trailer to accomodate family of six

What about a TrakShak, ours sleeps 6 with heaps of room on the floor and the option of an extra room which takes another queen size mattress...

you have storage within the belly of the trailer, Al has custom made _Affordable_Storage_Drawers.aspx for ours which stores, 70Lt fridge, portaloo, coleman hotwater service, camp ovens and a section for non perishable foods. He also extended the drawbar, built a "toolbox" for the front and we store chairs, table and solar panels in there...

easy to tow and we've taken it on a couple of rugged drives...

cheers

Lyn

I agree that the TrakShak has oodles of space.

However, we are a family of 6 as well and find that the Ultimate Camper (which we have owned since feb 1999) suits our needs well...........except if the weather turns REALLY foul. Our youngest lad (6) still sleeps in the King Size bed with Annette and I. The other 3 boys sleep in their swags......if the weather is too cold or wet, they have the under-lid tent which can accomodate their swags too; just!

The TrakShak shines with the large amount of under-cover floor space it has. This is really valuable when the rain really sets in....(we can only close our eyes and try to remember what good heavy rain was!!!!!!!)

We have a Trak Shak (since 96) it has been all over the place including Cape York.

Heaps of space, easy to set up and easy to tow.

The best we have done was when New Years eave 1999. We were staying with a crowd at a mates property near Goulburn and had 14 people in the Trak Shak. Most of them were small and scattered on the floor but there were 4 adults sleeping in comfort on the two queen size beds.

As for storage space, we can and do fill it up but mostly with stuff we don't use. I am thnking of making up some boxes to mount on the jerry can racks so I can take even more useless junk on the next trip. Push bike rack hangs off the spare wheel and we can put a tinnie on top.

Duncs

Spoke with someone in the industry recently who suggested that Trak Shak are now being made in China - but that they are not saying much about this. As this chap said, no drama as long as the purchaser knows and is not being led to think otherwise.

Plenty of good stuff being made in China - but better to check whether build specs / quality have changed - as the people who have them and will give you no doubt great feedback may own CTs manufactured locally before this change.

Anyway - hope this is of some use.

Alan

Mate,

The best camper Trailer I have seen for a family that sleeps 2 adults and 4 children all of the ground is the Camprite. I personally think it is better than the Trak Shak though this is only personal opinion. Truely worth a look.

I think what everyone is saying that get a soft floor camper trailer, 7 x 4 box, with 50 mm sides (fairly standard), with tough off road suspension, and you can't go wrong. No need to take the big tent and everyting else associated with tent camping because you'll be able to tow the camper everywhere pretty well.

Our trailer is as above, with a full length slide out kitchen (about 2m x 38cm wide x 45 cm high) with a number of custom made shelves, doors etc, fits a stack of food, all cooking stuff, stove, water pump etc, still leaves room for 6 x 65 L tubs with oodles of room on top to spare. Combine that with carrying up to 145L of water (tank plus 4 x jerries), 2 x 4.5L gas bottles (water and gas all stored externally) a big tool box up front for spare plus other stuff (like all our chairs, bbq etc). Queen size bed plus 11 extra feet inside main tent area, plus a full size awnning with full annex walls (if weather warrants) and there would be stacks of room for 6. All this is costing me $11500 brand new, all custom made to our species, but this included the indulgence of $1300 in 3 x wheels/tyres.

A number of companies make decent stuff, ours is a custom made trailer with Sar Major tent part, but others like Tambo, Cavalier, etc make good low cost options. If your budget extends to $20000+, then the Trak Shak is a good option (but they need a lot of room to set up as they are very large, and most of the area is in the main tent section).

Hope this helps.

D-JAck

Hello Georgina

We have a Camprite and couldn't be happier. We are only a family of four, so not entirely comparable, but the bunks that Camprite can supply appear to work well.

Have looked at a number of Trakshaks and others, but we still think the Camprite is the best bet for a young family. And we don't think it's just bias...We often chat to other campers around the camp fires (as you do!!!) and do the standard "check out each other's rig" thing... And we are yet to feel any sense that something else would serve our purposes and young family better.

Once the family grow up a bit then other options are open.

Search the forum here on "Camprite" and check out the posts...few bad words if any about them.

There aren't many of these campers on the east coast - we live in Canberra - but they are still well worth it despite distance to the supplier. We called in on the factory when over in Perth - 6 months after receiving the camper - and they were only too happy to give us a supply of various bits to take away with us... should we ever need them... (not yet!).

Camprite also has a newer model out now with around double the storage that ours has - and ours is fine for us.

By the way - no afiiliation with the company -just a happy customer.

Cheers

Rob