My name is Dave and I am a packrat. I admit it. I’m out of control. I love collecting old stuff. Books, outdoor equipment, antiques, memorabilia – and I can’t bear to throw anything away.

My wife loves old stuff, too, but only in the sense of loving me. Otherwise, she is very big on getting rid of anything she doesn’t use. It’s a huge culture clash, but I must be winning because our house is full. I mean, it’s neat and tidy, but we can’t bring anything new in here unless something else leaves. And it’s a big house for just two people.

So I have no idea how full-time RVers do it. I know a lot of you readers who are full-timers love to go antiquing, have collections and hobbies. And you don’t live in a house with 3,000 enclosed square feet. You live in an RV with less than 400. You live a life that brings you irresistible temptation in the form of antiques, curios, souvenirs, photo albums, books on where you’ve been and where you’re headed, seasonal clothing needs, and more.

If you want to max out your living and storage space, you might want to look at the new Presidential 36SKQ fifth wheel from Holiday Rambler. The “Q” in the model designation stands for “quad,” as in four slideouts. It’s the newest thing, and it’s all the rage.

My spies inside Holiday Rambler tell me that dealers went crazy for the new quad-slide at the company’s big dealer meeting in July, and that the units started selling as soon as they arrived at dealerships. I can believe it. The editor of Holidays asked me to go to Wakarusa to review the SKQ on less than a day’s notice. With dealer demand so great they couldn’t hold finished units more than a day, I figured I’d better drop everything and go.

Room you can use

The great thing about the SKQ isn’t just that it has the extra room of a fourth slideout; it’s what Holiday Rambler did with that space in terms of livability and storage. Let’s take a tour.

You enter this fifth wheel in the usual place, amidship. The entry is opposite the kitchen and next to the bathroom, with means it is convenient for the two principal reasons people are always traipsing in and out at the campsite. It’s also nice, from a housekeeping standpoint, that you step into a tiled area rather than onto carpet.

The kitchen features acres of counter space and yet everything is in easy reach. This is because of the way the L-shaped counter wraps around the slideout area that contains the range, microwave, more counter space, pantries and refrigerator. The kitchen here isn’t stretched out along a wall, as in most RVs; it’s more a room unto itself. The L-shaped counter has twin diagonal sinks, a flip-up breakfast bar with two stools, and a flip-up counter extension near the door.

The dinette is next to the breakfast bar. It’s a free-standing model with a lovely oak table and four upholstered oak chairs. The dinette and sofa are recessed in the curbside slideout.

As you step past the dinette, you’ll be impressed at what a nice living space Holiday Rambler has designed here. I’ve seen some triple slideouts where the advantage over a double seemed to be that you could hold a square dance on the living room carpet, complete with a four-piece string band – which probably isn’t your first priority. But the new quad-slide is actually pretty cozy and aesthetically balanced. (It’s the L counter with overhead cabinets that holds the room together, design-wise.) They’ve actually used the extra space for living, not just for moving people farther away from each other.

The rear end of the coach forms an alcove containing two swivel chairs – my coach had the optional leather recliners. Opposite the sofa is another slideout that holds the computer desk and entertainment center.

So the SKQ is suited to about every kind of living. You like to entertain? Twelve people can sit down in this coach without getting their feet tangled. More into nesting? My coach had those two great leather recliners, and the optional hide-a-bed sofa had flip-up footrests. No fighting over who gets the best seat in the house, even if you travel with children.

There’s also no fighting over places to sit down and work, pursue hobbies, play cards or board games, have a snack or whatever. With the desk at the computer station, the breakfast bar and the dinette, there’s plenty of room for everyone to keep busy on rainy days.

And if you can’t keep yourself entertained, you can plug yourself into a great entertainment center. My coach had the works. Optional 27-inch TV. Optional surround-sound system with three speakers built into the cabinet, a sub-woofer below, and two rear speakers over the sofa. An Aiwa deck plays DVDs, CDs (including rewritables) and MP3s – and it has the one feature critical to harmony between the generations: a headphone jack.

There’s also room to add a VCR (although I like the idea of getting all your music and video from one little machine) and a cabinet big enough to hold several storage racks for your discs and cassettes. The TV sits on a swivel base and can be viewed from any seat in the living room or kitchen, except the side of the dinette that faces forward.

Also, I especially like this year’s new interior décor. My coach was done in the Tranquil Garden motif. The window sticker says it is green, but it’s really beiges and tans with subtle greenish accents. The fabrics are elegantly nature-themed and contemporary, with hints of traditional design in the contour of the window treatments and the wall stenciling.

A place for everything

People who have lots of hobbies and who like to collect thing need lots of storage. I counted 43 cabinet doors and drawer fronts in the living room and kitchen of the 36SKQ. There are wraparound overhead cabinets in the rear end, overheads in both the living room slideouts, and large overheads above the full length of the L counter. Just inside the door is a floor-to-ceiling cabinet system with shelves. Every conceivable space is used in the kitchen, including above and beside the microwave and under the fridge. (Floor level cabinets are carpeted.)

The standard fridge has pull-out pantries on both sides, and you still get one of these even if you choose the optional four-door fridge.

Details, details

As usual, Holiday Rambler got the details right throughout the coach.
There is the right lighting for every seat in the house, including mood lights under the kitchen counter overheads.

The rear of the coach has a huge picture window. Beneath it, between the swivel is a magazine rack and telephone stand with phone jack nearby. The computer station has its own phone jack, for a dedicated computer connection. There are also both 120-volt and 12-volt receptacles, so you can run your laptop on 12-volt power. By the way, I’d recommend a laptop for this rig and almost any other. There is room here for a tower unit and a monitor, and there is even a slide-out keyboard tray—but a laptop saves you the work of putting your monitor on the floor every time you travel and makes more room for a printer.

Best kitchen ever

The combination of kitchen slideout, L counter and Holiday Rambler genius makes this one of the best kitchens you’ll ever find in an RV. I’ve already mentioned the counter space and convenience. Other great features include solid-surface countertops with accent-color solid-surface edging. There are solid-surface covers for the sinks that make handy serving trays. The sinks are large and deep by RV standards, and the faucet has a single handle and an integral sprayer.

The range has a folding solid-surface cover. My unit had an optional convection microwave and the four-door fridge with icemaker.

The L counter provides space for loads of cabinets, including additional overheads, that you don’t get with along-the-wall kitchens. All the overheads are accessible from both sides, as are the lower cabinets that face the living room. There was a nice knickknack shelf over the refrigerator. The kitchen and bathroom floors had an optional covering that looked remarkably like ceramic tile.

Upstairs

The bath of the 36SKQ is pretty much standard Holiday Rambler fare – roomy and well conceived. The water closet is private. The shower stall is angled for extra width (you can option a tub) and has a skylight. The water closet shower doors hold enough towel bars for a family. The large sink is molded-in solid-surface material.

The washer-dryer enclosure is a floor-to-ceiling, double-door closet that will allow you to hang shirt-length laundry on a bar above the appliances.

The bedroom is also the standard slideout design, but there are some nice features here. There is a decoratively arched toe-kick opening under the six-drawer dresser. And in one end of the full-width closet across the front wall are two shelves, perfect for sweaters and things, with flanges to keep clothes from sliding off during travel.

My unit had the optional king-size bed; this means you give up a nightstand, but Holiday Rambler does supply two small, angled shelves for your book and your glasses.

On a wall next to the bed are a switch for the exterior security lights and a climate control center for the front section of the coach. (The Presidential has zoned climate control.)

Outdoors

One of the great things about a big fifth wheel is the huge basement in the forward section. Even in my case, it would take a lot of time and effort to fill up that space with indispensable junk. In the last two model years, Holiday Rambler has made some nice improvements to the utility of the basement area.

Last year, they made the basement floor flush all the way to the front, adding a hinged lift-up floor to the forward section over the battery case. This year, they have divided the front trunk door, the one right behind the hitch, into two horizontal panels, opening up and down, so you can open the door when you are hitched to your truck. The large side door to the basement makes it easy to stow and retrieve large objects, like lawn chairs, ground cover, screen room, outboard motors, wooden cigar-store statues, stuffed moose heads, or whatever else you might pick up along the way. Just inside the door was the collection system for the fifth wheel’s optional central vacuum.

A walk around the rig reveals several other nice features. A couple of model years ago, Holiday Rambler started putting all the water-system and holding-tank controls inside a single, lighted, lockable bay, along with easy-to-follow instructions for operating and winterizing the systems. My unit had an optional exterior stereo radio and CD system. At the rear of the coach I found two other great options: a Quick Draw power stabilizer system and a bike rack that mounts on a hitch receiver on the frame.

Slideouts x 4 = real versatility

Holiday Rambler’s national sales manager for towables, Brad McKinney tells me the 36SKQ is making a big hit with both full-timing couples and families. It’s easy to see why, as the coach has the storage and livability you need for both long trips and larger parties. It might even have enough room for me and all my stuff.

Maybe I should buy one, park it in the drive and just start expanding into it. That could be a great way of convincing my wife to segue into a life on the road.

Dave Bessmer is a freelance writer living in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has spent 25 years in or around the RV business. He has authored several features for Holidays magazine.