Читать книгу RVs & Campers For Dummies - Christopher Hodapp - Страница 53

A running gag in old cartoons from the ’40s and ’50s was the prefabricated house that came in a box. The cartoon character would push a big, shiny red button on top of the box. Then the parcel would shake and bulge, quickly unflap and unfold, and — voilà! — suddenly, there was the fully furnished, full-size house, with a white picket fence, a car in the driveway, and a full-fledged flower garden. Pop-up trailers (like the one shown in Figure 2-8) are sort of the camping equivalent of that.

Loads of first-time RVers start out with a pop-up trailer, just to find out if they’ll enjoy camping or how often they’ll really use it. If you’ve experienced camping in a tent before, a pop-up will seem like stepping into the cushy lap of luxury.

A pop-up is a sort of mashup RV, with the bottom half of a tiny travel trailer, combined with a canvas or vinyl tent that unfolds out of the top. They’re called by many descriptive names: expandables, folding campers, pop-ups, crank-ups, fold-ups, fold-outs, tent trailers, and sometimes just plain old campers. Depending on the options, the lower hard-sided trailer portion can contain beds, a sitting/dining area, a rudimentary kitchen with a sink, a small refrigerator and a stovetop, a compact toilet, a propane furnace, sometimes even an ingenious shower, and more. The upper tent half of the trailer expands to give you a roof over your head and create what is essentially an elaborate screened-in porch on wheels. For privacy, curtain flaps can be rolled down over the screens. And depending on the model, you can sleep anywhere from two to six people in these deceptively roomy and compact trailers.

Arina P Habich/Shutterstock

FIGURE 2-8: Pop-ups are a great, inexpensive way to get your introduction to RV life.

Pop-ups have been around for decades and remain popular for many reasons, but here are two of the main ones:

 They can be some of the least expensive RVs on the market. Many can be had brand-new for as little as $4,000, and used units can cost as little as $1,500 if you aren’t afraid of a little cleaning and repair. Even the biggest, most luxury-laden brand-new models with all the options are generally priced under $20,000.

 They’re lightweight — usually under 2,000 pounds — and ultra-compact when folded down. That makes them easier to store and easier on your gas mileage, compared to a larger trailer. Nearly any midsize car can haul one, and even the very biggest pop-ups generally weigh under 3,500 pounds.

As RVing has gotten more popular with younger campers, companies have offered lots of variations of pop-ups to attract first-time buyers and tent campers in search of a more comfortable experience. On the other hand, new designs of “off-road” pop-ups have a nearly military look, great for fishermen and hunters. The least-expensive units use a mechanical crank to make the magic unfolding operation happen, and the final setup of the tent portion requires an arrangement of poles and straps. More expensive models motorize the process or use a hydraulic lift to simplify the deployment of the tent into a push-button operation. A few even combine an air compressor with a nylon tent that actually inflates in a matter of a minute or so. And as Figure 2-9 shows, not all pop-ups are soft-sided tents — A-liner, Chalet, and Forest River’s Rockwood line all feature an unusual hard-sided, pop-up design that ditches the tent completely. When fully opened, they resemble tiny A-frame cabins on wheels.

Photographs courtesy of Christopher Hodapp

FIGURE 2-9: A hard-sided A-frame pop-up trailer by Aliner.

All of these reasons make a pop-up trailer an ideal way to get started with RVing. In fact, more than a few families pass them down from one generation to the next. Even if the canvas tent portion gets tattered and torn after a couple of decades, a pop-up of any vintage can usually be re-canvassed for around $1,500 or less.