LYFE IN TOW

As much as I didn’t want to face it, it was time to start thinking about life-after-Airstream. All along, the plan of purchasing an Airstream Basecamp for this year on the road was to sell it after traveling. This was one of the main reasons I bought an Airstream trailer - they hold their value much better than SOBs (an "Airstream" acronym for "Some Other Brand').

For a while, I toyed with the idea of keeping the Basecamp. It's my home. I am connected to it. We have been through a lot together. However, I snapped out of that for a plethora of reasons:

I didn’t know where I was going to live, let alone store an Airstream.
I wasn’t sure if I’d use it enough to warrant keeping it (mostly because I wasn’t sure what the future was holding for me).
The old supply and demand curve. It’s a seller’s market. Due to COVID, the demand for RV travel is up, and RV availability is down. They can’t make Airstreams fast enough. Buyers are paying more for trailers in this economic landscape: people don’t want to travel internationally, don’t want to fly, and have the option to travel with their families given remote work and school. The market value of my Basecamp is higher than what I paid for it in Fall 2019.

When I knew I was going to sell it, the next thing to think about was logistics. After the conclusion of my travel (late November), I plan to head back to Virginia for the holidays. If I could avoid towing the trailer back to Virginia, that would be best. The market out west is more prominent, as well.

I decided that while in Denver, where I had space, time, and resources, I’d empty it, deep clean it, take some photos, and throw it up online to see what would happen.

Fortunately for me, I had some help cleaning it. Thank God for my little assistants.

There are multiple online outlets to sell a trailer. The common “RV” ones (of which I know) are RV Trader and Airstream Marketplace. On these sites, however, one must pay to list a trailer. Since I was only testing the market’s water and still had about six weeks left to travel, I opted to post only on Craigslist - in Denver and Phoenix. Craigslist only charges $5 for an RV listing.

I got more bites than anticipated - mostly from the Denver listing. I even had interested parties from other parts of the country. At this point, I knew I could sell it pretty quickly. One couple showed the most interest and was able to take a look at it before I left town. They loved it. We verbally agreed that they would purchase it when I finished traveling and I would drop it off in Denver the first week of December. I was trusting them, and they were trusting me, but given the interest I had, I wasn’t worried that if they backed out, I could still sell it without too much hassle.

Whoa. This was happening.

The rest of my time in Denver, I spent having quality time with my friends and the kids, doing some COVID-friendly small things in town (bike rides, patio dinners, short hikes), and just hanging out. Amy and I have been friends for many, many years, so hanging out is our jam. We didn’t need to do anything special for the time to be special.

I left Denver excited for the last six weeks of traveling. I had some enjoyable things to see and do, and verbally selling the Airstream was a significant stress relief. Plus, knowing that I would be back in Denver to drop it off made leaving my friends that much easier.

My next stop was Colorado Springs. I visited an old friend from high school who I hadn’t seen in 20+ years. He and his wife have two beautiful children and another on the way. It was delightful to catch up over lost time and re-get to know an old friend and his family.

Before I knew it, I was heading south to Great Sand Dunes and Mesa Verde National Parks.