Anyone ever rent an RV?

I was thinking of going to the Barber Vintage Festival this year and thought it might be cool to rent an RV. Anyone has any tips? Any preferred rental places?

I did a search and found a local outfit and RV America. The track is about a 1500 mile roundtrip for me and it would be five of us, three kids and the wife. I'd bring a tent but it's impossible to sell my wife that idea.

Any ideas or experiences that you guys can share would be great. Thanks.

I was looking at that last year for the Monterey Historics. I didn't like the prices that the larger outfits quoted me (be careful, a lot of them will only quote with 100/miles a day or similar and won't tell you how much the extra miles will cost you), so I put an ad on the local CL and actually had a couple of people respond with much more sensible prices. Couldn't go in the end, though.

The miles are expensive.
Can you drive your own car toward the event, rent an RV within 50 miles, hit up a Walmart and then dump what you can't take back?

Edit:
https://www.cruiseamerica.com/
3 day min = $475 or $158 per day
100 miles included per day then $0.34 per mile there after.
300 miles included -1500 miles = 1200 x .34 = $408 for miles
$475 + $408 = $883 for RV and that's before gas!

can't sell the wife on glamping?

JohnRW1621 wrote: The miles are expensive.

That's why I suggested the CL ad - several people who responded were happy to quote me including miles, but then again, I'm not that far away from Laguna Seca...

mad_machine wrote: can't sell the wife on glamping?

She thinks bambi is going to come an eat us while we are sleeping.

I looked into it in the recent past, and came to the same conclusion that some others already mentioned, it's just to expensive. IMO, if they gave you more miles per day it might not be a bad deal.

I looked in to renting a travel trailer to tow behind my van and that wasn't too pricey. If you've got a tow rig you might look in to that?

John got it pretty close to what I came up with for the RV cost. The local outfit is $200/day flat fee and includes 1500 miles, this might be cutting it too close.

Anyone have any clue what kind of mileage these things get? I was thinking around 8-10 mpg.

Flying would end up being more expensive. The only other option would be to drive up there and rent the RV there.

I don't have anything to tow with either.

$200/day doesn't sound too bad, but it depends on the size obviously. Did they quote you how much they'd charge you per mile if you go over the 1500 miles?

Your mileage estimate might be optimistic depending on size. What are you looking to rent? C-class (van chassis) or bigger?

Big gas engines pushing rather large bricks through the air = crap mileage. Keep your speed down if you want to get anywhere decent mileage.

I rented one for weekend getaway once. The first thing you want to do is get a guarantee of the condition of the RV in advance. Around here, people rent them for Jamboree in the Hills and they are returned full of mud and piss and beer and god knows what else. They are usually busted up pretty good too.

Second you should know that they must be returned empty of poo. Places can charge a huge fee if they are not, and I mean really big. They seriously don't want to empty out your lav.

GF found a coupon in one of those discount books for Cruise America. Class C 24' or so was discounted to premium rental car rate in the Daytona area. Stocked up on food, beer and necessities, one of the first in the track w/ excellent spot. That's the way to see the 24. Drove the beach, hit the Keys and watched a night Shuttle launch... priceless. Mileage wasn't that much of a concern after all that.

We flew in being from Pa. but driving in as close to pickup as possible is bound to save your miles.

Overall a good experience, looking forward to doing it again some day.

My parents have rented from Cruise America once a year for the past 5 years. They've made comments about great customer service (at least at the hub they rent from). They take the 5 grandkids on a week-long trip before school starts. No issues with the RVs other than age. They've done a mountain tour through West Va a few times (their favorite "getaway" state) and a trip up the East Coast from the Outer Banks to Va Beach. The RV was a bit pokey through the mountains and mileage is what you expect from a rolling house. This year they're planning a longer trip up through PA.

I rented one from an area dealer some time ago. The whole rental part was uneventful. They didn't say anything about emptying the waste tanks, so I didn't. It had it's pros and cons. Sorry I didn't have much to add.

I rented an RV from El Monte when I went to Barber back in February. I drove my car to Alabama and rented the RV there. Nothing too unusual happened except that the rental place only had one person that understands how to use the computer and they weren't there when I returned it so it took something like two hours to do the paperwork.

I didn't use the plumbing in the RV at all since the bathrooms at Barber are very nice. The generator sounded terrible so I checked the oil and it was diluted with gas. So I had to plug into a neighbor's generator when I needed power. They didn't try to charge me for the generator - it might have helped that the hours I added were minimal and I hadn't run it 'till meltdown.