Jayco Flamingo

I now have an Expanda 16-49-3HL Outback. Changed from a Jayco Eagle C/T.
After 4 years of winding the thing up and down we decided to upgrade before a 2 1/2 month trip up the East Coast to Port Douglas from Hobart.

Having used both, I'll never go back to a wind up van. Expanda was great to just stop on the side of the road for a coffee and be able to access everything.

Takes about five mins to fully set up and be quenching the thirst after the days driving work is done too.
It was always considerably longer to do the Eagle if we were setting up bed end flys every time.

Hi Richard

We used to have something really old and similar to a Jayco Dove, and the winding up was quite hard. We also move on almost every night, hence we never used the over bed flies or annex. Our daughter now has it for family holidays and uses the annex. It did not take very many minutes as we soon got into a system. Quicker and easier than putting up or packing up the tent.

We never set it up for lunch, and even now with a full sized caravan, rarely access the caravan for lunch (although once last year after we drove into a sudden weather change and it is was wet and cold it was nice to jump into the van and cook a hot lunch and cup of tea). I could crawl into the folded camper, around and over the packed away chairs, table and solar panel to access the fridge at a pinch while it was folded. Back to lunch. We always carry an Engel in the tow vehicle and each morning i prepare lunch and ensure an adequate supply of drinks for the day and these travel in the Engel. I have a plastic box with a tray, plates (needing small square one to fit a smaller box i found two litre ice cream container lids perfect), sharp knife with rounded end suitable for cutting cheese if necessary as well as buttering bread or biscuit bread substitutes. As for that cup of tea? We can wait until we stop for the night. Our daughter lent us her 12 v 'car kettle' once but we never used it. We did use our 12 v pie warmer a lot when in cooler areas such as Tasmania, but it does take a long time.

As for garaging an Expanda - do they really come to harm out in the open? After all, what ever you choose will be out in the open day and night for how ever many months you are on the road.

Motherhen

Hi Richard, I hired a Flamingo , (now own a hawk).. If your stopping for lunch all you need to do is unclip , windup & pull beds out. Probably 5 min. However if your stoping & setting up with awning etc will probably take 15 min... It's one of those things, the more you do it the better & faster you become..
Although I had a look at the 16.49.3 expanda at the caravan show last year & it looked real nice. I would love one however was just a touch too big to store at my place.

You could hire for a weekend & try before you buy

Regards,
Don

Hi Richard

We have a recently changed campers to outback Flamingo so we are not experts, if we are only stopping for the night we dont use the bed flys so van set up is complete in under 5 minutes. The awning take a little longer, the more you do it the better you get, it probably takes about 10 minutes. We dont bother using the walls unless we are stopping for a week or longer.

As for lunch stops, you can actually unclip and open the door to gain access without winding the van up if you dont mind crawling in to get to anything inside. If you wanted to you could probably wind it up and pull out the beds to have full access in about 2 minutes.

We looked at the expanda and windsor rapid but found the camper style vans felt more open and spacious without overhead and wall cupboards. We also do a fair amount of beach camping and like taking a tinnie so the option to carry the boat on the roof of the camper was also beneficial to us.

Downside for me is having the kitchen inside the van, We are now looking for a van with the kitchen external, but still sleeps 4.


Hope that helps

Scott

G'day Vanraay,

It's all mostly been said I think.

We have just switched to an Outback Eagle. On our first go, it took 15 mins to set up. In my opinion there is too much emphasis on how long things take to set up. 15 mins is not long in the greater scheme of things.

Our preference for lunch will be as others have suggested. Plan ahead and not have to access the inside unless necessary. We travel with an Engel in the vehicle and boil water for a thermos at breakfast.

The other point with lunch stops is leaving the 3-way fridge running on the battery. I don't know what folks do for long lunch stops - we haven't faced that issue yet. From what I read, about an hour of running the fridge on the battery is enough.

Cheers
John