Dallas RV Show - All that glitters is not gold.

I have to say that I found the Dallas RV show to be underwhelming. There was a lack of knowledge by the sales reps in a few different dealer areas. Here’s a piece of advice for Dealers: Send your experts to the show, not new folks that don’t even know the construction of your trailers. In a nutshell, I found this the most frustrating part of the show.

Camping World had, by far, the most sales people at the event from what we could see. I started calling them the “camping world cult” because there were so many of them. While I could say more, I’ll stop there.

We went through the entire line up of travel trailer manufacturers and brands in about three hours. Many of the manufacturers had almost identical floor plans.

After a few hours there we came to the following conclusions.

There are no new floor plans. However, the trend seems to be a reduction in living area in order to make the bathrooms huge. Let be real, you’re not going to live in in your bathroom, and if you do, you might want to think about seeing a doctor. A reduction in living space to accommodate a residential bathroom is a mistake in our opinion.
Most of the entrance steps were horrible. Even the fold out models have a rise that is not residential. This makes coming out of the trailer uncomfortable. I would highly recommend that the industry move to the Torklift Glowsteps. I could never go back to any other steps after having had these.
It seems like kitchen pantry’s are getting hard to find (as are places for a trash bin). In fact when there were trailers with no pantry, we struggled to find a place for both food and dishes etc.

I’m not sure this year it was worth the trip to see this show. I didn’t see any model where there was a jump in quality. In some cases, it was the exact opposite. I could see fit and finish issues in a number of travel trailers and fifth wheels. Most folks would probably overlook these, and that’s the dangerous part of an RV show. New Buyers get caught up in the wonder of it all and throw critical thinking to the wind.

Sorry folks, I wish I could be more positive about what I saw at the show.

As we have said many times, get an independent inspection on any trailer you are interested in buying. Also, you need to have a list of the things that are showstoppers for you. It may be a pantry, or a large closet. Whatever the case, if you settle for less than what you need, you will be disappointed later that you didn’t spend more time looking.