Hello From West Melbourne Florida!

We are Bill and Monica Armstrong. We ordered our beautiful 560 Ultra in December. Looking for a late April pick-up. Yay! Bill retires May 2, so how perfect is that! We were able to order sight-unseen thanks to all you wonderful people out there who are so generous with your time and information. We camped when we were much younger with 2 of our 4 children, but that was like 40 years ago. We knew we were no longer interested in tent camping, and after many hours of research, we knew this was the way to go! We are as old as the hills (Bill turns 70 in April and I am 65), so we have no desire to rough it at this point in our lives.
We ordered both the air and furnace (2 kids up in New Jersey), us here in Florida.
We also have:
Electric Brakes
SUV off-road package
AGM Battery upgrade
Fan upgrade
Solar Controller
Battery Isolator
Flood back-up lights
Handicap Access Grab Bars,
Rear bumper
Alcan Cover
Door screens
Galley wind screens
Spare tire
Gas/water extension hoses
Table Extension SUV
Cutting board

We know NOTHING about camp grounds, but we did pick up our Geezer passes and plan to camp off grid as much as we can. Plan to get a Renogy 100 watt panel, and a Honda generator to power the air conditioner when we don't have shore power. We will be towing with a 2017 Jeep Cherokee (hopefully installing the brake controller this week).
Thank you so much, all you wonderful forum members for sharing all the information and camping experiences you have under your belts. You have given us the courage to get out there and see what is near and far. Looking forward to meeting you all at the next CampInn camp out or sooner!
Monica Armstrong

 

Doesn't look like there is much you didn't order for your CI. Everything is relative and your only as old as you feel - so the hills may be younger than you think

 

Get the Allstays app for your phone/tablet, etc. I think it cost $10. It is the best resource we've found for finding campgrounds while traveling. It includes seemingly all of the BLM/FS dispersed camping areas, Walmarts, Cabelas, etc. It has the vast majority of private campgrounds and can filter based upon membership - Good Sam, KOA, Passport America, etc.

We also use GasBuddy to find lower priced fuel. It's free. It generally only saves us a dollar or two per fill up, but in some places it was closer to $4-$5!

You might compare Honda vs. Yamaha generators. The Yamaha will be cheaper and it maintains its air pollution rating longer, suggesting that it might have more longevity (not likely to be an issue - we might run ours a couple of dozen times per year and generally for less than three hours at a time). There are also differences in dimensions. We chose Yamaha because its footprint is smaller, conserving space in our van for other things. There is also an option to convert the Yamaha to burning propane, though that is a bit pricey and it will eat up your propane much faster than cooking.

Congratulations!

 

Good Morning you guys!
Thank you so much for this great info! Have the Allstays app, but good to know it will really work. Never heard of GasBuddy, but will surely use it. The Yamaha generator sounds like a serious contender; both cost and long life are factors, so I will be checking it out. The cargo space in the Jeep is very small, and packing is going to be quite a challenge, especially when we have the youngest grandson (who is 4) with us. His carseat takes up a lot of room.
Getting what we need to camp has been a year long process, as we started out with nothing. Little by little it's coming together, thanks to the wealth of info experienced campers like yourselves share on this forum. Can't wait to be on the road to Wisconsin!

 

Welcome!! Congrats on the 560!!!

 

Thank you so much!

 

There is a new model of Yamaha's generator, the v2. We bought ours at PPL Motorhomes in TX. It got shipped directly from a Yamaha warehouse in Portland, OR. They have the new generator for around $990, but they also have our model for $865 - the lowest price I've seen. I think we paid about $900 for ours. They might be getting ready to clear the old model out, so the price could drop.

If you browse around the PPL site you will find some videos that may be of interest to you.

 

Thank you! Will do that.

 

Welcome and congratulations! It does sound like perfect timing for y'all to start a new chapter of life adventures! We love our 560! We started out tent camping when our 2 oldest boys were little & one on the way......our very first family camping trip, I was 6 months pregnant with our daughter; next we bought a 32 ft travel trailer (total BIG pain), then downsized to a 22 ft Hi-Lo trailer. Our 560 is by far our favorite out of them all! It's just so much more convenient/simplified & loads more fun way to travel & camp........not to mention way more COOL factor! I'm sure you will love your new 560!
Casandra

 

Well, thank you so much! We are so excited to begin this new part of our lives. It has been a million years since we last camped, so it is kind of scarey too. It is so great to have people like yourselves (who know what they are doing) to ask the gazillions of questions we have. The campers on the forum are so generous with their time and information, and it sure is a treat to be able to just type in a question and have the benefit of everyone's experience. Yay!!!!!