Thread: Camper-Trailers vs Tents

Oh Clean32 and YT110 you have really thrown the cat amongst the pigeons now!

Clean32, I read your post out to DH (who is back from O/S now). You made some excellent points and it got us into a "discussion" about camper trailers that resulted in us googling them so we knew we were talking about the same thing.

Anyway, we got carried away - 2 hours later around midnight, having gone through the Trading Post and sundry other sites, we happenned along a crowd (GIC) in Sydney who seem to be making what looks to be a good one at a very discounted price.

I will put it in a separate thread and ask for opinions in case someone is interested in the same company in time to come.

Like a lot of people have mentioned, there is no one simple solution, as the needs for your specific journey will vary from one to another. I've got a small 2-man tent for the odd overnighter, and a 6-man canvas touring tent for longer trips, which I lent to my best mate recently. He took it away to the Simpson and further north for 3 weeks, was more than ample for his family of 5 (3 young kids), and survived the recent massive dust storms with ease.

If you get a camper trailer, first thing I'd do is make sure that the wheels are swappable with the vehicle. Also make sure it's as well maintained as your vehicle...anything breaks and you've either got to stay put with it and send for help, or continue along your way without accommodation and a lot of gear you're going to need. This very situation happened to a friend along the Birdsville about 10 years ago, and they had to ditch it, continue on without most of their gear, organise for a new wheel bearing, return to the trailer and wait a day for it to arrive and be fitted. They were very lucky to have all their gear left untouched and have help available a couple of hours away! Personally I'd never head anywhere remote without a tent n emergency gear in the car as a precaution. It's potentially dangerous and inconvenient otherwise.

Trailers are fantastic for larger families or for extended trips away, but you have to weigh up the cost vs useage factor. $5-10k is a lot of money for something which is likely to get used a handful of times, unless you're a regular 'outbacker' who goes away for months at a time. This is something which only you can say is right for you. Obviously there are other factors to consider such as your comfort, financial situation, desired future use, etc.

My suggestion is to buy a canvas touring tent (mine's worth $800 n only paid $400...gotta love a sale!), try it out for a trip away n see what you reckon. Worst case scenario is you've got something to do a quick trip away trailer-free and suits your immediate needs. Next thing is to hire out a camper-trailer for a week/weekend and compare the pro's n con's. Depending on your decision, you will have an informed opinion of what suits your needs and budget best.

I have 3 kids. The thing that works for me including on the islands, is a 6.5x4 box trailer with mesh sides (hd unit too) and I load that up like crazy and stick a large double dome tent in for sleeping. Now that I have 2 large german shepherds coming with me (there goes the Disco 2 load area) I am looking at roof racks - probably rhino - to save room for light stuff like empty water bottles and flat packed tarps and stuff.

Cheers

PS. I have used several top off road camp trailers before and they are brilliant but I need all the room of the big box trailer, so for me its a tent.

Cheers

The best advice I can offer is don't spend all your money at once - start off with a few basics, see what works and what doesn't, and build up your gear over time. Think twice before buying - do you really need it, and is it really worth the extra space/weight in your vehicle or trailer?

We also have a D3 - probably the single best investment you can make right from the beginning is to install a cargo barrier. As others have said, unless you're into ultra light hiking, you'll soon find your gear piles up higher than the rear seats (even if it doesn't, a cargo barrier is still a good investment to protect your most precious cargo - you and your family - in case of an accident / rollover).

In addition to the cargo barrier, we also have a half-length Rhino platform roof rack (1500 L x 1100 W). And I'm about to have a sail track awning and canvas roof bag fitted.

Camper trailers are not cheap - you won't get a decent Aussie made offroad camper trailer for less than about $8K new. And you can spend up to $50K on a top of the line trailer. That's an awful lot of money to have invested on something you might only use once a month (or less). You could get an off road trailer to carry your gear, but you're still looking at somewhere between $2.5 - $5K new. (These are retail prices. If you're handy with the tools - I'm not - you can obviously save a lot). And as others have mentioned, towing a trailer will increase your fuel consumption and somewhat limit where you can go.

We have a couple of canvas touring tents (from Freedom - still open and taking orders when I checked a few weeks ago. Ken has sold the business and apparently the new owners will continue making tents, though not sure of the range/quality). One tent is a single pole 2.4M x 3.2M. Plenty of room for SWMBO and the little fella for short trips, is relatively light to carry and quick to set up. But it gets a bit crowded on a long trip or if the weather is bad and we are confined to barracks. So we also have the larger Family Tourer (13 x 10 feet) for longer stays in one place.

The smaller Freedom tent I've had for about 12 years, and not a thing has ever gone wrong with it. All things being equal, I reckon I'll get another 12 years out of it. Pay a bit more for quality up front, in the expectation that it'll last a lot longer. There are plenty of nylon dome tents with fibreglass poles in the $150 - $300 range, but I reckon I would have gone through half a dozen in the time I've had my canvas tourer. Canvas tourers are not cheap - around $1,000 - $1,500, depending on the brand (and I realise that's a lot of money for many people) - but they're tough as, quick to erect and take down, and like grandfather's axe, can be repaired over and over.

An anwing - either attached to the tent or your fourbie - is a boon whether sunny or raining, because it more than doubles your sheltered living area.

In addition to the two canvas tents, we have one single and one double swag. We alternate between the swags and tents, depending on length of trip, weather, etc.

Apart from tents or swags, some other basics to get you started:

• Folding chairs - take time to find one that is comfortable. Many are not, especially after sitting on your backside for a while. Look for one with a long seat squab. Generally, directors' chairs are more comfortable than the standard folding type. The downside is they tend to take up more room when packed.
• A good stove - we use a Coleman regulated gas stove (about $130), but there are many other good ones on the market. Or you can cook over the fire, if you're really hardcore
• Folding table - we have basic solid metal top, with folding legs, from Aussie Disposals. Bit heavier than the fancy alloy slat tables, but tougher and less to go wrong IMHO. I originally lashed out on a fancy folding camp kitchen, but soon found it too heavy and bulky when packing.
• Sleeping mats - you can get fancy self-inflating mats (we have Freedom ones) but they are a bit of a pain to roll-up. Alternatively, we sometimes use the high density foam matresses out of our swags because they are easier to roll up. You can buy these separately from Clark Rubber. Sleeping bags, or you can take your doona and pillow
• A good esky or fridge. There's an encylopedia's worth of info and opinions on this site, so I won't try to add to this. We started with a Coleman Xtreme esky, and now have an electric compressor fridge.
• Lighting - don't like gas lanterns because they get very hot and the mantles can be fiddly (plus they use a lot of gas, compared to your stove, which means you need to carry a bigger gas bottle). We use a 12v Versalite (only draws about 1Ah, so won't flatten your battery), but I will admit gas light is nicer for reading by.

Anyway, just my thoughts. Different strokes for different folks, and you'll figure out what works best for you.

Enjoy your D3 and get out amongst it

Regards
DMU Dave

For what it's worth my advice would be to buy the best quality gear you can at the time and don't worry about wether it's a tent or a trailer yet ( especially if you're just starting out ). As you camp more often you will get to know what is important for you and your family and what you can afford. I've found that it's better to camp a little bit rough than to worry about paying off the gear you've just put on credit, besides the best memories are made when rain is seeping in through the tent seams or the family has to huddle together on a freezing winters night. we still have a laugh about these things.( some say it builds character ?? )

we now own a cheap camper trailer ( ebay special ) we needed something bigger for the grand kids and the two large German Shepherds that we refer to as the 'fur kids'

p.s. I bought the Defender so that I could cart all the kids at once, should have got it years ago ( best investment ever!! )

We have three kids and a D2a and we go for tents.
We have three different tent set-ups depending on the situation. for base camping style we have a Coleman three room jobbie that we are actually using less and less.
For fast and light querilla style we have pop-up tents that operate like the old CWA cake covers and take about two minutes to set up and for really light we take our hiking tents which are a Black Wolf Hornet and a Denali Gale cheapie from Anaconda that works pretty well for two school aged boys.
We have a Foxwing awning which covers the cooking and eating area, for illumination we use 300 lumen LED lanterns because they run forever and pump out enormous amounts of light. Food staorage is in a tropical style esky that will keep a block of ice intact for about 5-6 days depending on the season, Dry stores are in lockable plastic boxes.
We use a Trangia and a Snow Peak white gas stove for cooking and consequently the big Coleman Expedition three burner hasn't left the shed for a year or so.
As someone said earlier chairs are worth getting right and we still haven't nailed that one yet, most of the time I sit on the esky as I tend to demolish Coleman chairs and the like.
We often have between two and four kayaks on the roof and occasionally five bikes on a bike carrier on the towball. Although the bikes aren't taken when the terrain is really soft or difficult.
I have a trailer but to be honest I never take it off road, probably as a result of the amount of destroyed and stripped trailer carcases we came across on our trip around Oz many years ago.
Had a roof topper when we spent 9 months going around Oz and we loved that but that was before the enfants terribles ventured onto the scene

It deopends a LOT on where you want to go. For example if you were going to Fraser Islan for a week ad beach camping then a camper trailer would be great.

On the other hand if you or your OH prefers to stay somewhere with amenities there are only a few trailer spots in the campgrounds and mostly tent spots where you can park nearby but not directly beside the tent (copper logs are evil!).


If you ar looking at a tent - look at the Blacwolf Turbo 300 (cavas vesion not the turbo lite) - we are very happy with ours.
Black Wolf Adventure Gear - turbo