We camp most times in our Forest River pop up camper. It
has a slide out for additional space and 3 beds. But before we got that, we
camped in our Tahoe on an air mattress when it was just us or in tents when we
took the lil kids with us. Now though, Im getting older and I like the comforts
of home our popup provides.
I love our little home away from home and it certainly does
make camping a lot easier, mostly because I have a bed and hot water. Lol. When
we were looking for campers, Phillip did most (ok ALL) of the leg work. I was
just along for the ride. There were things I knew I wanted in a camper, but it wasn’t
a long list for me. I wanted as big as we could get in a pop up, and I wanted
that slide out. I hoped for a microwave, but I needed a stove and oven. He knew
we needed one with the slide out and high sides. That way our sink and things didn’t
fold down into the floor and we could use that space more efficiently when we
were packing. We found one with everything we both wanted…and it was in our
price range too. He looked at tons of campers on line before he finally found 3
he liked. We went and looked at one in a private sale, but there was an issue
with the roof and we didn’t think we wanted that expense on top of the cost of
the camper.
What he finally found was a camper about 200 miles away at a
Camper sales place and we drove up to look at it. Before we drove up, he had
found a place on youtube where they had the videos of their campers for people
to look at. He found one he liked, and showed me the camper too. We decided
that if it was as nice in person as it looked on the vid, we would get it.
When we got to the camper place, they had it already set up
for us, and we could check out everything then. We tried the stove, the fridge,
the sink and the ac. There was an outside shower and we tried that to be sure
it worked. (That shower came in handy last year at the Outer Banks for washing
sand off before we went inside from being on the beach) I also snooped around
and looked in cabinets and lay on the beds to see if they were comfortable too.
They showed us how to take the camper down, and how to set it up. Seemed pretty
easy, we signed the papers and were on our way home with our new to us camper.
Once home, we brought it into our garage, and set it up so
we could look at it more closely, take notes on what we needed to do differently
and do a deep cleaning on it before we took it out the first time. We have 3
beds, 2 are queenish sized, and one is twinish size (I say it like that because
conventional sheets don’t fit, but its close). The 2 queens are on either end
of the popup, and the twin is converted from the kitchen table. Our girls (15
and 17) sleep on the queen and our son (16) sleeps on the twin.
When we go alone, we use the girls’ bed as our storage for
clothes and shower supplies. We can draw a curtain on either bunk to hide
whatever is stowed and the curtain makes it look neater than it actually is. I
do plan to get a 3 drawer sterlite for keeping our clothes in when we go,
because I don’t like just tossing the duffels up there and I think it will look
nicer.
Another nice thing about our camper is that it’s almost 24’
long, and has that slide out. This gives a lot of extra space and is really
nice when we all go. There have been a number of modifications done to the
camper and they have all really helped us out. We have a good amount of storage
and the people before us took the combined shower toilet out of the camper and
added another cabinet so that gave us even more storage. We wouldn’t have used
the shower inside anyway.
One of the other mods that Phillip did was change out every
light inside and out for led lights. This way when we boondock or dry camp,
(meaning without electric or water hookups) we can run these lights on the
battery with little energy consumption. He also added a digital voltage gauge
inside to keep an eye on the battery consumption so we didn’t run out of power when
we use them. It’s on a switch so we can turn it off as needed. The batteries
also have a cutoff switch for when we use electric power at the sites. There’s a
cigarette lighter receptacle for charging things way too. And the neatest one
we came up with in my opinion is the 2 poles that run under the girls’ bed that
we use for drying wet towels, swimsuits and things like that. This works really
well, and is out of our way in when in use.
Phillip also always carries tools and spare wheel bearings
and hub when we travel. This way, if something goes wrong he can fix it without
the added cost of someone else doing it. We will get on our way faster, and the
cost will be less. Since Phillip can work on it himself, it’s a huge savings if
we ever need it.
Another thing we do is always have a mat out of the door for
our shoes and to keep the dirt outside of the camper as much as we can. This way,
the camper stays cleaner, and we always know where our shoes are so we don’t trip
over them inside. We set up our chairs outside under the canopy and have a row
of lights on the outside too so we can see when out there.
This summer we plan to camp at Estes Park, CO in the Rockies
so we will be dry camping. With that being said, there’s a lot of planning I need
to do for this trip, and a few things I need to find out. Like if I can find a
wifi there so I can keep posting. If not, I may see if I can get a wifi hotspot
to use just for this trip. That maybe something I’d want to have all the time
anyway if we camp, because Phil has to do orders for his store from camp most
times. And to do that, we need the wifi.
