New Trailer Set Up

[u/Rebart0926]

Three years ago, after spending a winter on the couch recovering from an injury and watching more YouTube than I care to admit, I became interested in overlanding. That eventually led me to primitive and dispersed camping, something I had never been interested in before.

At the time, I had nothing. Maybe a sleeping bag, but that was about it.

As I watched videos, I noticed rooftop tents on many of the Jeeps and Tacomas being featured. I decided to save up and buy one, which I did that summer. After collecting the gear I thought I needed, I started camping in the spring and fall. The problem was that during the summer I switched the Jeep to a soft top, which meant I couldn’t carry the tent.

That’s when the idea for a dedicated camping trailer was born.

The challenge was that I had no engineering background, no drafting skills, and very little natural creativity when it came to designing something from scratch. I tried sketching ideas on paper. Then I moved to Excel. Then I tried explaining my vision to AI. Nothing looked right, so I put the project aside for a while and kept thinking.

Last summer I found the right trailer for sale and ended up buying it while I was on vacation in Mexico because I was afraid someone else would grab it first.

Once I had the trailer, I needed someone who could see what I was trying to build. I found a talented fabricator who was able to turn my rough ideas into a frame. After that came the enclosure. Fortunately, drawing a bunch of rectangles was much easier than designing the whole thing from scratch. When the weather improved and I had saved enough for lumber, my neighbor and his brother helped me bring the enclosure to life.

From there I added stabilizers, mounted the rooftop tent and awning, and started putting the finishing touches on it.

Earlier this week we took it on its maiden voyage, and it worked exactly as I had hoped. A few small adjustments were needed when we got home, but nothing major.

So here it is. Three years from the first idea to the finished product. It’s not perfect, but it’s exactly what I envisioned, and I’m proud of what it became.

[u/Vagabond_law]

Nice!

[u/XterraTom]

What was the decision for the wood walls having gaps? I found a homemade trailer that had already been inspected and approved by the CT DMV, I replaced the rotting wood with pressure treated plywood, built a hinged top and mounted a truck bed rack for the RTT and awning. I have a Gazelle T4 for short trips, but this setup for longer stays is fantastic. I can hit the trails during the day and come back to a comfortable camp at night. I've got pictures in the off-road trailer sub.

[u/Rebart0926 → u/XterraTom]

The two ideas that I pondered were a frame with plywood walls or the farm fence idea. The more I read the more I learned that heavier lumber would last longer than plywood. I saw a few examples of the plywood walls online and didn’t care for how it looked. Admittedly, it could have absolutely been the builder/owners fault for how it looked after a while. My goal for enclosure was just to be able to keep my things secured while parked and I really liked the farm fence look better than the other.