Hybrid TT owners: i have question

Dara · May 12, 2017

Hybrid owners can you tell me the benefits to having the pop-out beds? i'm sure they make it breezier inside and lighter but i see nothing but potential problems, like leaking, cold air/lack of insulation, easier theft, and lack of privacy. can you sway me?

UTTransplant · May 12, 2017

I don't have one, but friends I camp with a couple of times a year do. We have had conversations of the trade offs of full hard side vs. hybrid. The biggest thing for them is how roomy their space is for 2 adults and 3 teenage girls while being towable for a big SUV (Suburban I think). He gets two king sized beds plus a sofa bed. There is no way their TV could haul a hard side of 30+ feet. His trailer is also remarkably open too. Downside is the fabric does allow for more heat loss, and they wouldn't be allowed in a (very) few Western parks with significant bear problems. Not a problem for them since they live in the Midwest. I think the big thing is how much sleeping space do you need balanced by the capacity of your tow vehicle.

HappyWanderer · May 12, 2017

^^^ Hit the nail squarely on the head.

Hybrids and pop-ups offer huge interior spaces and ease of towing, but the trade off is the fabric. It's drafty, prone to leaks and a pain when wet. If folded up wet, it must be opened back up to dry out.

Having said all that, there are days that I miss my pop-up.

bsandey · May 12, 2017

UTTransplant said:
I don't have one, but friends I camp with a couple of times a year do. We have had conversations of the trade offs of full hard side vs. hybrid. The biggest thing for them is how roomy their space is for 2 adults and 3 teenage girls while being towable for a big SUV (Suburban I think). He gets two king sized beds plus a sofa bed. There is no way their TV could haul a hard side of 30+ feet. His trailer is also remarkably open too. Downside is the fabric does allow for more heat loss, and they wouldn't be allowed in a (very) few Western parks with significant bear problems. Not a problem for them since they live in the Midwest. I think the big thing is how much sleeping space do you need balanced by the capacity of your tow vehicle.

Not criticizing anyone's style of camping, but just throwing in my point of view. My (now ex) wife and I have 4 children, and so we got a pop-up with a slide out dining area so we could have more room inside the camper. That just made the kids want to stay inside the camper rather than go out and enjoy camping.

Many years later, me and the wife are divorced (not due to camping), and 3 of the 4 kids are grown, with just one left at home who is a freshman in high school (at home with me on weekends, at home with his mom the rest of the week). I just got to a financial point to buy a camper for me and him (and the dog), and I went with a hardside, but smaller (I've heard them called "Micro-trailers"). The table folds down to make a roughly queen size bed, the rest is a very small area with the sink, stove, microwave, furnace, and toilet (air conditioning is under one of the dining benches). I'm hoping that it will give him reason to want to go outside instead of sitting inside the camper all day, even if it's just to sit around the campsite all day.

jonesyt · May 20, 2017

I don't have one either, but it has been my "dream camper" for many years. I say that because I like the idea of having the tent beds, feels like camping, they have lots more room than a TT of same size/wt. I grew up camping in pop ups and tents, love the feel of them, but hating the setup, I feel a hybrid would be a bit easier. Another benefit I feel they may have is you probably can extend your camping to a little later in the year if you use "clam shell mode" , leaving the tent beds closed up and using the sofa bed or dinette convertible bed. That being said, if you pull in a campground after dark or if it's raining, you can wait to open tent beds and still have a place to sleep the night if need be. I also believe that the tent beds on HT would be easier to open up if you need to do so to let them dry if you close up in rain or wet camper. The pop ups can be a bigger pain to reopen. Which also, gives me the impression the HT would be easier to pack like a TT, rather than the pop up. These are the reasons I always wanted one. I do not have TV that could pull any though, not even the smallest, and probably never will as I do not want to own a large vehicle.

Gary RV_Wizard · May 21, 2017

Hybrid owners can you tell me the benefits to having the pop-out beds? i'm sure they make it breezier inside and lighter but i see nothing but potential problems, like leaking, cold air/lack of insulation, easier theft, and lack of privacy.

It's simple: any type of expansion room yields more space in a physically smaller trailer. You tow a 20 ft trailer to the campground, where it expands to 24 or 28 ft for use. The fabric-sided push-outs in a hybrid are the lightest and least expensive way to achieve that, but have the downsides you mentioned. Hard-sided slide-outs are less so, but still more vulnerable than having none at all. So basically its a trade-off of living space vs external trailer size & weight.

Hybrid TT owners: i have question

Dara

Well-known member

UTTransplant

Well-known member

HappyWanderer

Well-known member

bsandey

Member

jonesyt

Member

Gary RV_Wizard

Site Team

Latest posts

Members online

Forum statistics