Why We Traded Our Winnebago Travato for a Revel

We purchased our 2018 Winnebago Travato 59K in June 2017 and hit the road full-time in August 2018. If you haven’t already, check out Why the Winnebago Travato was Our First RV. 

For our first ski season starting van life, we took our Travato up to McCall, Idaho. After almost two months in McCall, we decided to trade the Travato after close to 20 months of ownership for the 2019 Winnebago Revel.

We still miss our Travato. Unlike the Revel, our Travato had:

However, the Travato wasn’t meeting our needs for snowy, cold winters, and venturing on dirt roads of varying conditions. Regardless of what we loved, we traded the Travato for the Revel for several key reasons:

4WD, better suspension, and more clearance

We thought we could get away with having a front-wheel, 2WD RV, and carrying tire chains. But we spend too much time on snowy, rough, and muddy roads. We shied away from going certain places in the Travato for fear of getting stuck. With the Revel, we are more comfortable pushing our limits. Though, please don’t get us wrong. We don’t believe having 4WD makes us invincible!

The suspension on the Revel’s Mercedes Sprinter chassis also offers a smoother ride than the Travato’s Ram Promaster chassis. While not incapable of traveling 2WD-friendly dirt roads, the Ram Promaster feels better sticking to paved roads.

The higher clearance on the Mercedes Sprinter helps us avoid rocks and navigate deep ruts and potholes on our way to hiking and mountain biking trailheads.

Better heating solution for our tanks

The 2018 Travato is not a four-season RV even though it had heated black and gray tanks and a freshwater tank within its interior. However, for the black and gray tanks to stay heated in the Travato, we had to have shore power. Otherwise, the amount of energy needed would quickly deplete the single house battery. The Travato couldn’t spend the day in a ski resort parking lot or overnight anywhere without an electric hookup if the temperatures were too frigid. And we were trying to stay de-winterized.

In the Revel, a hydronic system heats the house, including the gray and freshwater tanks. While the system consumes battery energy, it’s not going to run your batteries down in the Revel like the heating elements for the Travato’s tanks. If you do happen to run down the batteries in the Revel, it’s as simple as turning on the engine to get them charged again.

Disclaimer: You should always winterize your RV if you plan on spending time in freezing temperatures.

(While we purchased the Revel for it’s four-season capabilities, you can read about why we winterize here.)

Diesel heater and better insulation 

We wanted a diesel heater because the propane heater in the Travato created a lot of condensation in the house. The interior fabric found along the frame support on both sides of the windshield was often soaking wet and dripping. 

We also had to fill up on propane too often. It wasn’t uncommon for the lows in McCall to hover around the single digits, so we were blowing through our 6-gallon propane tank in less than two days at times. The longest we might go between fill-ups was seven days being conservative with our propane usage.

It can also be challenging finding places to fill your propane tank. We’ve encountered issues with:

– Broken propane service equipment
– Business hours were not as advertised
– The business was too busy providing other services they refused to fulfill their propane services
– A whole town was out of propane, including three service stations 
– Propane service techs couldn’t figure out how to top off our tank and were wasting propane in the process
– And certified service techs were unavailable at an otherwise open propane service station

The Revel’s diesel heater pulls diesel from the same place as the engine. It’s a lot easier finding a fuel station with diesel on hand. We can run the diesel heater for days non-stop and hardly see a dent in our fuel tank.

The Travato was too drafty when you plan on spending most of your time in temperatures below freezing, which doesn’t help conserve propane. We had to shove blankets at the base of all our doors to keep heat from escaping. We stayed bundled in multiple layers to stay comfortable in the Travato. In the Revel, we can hang out in tank tops and shorts.

Larger gray tank and no black tank

Owning the Travato for just over seven months, we figured out we fill a gray tank much faster than a black tank. The Travato’s gray and black tanks both held 13 gallons each. Most times, we had access to public toilets, which cut back significantly on our use of the Travato’s black tank. We were faster at filling the gray tank from dishwashing and the occasional shower.

The Revel has a 21-gallon gray tank that buys us 8 more gallons for liquid waste. And it has a 5-gallon cassette toilet. While we lose 8 gallons of holding space for human waste, it’s not a loss to us. We only use the cassette toilet when public facilities are unavailable or disgustingly dirty, or after dark.

Gear space

The Travato design did not accommodate storing our skiing and snowboarding gear in a way that limited their exposure to outdoor elements and the chances of getting stolen. So, we stored everything in our Toyota FJ Cruiser that we kept with us until we got the Revel.

We had a Fiamma roof rack on the Travato, but there wasn’t room to add a rooftop box. Too many features took up real estate, including two exhaust fans, the air conditioning unit, solar panel, and TV antenna. Regardless, I didn’t want to climb up and down an icy ladder trying to manage my gear.

We looked into doing something with the hitch, but we could only find one costly box to accommodate the length of our ski and snowboard gear. At the end of the day, we didn’t want to add length to the Travato’s 21-foot length. We find 21 feet is perfect for fitting in most pay campsites and parking lot spaces.

There wasn’t a practical spot inside the Travato for our ski and snowboard gear either.

The Revel has a “garage” underneath the bed that fits most of our gear. The bed is motorized for moving up and down so you can store more or less. At 5’4,” with the bed completely lifted, I can almost stand up completely straight.

However, one of the gear garage intents was to store bikes, but there was no room with all our winter gear. Even if we had room, when you sleep, the bed is in the lowered position, and our bikes no longer fit. The bed must be lifted. We’d have to keep our bikes outside while sleeping, which isn’t something we wanted to manage every night living on the road. Maybe it would be okay if the Revel was just our weekender.

Winnebago didn’t offer an exterior bike rack option for the Revel when we bought it. Our mountain bikes had to remain in storage until we figured out another solution. You can read out that here.

We did love our Travato’s Fiamma bike rack that was an optional add-on. Our bikes felt firmly in place in the rack, unlike in other racks we’ve owned for other vehicles. We also didn’t want a bike rack that would make it difficult to get in and out of the van’s rear. Since the Fiamma bike rack integrated into the right rear door, you didn’t have to worry about removing bikes or repositioning a rack to get the rear swinging doors open.

Built-in inverter and increased battery capacity

Our Travato had two options for charging our devices that needed a 110-volt outlet – plug into shore power or run the generator. When working remotely on our laptops, a full charge may or may not last all day. And we preferred to camp in places that didn’t offer electric hookups. But we needed to recharge too often without being on electric hookups, which meant running the generator.

I hate running the generator! I think it diminishes the outdoor experience for fellow campers, and it’s too loud when you’re on a business call. Campgrounds usually have rules about when you are allowed to run your generator if you’re permitted at all.

We purchased a cheap inverter that plugged into a 12-volt outlet, which enabled us to charge our laptops while driving. I did my best to charge my laptop any time we were on the road, but sometimes I would forget. I was frantic more than a couple of times when realizing my laptop’s battery was low, and I needed to go on a conference call.

Our Revel has a built-in inverter. As long as our house batteries are well-charged, I press a button and charge my laptop without running the engine or a generator.

Our Travato had one house battery, whereas our Revel has three. Solar panels and running the engine charge both. We found one battery is insufficient for satisfying our power needs without running the engine. We strived religiously to conserve energy, but the single battery just didn’t cut it. The Revel’s three batteries typically keep us going a full day in crappy weather when the solar isn’t charging.

There was one thing about the Revel that gave me pause

We were excited about 4WD, better suspension, more clearance, a diesel heater, better insulation, a larger gray tank, a gear garage, a built-in inverter, and increased battery capacity. But I had one concern as we were getting ready to commit to the Revel: the bed.

It is larger than a twin but smaller than a full. You can’t hang your feet off the bed because there are barriers all around, aside from an opening a couple of feet wide for entering and exiting the bed area. That’s pretty tight for two adults and a dog. I am 5’4,” and Kyle is 5’10”. We are both a healthy weight. Our dog is 13 pounds and sleeps with us because he is blind and mostly deaf. 

The bed takes up the rear of the van, and our bodies run lengthwise across the van’s width when lying in it. Kyle sleeps closest to the rear doors, and I sleep closest to the steering wheel. I can move in and out of bed freely into the house. Kyle must crawl over me to get out, or I must move.

Imagine this happening at night…

Your partner’s mouth is breathing on your face, and their snore is going directly into your ear. Your dog is sleeping at your feet, so you are forced into a fetal position. You want to roll over, but if you’re not careful, you’re going to elbow your partner and kick your dog. Your partner repositions, and you are the receiver of an elbow and a knee instead. You finally get comfortable, but then your partner needs to use the restroom, so you get out of bed, so they don’t have to crawl over you. You finally fall asleep, but now your dog is crying because he is thirsty. He can’t jump out of bed because he’s too high off the ground. It doesn’t matter that he’s blind. So you have to help him out of bed, wait for him to fill up on water, and put him back to bed. He sprawls out, and you’re back in the fetal position.

What you have imagined is a typical night for me. However, this bed is my bed now. When we stay in a hotel or with friends or family, we get the luxury of a queen bed or larger. It’s nice to spread out, but it’s not my bed. Given the picture I painted, you might be surprised to know I miss my Revel bed when I’m not in it. When we are in a larger bed, I barely notice Kyle and Bruce Leroy are in bed with me. I feel almost lonely.

Why didn’t we buy a Winnebago Revel in the first place?

At the time we bought the Travato, the Revel wasn’t on the market. We don’t believe Winnebago had even hinted a Revel was in the works around the time we were shopping. We were undoubtedly disappointed when only months after buying the Travato, we started seeing advertisements about the Revel. The Revel is in closer alignment with the must-haves we talked about in Why the Winnebago Travato was Our First RV. 

We have no regrets about buying the Travato first. Between having both the Revel and Travato, we’ve learned about our van life needs. And one day, if we decide to have a van built from scratch, we are more aware of the layout and features we want to include.

May 1, 2020, marks 15 months in the Winnebago Revel.

We have a lot of love for our Revel, but we’ve had some mishaps. We’ll share what we learned another day.