I think if there’s one thing that truly captures the majesty and luxury of an RV, camper, or motorhome, it’s the fact that such vehicles are uniquely equipped with the means to allow you to take a leisurely, comfortable, involved, unhurried bowel movement anywhere, anytime, from within the comfort of your vehicle. There’s simply no greater luxury in the automotive world; the finest Rolls-Royce Phantom, for all its elegance and refinement and status, would become a fetid, unwelcoming nightmare-box were one to take a simple, basic shit in the back seat. For want of a toilet and bathroom, the Rolls-Royce, compared to any RV so equipped, is garbage.
That’s why when I went to that big RV show in Elkhart, Indiana earlier this week, as a guest of THOR, who kindly let me check out many, many motorhomes and RVs in their Open House area, I took advantage of the opportunity to really evaluate the current state of the art regarding Motorhome, RV, and trailer bathrooms, from the perspective of a dedicated defecator.
While I tried out a lot of bathrooms in a lot of different models, I think it would be cumbersome to try and do a model-by-model breakdown, partially because there are so many damn models and the differences can be so minor and Byzantine, it just doesn’t make sense. The bathroom layouts tend to be more standard across bigger categories of vehicle, so I’ll give my reviews for the following categories: Class B, with a subclass for Sprinter-based and Ram Promaster-based; Large-Scale Rear-Engined Motorhome (usually thought of as diesel pushers, but there are gasoline ones, too); and Class C motorhomes.
There are more categories that can be done, of course, and as I get more opportunities, I will avail myself of them. But this feels like a good start.
For testing criteria, we need some metrics. I propose the following set of defecation-enthusiast-bathroom-evaluation criteria:
Physical Comfort: This covers the toilet itself, and how it feels to be perched upon it. Can you comfortably sit on this toilet for the potentially extended duration of your poop? Is there adequate room for your legs and other limbs? Can you maneuver effectively with the door closed for wiping and other hygiene purposes?
Emotional Comfort/Security: Many people only feel comfortable taking a leisurely dump within the confines of their own homes. Can this mobile setup approach that level of emotional security and comfort? Does it feel private enough, and free from both visual and auditory contact? Can you truly relax in this environment to allow your bowels to fully expunge their foul contents?
Amenities: What, in addition to the toilet, is available? Is there a sink inside the bathroom, or do you need to exit to use one? If it is a wet bathroom, how much does the toilet area affect the use of the shower, and vice-versa?
Emergency Use Viability: If you eat something that reacts violently to your system, how well will this work for worst-case defecation events? Are there grab handles? Effective flushing systems? Good soundproofing to muffle screams and other noises?
Those seem to cover the important things, right? Oh, and here was my test procedure. Initially, the plan was to eat between six to twelve fast-food burritos every three hours and use each bathroom to the fullest possible extent. Unfortunately, a group of nosy dealers happened upon me as I was attempting to execute my first test and loudly and somewhat rudely demand I cease production and threatened to call the authorities should I introduce any foreign material into their pristine black water tanks.
They then flung me out of the Class A I was in, and onto a small group of recycling bins, which made a truly alarming cacophony of sounds when I flopped onto them.
So, I revised my test procedure. Because of the small-minded, anti-science element, I decided to simply mimic the actions of a healthy bowel movement instead of actually crafting one for every toilet. So, I sat on the toilet, adjusting my body for most accurate positioning, moved, grunted, strained, and so on in the best possible approximation of the act I could manage.
Okay! On to the evaluations!
Class B, Sprinter
Class Bs are the smallest of the classes, and a very popular class right now. These may be the smallest self-propelled camping solutions to contain an actual bathroom. Currently, these are usually based on either Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans or RAM Promaster vans. I tried both.
First, let’s try this Mercedes-Benz model, targeted at the overlanding community.
It has a small, fully enclosed wet bathroom that may be the minimum possible size for a bathroom. Here’s how I fit on the toilet, and remember, I’m a very compact person:
Okay, evaluation time:
Physical Comfort: This is tricky, mostly because of the size of the bathroom itself. It’s basically a stall shower with a toilet, and with the door closed, it is extremely difficult to fit your legs in there. I suspect many people will opt to poop in here with the door open and their legs outstretched, but that’s unacceptable unless you’re completely alone. With the door closed, I also felt I was being pushed back on the seat of the toilet to a non-optimal point for comfortable shitting. Overall, marginal.
Emotional Comfort/Security: There’s actually a very crude and simple lock on the upper part of the door that seems at first somewhat half-assed, but I think it’s actually a big benefit, because you can very easily see that it’s secure and you can see if it moves, indicating attempted entry.
This helps comfort and security a good bit. What’s less good is the uncomfortable knowledge that you’re a 1/4″ thick sheet of thin veneered particle board away from whomever else is in the van, possibly preparing something in the little kitchen area just on the other side of the door. All sounds and screams and moans are easily heard.
Amenities: There’s no sink in here, just the showerhead, which I suppose you could try to use for hand washing, but you’ll likely get soaked.
Emergency Use Viability: Better than nothing, but not ideal.
Class B, Promaster
There’s another popular Class B platform, the RAM Promaster, and I found a number of these that located the bathroom in a different area of the van: at the rear, as opposed to the middle, as in the example above. Here’s the layout:
Physical Comfort: Actually, quite good! It’s a very small area, but the space is used well, and the perpendicular to the long axis of the van setup is effective here. The slight rise the toilet is mounted on helps comfort as well, and access to the toilet paper holder is excellent, too.
Emotional Comfort/Security: The setup has its biggest faults here; even though the window is tinted black on the outside, that large window right by your head while you’re crafting a top-tier mass of waste is unsettling, at best. Yes, there is a curtain, so this issue is mitigated, but your head is right by that window, and if you’re pooping in, say, a parking lot and someone comes up to check their appearance in that mirrored rear glass, you’re going to have to deal with that mess.
Also, the door to the bathroom is essentially a thin, rigid plastic curtain, and will do very little to muffle sounds or smells or anything like that. It’s marginal.
Amenities: It’s a wet bathroom setup but it has one very clever and important amenity:
A fold-down sink, over the toilet! Very clever and well-executed. The drain system is especially clever, too.
Emergency Use Viability: I’d say adequate, save for the door thinness. But, could be far worse.
Class C
This class has a lot more room for bathroom setups, and as such layouts and designs can vary wildly. Here are a couple randomly selected samples:
In this class we start to see more luxurious, “real”-seeming bathroom designs. Above we see a common “corner” orientation of the bathroom, and below we see a more “rectangular” bathroom layout:
While the layouts vary, the general amount of space and bathroom quality is fairly consistent, so this evaluation should cover the whole class:
Physical Comfort: Quite good! These bathrooms tend to have just enough space to allow for ease of sitting, moving, and performing cleaning duties, all while being small enough to make sense in the context of the overall vehicle and being fairly cozy, too. Decor ups a level here, and there are some attractive-looking materials and designs. There are some cheesy ones, too, of course, but generally these look quite good.
Emotional Comfort/Security: These Class Cs may be the sweet spot for this; windows, if present, tend not to be in unsettling locations, door thickness and distance from the toilet is more reassuring, and the overall normal-bathroom feel is very effective for pooping comfort. Again, the size is important, as it’s just big enough to move around comfortably and small enough to feel like a safe cocoon for private pooping.
Amenities: What, in addition to the toilet, is available? Is there a sink inside the bathroom, or do you need to exit to use one? If it is a wet bathroom, how much does the toilet area affect the use of the shower, and vice-versa?
Emergency Use Viability: Definitely. This would be a welcome refuge in a time of a shitastrophe.
Diesel/Gas Pusher Motorhome
These are, of course, the most luxurious and opulent of all the motorhomes. These are like those band tour bus kinds of things, and feel absurdly decadent. I mean, look at this:
All that shiny marble and brass and chrome? It feels like a Miami Beach cosmetic dentist’s office in there. This one actually had two bathrooms! Look, here’s one:
Damn, there’s even a seat in that shower! I don’t even have that in my house, unless I drag in a folding chair, which I was made to promise to quit doing. The other one was part of a larger en suite bathroom/dressing room connected to the bedroom:
Okay, let’s evaluate:
Physical Comfort: Of course, this is at essentially near-conventional home bathroom levels of comfort. The stability and substantiality of the toilet itself I suppose isn’t up to a non-mobile toilet, but that’s nitpicking, because this is a toilet you can use at a mile-a-minute.
Emotional Comfort/Security: Okay, here’s where it gets interesting: I think these are actually a bit less emotionally secure than the Class C bathrooms, because of their larger space and how the sheer size of the whole vehicle causes motion when people enter or exit. There may be ways to mitigate this rocking motion – and I’m almost certain there must be – but while I was testing in the bathroom you see above, I did feel somewhat … exposed. The cozy security of the Class C was gone here. The experience was good, but if I’m completely honest, I’d prefer to take an involved, complex shit in a Class C.
Amenities: Everything. Whatever you need. These are for high-rollers. Oh, though I have yet to see a bidet on one of these. That feels like a huge oversight. What are we waiting for? I want a bidet!
Emergency Use Viability: Excellent. No notes.
I hope this helps! Mobile pooping is a growing area of interest to people, and it’s something everyone – no matter who you are, from an Empress to your deadbeat cousin – can appreciate. I know a lot of society is invested in pushing the bowel-related side of human life to the hidden backrooms of our experience, but when it comes to motorhomes and RVs, it’s a crucial factor, and must be confronted with open eyes and minds.
I hope you have meaningful poops, everyone.
Will never be in the RV market and not particularly interested, but very curious–no Transit-based class C’s? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a few and I wonder why they’re excluded.
A Little late to the comments but, why not add a toilet to the roof? Just need little half doors and you’d have the best view in the RV park.
The sky crapper?
This is the kind of hard-hitting journalism that I became a member for.
I saw the Meaningful Poops when they opened up for Barenaked Ladies in 1998.
Jason, another important factor to consider is dedicated ventilation. I know of a few people who should not be releasing that much methane in a small, enclosed space where open flames may be present in other parts of the space. Kaboom.
Well to solve that is to light a candle before you start so it does more of a slow burnoff rather than a kaboom
My folks were into camping 40 years ago when I was in high school. They started with a pickup slide-in and upgraded to a series of 20-something foot Airstreams eventually. The pickup camper pooper was, er, rudimentary at best. And the one and only time I drove the thing, the old man was directing me where to park it in the yard, and directed me into backing it into one of the upright railroad ties that marked the edges of the yard for snowplowing purposes. Which proceeded to rip the black water tank out of the thing and drop 30 gallons of poo all over the driveway. And he could not say a damned thing because he was telling me exactly where to go! It was EPIC. The Airstreams had toilets that full-size humans could almost use comfortably, though I was rather too tall for the showers due to the curved roof.
Now opulence is what friends of mine have today. A Prevost 45′ bus conversion that originally cost -$2M new (bought well depreciated, but still more than I paid for my house). It has a master bathroom that is 50% larger than the one in my house, and significantly nicer. All the room in the world with a shower you could hold an orgy in with multiple showerheads (it has a HUGE water tank). And a half-bath up front for the proles. And with a 500hp Detroit up it’s butt the thing moves right along too! “Camping” done properly. But maintenance on that beast is no joke at all.
This is so hilarious…thanks for going in the trenches for us…I’ll never understand those van bathrooms
I saw a post about motorhomes and thought “Mercedes”. Then I started reading and thought “wait a second…” scrolled back to the top and saw “Jason”. Now it makes sense.
Expected to see Stef’s byline on this article
This was a masterfully written article.
As someone with a fast metabolism who eats like a horse, I think it would be fair to say I’m a connoisseur of crappers away from home base. Since I started kindergarten, public toilets of all kinds as well as toilets at friends, relatives, and dates houses have been needed for a sit-down session many thousands of times in my life. Even a toilet in the back of an RV that a former girlfriend lived in was not spared my digestive output. And in an RV, sound proofing definitely is important.
I speak from experience as someone, who when I dated a college-aged woman as a skinny 120 lb lad in my early 20s, needed to use the facilities when me and the gal were hanging out in her mother’s RV that they both lived in. The RV was on the smaller side, and the bathroom was very cramped. The need to use the facilities for a sit down session had built itself into a bit of an emergency while I was there. I asked permission to use them and it was granted. I entered, shut the door, and sat down. Sound travelled, and within seconds of starting, they both knew what I was doing in there and made it known, by telling me that the toilet couldn’t handle toilet paper and to put it in the trash can. All I could do as I sat awkwardly behind that flimsy door with my pants at the floor was to acknowledge I heard the request to reassure them I’d follow it. The lack of proper sound proofing meant that nothing was left to the imagination of her or her mother with regard to what I was doing in there for the next 10-15 minutes I occupied that room, sitting less than 10 feet away, as the RV spared them not one gory detail of the acoustics generated by my posterior. A few weeks later, her mother even reminded us of the “squishy” noises she heard when I was seated in that room as confirmation.
Another important quality of an RV toilet that was all-but neglected in this article? Flushing force. After I was done with it, the deposit almost didn’t go down and after multiple flushes the toilet needed a thorough cleaning. In retrospect, I got lucky, as I’ve even clogged public toilets throught my life many times, and this RV toilet was far weaker.
We continued to date for almost a year after that. But her mother never quite looked at me the same way again for doing what I did to her poor toilet.
I do believe that to truly test these, the other criteria that was omitted is “stench retention period and dispersal field”. I mean, if I were to drop a 7:30 Sunday morning load after a Sat night curry, would the other occupants need to be go outside due to the smell and would I then have to leave all doors and windows open for a while? Inquiring minds need to know.
Check out any of Matt’s RV Reviews on You Tube. He gives three pros, three cons, and he always reviews the “prime popping position.” He favors porcelain bowls.
As someone with IBS, if I ever bought an RV/camper, it would have to have a good bathroom. Especially because travel just makes everything worse. While some campgrounds have nice facilities you aren’t likely to be camping right next to them…and when your digestive tract is as vengeful as mine, that’s a problem. The last place I went camping had a nice big building with restrooms and showers, but it was for the whole campsite. There were bathrooms closer to some of the various campsites, but they were basically outhouses. Gross outhouses.
Some campgrounds have terrible toilets.
The Millennium State Fair campgrounds in Sedalia, MO, didn’t even have stall doors. If you’re there for a sit-down visit, everyone else in the room gets to come in and see you on the can.
I’ve also come across multi-hole outhouses at some campgrounds, with no stalls at all, just a bench with a series of holes less than 2 feet from each other. Bring a friend!
I’ve also seen vault toilets at camp grounds placed in the middle of the woods, with no building built around them. A way to commune with nature whenever she calls. And also be showcased in front of anyone ls who is waiting for the facility to become available.
While I don’t have IBS, I do eat a quantity of food to where I’m not able to hold it for very long. When nature calls, I generally do not ignore. So any toilet is a good toilet at that point.
If Stef wasn’t employed elsewhere now, I would have assumed she wrote this.
In the future, for evaluating a RV bathroom’s soundproofing, you could leave a device, like your smartphone or, better yet, a boombox, playing *that* scene from the film Dumb and Dumber inside the bathroom.
Fun fact, Jeff Daniels said the first time he saw Dumb and Dumber was with his father and it was also the first time he and his father had seen one of his films together; he didn’t realize just how egregiously, uh, dramatic that particular scene would be so he was a bit mortified especially since his father had always bragged to friends and family about his son’s illustrious acting career. However, fortunately, apparently his father found it amusing nonetheless.
Holy shit I am so impressed with this article. The ONLY reason I would ever buy an RV is so I could haul my pooper with me at all times and now I have a handy buying guide. You have done an imcredible service to the RV industry!
*Posted from my home pooper!
When we grew too old to sleep on the ground in a nylon lunch sack, and the trip to the outhouse in the middle of the night grew fraught w/ the possibility of mishaps (tripping in the dark, encountering bears on the path), we bought a little travel trailer & towed it w/ our Taco. The bathroom had a tiny corner shower and the doniker and a tiny lav. It was adequately sized to allow the door to close, but your toes might be sticking out under said door. When Herself decided it was too big a pain to roust me in the middle of the night so she could exit the sleeping cubby athwart the front of the trailer, we bought a 50% bigger trailer.
The newer trailer devoted nearly 1/4 of the square footage to the loo. It has a nearly 4’ long shower and a 12” closet on one side, a sink and counter top on cabinets on the other w/ the porcelain throne firmly in the middle against the back wall. Our 10 year old granddaughter stood in the middle and declared “look mommy, I can spin around”. (It is the biggest bathroom we own). You’d best remember to slide the door shut walking in, cause you ain’t reaching it in performance mode. I replaced the vent in the roof w/ a 10 speed reversing fan for ventilation (w/remote control) that really evacuates the odor if not the noise. I am seriously considering adding a low bux bidet seat to make it near perfect. Frankly, I think it’s silly to devote so much space to a room that is not *that* much used.
As many other people have said, this is the quality content that makes membership worth it. I spend way more money on things that make me laugh a lot less.
There is only one proper mobile toilet – mine!
It rests on a bespoke widebody aircraft, with seating for just me. The crew *technically* has seats too but only tiny, legal requirement jump seats since their job is to be on their feet attending to my needs. The lavatories (yes, plural) are big enough for the widest of stances with plenty of room for my grooms of the stool (certainly you can’t expect me to clean MYSELF!)
Noise? The lavoratories are well shielded from the engines thank you, they are quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Oh you were asking about those other noises. Those are no issue. My ears are the only ones that matter and the laboratories are off limits to the crew. They wear diapers. So I can make all the noise I want. Sometimes I leave the door open because I can.
The commode is temperature regulated for maximum comfort. Afterwards my grooms attend to my needs with the precision and thoroughness of a lifetime professional because they are. I only hire the best. Yes they’re expensive because they’re the best other peoples money can buy.
I suppose I should thank all of you other people because in a very roundabout, highly opaque and obfuscated way via many, many, many layers of financial sleight of hand you all pay for this and so much more! Yes I will be sure to thank each and every one of you right after I pay my taxes.
Haha!
If someday you find yourself covered in brownish malodorous droplets and look up to see a gold wide body in the sky that’s me sending my personal thanks to you from the comfort of my commode.
This the kind of hard hitting journalism is why I’m a member. I was thinking this might be the greatest article Jason has ever written, but on reflection I would say it’s number two.
I think you left out the ‘s’ in ‘hitting’?
More consistent intake of fiber would ease the strain.
Another factor is plastic. Like squeaks and groan during a drive? Like having everyone here you get on and off, go for it.
Or pay the short money and couple extra pounds for a real toilet.
Like my t-shirt says- https://www.bonfire.com/matt-give-me-porcelain-or-give-me-death/?srsltid=AfmBOoqFbepmUCLi2BkFIo61bZfXH1JRExs7HdheLzPsJmeP3pLGlmG5
Thor might not like it, but as a prospective RV buyer, the “mobile toilet” is a huge part of the potential value.
Unfortunately a Class B would make the most sense for us, and they are often cassettes, which I don’t care how comfy the room is, I don’t think I want to spend $100k on a RV and have to deal with a cassette.
And for me the comparison here is RV vs. “shady gas station toilet”, “porta-john that hasn’t been cleaned in a week”, or “no toilet”. So with that in mind, the Sprinter looks great.
This is quality content, I have never seen a review of RV facilities before. Related is famous incident during a Grand Tour when a cyclist was caught short and ducked into one of the many motorhomes lining the course to relieve himself discreetl, unlike the legendary incident with Jan Ulrich and a domestique’s hat, mid peloton
The classic “hat trick”.
Hopefully that was just a hat trickle.
You ain’t bothering w/ a hat if it’s just a trickle. That’s what trees are for.
This is the best thing I’ve read on the internet in quite a while. If this article doesn’t bring in more subscribers, I don’t know what will.
We love our Ember 170MRB travel trailer’s toilet because despite its length being under 20 feet, the bathroom is very large with lots of legroom while pooping. Plus it has a large 25-gallon black tank that lets us go a long time between dumps.