-awning
** It's a nice addition. Go to any campground on a sunny day and you're sure to see lots of people using theirs.
-front dinette and bed combo
**If you're camping as a solo or couple with no more than one kid the front dinette makes a lot of sense. You can leave the bed set up and still have a place to sit and read, and if you're a couple one of you can sleep in while the other drinks their coffee inside on a rainy day.
-entry door window with slider
** Not something I'd order . . .
-fantastic fan
** Have one. Use it. Love it.
-dual 6 volt batteries
** Nah. If I want to spend money on batteries I'd buy an "AGM" deep cycle marine battery instead.
-gravel guard protection package
** If money is tight this is one of those things you could add on the after-market if your trailer gets dinged up and it bugs you.
-porta potti 345
** Consider: It's 3 in the morning and an ice-cold rain is falling, but that's not what's keeping you awake. You're wide awake thinking
I NEED TO PEE!
If money is tight it's one of those things you can buy later, even pick up at a garage sale. But someday you'll be really happy to have one.
-spare tire
Something you hope you'll never need, but is an indispensable necessity.
-rv50 solar panel ( I'm told I could update that to a rv100 solar panel for a minimal difference)
** Whether this makes sense or not depends a lot on how you plan to camp.
If you like your creature comforts -- a
microwave, electric coffee maker, etc -- even several solar panels won't keep up with your electric demands, so think full-hookup camping. No solar panels needed.
If you're the type who only spends a couple days at any one place without hookups, then you can use your tow vehicle to charge your batteries while you're underway. No solar panel needed.
If you convert your
lights to LEDs and your camping style is to only run the
furnace first thing in the morning to drive the chill out you can easily go a week on a single battery charge. No solar panel needed.
If, on the other hand, you're the type who likes more primitive campsites with no electric hookups and like to camp for several days at a time and still like having a few creature comforts (like running the
furnace in the evening and at night), upgrading your
lights to LEDs, getting a solar panel and the largest capacity fresh water tank you can buy makes a lot of sense.
We do a fair amount of dry-camping (no hookups), so we upgraded all our interior
lighting to LEDs, installed a single 50w solar panel on our roof, and upgraded our fresh water tank from 12 to 20 gallons. Most of the time 50 watts really is all we need; the only time we found differently was when we were camping at Yellowstone and it was so cold (in the teens) at night that our furnace (and, therefore, furnace fan) ran non-stop all night. Our battery was almost completely discharged by morning, and at 50 watts our solar panel did not have the "oomph" to get our battery up to snuff the following day.
We carry a Mr Heater Portable Buddy "backup" heater for times like this. The Buddy heater can get our trailer toasty without drawing our battery down; unfortunately we discovered our backup "Portable Buddy" heater doesn't work above 7000 feet altitude . . .
We could have solved our problem by bringing more blankets along for cold camping trips and only using the furnace in the evening and first thing in the morning to drive the chill out. What we did instead was add a second 55 watt panel. Now with 105 watts of solar we there's enough juice for our furnace and to watch our small 12-volt AM/FM/TV/DVD player for an hour or two at night.