Part-time snowbird travel trailer we grabbed off harberts

we are not ready to go full time, my wife still works part time and we are not selling the house in iowa, but we are tired of iowa winters. the plan is to be part time snowbirds, drive south for six or eight weeks in the worst of the cold and come home in spring. so we did not need a big coach, we needed a travel trailer we could pull with the truck we already own and park somewhere warm.

we have a 2018 half ton ram so i was shopping for something under about 7,500 pounds dry. did not want to white knuckle it through the mountains overloaded. spent a couple months looking and the used travel trailer market around here is picked over and overpriced, every decent one sells in a day on facebook marketplace and half the listings are sketchy.

saw the Linda thread about her Class A and a few people mentioned harbertsautosales.com so i went and looked. they had a 2021 Jayco Jay Flight 28BHS bunkhouse, 6,200 dry, one slide, the bunk layout so the grandkids have somewhere to sleep when they visit us down south. light use, came in as a trade. price was a few thousand under anything comparable i could find local and a lot less drama than marketplace.

called the waco lot, talked to a real person, they sent a video and a stack of photos. trailer was clean. one honest issue they flagged, the power awning motor was slow to retract. they knocked some money off for it and i figured i could deal with that myself.

had it shipped to a yard near des moines for around 600 bucks since i did not want to make the drive to texas and back in february. picking it up this week. will report back after our first snowbird run.

back from our first snowbird run, six weeks near yuma and we are sold on this whole thing.

nancy the awning motor was an easy fix, 90 bucks for a new motor off amazon and about an hour with my son in law in the driveway, the slow retract was just a worn motor and it works perfectly now. and to your husband's worry, i went into it the same way, what else is hiding. honest answer after six weeks of living in it, nothing. we have used every system, furnace, AC, water heater, both holding tanks, the slide, all good. the only thing harberts flagged was the one thing that was actually wrong. i would rather buy from a place that tells me about the slow awning than a marketplace seller who swears everything is perfect and you find out in the desert it is not.

the drive down was easy with the weight distribution hitch Walt mentioned, glad i already had one. yuma was 75 and sunny while cedar rapids was in a deep freeze and i felt no guilt at all. tell your husband to stop overthinking it.

Updateend of season wrap up. we are home in iowa, trailer is cleaned out and stored, and i wanted to close this thread out for anyone searching later.

total cost of the trailer plus the 90 dollar awning fix was still well under what the dealer wanted for the same year jay flight, and we paid cash. over the six weeks the only thing that needed attention besides the awning was a loose cabinet latch i tightened with a screwdriver. that is it. the bunkhouse got used too, our daughter flew the grandkids out to yuma for spring break and the bunks were a hit.

we are already planning eight weeks next winter and Marie's tip about storing the trailer down south over summer is something we are looking into so we do not tow it back and forth. for anyone on the fence about a used travel trailer off an online auction lot like harberts, for part time snowbirding it was the right call for us. buy within your means, get the video, ask what is wrong, and go enjoy the sunshine.