No experience required – but it would have been nice.
Neither of us had any experience living in a trailer (or even pulling one!) and yet here we were making decisions about things to add or leave off our purchase order from the Casita menu of standard features and options. Between us we had experience with outdoor travel, backpacking and camping – so we had a basic understanding of what we wanted and how we envisioned our travel trailer future. This understanding, coupled with reading through hundreds of FB Casita group posts lead us to make some decisions. Time will tell – that is why we call them guesstimates.
From our reading, a hotly contested feature was the vent hood – for reasons that ranged from “I never cook in my trailer” to “I just use the overhead fan” the one certain thing was that those who had it removed as an aftermarket modification were thrilled with how it opened up the space. Soon after we placed our order Casita began offering ‘no vent hood’ as an ala carte option. We took that as validation that we could do without the vent hood – and it saved us the post-purchase mod.
Propane cooktop? We knew that we would be cooking in our Casita (as well as outside the Casita) and while the cooktop’s style has evolved over the years, it seemed to take up more valuable flat, counter space than warranted. Again, Casita’s new list of options and feature subtractions empowered our decision to delete the propane cooktop from our order. Our thought was to use an induction cooktop for our cooking requirements and store it away during the 99% of the time we weren’t actively cooking.
Microwave? To have or have not – this is another debated topic within the Casita FB groups. There are two camps – those who could not think of eliminating an integral cooking device and another camp of Casita owners who covet the massive storage space made available by eliminating the microwave. We opted for the storage space. It is a good place to keep our cooktop!
TV? It is not that we did not want a television for streaming movies etc, we simply decided we could probably get our own tv and bracket mount. We kept the optional cable tv outside mount for some reason that escapes me at the moment. So no tv and yes to the outside cable hook up.
Awning? Love it or hate it – each side had it’s supporters. Some common themes were – “we never use it”, it broke after being left up in the rain”, “can’t imagine NOT having an awning we use it at every stop”. We did NOT order the factory-installed awning although we think an awning will be in our future. We have not yet pulled the trigger on what is our best guesstimate for the perfect awning to meet our needs. Details as they develop.