3 Reasons Why We Sold Our Winnebago Revel

For more than three and a half years, we lived in a 2019 Winnebago Revel. You can read our thoughts on it after year three. Before the Revel, we were in a 2018 Winnebago Travato 59K. Here’s why the Travato was our first RV and why we traded it for the Revel. We also had a bare bones AWD Chevy Express van that we used for weekend adventures before buying the Travato and transitioning into full-time van life.

With each van, we learned more about how we live best on the road, especially in harsh winter conditions. We love the Travato and Revel and would recommend both to people that appreciate the ease of driving a finished van build straight off the dealer lot. (Though, we’ve heard there might be quality issues with versions newer than our own.) Winnebagos and other RVIA-certified Class B RVs are also generally easier to insure than a custom van build.

So why did we sell our 2019 Winnebago Revel?

We wanted a “true” four-season RV.

We spend about half of each year skiing and snowboarding. We’ve seen -20 degrees Fahrenheit three times since living the van life. Twice in Wyoming and once in New Mexico. We often go days sitting in single digit temps without ever seeing the sun.

The Winnebago Revel is marketed as a four-season RV, but its ability to hold up in all four seasons depends on how cold you plan on going. We found that the Revel’s plumbing can generally tolerate cold temperatures similar to what you experience in places closest to the West Coast like the Eastern Sierra, Lake Tahoe, Bend, or Mount Hood. It seems happiest when temps hover right around freezing. Twenty-something degrees Fahrenheit might be okay, especially if the sun is beating on the van most of the day. But once you start traveling farther east to places like Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, you’re at greater risk of freezing the Revel’s plumbing. It’s not happy with sustained subfreezing temperatures, especially when the sun is absent or its windy.

The indoor shower, outdoor shower, toilet, two water inlets, spray port, galley sink, water pump, gray water valve, and all the other plumbing that runs throughout the Revel, are all points of failure. Any plumbing components located near the sliding door and rear doors are especially vulnerable due to the amount of cold air that sneaks through the door cracks. This includes everything in the galley cabinet. The city water fill inlet and the gray water valve are also outside. We never once used the city fill but the gray water valve froze regularly. You can either reinforce those places and monitor them, or winterize.

After too many freeze situations and busting various points in our Revel’s plumbing, we always winterized it for the duration of our ski season. But keeping a water jug on the counter and storing other containers throughout the van started to get old. What’s the point of having a four-season RV if we can’t use all of its features year-round?

Regardless of our plumbing challenges in the Revel, we have to give major points to Winnebago for its warmth. I could hang out in the Revel in single digit weather with a tank top and shorts as long as my feet had a rug to stand on or socks. Kyle would often complain about being too warm at night sleeping with a sheet and a Pendleton wool blanket. You definitely start to feel the cold creeping in when it’s 0 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but we could set the diesel heater’s thermostat to 70 and the van could maintain it, even while running our exhaust fan 24/7. The insulation and hydronic heating system kept us more than comfortable.

We wanted a van build conducive to daily comfort.

When we traded our Travato for the Revel, our bed size was significantly reduced from a king-size mattress to one smaller than a full, and we sacrificed an open living space. I consider myself a small person at 5’4″ and 120 pounds, and I frequently had bruises living in the Revel. In our Travato, I could stand in the middle with my arms outstretched and spin in a circle. Kyle and I could also walk past each other. Both were impossible to do in the Revel.

The Revel also wasn’t designed for two people to work on their laptops while maintaining ergonomic posture. I’m not old, but I’m also not young anymore. My body does not appreciate working in bed.

Our biggest gripe with the Revel’s interior layout was the shower closet. We never once used the shower, and while it doubled as storage, we didn’t like having a floor to ceiling closet smack dab in the middle of the van on the driver’s side. It just made the space claustrophobic. We frequently dreamt of van layouts without a shower.

We also wanted to store less in the van and move seasonal items to the roof, but the Revel already had too much going on up top with an air conditioner, two exhaust fans, a solar panel, and an awning.

If you’re a single person, you likely won’t share our same space requirements and might find the Revel perfect for your needs. But we are two adults and a small dog. We made the Revel work for a long time, but with our desire to continue full-time van life, a layout designed just for us became more important.

We don’t want to rely on RV repair shops anymore.

It’s hard enough to get an appointment with Mercedes for servicing the Sprinter chassis, let alone scoring an appointment with an RV repair shop when something goes wrong with the Revel’s house. It could be weeks, even months. Van space is too small to store every possible tool that you might need for self-repair, and the more complex systems require a knowledgeable tech. Plus, RV repair shops are a must for warranty work.

The lack of expertise at RV repair shops is also frustrating. This isn’t a knock on repair techs. Our frustration lies more with the fact that repair shops generally don’t have specialties. They will often service every make and model of RV out there. While there are certainly similarities between RVs, there can also be some crucial differences. When you service your chassis, you don’t take your Mercedes to Ford and you don’t take your Ford to Mercedes. I really wished for a network of Winnebago shops or shops that specialized in Class Bs. Of the repair shops where we took our Revel, almost all admitted they had never worked on a Revel. Some had never even worked on a Class B. This results in more troubleshooting hours at a high per hour service rate and sometimes return visits.

We really desired an RV house without so many bells and whistles because fancy features are costly to repair. Plus, leaving our RV at the shop is a huge inconvenience, not to mention the time waiting on parts. As much as possible, we wanted components that could be easily repaired or replaced by us.

What replaced our Revel?

In April 2022, we hired Van America in St. George, Utah (formerly All Advantures) to do a custom build on a 2021 Mercedes Sprinter with a 144″ wheelbase. We took delivery in November and quickly kicked off the 2022/23 ski and snowboard season in our new home.

We kind of figured we would do a custom build at some point, but it was by accident that it happened in 2022.

We don’t regret purchasing our Revel in the slightest. Upon handing our keys to the new owner, we felt a bit of sadness saying goodbye. Kyle and I have moved around a lot in our adult lives, never occupying the same dwelling for as long as we owned our Revel. Between owning a Travato and Revel, we discovered how we enjoy living most…on the road.