We immediately walked over, but the owner wasn’t home. He took the binoculars out and deducted this was a Lance 830. When camped in Cabo Pulmo, Mark noticed a parked Lance nearby, which had a side entrance. We left the US in the middle of January 2022 and spent 3.5 months in Baja, Mexico, keeping a loose eye on ads for certain truck camper models whenever we had reliable internet. He replied the unit was sold he hadn’t taken the listing down. We contacted the owner to have a look at his 830, just to get an idea of its layout and if this model would work for us. “Who would buy something in this bad of shape?” we wondered. This one had a hole in the side and delamination at the front. Strangely, another Lance 830 came on the market within days and it was located in Phoenix, 20 minutes down the road. We had seen it too late and didn’t know enough about this model yet. High, because of the inflated “Covid prices.” The camper was sold already, within a week of posting. Mark contacted the owner, who was asking $18K for this unit. Some models came with a fold-out tent in the rear. We researched this model, which was made for five years, from 2008 until 2012. Mark did a random search on Craigslist for truck campers, when he noticed a Lance 830, without a pop-out tent in the back. This would defeat the purpose of changing over! We realized then and there that going for a much older – and therefore cheaper – camper offered more advantages. But the prices of that model – and others – had gone up so much that older years were selling for more money than what we paid for our 2017 Cirrus 820 in the summer. Settled at Leaf Verde RV Park, Buckeye (Phoenix area), in December 2021, we were still on the lookout for a Northstar Arrow U, which we felt would be the perfect camper to take to South America. Inflation hit, fuel became much more expensive, our living costs rose, and we found ourselves postponing our winter trip to Mexico with six weeks, to make extra money in Arizona. In mid-September 2021, we – once again – left New England for our migration west, and south, to the Baja peninsula. After finally finding a heavy-duty pickup truck (in Rhode Island) and retrieving the Cirrus, we equipped both for full-time living and traveling. We called the camper Temp, because we would keep looking for a used Northstar Arrow U. Then, we visited the Cirrus 820 with a private party in Vermont and – for reasons mentioned in my previous post – we decided to go ahead with that purchase. We liked the layout, bigger tanks, and affordability of a used one. After this quick encounter, we were even more convinced about our preference. On our long drive to check out the Cirrus 820, we stopped at a dealership in New Hampshire to peek into an Arrow U, which was not for sale.

Cirrus 820 for sale