Checkout this one
Called the “Vardo”. Gypsy caravan-looking trailer, easily constructed, fits on a 4x8 trailer. Supertroll showed me this one. http://www.amvardo.com/caravan/
Thanks Jackl… mucho appreciated.
I have also found that the difficulty in backing up increases with the number of people watching and giving advise.
Canadian campgrounds can cost
a pretty penny and the campground across the lake from my house in Maine charges $42 a night.
http://www.parkreports.com/fees/fees.php?year=2009
Campground fees can vary wildly and the best purchase I ever made was a Senior Pass…every federal campground is half price.
Cargo Trailer
I bought a 14’ v-nose enclosed cargo trailer recently. I am outfitting it with E-Track inside to haul boats up to 16’ plus I can put plywood on the second level and make bunk beds in the trailer. I figure it can sleep 6 easily.
A friend of mine already had one and he has really outfitted it nicely. It’s not the Taj Mahal or anything like that, but it is clean, has all my gear, and is more waterproof than a tent.
I bought the tandem axle for it and am darn glad I did. If a tire goes out, you won’t pray to stop. Also, it doesn’t dolphin like a single axle. Very easy to pull compared to a single axle trailer. It also has trailer brakes.
I figure I can get 8 boats in it ranging from 14’ to 16’ max plus any other camping gear I want in it.
yep
– Last Updated: Aug-17-09 1:20 PM EST –
what Jack & tjalmy said. Mileage is a moot point unless you are planning on commuting with your camper attached. I mean I lose about 10MPG when pulling my rig, but the cost of head room, AC, sleeping on a REAL bed is well worth it and all the stuff jack mentioned. As far as backing i used to back F-15s into concrete bunkers with 4 inches of wing tip clearance. basically i let the wife THINK she is telling me what to do, while in reality all she is doing is becoming the scapegoat when i hit something!! *L* actually she just pretty much just hollers at me when I should stop… backing and or towing is not a problem when your vehicle is set up to do it. get a REAL brake controller like the prodigy.. It uses accelerometers to control brake force, works much better then the ones the just mirror what your foot is doing and how long it is doing it..
I agree
Sounds to me like the expense and maintenance of a travel trailer is worth it for people who really want to do that kind of luxury camping. But buying one just for the road-trip to get you to more remote adventures would, to me, seem like too much trouble and cost.
And around here you can very easily pay $50/night for a camper site. Heck, you can pay $40 or $50 just for a seaside tent site in the high season.
Yes and no
A lot of maybe’s there. My parents camped for years with bigger trailers starting with a one of the original teardrops. I have had two motor homes. The more complicated the more that can go wrong and will need up keep. I don’t ever remember having more than one or two big hassles though.
If you talking a teardrop or micro unit, basically a rolling bed then no big deal. Trailer light and axle bearings are the big items. Keep the bearing serviced and water out of the lights and your good.
As you go up and start dealing with plumbing, electrical, A/C, refrigerators, etc. the amount of work can go up. Obviously more to break and anything can and probably will break sooner or latter.
Truck
Are you going to pull the camper with a truck? If so then why not just sleep in the bed of the truck? Put down some padding and with use a shell top or put your one man tent right in the bed.
Whoops!
After reading more of the thread camping in the bed of the truck won’t do it for you.
jeep liberty
I would pull it with a Jeep Liberty. I’ve got the 3500-lb towing package already, and I occasionally haul other people’s bass boats, so I’ve got a little experience with handling a trailer.
In fact, I do have the jeep set up to do a crude version of what I want to do with the trailer - it actually started with the prior Jeep Cherokee. I plan my packing so that, with only minimal shifting stuff around, I can sleep inside. Cooking a meal or taking a shower/bath takes a bit longer, about one hour each. Also, all my activities are wide open to any passsersby, so I wouldn’t want to do those things in a place where there was a lot of coming and going around me.
Overall, it does look like there are some great options in the small camper category.
Work swap is what caught my eye.
Having grown up as a kid, my parents always had either truck camper or trailer. It worked out nicely for them as it was us kids jobs to get it loaded, fill the water tank, start the frig, etc, etc.
Having owned a trailer or two of my own, I am now camperless. WHY? Work Swap. Things that need fixing each year is not my deal. I would spend a week each year getting it ready. And a few days putting it away. That was just the seasonal stuff. Then you get the oops it broke stuff. Being an Engineer, I must calculate everything. I calculated I was spending way too much time on annual maintenance, just labor hours, that I could be spending fishing, paddling, breaking my other toys. Leaks, waterpumps, furnaces, frig, emptying the poo… the pooo… oh… the pooo job is definitely worth digging a cat hole. A simple tent, air matress, and bag is all I need. Five minutes, tent is up or down. Air matress can be made easy with a hand pump, but I like to wait until I am partly drunk, then huff and puff it up, adds to the buzz. Only thing I hate about tent camping is getting your stuff wet in a storm. So there you have the big advantage of sitting it out comfortably in a camper. How many work hours is worth sitting out a storm in a camper? Well, for me none. Since we sold it, we high five each other every spring when we take two days to paddle instead of gut and sterilize the camper and make repairs. Then in the fall, same deal. Definitely lost two weekends per year when I had one.
It is a trade off for sure. One year I figured the total days I had it in front of my home to work on it exceeded the number of days I spent there. I simply refused to work on it until my wife decided she would sell it. It sat for three years until the tarp was nothing but shreds and tires rotting off. Probably could have got $600 more for it if she would have sold when I told her I was finished, caput, nada, ain’t gonna do it. She gets even with be by refusing to go camping at all, won’t go in a tent. Best of both worlds I say.
Never got the point
I don’t get the attraction of these super small, light trailers. Just pitch a tent fer cryin’ out loud.
Seems like a lot of trouble to cart one of these around. If I were to use a tent trailer it would be for the beds, fridge, kitchen, kitchen table, etc. These just have a bed. A tent and a cot would fill that need.
I’ve got a super small
– Last Updated: Aug-18-09 9:20 AM EST –
pop up from back in the day - it's a 1966 Apache Raven and very small and light. It's basically like a pick-up truck box with a tent on top.
I like it as it's small and light (under 5' wide and 6' long plus tongue), easy to tow and store. It's pretty much maintenance free and easily fits in a corner of my garage (last owners kept it inside too so it may be 43 years old but it's like new). It cost me $400 and will tow at 75mph all day long.
It holds all my camping gear except food. But then it's not much more than a tent on wheels. I built a small sink/counter for it. No heat, no bathroom, no fridge (it's too short to fit even the smallest fridge).
On the flip side my father in law has a large pop up with slide out, furnace, a/c and more. It's friggin huge.
It takes us both about the same amount of time to set up and tear down (around an hour). I need not be super level where he needs to be for his stuff to work right.
There is a company out there with a newer version of a camper like mine made mostly for off-roader types - it's will take seriously rough off road terrain http://www.tentrax.com/ .
With practice and not putting up the easy-up I could probably get set up down to 30 or 40 minutes from driving in to turning on the stove or crawling under the covers.
Just got back from a 240 mile round trip with a 17' grumman on the van roof (03 windstar) and the camper out back, over some hills and such, all highway at 65-70 mph range and I used just over 1/2 tank of gas with mileage of about 21 - the best i get with no canoe and no trailer is 23 (but i usually drive a bit faster unladen)
It's just nice to not have to load and unload my car for every camping trip and the padded bed up off the ground is really nice.
What?
Some people care for what they own and others do not, some use it hard and others do not. Old or not so old it’s a matter of buyer beware on buying anything, car, camper or canoe.
I got a used pop up from an old couple that were retiring. They’s owned it since the 70s and always garage kept it. All I did was change the 70’s carpet for new (dorm carpet from walmart, $50) and new tires (under $80).
Cost of camping varies a lot, as does what you need. Do you need showers, a swimming pool, playground, cable TV? If so those campgrounds exist and the most i’ve every paid is $39 a night. The least was under $20 but it’s usualy around $30 with water and sewage and that’s for 4 people (2 adults 2 kids). I want water and electricity. I have a holding tank for gray water and use the campground’s toilet/shower facility (less cost and maintenance for me if I don’t have to ‘own’ my own bathroom).
On the flipside is a hotel room - i’ve stayed for as little as $50 but it’s usually more like $75/night. Set up time in a hotel is less of course, but IMO security is about the same (canoe on car 10 feet from my bed when camping vs round back 4 floors down in the parking lot at a hotel)
Depends on what YOU want, like and how much you do it. Our camper cost $400 and $250 for a hitch. Registration is $6/year. Storage is free. Maintenance is zip so far (3 years). We’ve spend more on the other camping gear we’ve got than the trailer.
We’re lucky if we get out 4 weekends a year - this year’s it’s been 2 long ones for a total of 7 days and it’s not likely we’ll get out again. Camping vs hotel saved us over $300 in nightly fees plus more on food as we can cook our own (eating out gets old if it’s 3 meals a day for days on end). It’s nice to have everything but a cooler, dry food and the boat box in the camper - lots of room in the van. Even our suitcase fits in the camper (and kitchen stuff, bedding, radio, coffee pot, toaster, etc). Wanna go camping? Pack some clothes and food and leave - 20 minutes perhaps to get ready.
Now if only work would let us have more time off…
agreed on cost benefit trade
Never owned camper of any type although agree for some it makes sense. Do have two tents that are dry, folded in closet with no taxes due. I do not want to tow with my econo-box cars, do not have home storage for camper for the majority of time it would stand idle, I cherish my free time for fun not upkeep, and figure the times the tent does not work, we rent some indoor space near our destination for far less money and hassle of owning and towing some rig there.
I wonder if security is a reason?
I wonder if some people feel more psychologically secure sleeping in a trailer with rigid walls and a door that can be locked from the inside than they do inside a nylon tent?
Going West? Stay Simple
– Last Updated: Aug-18-09 2:49 PM EST –
My uncle and my father were in to travel trailers for a while. It appeals to a certain personality type who want to bring the comforts of home with them, but hauling around the extra tonnage over high mountain passes and the problems with rough roads and clearance really limit the places you can go pulling the trailer in the Mountain West. Light pop ups still suffer from bad roads.
Trust me the other drivers in the west would prefer you left your #$%# trailer home. Breakdowns are much more likely pulling a trailer up passes, near misses and wrecks are more likely too. Best to go simple and tent it and stay in a few cheap motels along the way. For the price of a trailer you can pay for many, many trips. Spend the money on a couple of nice used plastic expedition kayaks and head to yellowstone lake or Lake Powell.
If you need walkie talkies to park your vehicle, you need to rethink what you are doing for fun.