A smiling juggler on stilts made eye contact with the arriving rush of attendees at the entrance the Florida State Fair Grounds. “WELCOME TO THE GREATEST RV SHOW ON EARTH” was his call and after experiencing the Florida RV Supershow for the second time we would have to agree that the Tampa Show is like none other. We arrived at 9:30am on a chilly yet sunny Saturday morning to first pick up our media passes before making our way to a still half empty parking lot.
For the day we had two objectives. First we wanted to learn more about what is going on in the Truck Camper realm these days. We wanted to step in and imagine how we might make the transition from a full time 35 foot Fifth Wheel to the confines of a much more nimble adventure home on wheels. Now that we are no longer living full time in an RV our minds have been dreaming of taking spontaneous trips to destinations within a day’s drive from our new Florida Home. We’ve also been thinking about making it easier to reach more distant ports of call like New England, Nova Scotia and of Course trips back to our roots in the west. Our second objective for the day was to simply observe and be inspired by the excitement that so many others have for the RV Lifestyle. In the process we hoped to connect with a few acquaintances and end up with enough Vlogging material to pay the inspiration forward to our audience.
Our Take-Aways for the day were as follows:
Having the opportunity to actually step into a variety of Truck Campers and imagine where we would sleep, sit and cook was helpful. How large of a rig do we actually need? How much storage will we require? Can we live without the additional room that Slide-outs provide?Where will Gracie feel safe? How is the headroom? Those questions were mostly answered by the end of the day.
We feel entirely fortunate that we already own a 2016 F450 with lots of life left. The new F450s cost well over $120K and getting in the Large Truck Camper arena would be out of reach for us if we didn’t already have a capable truck. We did come away wondering if it would be worth it to swap out our factory truck bed with a flat bed to gain storage space.
We were highly impressed by a manufacture brand that we had never heard of. KingStar began building custom Truck Campers just a few years ago and we were amazed by the innovation and workmanship quality that goes into each one of them. Marcus Niemela, the President of the company took the time to walk us through all of the features of the three models they brought with them. On the outside we noticed right away how rugged and unique the curb appeal. Extensive use of Stainless Steel and Aluminum gives their campers a look of quality that one might expect in the high end earth roamer type category but at prices competitive with Lance and Host and Northern Lite. Also, a rounded and aerodynamic looking roof line is made possible by the absence of a rooftop AC unit. Each KingStar has an AC compressor cleverly integrated into the wall. As one would expect on a yacht the inside trap doors in the floor offer access to plumbing and electric components that are hard to get to in most RVs. You can read about all of the company and the unique attributes of these rigs at https://kingstar.net/kingstar-truck-campers.
Having the opportunity to meet in person some of the awesome people we associate with online was a lot of fun and it reinforced the idea that Til Further Notice is more than a website and Vlog, that it is indeed a community.
This show is huge and to make the rounds to even half of the manufacturers requires multiple days of attendance and good walking shoes. Once we had accomplished all of our goals for this year’s show we headed out the front gate to find that the half empty parking lot was now overflowing and there was a long line of cars waiting to get in.
This week’s Vlog will be posted on Youtube this Monday. We hope you take the time to check it out!
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