Need some advice and opinions.
I've had a Dutchmen travel trailer parked at an RV park in Wisconsin for several years. My wife, kids and I used it on weekends, and a week or 2 vacation every summer. My wife passed away 4 years ago, and the kids are now grown, so now it's just me. I retired a couple years ago, and the trailer makes a great summer cabin for fishing and relaxing. I use it 60-75 days a year, from May through October.
Recently an opportunity arose to move to another campground. It's substantially cheaper, has far fewer rules, etc. I can have my choice of several sites. One is right on a small river that leads into a very nice lake. It's a beautiful site! The campground owners said I could keep a canoe and kayak on the shoreline. The shore is sandy, I'd have my own small private beach. The other sites are 50-100 yards from the river. They're nice and roomy, and I would have access to the river, but would have to carry down the kayak and canoe. The BIG difference is that while all the sites have electric and water, the river site is not on the septic system, while the other sites are. My current location is on septic, so I've never had to use and dump portable tanks. The owners showed me where the dump is. It's just a pipe in the ground with a metal cover with a handle. It would be about 400 feet from the river site. As I understand it, I would just hook up the tank to the hitchball on my truck, drag it over and dump. Never had to do this, so not sure of the difficulty and inconvenience. Would I need 2 portable tanks, one for gray water and one for the toilet? Do I wait for the trailer tanks to fill, then empty them into the portable tanks, or keep the portable tanks connected and dump right into them? Do I need to get tanks larger than the built in tanks? I don't know the difference in the costs of the sites, but they're all cheaper than I'm paying now, so cost is not an issue. As my kids are now having families of their own they've started to express an interest in coming up north and using the camper once or twice a year, so I also have to consider how difficult it would be for someone with no experience.
So what do you all think? River site with no septic, or off water site with septic?
Sorry for all the questions. I'm hoping to give the owners at the new campground an answer in the next couple weeks, so trying to get my ducks in a row. Thanks for any and all advice and recommendations!
I've had a Dutchmen travel trailer parked at an RV park in Wisconsin for several years. My wife, kids and I used it on weekends, and a week or 2 vacation every summer. My wife passed away 4 years ago, and the kids are now grown, so now it's just me. I retired a couple years ago, and the trailer makes a great summer cabin for fishing and relaxing. I use it 60-75 days a year, from May through October.
Recently an opportunity arose to move to another campground. It's substantially cheaper, has far fewer rules, etc. I can have my choice of several sites. One is right on a small river that leads into a very nice lake. It's a beautiful site! The campground owners said I could keep a canoe and kayak on the shoreline. The shore is sandy, I'd have my own small private beach. The other sites are 50-100 yards from the river. They're nice and roomy, and I would have access to the river, but would have to carry down the kayak and canoe. The BIG difference is that while all the sites have electric and water, the river site is not on the septic system, while the other sites are. My current location is on septic, so I've never had to use and dump portable tanks. The owners showed me where the dump is. It's just a pipe in the ground with a metal cover with a handle. It would be about 400 feet from the river site. As I understand it, I would just hook up the tank to the hitchball on my truck, drag it over and dump. Never had to do this, so not sure of the difficulty and inconvenience. Would I need 2 portable tanks, one for gray water and one for the toilet? Do I wait for the trailer tanks to fill, then empty them into the portable tanks, or keep the portable tanks connected and dump right into them? Do I need to get tanks larger than the built in tanks? I don't know the difference in the costs of the sites, but they're all cheaper than I'm paying now, so cost is not an issue. As my kids are now having families of their own they've started to express an interest in coming up north and using the camper once or twice a year, so I also have to consider how difficult it would be for someone with no experience.
So what do you all think? River site with no septic, or off water site with septic?
Sorry for all the questions. I'm hoping to give the owners at the new campground an answer in the next couple weeks, so trying to get my ducks in a row. Thanks for any and all advice and recommendations!
