Have you Owned OTHER kinds of Campers? Why change to OLIVER?

[J-Rhett]

Just wondering again. Why would you spend $50K to $75K on a nice Oliver when there are many, many other kinds of campers on the market? And if you owned another kind of camper before why did you change? Did you change because you wanted more room, higher quality, easier maneuverability, better mileage through aerodynamics and weight, higher quality camping through ease of use of the trailer, for its distinctiveness, for it's claims of legacy, maybe, like me you bought it because you think it's the best for the money even though it's cost is at the top of it's class. I really hadn't planned to buy my Ollie when I first went to see them being made at the plant, but that is exactly what made me buy that very day. Plus I realized that if I ever do something I might really like I have to get on with it since I'm getting older and I can tell it now even though my brain says I'm still young! LOL I see many of you are much younger than me and I appreciate your already having traveled thousands of miles in your campers/Ollies. Actually, I've traveled to almost all the states, but never in a camper. And for a few years I made it a habit to go Mountain Hiking in Colorado with some buddies from Illinois, now I'm pretty old to be backpacking through the mountains with 60 pounds on my back. So, get on with it-tell us why you changed to an Ollie or why you bought it straight out like me.

[SeaDawg]

My husband and I are sailors. Prior to owning an Oliver, we rented RVs and cabins, in the US and Europe, and in our younger days, tent camped or van camped. Have rented a houseboat and apartments abroad , too, as well as basic cabins in campgrounds.

Last year, we spent about 12 weeks in rentals, even though we own our own camper. We've already seen all fifty states. We've camped in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. When we travel outside the US, we look to camping as the best way to mingle with the locals. We've made friends from many countries in rental RVs. No, it's not our own beloved Oliver, but it's a great way to travel, and it seems that campers always have an abundance of good advice, here, and abroad.

Sherry

[J-Rhett]

SeaDawg!~

 

WowZER!  Great Sherry,  you and your husband are so blessed to have done so much.  I've always wanted to go sailing and learn something about it so sometimes I hang out near the sailing club in our town.  But no one yet has ever needed help with their boat.  LOL  I just want to taste sailing a little and learn some of the modern day nautical terms.  I've always been intrigued by stories of the high sea and modern movies like "Dead Calm".  I recently watched a short about a young man who spent 76 days in a raft.     https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/mar/23/adrift-in-atlantic-76-days     I guess I'm intrigued because sailing is a great way to feel nature and one's mistakes in sailing on an ocean can be their last.  Anyway, if you have the time and inclination would be interested in reading about some of your adventures!

[snowlakemike]

No where near as traveled or as experienced as most on here, but I sprang for the OTT based on my belief that it is highest quality and easily set up and moved on.  I want to travel this next year or two through the United States and perhaps Canada.  I wanted a rig that would let me stop, spend a night, then move on...covering ground. I wanted a low instance of repairs.  I am a CPA, and not terribly mechanically inclined.  Repairs on the road could become quite bothersome...I wanted something to bypass that.

 

 

 

 

[SeaDawg]

J, our now almost 40 year old fiberglass sailboat is in great shape. Fiberglass holds up to the use and elements.

We did a lot of research on sticky trailers and molded fiberglass before narrowing our search to Casita and Scamp. About the time we were ready to buy a Casita, Paul came across a YouTube posted by Mountanborn showing the features of the newly introduced Oliver. We drove up to Hohenwald the second weekend of January, 2008, and toured the plant, the finished product, and several under construction. The marine grade gelcoat inside and out sold us on ease of maintenance and durability, and that beefy aluminum frame. We liked the size for towing, and ease of setup.

We had already seen hundreds of other trailers at the Tampa rv supershow, toured a Casita, and I had familiarity with Scamp, as my aunt and uncle owned one years ago. Our final decision is obvious.

And, yes, we have been blessed in many ways to get to travel as much as we have. We're really glad that we were able to share many of those experiences with our daughter while she was at home.

 

 

 

[rideandfly]

Our first camper was a used Chalet A-Frame camper. Purchased it during 2010 and really enjoyed camping with it. We were camping on Mount Pisgah campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway during 2010 when we saw an Oliver. The owners gave us a complete tour and we really liked it. At that time, Oliver had stopped production and used Ollies were not easy to find.

 

Our Chalet had floor rot, so we decided our next camper would not have wood floors. Purchased an all aluminum 2010 LivinLite CampLite 11 travel trailer next with aluminum sheet interior/exterior walls, aluminum ceiling/roof, aluminum frame, and aluminum tongue & groove plank floors. The 2000 pound CampLite was rugged, but small, so we wanted to move up in travel trailer size. Oliver started building the Legacy Elite II, so we were very interested in buying a Oliver.

 

We scheduled an Oliver plant tour last May 2016. Before heading to TN for the tour, a used 2015 Elite II in MO was posted in this forum's "For Sale" section earlier that week. We went on the Oliver tour on a Thursday, headed to SE MO that afternoon and camped in the used Ollie that night on the owners farm.  Purchased the Ollie from the couple in MO the next morning.

 

Chalet A-Frame:

 

CampLite 11:

 

Ollie Rig:

 

[J-Rhett]

Hi Yardsale, I don't have my Ollie yet, coming soon, may be done in three days, but I saw on the Oliver Facebook page some people camping comfortably at 20 degrees in one. Said they were as snug as a bug in a rug! Yeah, being a four season camper is a great advantage. They say and I don't know where i heard or read this, maybe the factory, that the plumbing and tanks will be just 70 degrees if you trailer temp is 74. So, it's 4 degrees cooler in the bottom than your set temp in the trailer. Just don't run out of propane or electric if you are camping and it's 0 degrees outside. I have a gasoline/propane generator I will carry in my truck, plus 30# propane tanks, plus battery powered solar and some small Stanley electric ceramic heater. If you will spend a lot of time in the boonies when it's cold you better figure to have a small air compressor to blow your lines or some anti-freeze to suck in your lines if you do run out of heat. Just saying as I have no experience camping yet! But for me, I think I will head down to TX around Pharr or maybe higher near my brother in San Marcos.

Rhett

 

 

[Mainiac]

Was in the factory last week. If yours will be ready in 3 days we must have seen it. It was looking good and resting comfortably, as it was lunch time. It is the big white one right?

[Mainiac]

We went back and saw Anita, and ended up with a  Jan 15 build date.

[J-Rhett]

Canoe12, Thanks so much for checking on my #186 Ollie. You got it right, it was the big white one! Yep, it's supposed to be ready for pickup on the 15th. We are heading overseas so Heather said they could store it for a while. BTW, you made me LOL when you said the big white one! Thanks for your humor as the world needs more of it! Glad you ordered one and hope to see you out on the trail or a rally sometime. How will I know you or will you introduce yourself as Canoe12? Anyway, glad for you and enjoy your new Oliver!

Rhett

 

PS You have a beautiful granddaughter and cute dog. I know how I will know you now, we are the same age! LOL

 

[Mainiac]

We have tent camped with the family growing up. We have had the 29' fifth wheel and rebuilt and upgraded a Scamp and toured the southern states in our off season. We have had lobster boats and camped in a 23' sailboat along the Maine coast. We got a 27' class A and toured the Mississippi River and Natchez Trace. We have done the Smokey Mountain National Park and Blue Ridge Parkway using motel rooms to stay in. After living a little more than 13 years, year around, in a seasonal campground in the western mountains of Maine, we decided to retire. Summing up what we liked and wanted to do, we decided to put a small boat on a mooring and get a smaller fiberglass egg type trailer. (We found nothing worse than having to break camp, just to go get a loaf of bread with the class A). The Oliver will give us more room than the Scamp, easy towing, solar with WiFi to stay in touch, and great resale value if it ever gets old. Maybe we will be on the road again come May...

[Mainiac]

Interesting observation..Canoe 12 was something that popped into the head when this site said I needed a User Name. I have tried to change it, but have been unsuccessful. What we are going to do is have our State of Maine outline with the State Seal superimposed on it made local. We will put it on the front and a smaller one put on the rear. We do like the Texas graphic so much better than the factory one...

[dharmardr]

Hi all,

 

Ann and I were the ones on FB that were quoted as saying "we were snug as a bug in a rug at 20 degrees". And two nights later we camped at 0 degrees with the same result. Very comfortable in our Ollie.

 

We have been tent camping for years. Twenty- five or so backpacking and the last twenty  motorcycle camping all over North America. We knew at some point we would want to have a hard side camper, and started looking at various campers at RV shows. We would always end up on the Airstream display. We decided we would rather have a trailer tow vechicle combo for several reasons.

 

1) As has been mentioned we didn't want to pick up our whole house when we wanted to go somewhere.

 

2) Wanted to bring a motorcycle with us.

 

Another deal breaker was we wanted either twin beds or a bed we could walk around and make up with reletive ease. An Airstream would need to be their 25' to get these options. A fairly large heavy trailer and with a 500 lb motorcycle a large truck would be necessary. We followed Oliver for a while but then saw they stopped making them. When they went back into production with the Elite II, I started following them again but Ann was hooked on Airstream. It only took an afternoon visiting an Oliver Owner in Maine for her to switch to an Oliver fan.

 

Now we have the ability to carry a motorcycle, twin beds, superior quality, four season performance, and excellent resale (if needed) for less money. Wow!! We were believers!

We sent our deposit in to Anita, bought a truck and drove down for our Factory Tour. The rest is history. We picked up our Oliver in Dec 2015 and couldn't be happier.

[dharmardr]

To answer the questions about temps.

 

Were you using the water systems? Yes, we had returned to CT from Hohenwald after pickup on Dec 16 and spent the Holiday here. We packed the trailer and kept it heated while we prepared to head South. Our Oliver had been made ready for travel at the campground in TN during delivery. Including water system charged.

 

What was the room temp? Because of the unusually cold temps we were experiencing, after leaving CT, we called the Factory and told them we expected to be having temps in the single digits and were very afraid of freeze up. We were assured that whatever we kept the cabin temp at, with the furnace in operation, the temps between the Hulls would be about 15 degrees below that.

 

Did you perhaps check the temps between the hulls? Yes, we had a monitor between the Hulls in the area of the water pump under the curb side twin bed. The cabin temp was kept at 65 and the monitor between the Hulls was around 50, just as predicted by the Factory. The outside temps went to 0 degrees one night, and again,"Snug as a Bug", to quote a previous post.

[donthompson]

Grayson and Ann,

 

Did you run the furnace while traveling down the road in cold weather? I plan to leave Iowa in what is likely to be very cold weather. I'll "dry camp" until I get far enough south to avoid daytime freezing temperatures, but I'm curious about running the furnace while traveling.

 

Don

[J-Rhett]

Don, I've never camped YET, but I know almost everyone leaves the propane on to keep their refrigerator running so I would say "Yes" leave it on. You have to leave it on, if not, and you're carrying water it will freeze and burst the lines. If not, winterize it and fell it back up in the south.

[dharmardr]

Hey Don,

 

We did leave the furnace on while traveling last winter. The refrigerator is always left on auto and the cabin temp set for around 65. Maybe a little overkill on the cab temp, but we weren't taking any chances with single digit temps. We too are leaving colder temps in CT in January for FL and then TX. Plan very similar to yours, pick our days to travel and rinse when we get to consistently warm temps.

 

 

[rideandfly]

Deleted

[topgun2]

Rideandfly -

 

Started a new thread about loading ramps so as not to hijack this thread further.

 

Bill

[KarenLukens]

I think gravitate is a good word for it. I started out sleeping on the ground and then a few years later, putting a piece of clear plastic draped over a rope to form a tent to keep dry when it was raining as a young Boy Scout. Then we bought and used a Cab Over Camper for a lot of years when deer hunting out of state and that was fun. My dad had an old canvas army tent that we would put a wood stove into during the winter when hunting in Washington or Idaho as a teenager and as I grew up and moved out I ended up back in a pup tent for years and had camped in that tent until I eventually needed a bigger tent for the wife and kids. So I've had many tents and this last summer even though I had a Casita,I stayed in tents again, the Coleman Signature Instant Tent and the Browning Big Horn for the second year. I camp most of the summer down at my Gold Mine here in California as I make a living in the most wonderful of ways while creating new money that sees light for the first time when I pull it out of the ground.  Here's a link to what I use during the summer at our camp - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HeVukH6Qdk&t=279s&list=PLcAJzGCJ3Q7zOmNdX_oYMqNUAMDGhQpMO&index=1

 

I've had 4 trailers and a Motor home on my own also. 2 of the trailers and the motor home are in these pics - [attachment file=DSCF0023.JPG]

[attachment file=Dredge Trip 057.jpg] I used the green camo trailer as year round storage and for sleeping in 2005. Then in 2006 I brought in the Pace Arrow 32' Motor Home and our family used it to stay in until 2010. The other trailer we used basically for friends and it was given to me by a friend who stayed down at my claim for a few weeks that summer. Actually all of them were given to me or I inherited them from friends for different reasons. I still have the frame from the green trailer here but it's a flat bed trailer for my trommel these days and the other trailer I gave to my sister and she and her family still use it today. I'm basically a tent person but my wife and I were in a car accident in 2013 and found that putting up a tent was really painful, so we did a bunch of research and ended up buying a 2010 Casita Liberty Deluxe in February of last year and we traveled all over the west coast with it. We ended up setting up a permanent bed in it and we just sold it last month because when it was raining, the choice was to sit on the bed or put a chair up in the isle in front of the bathroom and we needed more room. Plus we camp all seasons and need and all season trailer so last month we ordered our Olli and it will be ready for us next February. So as much as I prefer tent camping to trailer camping in the summer, during the winter, trailer camping works the best for us. I have a bunch of Casita Videos, camping gear videos and some campground reviews on our YouTube channel and we will be incorporating what we need into our Olli. Our camp stove and griddle will still play a big part when we are camping with groups because our griddle and pizza oven make for some wonderful days and nights when we are staying far from any city. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4jSha8P7UI&t=409s&index=12&list=PLcAJzGCJ3Q7zOmNdX_oYMqNUAMDGhQpMO

 

 

Anyway, we love camping and spend all summer out camping here and there most every year rain or shine and we have gravitated to the Olli because we really like having a trailer to stay in when we are on the road. We are still feeling our car accident from 3 years ago and putting up a tent a dealing with the pains has become a problem for Karen and I to do all of the time, so we have the trailer that we can just park and go without the trouble of packing the gear all back up onto the luggage racks on top of the car.  Before the accident -  [attachment file=March 2014.jpg]

 

Before Olli :) - [attachment file=Casita in Albion.jpg]

 

A few of our tents - [attachment file=Some of our tents.jpg]

We do love camping on the coast - 

[KarenLukens]

 

 

Fixed

[DeanCHS1980]

Hi J-Rhett and All,

 

Very interesting thread. Laura and I have just finished our first season RVing with our new-to-us 05 Casita. We love it and plan to use it several more seasons. We wanted to start small and used to make sure we liked RVing as much as we thought we would. I love to research and I discovered that molded fiberglass egg campers were going to be my choice. In my opinion, the Oliver represents the gold standard within the molded fiberglass niche. With 8.5 years of work left until retirement and two kids in college, an Oliver is not in my immediate future! ;) However, we attended the Oliver Rally in September. The tour of the plant and the opportunity to see our first Olivers (14 of them) and to meet the trailer owners further confirmed our interests in the Ollie. It also helps that we only live 2.5 hours from the plant.

 

Laura and I both LOVE the interior of the Ollies when compared to the drab brown of most other RVs. However, Ollies are SO MUCH MORE than just pretty faces. The quality of materials and construction are top notch. Plus, I think the Elite II represents about the perfect size being as small as possible yet large enough to to live comfortably for extended periods of time, including full-timing. I also like the idea of doing some winter camping, hiking, cross-country skiing, etc. One of the great things about RVng is chasing the 70 degree days, but I am open to some camping in the cold weather as well.

 

Despite being 100% happy with our Casita, the Oliver is our aspirational rig and the standard by which we measure all other RVs.

 

Happy Holidays,

 

Dean

[dharmardr]

Hey Guys,

 

I like your Casita, are you planning on getting to the Second Annual Oliver Rally this year? If so Ann and I will see you there.

 

Have fun out there.

[DeanCHS1980]

Hi Grayson and Ann,

 

Thank you. We are thoroughly enjoying our Casita. In fact, I went out to the driveway today, went in the Casita, turned on the cube heater, and relaxed for a few minutes.

 

I wish we could attend the Oliver Rally in May; however, our oldest daughter is graduating from college that weekend, so we will be CELEBRATING with her and family.

 

We hope to see you next time or in some other campground!

 

Take care,

 

Dean

[rideandfly]

Hi Grayson and Ann, Thank you. We are thoroughly enjoying our Casita. In fact, I went out to the driveway today, went in the Casita, turned on the cube heater, and relaxed for a few minutes.

 

Dean,

 

It was great to meet you and Laura at the 2016 Oliver Rally. Liked your Casita, too!