In my last post I showed you how I added the all of the modifications to my cargo camper to make it suitable for sleeping in along with being a useful cheap toy hauler. Today I’ll just point out a few finishing touches that were needed to make it even more useful & comfortable.
While not like having all the advantages of a full featured RV, this trailer is still a great place to sleep for the night. We still do some tent camping once or twice a year but as I’ve gotten older sleeping on the ground has lost a lot of it’s appeal to me. This way I have a warm (or cool) dry place to sleep, a way to brush my teeth, wash dishes, while still maintaining a little of that primitive camping experience.
One thing you will notice as you look at all of these pictures is that I’ve mounted a number of small d- ring tie downs to the walls and a couple of spots in the floor. This gives me multiple options for cargo control. there’s even a couple of them up close to the ceiling at the front that I put a clothesline on to dry towels & washcloths on. Later on I added a couple of them to the outside to be anchor points for my shade canopy.
Now if you are the kind of person who want’s to be able to lounge around all day in luxurious comfort, then a cargo camper is not for you. For those of us who just want a place to lay our head at night after a days adventure exploring the world around our base camp it makes perfect sense.
Let’s talk a little bit about the equipment added to this trailer, in addition to the extra tie downs already mentioned. At first we slept on an air mattress for a couple of trips and it was nice until one trip where it went flat on the first night of a 4 day motorcycle rally. After that I did a bit of research and bought this Milliard Tri-Fold foam folding mattress. It’s far more comfortable than an air mattress, and when folded up and slid up to a wall makes a usable albeit low to the ground sofa. In fact it is so comfortable that my wife & I slept on it for a couple of months while we were stuck in the process of moving from one house to another for a long period of time. I highly recommend the Milliard Tri-Fold over any air mattress for an application like this.
Some places we camp have power hook ups & some don’t, so we always carry an extension cord and a couple of RV electrical adapters just in case we run into a situation where there is not a standard 15 or 20 amp receptacle to plug into. Of course if you really want to you could always carry a small super quiet generator with you. Later this year I am thinking of adding solar power to keep phone & computer batteries charged up as our off grid trips seem to get longer & more frequent.
Another thing you have to consider is what to do about using the bathroom. So far everywhere we’ve camped at has at least had porta-johns for us to use. Even so I bought one of the Reliance Products Luggable Loo portable toilets just so that my wife & I could have a place to go pee in the middle of the night without having to leave the trailer. On an extended trip in an area without toilet facilities I’d probably keep it outside in a small bath tent, but just to take a leak once a night for 3 or 4 nights it’s perfectly fine in the trailer. Being the cheap bastard that I am instead of buying the expensive odor neutralizing products the sell for it I just use kitty litter and heavy duty kitchen trash bags to control the odor and facilitate easy clean up.
In addition the the requisite camp stove, cooler, coffee percolator, folding tables & chairs etc. I grabbed this relatively inexpensive portable folding fire pit for when visiting places that do not have permanently installed fire rings. It’s cheaply made & kind of flimsy but as long as you remember this and use it within it’s limitations it’ll be just fine. One great advantage to this style of camping is that you can bring along your sturdier, more comfortable, less expensive, but much heavier folding table & chairs . Whereas when tent camping (especial on a motorcycle & when back packing) may require you to bring along lighter weight specialized equipment or to do without some things.
This cargo camper trailer has been serving me well for a couple of years now and some of information contained in these posts reflects updates that I’ve made to it over the years. Should you decide to build one of your own plan it out carefully and decide what you can & cannot do without in your cargo camper. If you are just joining us you may wish to check out part one of this series here; and then part two at this link.
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