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An avid traveler who’s flown all over the world, Pam Katz admits she was a rookie when it came to RVs.

Before COVID-19, the Deerfield mom never gave much thought to recreational vehicles, a broad category that includes everything from towable pop-up campers to luxe motor homes tricked out with heated floors, fancy entertainment centers and walls that expand with the push of a button.

“An RV trip was never on my bucket list,” said Katz, who nonetheless found herself at 83RV in Long Grove in late April, paying a little over $2,000 to rent a

Coachmen Freelander.

Katz and her husband, an ophthalmologist, needed to get their college senior daughter back to campus in North Carolina. They also wanted to pick up Katz’s parents in Florida so the octogenarian snowbirds didn’t have to fly back to the Midwest in the midst of a pandemic.

“It was my daughter’s idea to rent an RV so we wouldn’t have to stay in hotels,” Katz said.

The Katzes drove 3,200-plus miles in a little over a week, spending nights parked in various friends’ driveways and “boondocking” — camping with no water, electric or sewer hook

STACEY WESCOTT/CHICAGO TRIBUNE Tony Mucerino sits in a 2016 Allegro Open Road 34-foot motor home, one of the many models he sells at Hometown RV in Carol Stream.