worse)!

And, if you already own a vehicle you want to use to tow a trailer, but don’t know how much (i.e. how heavy of a) trailer you can tow, check out THIS post and video: How Much Trailer Can My Truck Safely Tow?

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