What kind of camper do you have???

We just got back from 12 days at 4 different campgrounds around the Olympic Peninsula. We had power available at one of the spots but chose to avoid running any connections for the trip. We ran the trailer off our power system. We have a 250ah lithium battery and 360W of solar. We did pretty good with solar except for one spot which was heavily treed.

The battery was at 100% on the last day. We used our lights, furnace, fridge, and ran the inverter for a few hours each day. We relied on our propane appliances to help conserve power. We avoid using the convection oven, plug-in kettle and toaster but they will work if needed.

Even with the great performance of the system, I am looking to increase the batteries to 400ah and add a suitcase solar panel for the fall camping trips.

I have added the following:
Victron Battery Monitor 712 - A must for any RV!
Victron 100/50 Smart Solar Controller
GoPower 1500 Pure Sine Inverter and Remote
GoPower Automatic Shore Switch
GoPower 250ah Lithium Battery
GoPower 55amp Lithium Converter
360W Flexible Solar Panels (GoPower and CIGS)

My trailer didn't have any of this stuff as it was a base model so adding it was easier than redoing something already installed.

I am not too concerned about power spikes from plug-ins at campgrounds as I have a pretty good surge protector but wanted to make sure that our system would work in the primitive sites that we seem to return to that are close to us.

On a side note, while we were away, my sister texted me and told me that my mom's trailer was damaged from a fire that burned a trailer beside hers. Basically her trailer side melted and there is a lot of smoke damage. It will probably be a write off. Made me think about the potential for this to happen anywhere at anytime. We don't know why the other trailer caught on fire and probably wont ever know.

Make sure you have fire coverage in your insurance policy.

 

And good, accessible, working fire extinguishers in case you catch it in the act. Could be the difference between a small incident and a larger loss of property or life. Enjoyed reading about your boondocking strategies. We spend so much of the year being assaulted by the evil sun and it’s 90°+ temps that we only camp where we have access to shore power for the AC. Unbearable to sleep in the rig without it.

 

We are pretty lucky that we don't really need AC to cool the trailer. Most of the spots we stay at are near the ocean or water so we get nice temperatures. We have had our trailer for 3 years and only turned on the AC once for a few minutes to see it actually worked. We also try to avoid camping in the summer when the campsites are busy with kids out of school. We usually like to camp when the temps get down near freezing at night!

 

Where was your mom's trailer? In storage or at a campground?

 

It was up in Prince Rupert in a trailer park and she was in it at the time. Firefighters got her out during the fire. The other trailer was close to hers as they try to squeeze them in like sardines.

 

Dang! Glad she’s ok!

 

Ya, she is a tough one! She didn’t want to leave the trailer but eventually got dragged out.

The side of her trailer melted with the heat and the water caused the siding to buckle and the window seals melted.

Fires are pretty freaky.

 

We have a 2023 Bigfoot 25B25FB that we picked up July 04, 2023, from Vernon Recreational Products in Vernon, BC. We spent 49 nights in the Bigfoot this season and we travelled 3829 km with it before putting it in covered storage for the winter last weekend. We are thoroughly happy with the Tundra and the Bigfoot!

 

Been pulling our Teardrops NW trailer with a 15 4R for about 2 years now. Looking to upgrade to something larger so I just picked up a 2014 Tundra.

Keeping an eye out for something in the 20-25' range: RPOD - Twilight - Jayco Flight/Baja or similar.

 

We added a dual axel on the truck. We load the quad back there. On the back of the travel trailer we put a hitch on for a motorcycle rack. Works great. Gosh I love my truck.

 

I’ll have to get one all hitched up, but for now here is one camping here in Az this past summer.

 

One of my favorite pictures of the truck and trailer.

 

33 pages of trailers and not a single Forest River No Boundaries? Currently looking at a 2023 NB19.6 Beast Mode...anyone have any input on them?

 

Lots of good times in this beautiful camper. It was great for my family, has the Offroad Package from factory, and a nice furnace. Decided to try out a truck camper setup and have an OVRLND CAMPER on order. Unfortunately I can't have both so this is getting sold. Let me know if anyone is interested.

It's a Livin Lite Quicksilver 10.0. Weighing only 1500 lbs the Tacoma had no problems pulling it.

Here are most of the specs. It has pretty much everything except for the air conditioning and it has hydraulic brakes (not electric). Super rare, especially on the west coast.

 

We had a Camplite 13QB and it weighed in at 1,620 lbs.

We pulled it with our TDI New Beetle.

Awesome little trailer


Then Thor bought Livnlite and dismantled it!

 

Yep it's a heartbreaker. Beautiful trailer

 

So after enough ground tent camping with our Gazelle T8, we decided to get a travel trailer. Way too much info than I'd like but I'm hoping to garner more and more of it before its maiden voyage. Definitely some good info here but my main concern is using the A/C while boondocking. Seems the best option is to get a generator and soft start installed. We also have an Ecoflow Wave 2 that works well but the added battery will only last a night (at least with the heat option we tried, don't know about the cool yet). We were also able to get another night's worth out of it with the Delta Max 2k, so that covers us through the weekend. Obviously, we'll need longer term solution if we want to go longer. Trailering is new to us, so this should be interesting.

I haven't seen anyone post having one on here but I've been trying to read on other forums and sites to see what the consensus is but we're thinking of buying a 2023 Airstream Basecamp 20X. We initially considered something like the Scamp or Casita but wanted something a little more flexible in terms of rock and dirt road capable. We didn't want tear drop because that limits most of my wants i.e. bathroom/shower and a place to put the dogs if we wanted them inside. We wanted to keep it light, so we removed anything RV-like. We still wanted to "feel" connected to nature but with the added convenience of feeling like a civilized person.

And, the biggest thing was reliability. I already know that across the board this has dropped but I'm hoping that since this isn't the early year model for this design for Airstream, that they have most of the kinks worked out.

Last on the want list was looks. Nothing looks like the Basecamp as I wanted something a little more aggressive, hence why I didn't choose something like the Scamp, Casita, or Bambi but had to appease the other half as she didn't want something like the OBI Dweller or Conqueror UEV-19 or Ember.

With that said, once I get the Basecamp, I try to post some pics if anyone's interested.

 

The Basecamp looks roomy and the picture window is pretty cool as well.

We have a Sport 22FB and it is pretty tame. I have about 4 inches of lift on it, 3" with the axle lift and another from the taller tires which are Falken AW3 in 10 ply. I still would be hesitant to take it off the highway.

If the goal is to take it overlanding, just be aware that things inside the trailer will move and with Airstreams recent quality builds, expect the occasional cabinet to fall off the wall (kidding but not really). They had an issue with some glass blowing out but I think they fixed that.

Not sure how added twisting from the rock crawling adventures would do on the frame and aluminum skin.

Either way, you would have fun with the Basecamp and I am sure it would open up move camping possibilities!

 

29' 5th Arctic Wolf.

Travel back and fourth from Michigan and South Carolina.

Air bags have not been inflated yet in this pic. I love the air bags.

Trip down the truck averaged 9.6 mpg. It only gets 13.5 towing nothing. I am very happy with that.

I see no need for a Diesel.

 

The engine isn't the problem in this pic. It's everything else in the payload equation.

 

Thank you for you opinion.

 

Nice, what model of Artic Fox do you have?

 

It's not my opinion. It's the opinion of the people who designed and built your truck.

 

Thanks for the insight. Yeah, I've heard about the cabinets. Even saw a video on YT of a few being broken. I wanted the bungie version like in the REI trim but the missus insisted on the plastic cabinets. I am one of those, let her choose her way and if it's wrong, I get to be the solution maker and win out. If she's right, then life goes on and we both win.

Yeah, the rock crawling part is one of the things I'm unsure of in my research. It seems most who own one tend to keep it pretty tame. Now, I'm not extreme by any means but I haven't seen anyone talk about the X package and its capabilities other than what it includes. I can only assume with the legacy of an Airstream, the frame and aluminum have at least been tried and tested to some extent.

I believe the Basecamp has been around since 2007 and the newest iteration since 2016, so I'm trying to bank on the probability of that time being on my side as far as longevity goes but we shall see.

The A/C is mainly due to when the weather gets too hot for me and the dogs. I want to ensure that they have a place to cool off quickly, if necessary. It's also one of those better to have it than not need it situations. I may have misspoke about the nature part, but like I tried to insinuate, had enough of ground tenting for the moment, so I wanted a travel trailer that would improve or eliminate from tenting i.e. setup, convenience for a bathroom, storage, etc. The nature part was really about not bringing the house with you, just wanted a convenient trailer with enough amenities. In the research I've done, the Basecamp was the best little TT I could find that hit all the keynotes that worked for my pack. Is it the perfect trailer for me? I don't know as this is my first TT and can only hope this will work out. If not, I also researched that they have great resale. So, I can only hope that with the waning RV sales, it won't hurt me when it does come time to sell.

Long story short, too many what if's and figured this gave me the least amount of variables to have to worry about.

 

Thats a lot of trailer for your truck as GODZILLA also mentioned. The problem occurs when an accident happens and you have Police and DoT involved. The first thing thats going to happen is one look at your truck and trailer combo and automatically you're at fault. Trailer is way over for your payload and hitch capacity. In our state, police are routinely pulling commercial and private trucks and trailers to see what they are running loads at. My understanding the fines are steep.

Either way the ulitimate decision is your own and best of luck to you. It's not something I would entertain for the risk of myself and family.

 

Thanks for the confirmation! Yeah, I just can't see my life without them now. Grew up always wanting one and didn't realize I would find someone who ended up in the field and now I can't get rid of them. I currently have 6 dogs and a pig in the house (2 we're dog sitting and 1 is a foster) and we're about to have another foster we're dog sitting for a foster who are going out of town for the holidays, so this'll be fun. I kid but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

 

You can't say you have 6 dogs and pig here without posting pics

 

Ha ha, technically, I did but it was in the "Who's got dogs?" thread. I actually just told the other half we'll need to see if we can get a group photo of all the dogs whenever the second foster gets here on the 21st. I'll post a photo then. But to appease you in the meantime, we have 2 australian kelpie/shepard mixes, husky, 2 goldendoodles, black mouth cur mix, and the newest foster is some kind of aussie mix. Oh, and the pig is a mini juliana.

 

And maybe even less of an opinion and more a collection of factual abilities of the vehicle based on testing to standards.