Rocinante has been sold!
We sold Rocinante to a lovely family who will take her out on tons of new adventures. We're very pleased to have found such a lovely home for her.
As for us, we're now on the hunt for the the perfect Class B camper van - preferably gently used, a year or two old. Will we find it? Only time will tell.
As a fun thought experiment, here's what we think the perfect camper van would offer us. We have yet to find any camper van, from any manufacturer, that checks all these boxes. Life is full of compromises, as our van will likely be.
* Roughly 21-22 feet long so it's easier to park, even if there's a bike rack on the back. For that reason, we're trying to avoid the 24 foot chassis. Lithium power system, preferably one that's so big, with a 2nd alternator, that they delete the generator.
* Convection Microwave, because we like to bake.
* The biggest compressor fridge we can get (bigger than the dinky dorm-room sized ones they keep stuffing under the galley counter) We also do not want one of those annoying 3-way ammonia-based absorption fridges.
* Nice long kitchen counter. Achieving that with a flip-up / pull-out / Lagun table is fine. (Cramming the sink and the cooktop between 2 cabinets on the driver's side of the coach, with no room to move or work, is a deal-breaker. Are you listening, Road Trek?
* Driver and passenger seats swivel to face the rear to create a lounge with a table (preferably a Lagun table). If the driver seat swivels back to face a fold-out desk or a counter for workstation activity, that's fine too, but passenger seat must also have a table it can use.
* Wet bath somewhere amidships. We do not want a bathroom in the back of the coach where the rear doors can be opened. There should be nothing aft of the bed except maybe a bit of storage you can access by opening the rear doors or from under the bed. It has to be a genuine private bath. If you have to open the bathroom doors to let your knees stick out while using the head, it's a deal breaker. Also, if you have to pull out a bunch of gear and shelves before using the head or taking a shower, it's a deal breaker. (This is why we can't go with a Revel.)
* Area in the back we that we can turn into a full-time bed, preferably in the general size range of a queen. It's OK if that's two twin beds we can join together into a single bed. A true lie-flat couch thing with ottomans is also just fine. If it were a bed that you could raise up to the ceiling when you're not sleeping, like in the Revel, that would be awesome (...except, see the Revel deal-breaker above).
* The fewer graphics on the sides, the better. We want to be able to stealth park in our own driveway, so we need to be as subtle as possible.
* We're not super concerned about which chassis it's built on, but for the Transit it seems the driver's seat does not rotate. If that's changed in recent models, we're good with that platform, too. We love Sprinters, but we don't love messing with biodiesel vs. low-sulfur diesel, DEF, or trying to find a sprinter mechanic when we're in rural areas.
* 4x4 would be awesome but is not required.
