Sunday, March 12, 2017

Luxury Highway Touring You Might Be Able to Afford

The video is a full-tilt sales pitch from Leisure Travel Vans but I found it highly-informative and not much annoying.  Visit their Web site if you like:  2017 Serenity Build & Price


The reason for the original interest is I drove a Mercedes Sprinter van for many great miles and this vehicle is built on the Mercedes 3500 frame.  I don't know if that's the same as was used for the Sprinter but there are many similarities between the vehicles.

The similarities end when you get to the customization and the speaker says 'smart' quite a bit but it's a fair use of the word since the ingenuity which went into this vehicle is exceptional and much needed when it's so much smaller than the buses in some other articles here.

Check out that stand-up shower.  Dayum!





The Serenity lists for about $140K plus extras.  Those probably pile bigly since there's an electric conversion bed which replaces the standard fixed bed and it's likely a nice piece of change for that upgrade alone.  I'll call it $250K because, wtf, I'm not going to buy one and likely neither will you when it's new.

Whomever obtains the Serenity as a new purchase will hold the vehicle for an unpredictable period of time.  Some will keep it for many years but others won't and the price on the vehicle when the others sell will be much more attractive.


The Serenity doesn't have all the liabilities of a bus but it does have some of them.  There's no way you're going to get out among grizzly bears but it should be adequate for camping on commercial and federal land so long as you don't get too far into the sticks.  Given the sophisticated electrics in the vehicle, you would bring downtown entertainment out there with you wherever you go.

Since you might well be able to acquire a used version of one of these for a tenth the cost of the buses plus gain quite a bit in functionality in terms of range, that's coming to one fine deal in the Rockhouse view.

Note:  the increase in range is since a bus is screwed as soon as it gets too far from the highway.


Ed:  how is this different from chicks and their window shopping?

I don't need to find a parking space.

This is definitely window shopping since I have no intention of buying anything and would not even if I could but for reasons which go way past this article.  However, I know Lotho and Cadillac Man have different nefarious dreams of road travel so the content is germane if not entirely realistic.

Cadillac Man wants something less expensive whereas Lotho mentioned getting a bus.  The figure he threw was $150K and don't let that conjure an image of a school bus since you could get one of those for a fraction of that.  It sounds like he's thinking of a big Greyhound-size bus and to cop some kind of deal on a used one.


I've spent a fair amount of time on the road and the single biggest bitch for me is the inability to get a shower.  For just about everything else, it's not so difficult to manage but there's no substitute for a good splash to wash off all the microorganisms or whatever that stuff may be.

The Serenity and most likely any bus Lotho would consider will have a real stand-up shower and that's going to make such a huge world of difference to touring.  For me, the shower is the biggest reason for a motel every so often but such a vehicle would come close to eliminating that.  The only limit would be the size of your water tanks and the power of your electrical system.


The Rockhouse vision at the moment is Lotho will sometimes call up the troops to roll the bus and Mister Bojangles Flying Circus will hit the road.  He has three kids and they seemed always to have more kids around them.  Mrs Lotho wouldn't miss it and the Fairy Princess would see trips she never imagined.  Raven and Mrs Raven will be there as well and maybe with some crumb snatchers of their own by then.

I'm not sure of the drive behind acquiring a bus since possibly the objective is elegant leisure but I vote for Mister Bojangles Flying Circus.  People would line up waiting for that bus to come to town because they would have no idea what you will do next.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

By bus I mean RV

Anonymous said...

The RV excursions will be sans kids.
The Fairy Princess from time to time.
I think you would be amazed where RV'S will take you or where you find find them. Alaska to Chile

Unknown said...

Some of the RVs I've rolled here over the last few days could probably hack it up to and into the Arctic Circle but, you're right, I would be surprised if many others give great accessibility to the wilds. I am interested in what they can really do with them since so many look like expensive status symbols with little practical purpose. I know you don't do that way but it's a common behavior so I'm interested to know if it's less widely-spread than it seems or, conversely, people are rolling them to all the places you want to go ... short of delivering you direct to the grizzly bears. Maybe even that if you have the stones for it, I guess.

Anonymous said...

Then are far more versatile than you give them credit for.
Most of Alaska you need planes and boats to get around but Denali is easily accessible via RV

Unknown said...

I'm glad to know some percentage of them really aren't just status symbols and people really do get out in the muck with them. More importantly, apparently they can get themselves back out again and I think I might have dug that at one time.