Did you trade up from a tent?

[Carol H]

Tina, the only advise I have is to give it a try - the more you do it the more comfortable you will be with it. I tow my trailer on my own often and I have a number of girlfriends who do the same. Funny enough the first time I towed my trailer on a long trip I hit one of your famous wind storms in the Columbia River Gorge area - going down a steep hill I actually had my foot on the gas to keep going. :-) Once you have towed it a couple of times it really is not an issue - I often forget i'm pulling the trailer while driving. Thats the nice part of a small trailer. On rough roads you just go slow. You can also get the axle lifted a bit if clearance of pot holes where you go is an issue. The nice things about the small trailers is that even if you cant drive it into a tight spot you want to camp in you can unhook it and it only takes a couple of people to move mine by hand into the spot. I know someone who has been known to move her 13' on her own as well - much younger than I :-)

[Alf S.]

Originally Posted by Dick & Joanne

My wife and I tent camped for years. The occasional bad weather days were easy to take. The last year we tented we spent a week (late June) in Glacier where it rained every day we were there. So we finally gave up and moved down to Yellowstone--where it snowed. We decided that cooking out in the rain was no longer part of our lifestyle.
Dick

Hi: Dick & Joanne... Here's a pic of "Our Escape Hatch" on a rainy afternoon at Tamarack in Beckley W. Va. 1st. time we boondocked...with permission of course.
Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie

[Dick & Joanne]

Two more days!
Boise, ID last night.
Takoma tonight.

[Robin G]

Originally Posted by Tina L

Oh, and another thing: in my personal camper quest, I'm a bit intimidated about pulling a trailer around here--very windy and lots of rough roads where I like to camp. Any thoughts/advice for me? You guys are great!!

Won't answer your original questions as I saw your already working on your project. But will try and ease your mind on your personal quest for a camper.


Having driven the area your speaking about, I understand being scared. I bucked that pony in a class A motor home .............. Gadd's I was never so glad to get off a road in my life.

But that being said, towing/pulling for the first time is a little nerve wracking but, with time, caution, you will get comfortable with it. Just make sure your pulling something your vehicle will pull, take it slow (camping is not about racing) but most of all enjoy!

Now, after you find your perfect camping unit you will have to learn to back up! LOL....... Going forward is easy breezy, backing up, well it's a learned art! But it can be learned, believe me I entertained my Dh and his friends for many years with my backing up abilities. He was a master at backing up, but after he got sick I had to learn. My 72 year old Mother taught me! (why didn't she teach me when I was young?) Once you get it, you get it! I can back the Casita into anywhere. So don't let the fear of towing stop you from enjoying the great out-doors........................

[Mike Magee]

Tina, the egg trailers' round edges make them less subject to wind buffeting than a square trailer. So they are a great choice for windy areas. Find yourself a little 13 footer and join the fun.

[The Dot]

I camped traveling from Minnesota to Portland, OR for almost 30 years. My husband and I will be taking possesion of a 16 foot Scamp in 2 weeks and are super excited. Why? For one thing, we won't have to pack everything up any time we want to take off for the weekend. It will all be in the Scamp and ready to roll. A second reason we bought a Scamp is because camping in the rain is NO FUN, and we like to travel in the Southwest during the summer, when I have time off as a classroom teacher. With air conditioning and a roof over our heads, we will be able to be comfortable rain or shine. And finally, since we like to travel A LOT, we will save money over the life of owning our Scamp by not having to pay for food out and hotel rooms. We are pumped to get started on Scamping, and looking forward to many years of adventures poking around the many nooks and crannies of the U.S. and our great neighbor to the north.

[Mike Magee]

Dorothy, welcome. Um, it took you almost 30 years to get from MN to OR? Sorry, couldn't pass that one up!

[Thomas G.]

Originally Posted by Mike Magee

Dorothy, welcome. Um, it took you almost 30 years to get from MN to OR? Sorry, couldn't pass that one up!

Yea, Lewis and Clark made it faster.

[arlon]

Darn, I traded down from a 28ft 5th wheel to a camper van for solo camping then added the egg for those easy trips to the park with spouse.

[BCDave]

I traded down from hotel/motel rooms, but way UP from a stick-built to a Boler 17. Now another upwards trade to a Bigfoot 21

[RogerDat]

Been camping a long time, tent campers with nothing but beds, some pop-ups with kitchens, tents for awhile, then a motor home (school bus conversion). When gas got too expensive for motor home, just fell back on all my tenting stuff. Could throw that in a utility trailer and go but that loading and unloading gets to be a pain as does the ground after a bit.... say 5 minutes or so.

Hoping the egg will be the sweet spot. Can leave it mostly loaded and ready to go, up off the ground to sleep but generally treating it like a hard sided tent without so much to maintain as a self contained unit, and not killing me at the gas pump.

Wife reminds me to not forget that some of the best camping spots are at the Sheraton and Holiday Inn parks.

[BCDave]

Originally Posted by RogerDat

Wife reminds me to not forget that some of the best camping spots are at the Sheraton and Holiday Inn parks.

Agree fully!

In fact, we've been known to take a trip, towing the Boler and stay in some hotels anyway. (a few years ago, we did one trip - about a week long - and we never once slept in the trailer!)

[Rene]

Tenting mostly for many years, all the while looking down our noses at those in fancy RVs as a bunch of wussies with more money than brains. Then I began to notice how long it took to pack and unpack, especially when on the move. Also tenting in urban areas just sucks because of the noise and esthetically displeasing campsites. Getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom was also an ordeal unless I was out in the boonies. My first trailer was an old 16' stickie with aluminum siding and roofing that peeled off like a tin can while its wood floor rotted away and collapsed beneath us. It was enough to get me hooked on trailers and when I found our boler in a hayfield with a for sale sign on it I had to investigate further. Now we are finishing its restoration and are very happy with the way we can camp most anywhere, cook, eat and shower and use the toilet anytime we wish.

[The Dot]

You must be an English teacher! I apologize for my fuzzy construct.!

[Sue Petersen]

We had a tent trailer and loved the space inside. But we never loved setting it up and taking it down. As we got older we need something easier so we got a Scamp 16'.

[Byron Kinnaman]

I guess you could call it moving up, not really. Just different. Most of our camping has been no closer than a mile to nearest road. So trying to compare living in a trailer to camping in the woods just doesn't compare. They're two complete different activities. Sans trailer the question was always do we put up the tent or just sleep on the ground? Camping on the banks of a mountain lake almost always called for dip in the lake, sometimes a very short dip. With the trailer we're seldom close to a lake.
Both have their place in our lives, even though it's been almost 2 years since our last overnight trip into the woods on foot. Maybe we'll do it again this summer or early fall.

The excuses for the trailer are:
1. We were going to gatherings of carvers, geocachers, etc. and got tired of getting dressed on our backs. Tent is about 40" tall. Talk about lack of head room.
2. We wanted to extend the season we were out. Now our longest trips are in the winter hunting for the sun.

[Hambone]

My wife wanted to stand up while she put her pants on!!!!

[Jon Vermilye]

Two reasons for going from tenting for many years to an "egg". First, I got tired of packing up a wet tent in the mornings, or waiting for it to dry out before leaving wet sites.

But, the real reason is getting lost on a bathroom trip at 3:00AM. It was a huge campground, and after making a run to the bathrooms with my wife we wandered back to the campsite rambling on about what ever, and all of a sudden realized that we had been walking a long time. No street signs, or lights other than our flashlight. Let me tell you, at 3:00AM all tents & RVs look the same! While we eventually found our way back it was then that we decided we wanted a build it bathroom!

[minnfinder]

I am a slow learner, started tnet camping with infants the youngest 1 month old, bigger tent as kids got older. Single parent so a tent trailer, bigger tent trailer, travel trailer, bigger travel trailer, motor home, back to tent. Stayed with tent for a while then tent trailer, back to tent. At heart a tent lover, 2 back surgeries, and a triple by-pass and not being able to move the picnic table close enough to climb up and out of tent and a good wife made me start looking for a used Scamp. After 4 years of looking found a 1990 16foot with side bath and now sleep like a baby and can move when I get up in the morning. After ridiculing friends for calling their trailers Campers I have to admit I was wrong and do own a Camper. We love Minnesota State Parks with or without hook ups as we are learning to use solar and to be good stewards of the out doors.

[Lynners]

We too have run the gambit with enjoying the outdoors for 42 years
1. Tent
2. 16 ft. travel trailer
3. Tent trailer
4. VW Westphalia
5. Back to tent
6. 13 ft. 76 Trillium

It was a soggy night in the tent in Kanaskis camping with kids and grandkids. We, in the tent and they were dry and warm in a travel trailer, we realized something was wrong with this picture and decided to find something our Sienna could tow. After researching we purchased our "egg " with no regrets.

5.