Two years ago my wife and I decided we should buy a camper for our travels. Not so much for saving money, but primarily for 3 reasons: sleeping in our own bed, and not one that might vary significantly in quality and cleanliness in motels; being able to prepare food ourselves and not having to eat three meals a day in restaurants which usually meant far too many calories and pretty expensive on a long trip; and finally, being able to take our little dog with us and not have to limit ourselves to pet friendly motels.
We also did not want to have to buy a new towing vehicle, so we limited our weight consideration to what our Subaru Outback could pull. We ended up buying a top-of-the-line T@b from Little Guys in Ohio. This little camper, which weighs only 1800 pounds, was pretty amazing. Wet bath and toilet, a/c, "queen" size bed, refrig, sink and stovetop, flat screen TV and stereo system, and really impressive engineering and build quality. But this posting is really intended to make those of you thinking about a T@b or similar tiny camper to really consider some of the drawbacks. The main drawback is space. Floor space in this camper is about 4 square feet, so while one person is making up the bed or cooking or whatever, you either have to be in the shower area, outside the camper, or sitting at the table if the table is set up. Especially when stuck inside due to inclement weather, the lack of ANY space is really a turnoff. Having to use the same space for a dinette table and for the bed means that if you want to be able to sit at the table, the bed has to be closed up. So if there are two of you, both have to get out of bed at the same time, and as I stated before, one of you has to find a spot to hide while the other converts the bed to the table set up. The bed itself is small, and not really "queen" size. You are sleeping on relatively thin set of dinette table cushions laid flat, and while this sure beats sleeping on hard ground in a tent, its not much of a bed. My wife and I are relatively short, but we found to lie flat we had to sleep with one of us toward the back of the camper and one toward the front, requiring the back sleeping person to climb over the front person to get up for the bathroom or anything else. Storage in this 13(?) foot camper is exceedingly limited, so much of what we took with us was kept in the Outback. This was OK except when it was raining heavily Oh, the T@b offers an optional tent extension which is quite nice, but not really sealed so in a heavy rain it was not usable and all the time we had bugs getting inside the tent. I would think that other very small trailers have some of the same limitations so when you are looking, try to imagine going through all of the days and nights activities within this space before deciding that it is for you.
After one year with the T@b we sold it (and they were in high enough demand that we sold it quickly and for a good price) and ultimately bought a Vintage Cruiser from Gulf Stream. The Vintage is bigger than the T@b, and oh what 6 feet can do. Now we have a real queen size bed, with access on both sides of the bed (pure luxury!). The bathroom is a dry bath, with a real shower with door, regular toilet, and small sink and vanity. The kitchen area has a real frig, freezer, microwave, sink and stovetop. Of course it has A/c and heat, and a ceiling exhaust fan and a dinette table that very comfortably seats two and in a pinch could hold four people. Having a bed and a table in separate areas, always set up, totally changed our camping experience. Storage both within the camper and in a large outside storage area allows us to not have to put hardly anything in the back of our tow vehicle. But speaking of tow vehicle. The Vista weighs (empty) about 3,500 pounds, and probably closer to 4,500 when fully loaded including the fresh water tank. We ended up getting a Dodge Durango because we didn't want a truck, and the Durango has a towing capacity of 6,200 pounds. So far we love this Durango and when not towing the camper it has become our primary vehicle, relegating our older Subaru Outback to being the back up vehicle for whichever one of us is not using the Durango.
We didn't get to use the Vista last year as much as we had hoped to, but it is just bigger enough that we felt we were traveling with all the comfort of home. It has everything we want, and nothing we don't. Its still a pain to back up (like any smaller camper), and wind resistance when we tow it cuts our mpg from about 24 down to 12. Right now we see no need to get a larger trailer since the Vista gives us all that we need. But without question it is better for us by far than the little T@b was. Build quality of the T@b was better than what we have in the Vista, but from what we looked at, nothing seems as well engineered and built as does the T@b, including the Airstream we looked at. But all in all we are so glad that we were able to move up from the tiny T@b to something still small by RV standards but just perfect for our needs.
Hope this long post was valuable to some of you and might save at least one person the hassle of seeing a tiny trailer and thinking "how cute!" and then regretting it soon afterward.
We also did not want to have to buy a new towing vehicle, so we limited our weight consideration to what our Subaru Outback could pull. We ended up buying a top-of-the-line T@b from Little Guys in Ohio. This little camper, which weighs only 1800 pounds, was pretty amazing. Wet bath and toilet, a/c, "queen" size bed, refrig, sink and stovetop, flat screen TV and stereo system, and really impressive engineering and build quality. But this posting is really intended to make those of you thinking about a T@b or similar tiny camper to really consider some of the drawbacks. The main drawback is space. Floor space in this camper is about 4 square feet, so while one person is making up the bed or cooking or whatever, you either have to be in the shower area, outside the camper, or sitting at the table if the table is set up. Especially when stuck inside due to inclement weather, the lack of ANY space is really a turnoff. Having to use the same space for a dinette table and for the bed means that if you want to be able to sit at the table, the bed has to be closed up. So if there are two of you, both have to get out of bed at the same time, and as I stated before, one of you has to find a spot to hide while the other converts the bed to the table set up. The bed itself is small, and not really "queen" size. You are sleeping on relatively thin set of dinette table cushions laid flat, and while this sure beats sleeping on hard ground in a tent, its not much of a bed. My wife and I are relatively short, but we found to lie flat we had to sleep with one of us toward the back of the camper and one toward the front, requiring the back sleeping person to climb over the front person to get up for the bathroom or anything else. Storage in this 13(?) foot camper is exceedingly limited, so much of what we took with us was kept in the Outback. This was OK except when it was raining heavily Oh, the T@b offers an optional tent extension which is quite nice, but not really sealed so in a heavy rain it was not usable and all the time we had bugs getting inside the tent. I would think that other very small trailers have some of the same limitations so when you are looking, try to imagine going through all of the days and nights activities within this space before deciding that it is for you.
After one year with the T@b we sold it (and they were in high enough demand that we sold it quickly and for a good price) and ultimately bought a Vintage Cruiser from Gulf Stream. The Vintage is bigger than the T@b, and oh what 6 feet can do. Now we have a real queen size bed, with access on both sides of the bed (pure luxury!). The bathroom is a dry bath, with a real shower with door, regular toilet, and small sink and vanity. The kitchen area has a real frig, freezer, microwave, sink and stovetop. Of course it has A/c and heat, and a ceiling exhaust fan and a dinette table that very comfortably seats two and in a pinch could hold four people. Having a bed and a table in separate areas, always set up, totally changed our camping experience. Storage both within the camper and in a large outside storage area allows us to not have to put hardly anything in the back of our tow vehicle. But speaking of tow vehicle. The Vista weighs (empty) about 3,500 pounds, and probably closer to 4,500 when fully loaded including the fresh water tank. We ended up getting a Dodge Durango because we didn't want a truck, and the Durango has a towing capacity of 6,200 pounds. So far we love this Durango and when not towing the camper it has become our primary vehicle, relegating our older Subaru Outback to being the back up vehicle for whichever one of us is not using the Durango.
We didn't get to use the Vista last year as much as we had hoped to, but it is just bigger enough that we felt we were traveling with all the comfort of home. It has everything we want, and nothing we don't. Its still a pain to back up (like any smaller camper), and wind resistance when we tow it cuts our mpg from about 24 down to 12. Right now we see no need to get a larger trailer since the Vista gives us all that we need. But without question it is better for us by far than the little T@b was. Build quality of the T@b was better than what we have in the Vista, but from what we looked at, nothing seems as well engineered and built as does the T@b, including the Airstream we looked at. But all in all we are so glad that we were able to move up from the tiny T@b to something still small by RV standards but just perfect for our needs.
Hope this long post was valuable to some of you and might save at least one person the hassle of seeing a tiny trailer and thinking "how cute!" and then regretting it soon afterward.
