At one time I thought about building a house truck. I have several books on the subject such as Rolling Homes and Some Turtles have Nice Shells among others. Various Internet mail lists have people living in house trucks and were more than willing to give out information. I even had the truck. It is a big project and besides, that idea died when the truck burnt in the October 2003 fires in Southern California.

The next idea was a school bus conversion and I joined other lists. The planning was moving forward and I was looking for a suitable bus, then we reached the decision to sell the house and separate. Selling the house allowed me to think seriously about other options such as travel trailers, fifth wheels, and motorhomes.

Motor homes are large and can be clumsy to drive in heavy traffic and in small parking lots. The solution is to tow along another vehicle. I already have a good pickup and saw no need to get rid of it. Motor homes are very expensive to buy and insure, neither were in my limited budget. Used Motor homes were still expensive or showed the years of use and neglect. Small class C motor homes are heavy and with little reserve towing capacity for a toad.

A fifth wheel would allow the use of the existing vehicle and they are a good price for the floor space available. The problem is that a fifth wheel takes away storage space in the pickup bed and a short bed pickup is not necessarily the best tow vehicle.

Travel trailers do not offer as much room as the fifth wheel but leave the pick up bed available. A travel trailer is slightly cheaper than a fifth wheel and can be towed with anything with the capacity.

I looked at several travel trailers and found that 25-29 feet with a slide out offered a decent combination of room and weight. It came down to two 27 footers, one with a front bedroom and another with a back bedroom. The front bedroom offered an open living room with large windows in the back, while the back bedroom offered better access to a large storage area in the back and slightly more interior storage. Other than that they were very similar. The kicker was that with the slide in on the front bedroom model you could not get past the slide. The back bedroom model could be used with the slide in. That and the better access to the rear storage were the selling points for me. I settled on the travel trailer with a rear bedroom and a dinette slide. I bought last years model of a Terry 260FLS by Fleetwood on a closeout.

The floor plan of my home on wheels.

The pointers indicate external access to the storage lockers. I have made changes to make the doors more secure. See security mods for more detail. The bed is a walk around with storage under. The small squares on the outside are the steps to the two doors. the length at 27 feet refers to the total length from the ball coupler to the back bumper, not the interior length. The interior is about 2 feet shorter.

The trailer came equiped with a full bathroom with a stand up shower, six gallon hot water heater, air conditioning, microwave oven, propane and 120 VAC refrigerator, freezer, and 40 gallon fresh, 40 gallon gray, and 40 gallon black water tanks. It should be a comfortable home though I am making some small modifications.

Terry travel trailer ready to travel.