I was able to find a class A in good condition for well within your budget but it took a lot of shopping over a long period of time. And while I did need to put a little cash into it, it had been measured in hundreds of dollars, not thousands. The appliances worked (except for one of the AC units on the roof), there was very minimal water intrusion which didn't really do any major damage and was easy and cheap to seal up, and it had basically brand new tires (yes, according to the date codes). Shop in the fall or winter when people don't have dreams of taking the RV out the next weekend and it's just a maintenance burden to them with no buyers hanging around. Be prepared to cast a wide net and travel - I went a few hundred miles to Mississippi and back to look at a real turd and happily came home empty-handed.
One thing you might want to consider, though, is that if you're planning to take road trips but stay in hotels, you might be better suited to a Mercedes GL, a Tahoe, or a Pilot. A class A or C will eat you alive in fuel, be inconvenient to take places, and be expensive to maintain. The value, if you can call it that, is in being able to jump in, stop at the grocery store, and then show up at a campground ready to relax. And if you need to stop along the way, you can just stop and have all the comforts of home. There are a lot of compromises made in the motor part of the equation to make the home part possible.
Now if you can get a B you might be where you want. Those hold value a lot more, though because they swing the compromise more towards the van part of the equation. Easier to drive, cheaper to maintain, easier to park, but way more cramped. If you can swing one built on the Sprinter chassis with the OM642, you'll even get pretty good fuel mileage.