2017 Airstream Interstate Tommy Bahama Special Edition Touring Coach Road Trip Review

2017 Tommy Bahama Touring Airstream exterior ・ Photo by Charlie Schiavone

Airstream has always been known for manufacturing a premium product, especially its iconic trailers. Lesser known in its line-up, but still noteworthy, are its Touring Coaches. Since Airstream sets the bar high, it made perfect sense for them to partner with the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter as its chassis of choice for its motor coach lineup.

My family and I had the opportunity to drive one of these luxurious motor coaches on a road trip from Los Angeles to Mammoth for a weekend trip. Since we are a family of 4 and this sleeps two, we opted to enjoy it as the ultimate road trip vehicle and stay at a hotel once we arrived at our destination. But we were tempted to all squeeze into the Airstream overnight. 

Read on for the full road trip experience to see if the 2017 Airstream Tommy Bahama Touring Coach is a fit for you. 

Getting Past the Sticker Shock

Being a Tommy Bahama Special Edition, this coach leaves nothing to be desired. While the standard Airstream Interstate offers a premium interior, the Tommy Bahama Edition takes everything to a much higher level, including upgraded leather and décor, even Tommy Bahama themed towels, bedspread, pillows, glasses, mugs, a bottle opener. You get the idea. The accessories alone make you feel like you are on a resort vacation. 

At an MSRP starting at $165,050, you might immediately get sticker shock. But with only a few options to choose from, such as the rear air suspension (which my test vehicle had) and all-wheel drive (not on my test vehicle), you can get this rig just about fully-loaded for $176,909 which was the MSRP of our tester.

The other thing to consider is what you’re getting. Most larger RVs at this price point don’t offer you as many luxury features and certainly not the look and feel that the Airstream offers. So, unless you are ready to commit to a bus-like motorhome, this Airstream is an excellent implementation of a luxurious RV in a compact size.

Photo by Charlie Schiavone

Floorplans

The Airstream Touring Coach comes in two floorplans, Lounge and Grand Tour (and the Grand Tour Twin, which offers a twin bed configuration in the rear vs. a couch and chairs that fold into a queen size bed). The Lounge is ideal for epic road trips given the four forward facing seats, whereas the Grand Tour shines when it comes to camping, given the larger kitchen and additional cabinets for storage. All configurations sleep two comfortably.

With our family of four, the Lounge setup was the ideal choice. This was the coolest road trip we have ever taken. After 3 hours of driving, when I stopped for gas, nobody got out to stretch their legs, use the bathroom or get snacks because they could do all that while in transit. As the driver, I had to get out and stretch, but our traveling condo provided everything else I needed for a typical road trip pit stop.

Photo by Airstream

The Ultimate Road Trip Vessel

Before we get into the driving experience, we have to talk about what the Lounge configuration offers your passengers. Once you step foot into the rear of the Tommy Bahama Edition Airstream Touring Coach, the last thing you’ll want to do is to drive. You’ll either want to be a passenger or immediately get it to your scenic destination for your ultimate "glamping" experience. I typically drive the entire time on all of our family's road trips, but this time, I asked my wife to take the wheel so I could indulge as a passenger. I wanted to experience the full offering of the many creature features while the vehicle was in motion, including standing up, stretching, and lying down on a bed. The overall effect in a word: Wow!

Photo by Charlie Schiavone

A Living Room on Wheels

While on the road, you can enjoy the luxury of a couch, chairs (with foot rests), TV, snacks in the kitchen, and a bathroom. Feeling like a nap? With the push of a button, you can fold the couch down into a comfy queen size bed. Slip on some sheets, a blanket, and pillows, and, like my wife and 9-year old son did - sleep away the entire trip.

This luxury all-in-one coach creates a definite "rock star" experience. The feeling is surreal, surrounded by so many luxury accommodations while barreling down the open road. It is beyond convenience, beyond comfort, and it will now be a challenge for my family to do a road trip any other way. Our family has an Airstream trailer, but to enjoy the features of our traveling home while on the road, we need to pull over and park. That is the biggest difference with the Airstream motor coach. The high-roof Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van allows you to stand up, stretch, and access your tiny house while on the road.

Photo by Charlie Schiavone

Spacious Interior on Steroids

As I mentioned, the interior cabin is extremely spacious. Perhaps not compared to larger RVs, but comparable to a typical family hauler. This interior even makes a Minivan, and a Chevrolet Suburban feel like a Toyota Prius in size.

When you’re sitting in the rear, you almost feel like you’re in a living room. You can electronically recline the couch, configure your accent pillows to the perfect lounging position, kick your feet up and do whatever. Read, use your laptop or mobile device or watch TV. Just keep in mind that you’re behind the rear axle, so you’ll want to save your lounge time for the smooth open roads otherwise, it gets a little bumpy. To ensure your family's safety, the rear couch and chairs come equipped with seatbelts. Then after you've done enough lounging and are ready to snooze, you have a queen size bed with the simple press of a button. I’ve never seen my family so refreshed after five plus hours on a road trip.

Photo by Charlie Schiavone

The Galley

In RV and boat lingo, a kitchen is called a galley. Though the Grand Tour offers a larger galley, if you’re just looking for the ultimate road warrior to occasionally camp — I mean, “glamp” in - then the kitchen offered in the Lounge will do. For road trips, this kitchen offers a refrigerator, stove, sink and convection oven that turns freeway snacking, or even a meal for that matter, into never having to stop for anything but gas.

If you want to camp overnight, the kitchen will more than suffice, but you still ought to bring a cooler for some extra capacity (included with the Tommy Bahama Edition). Everything else you need to “rough it” in nature, including an electronic awning with LED lighting to give you shade during the day and light at night is provided for you, making camping easy and ridiculously comfortable.

Photo by Charlie Schiavone

Pull over, I need to…

As a Dad, the last thing you want to hear when I'm in a groove eating up freeway pavement is; “Dad, I have to pee” (which for some reason never happens at the same time when you have two kids). So the onboard bathroom was insanely convenient. With built-in water tanks and a generator that sips propane, you can run your entire RV while driving, including the water pump to operate the bathroom. Seriously, I think everyone would agree that a clean bathroom is of the utmost importance and we’ve all been on those road trips when finding one is sometimes impossible. Not when you’re driving an Airstream.

Class B motorhomes with bathrooms typically offer what’s called a wet bath. That is when the entire bathroom is also the shower. We didn’t use the shower because we slept at a hotel and used our rig for the transportation. But if you don’t want to wipe down your entire bathroom after showering in it, then the tradeoff will be driving a much larger RV or towing a trailer. So, you just need to weigh what is more important to you and what your family needs are when buying an RV.

Photo by Charlie Schiavone

An RV with no compromises.

Remember that bus-like motorhome? Now try parking it. Driving a very large vehicle can be intimidating to some, let alone finding a place to park it. (And let’s not forget about exploring or getting lost and ending up on tight roads or making U-turns to get back on track.) 

Luckily, we had none of these concerns in the Airstream. In fact, when passing through Bishop, California, we stopped at a favorite bakery and found parking to be a breeze.

If a campsite is your destination, don’t forget that size matters and some of the best spots only accommodate small RVs. This is another advantage the Class B motorhome offers. Not only can it fit in a parking lot, but you’ll be able to visit some superior Instagram-worthy campgrounds.

Photo by Charlie Schiavone

It’s as easy to drive as a minivan.

It is hard to think this land yacht is based on a cargo van chassis, but then again, we’re talking about a cargo van with a Mercedes-Benz badge. Keep in mind that we’re not talking about a cockpit and features on par with a Mercedes-Benz S-Class, or even a C-Class, let alone a well-equipped Chevrolet Tahoe or Silverado Pickup Truck. However, when it comes to full-size vans, especially one with an overall length of 24ft 4.5in, a height of 9ft 8in and width of 6ft 7.7inch, this rig drives more like a Minivan than a massive van -- and gives you almost equal MPG thanks to its 188HP Turbodiesel 3.0L V6. Don’t let the low horsepower rating fool you, it is a diesel, giving you plenty of acceleration and passing power thanks to its 325 lb-ft of torque.

Don’t get me wrong, you can sometimes feel the size at speed during high winds, on sweeping freeways or when you have to stop abruptly. But once you get acclimated to it, you automatically drive accordingly. At one point, my wife went barreling into a parking lot as if she was driving her own car and I had to remind her that she was driving an RV with paraphernalia all over the place that ended up getting relocated upon her curb ramp entry. When you think about it, that only happened because she was so comfortable behind the wheel that she didn’t think there was any need to tone down her spirited driving habits. To me, that speaks volumes as to how easy this Airstream is to drive.

Photo by Charlie Schiavone

Final Thoughts

The Airstream Coach provides way more of the safety and convenience features offered on everyday vehicles. You may miss your adaptive cruise control and your premium sound system, but a bathroom, bed, and living room to stretch out in are worth the trade-off. (And eventually, you’ll figure out how to get back into the driver seat without hitting your head on the TV.) 

 It was 100 degrees when we drove up to Mammoth Lakes, and everything behind the driver and passenger seat is set-up for operating in RV mode. This means no rear air-conditioning unless you run the generator, which we did. At first, it’s a bit loud, but then you get used to it, keeping the entire cabin cool is not a problem. In fact, it got so cool, I eventually turned off the vehicle's air conditioning. All things considered, this was a very minor issue and something to address only when you’re going for 100% perfection. 

Given the overabundance of RV vehicle types, manufacturers, and configurations, you just have to figure out what your family needs are, what activities you'll be doing in your RV (camping, road trips, tailgating, etc.), and what you’re most comfortable driving or pulling. I guarantee, there is an RV that will fit your needs perfectly.

For a compact, luxury RV, the Tommy Bahama Airstream Coach won’t disappoint – period.

Photo by Airstream