We have been on quite an interesting trip with our motorhomes. We got the bug initially around 2010 and purchased a Winnebago ERA. We used the ERA to really explore our home state of Oregon and took our first trip on the Alaska Highway in it. It was a great introduction to the freedom that a motor home can bring, but as we traveled more we began to think we wanted more out of a motorhome. The write up of our experience with the ERA is below in a post called Our Winnebago ERA .
When we were contemplating an early retirement travel was very much on our mind. Our experience with our ERA had shown that a motorhome was the way we wanted to do things. We also wanted a motorhome with the capability to handle rough roads and to be very self-sufficient. This led us to the Provan Malayan Tiger that this site is named after. Our experience with the Tiger has been interesting. In many ways we love the vehicle, but unfortunately it has been more high maintenance than we would like. The decision making that led us to the Malayan is in the article Deciding on a Vehicle, a second post called Provan Malayan details our experience ordering and customizing Scout our Malayan.
After driving cross country we recorded our initial impressions in a post called Shakedown Cruise. Finally after three years of ownership we wrote an update that reflected our experience called Update on Performance of our Malayan. Shortly after that update the owner of Provan decided to discontinue the Malayan model that we own. In many ways after three years of pretty intense work I think (knock on wood) the major bugs have been worked out. While our relationship with Scout our Malayan has been complicated we still own it and plan to keep it in the short term and continue to use it for trips in North America.
In 2017 Ron retired full time and it became time to get serious about traveling overseas and we selected Europe as our first continent to explore. As we were researching shipping Scout to Europe I came across a website that talked about an ownership option for non-EU citizens that was intriguing. We reached out to the company and the alternative of buying an European motorhome seemed viable. We decided to rent a RV from them, and after completing the trip decided to buy a motorhome from them.
We took our first trip in our Knaus 550 in the fall of 2018 and are happy with our decision to purchase François. The post Purchasing Our RV in France gives a description of the process we went thru to purchase, register and insure our Knaus 550. On our return after our fourth trip in François we wrote up an update of our experience called Two Years with our Knaus 550.
Five Years With Our Knaus 550
Below is a summary of our experience with our Knaus 550. We now have 8 trips in one of these vehicles, one with a rental
Purchasing our RV in France
Purchasing our Knaus 550 The vehicle we had rented on our first trip to Europe was a Knaus 550. We liked the layout and size
Update on Performance of our Malayan
Update on Performance 2016 After two years of being on the road we made the decision to take Scout back to Provan for some extensive
Shakedown Cruise
Shakedown Cruise Report We picked up the Malayan on January 6 and returned home on February 5. During that time we drove 6468 miles in
Provan Malayan
Once we narrowed our focus to either a used Earthroamer or the Bengal Tiger, I emailed Mark Guild at Provan www.tigervehicles.com with a bunch of
Deciding on a Vehicle
The Decision to Upgrade When we decided on the early retirement it was done knowing that we would want to do a considerable amount of
Our Winnebago Era
Our First Vehicle Our first adventure vehicle was a Winnebago ERA class B. When we decided to enter into the RV market (Ron got the