Thread: Camper Trailer Questions - Help

I am after a camper at the moment. And basically due to a tight budget will be going for a simply fold out bed. A basic on road, no kitchen, no frills. Lite and simply.There are just the two of us and we don't plan on going off road, if we do will just be Park entries etc.We plan to use it as a simply base, doing off road trips with the tent, keeping things nice and simply.

cheers
paul

Re the hard floor negatives
I now take a small vacuum, to get up the sand before packup. With any integral floor tent you have to clean up before packing.
In any case I put a polytarp on the bed, so no dirt.

Campomatics have the option of leaving the annex on top for quick stays.

Dunno about the wet bed, but this applies to all campers, except maybe the Tvan.

Dunno about the level sites, haven't yet found it a problem, although last time I camped it was across a 30CM deep drain, but wheels one side and floor posts the other.
Regards Philip A

As seqfisho mentioned earlier I have a Tvan and towed it from Brisbane to Cape York last year behind my 300tdi auto defender.

Loved it to death, she followed happily whereever I took the Defender.

I made sure to pack a dustpan and brush to clean the canvas floor (on top of the hard floor) before packing her away each day so that I didn't leave any dirt in the packing.

The way she folds away it doesn't matter if the canvas is wet as it doesn't go on the bedding anyway. Of course you need to air the canvas out if she gets wet, but that's just canvas and is the same with any rig.

Yes the kitchen is outside but at least can be under the cover of an awning and it has a windbreak so you have some protection. The Tvan itself takes minutes to setup without the awning - with the awning can take 10 - 15 minutes.

We had 3 people sleeping in the Tvan. My wife and I on the bed and my father-in-law on a sleeping bag on the hard-floor. The trip lasted a good 20+ days and there is a trip report in the "Trip Reports - Queensland" section of this site.

As the Tvan was ex-demo stock I had to take what I could get and she had / has Prado rims / hubs (I think) but it didn't make a difference to towing. It's a long way down on my list to get landrover rims / hubs.

Some things I would like (they were optional but as I said we took her as ex-demo so got what we got) would be a water-guage so I can tell how much water is in the tank, a battery charger so the battery can be charged at powered sites and some curtains on the side windows. I have the curtains now I just have to fit them :-)

One of the absolute luxuries I love is having 2 gas tanks so I don't need to worry about running out of gas - if one gets depleted I swap to the other one and keep going until I can refill the first. I haven't managed to deplete the first gas tank yet.

Umm... what else is there? Oh yes as stated she towed beautifully but I was perhaps a little soft on the hills so let the Defender wash of in speed quite a lot though I'm sure I could have forced her up harder. Having said that she's a 300tdi and not a TD5 so you have lots more power anyway.

The Tvan is 750kgs Tare I believe and up to 1.25tonne loaded so I had to get electric brakes fitted.

Regarding heat and moisture, yes it gets hot in there and yes if it's raining you do get condesation on the fibreglass. Not much you can do about the condensation it really, just air it out when you can. Never had any unexpected water in the Tvan.

The top of the Tvan has 2 portals that can be opened up to let more air flow through and these are nice with a breeze, as well as there being a fold-out opening at the rear so you can really get some air flowing through if there is any sort of breeze. If there isn't a breeze.. well.. to be honest I'm looking at getting a 12v fan or two fitted as you can get some good ones these days (maybe something like these) and that will help keep it cool (or at least, the air flowing) in the Tvan.

If you want details of the Tvan try www.campertrailers.org/tvan.htm
Mike

Originally Posted by Mikelsgt

If you want details of the Tvan try www.campertrailers.org/tvan.htm
Mike

URL no worky

I would also consider adding the Ultimate to that list. Lived in one for 12 months and highly recommend.

Originally Posted by Grizzly_Adams

The top of the Tvan has 2 portals that can be opened up to let more air flow through and these are nice with a breeze, as well as there being a fold-out opening at the rear so you can really get some air flowing through if there is any sort of breeze. If there isn't a breeze.. well.. to be honest I'm looking at getting a 12v fan or two fitted as you can get some good ones these days (maybe something like these) and that will help keep it cool (or at least, the air flowing) in the Tvan.

How about something like this? These are fitted to a Tvan.

http://www.campertrailers.org/mikes_fans.htm

Yup, seen those before too Lots of possibilities....