“Trailers vs Campers” - ultimately is a question of “shelter”.
My family and I spent the past 3 years asking this question. While we (I in particular) enjoy “Overlanding”, we are by no means uni-dimensional outdoors enthusiasts. We are runners, mountain AND road bikers, backpackers, snowshoers, paddlers, hikers, alpine, nordic AND kite skiers and climbers. So when deciding what the best shelter for our family of three would be, we had to ask what would be the best shelter to suit ALL of our active lifestyle pursuits. While I logged plenty of miles exploring dirt roads and tracks last year, all but one of my expeditions were day trips. The realization of this made the choice of a Lance 1685 travel trailer the best option for us.
Advertised as a 4 seasons unit (with no promised operating range) the Lance will provide the “basecamp” our family needs for all of our pursuits. Yes, I won’t be able to bring it on multi-day overlanding excursions, but I will be able to tow it into most semi-remote camping areas in state and national forests and onto frozen lakes in our home state of MN.
While I too spent an exhaustive amount of time debating this decision and designing 4 different trailer setups (which I would have commissioned builds on) - in the end the more “traditional” RV style trailer ended up being what we believe will be best for us. When I want to partake in a multi-day expedition, I will simply either tent camp or sleep in the bed of my Tacoma as I have done in the past. Down the road, once the truck is paid off, I may even invest in a RTT for such trips.
The RV style camper provides an excellent ease of use and storage. We can keep it loaded and ready to go for quick weekend getaways - get off work at 4, hitch up, drive a couple hours to the woods and be setup, cooking and drinking a beer by 7, with a warm, protected bed to sleep in and not having to go out into the elements for that mid-night bathroom trip. Furthermore, financing is simple and we’ll write off the sales tax and financing interest on second home credits, it having an indoor bed, bathroom and kitchen.
Hope that helps. That’s my family’s decision and we’re sticking to it. The unit is currently being built for us in CA and will be delivered by the end of the month. We hope to have many nights and years of adventures in it.
Remember, just as you don’t take your rig backpacking, you won’t take a trailer of any kind on a TRUE overlanding expedition with high-risk, high-consequence scenarios. Evaluate what kind of set up best suits the widest breadth of adventures you will partake in.
My two cents, hope it helps!
Many thanks for your two cents,
I totally believe in what you are saying. It’s just like the military. If you are light infantry you’re not taking artillery shells on a patrol.
In the day I was all about mountaineering, climbing, hiking then moved to enduro bikes, sheep trail riding and I would love to get back to that, however my other half has only camped and is excited by mountain trails in the Land Rover,
I really need to think of her comfort of the adventure and build it up.
So if put that into overland thinking. I really should be thinking of:
1. What is the objective of the journey
2. What is our participation with other things besides vehicle base adventure
3. What is the difficulty of the area we going into
4. Are We going to be static or mobile for a period of days
5. What is the length of the engagement
6. What is the level of comfort our group is comfortable at before bitching
7. How adventurous are we?
8. What is the level training/expertise required for the location were are going.
9. What period of the year/seasons/weather
Answers
1. To see as much as we can but do it away from civilization
2. One day base camp at the max. Then 4x4 in the same day. 4x4 with the trailer/camper to get to a remote camp site
3. As much as an unmodified OEM ish build Land rover can do.
4. Only static time will be after long trip of 20+hrs then stay for a day. Or being at an event. Rest of the time will travel
5. Two weeks max, long weekends, weekends
6. Me = bivi and a good sleeping bag, her 5th wheel hardships
7. Me = live for it, Her = I’m getting her more and more adventurous so at the moment 4x4 on unmanaged winter icy gravel trails.
8. Depends, but I would think not much more than setup system and enjoy the stars and a joint (were legal) and a local 30 walk
9. All year round so it needs to 4 Season trailer camper.
This list I have at the moment is
Camper trailer - Conqueror 440/490
RTT trailer - Turtleback expedition
Camper Trailer - Offgrid trailers Expedition
Price wise
Conqueror most expensive
Turtleback
Offgridtrailers
