Today’s RV review is another sneak preview of a forthcoming 2024 RV - the Rockwood Mini Lite 2517s. Some brands of RVs just have these very passionate followers and for very good reason. I’ve seen gatherings of Tiffin brand RVs, there are rallies for Alliance and I accidentally started a huge group on Facebook for Rockwood and Flagstaff RVs.

Rockwood (and Flagstaff)

Perhaps the reason that Rockwood, and its identical twin sister Flagstaff, have such a passionate following are some of the things the company regularly does. Despite the popularity of the brand they continue to only build RVs in their plants in Millersburg, Indiana.

The significance of this is the number of Amish members of the work force. In fact there’s even a buggy barn on the property so team members who do drive buggies or ride horses have a place to park them.

Counter space galore plus a big oven and cabinets in the new Rockwood Mini Lite 2517s

Rockwood and Flagstaff have their own cabinet shop where hardwood cabinet faces are built along with drawers and such.

They use a man-made wall board for both inner and outer substrate in the wall lamination and the company laminates all its own walls and roofs. Oh, right, the roofs are laminated walkable structures with aluminum framing.

You’ll also find welded aluminum structure under anything that is structural even inside like the dinette, bed and that sort of thing.

Windows in Rockwood and Flagstaff products are frameless windows which require less maintenance but some campers say they don’t provide as much air flow. So they put in a high-performance fan to counter that. In fact you can get a second high-performance fan which we did in our own Rockwood Mini Lite.

Torsion axle suspensions are also a signature item in these trailers with the advantage being that they just ride smoother and tow better and the smoother the ride in the trailer the less jiggling and banging it experiences which means it’s not beating itself to death.

I also criticize RVs with tiny ovens because, again, all Rockwood and Flagstaff products that have ovens have the larger ones.

A large u-shaped dinette and a true queen Murphy bed are highlights of the Rockwood Mini Lite 2517

In other words, when there’s a choice Rockwood and Flagstaff tend to choose the better components or features or build methodology.

New for 2024

As with all companies Rockwood and Flagstaff continue to make changes for 2024 and there are a few things that have our little group of 10,000+ aficionados drooling. One of those is the upgrade to slam latches for the baggage doors.

Rockwood is a good brand but the tumbler latches on the baggage doors didn’t reflect the brand’s more up-level status. The slam latches are better. And now they’re there.

There is also an upgrade to the antenna system from previous years. The new antenna is Winegard product which is intended to improve both performance and also eliminate some of the structural issues with the previous antenna.

Another big change is pretty cool - a new refrigerator. This is an updated Magic Chef unit that was specifically designed to be an RV 12 volt product so is built for the road. But it also has a feature that is kind of magic, the door opens from either the left or the right. Nice! I also like the mechanical latches which are far better than its predecessor and closer to what we have in the refrigerator that we upgraded to in our own trailer.

Rockwood Mini Lite 2517s

For those who wish RVs had miles of counter space for meal prep or meal service, this might be your model.

This floor plan features counter top down the entire camp side of the trailer. I have seen this concept before including in the Grand Design Imagine XLS 17MKE that I reviewed. But this is a longer trailer and, thus, has more counter space. Plus I feel that the Rockwood/Flagstaff product is vastly superior to the Grand Design product including for the reasons I mentioned above.

Theoretically if you owned a sandwich shop and were known for your really long sandwiches you could prepare them in here and still have counter space left. I kid you not.

With all that counter space there’s also plenty of cabinets and drawers underneath. In fact, back to that long sandwich, you could have all your jars of pickles and pepperoncinis and all of those things at the waiting - you wouldn’t have to leave anything behind.

Rockwood has transitioned to a single large single-bowl sink from their two-bowl model used earlier - some prefer this, others don’t.

The interesting thing is that, for those who do bring counter-top appliances, there are places and plugs for those here.

In the slide room you have choices, just as you do with upholstery colors. You can get either theater seats or a king-sized u-shaped dinette here. I like that the table in the dinette is a free-floating table and while I usually would consider this additional prep space, I’m not sure anybody needs that.

You could bring that table over to the couch at the front of the trailer and have your meals there, too.

One area that might dissuade some buyers is the Murphy bed but know that Rockwood/Flagstaff have the best Murphy bed system in the business. Period. Bar none.

The bed doesn’t have to fold in half or do any other tricks. You can put a better mattress on it (we love our Ghost Bed!) or just a mattress topper and not worry about that bendy/folding nonsense. Plus this gives you a couch by day and a proper queen-sized mattress at night.

Outdoor kitchen

There’s an outdoor kitchen in this model as well consisting of a two-burner propane cook top and a small bar-sized fridge. That fridge can be operated by the 1800 watt inverter in included in this trailer so your contents will be the right temperature when you arrive at the camp site.

There’s also a hot and cold spray port with included hose and spray head to rinse things off.

Finally all Rockwood Mini Lite trailers come with a flat-top propane griddle and a metal table which slot into a rail on the side of the rig. So you can really cook up a storm and, with the spray port, clean up as well.

The outdoor kitchen in the Rockwood Mini Lite 2517S feature a two-burner propane stove and a small refrigerator which can be operated on the inverter

Boondocking and travel access

You do have full access to that huge counter space and the bathroom even with the slide room in. The one thing that the slide does block; however, is the function of the Murphy bed.

Rockwood trailers include a single 200 watt solar panel and, for 2024, an 1800 watt inverter. This means that you could run things like a CPAP overnight given that you have sufficient battery reserves. You can also get a second 200 watt panel as a factory-installed option.

Even with the slide closed you get access to most of the features in the new Rockwood Mini Lite 2517s

But, for those who truly want to stay off the grid, there is the optional Power Package with consists of 1,000 watts of solar on the roof, 400 amp-hours of battery and a 3,000 watts Combimaster inverter/charge controller. I have this system in my own trailer and it changes how we plan our travels since we don’t worry about needing hook-ups every night. In fact I’m writing this using the power from that system right now.

Rockwood trailers also have a device called the Shower Miser that redirects water back into your fresh water tank while you’re waiting for it to get hot at the shower. A sheath over the pipe changes colors once the water’s hot so you know to proceed.

The advantage of this is not wasting water waiting for it to get hot in the shower and is another feature we really like.

Also included are holding tank heaters for all holding tanks so you can extend your camping season.

New Magic Chef refrigerator opens both toward the interior in the Rockwood Mini Lite 2517S

My thoughts

If I sound like an enthusiast of what Rockwood (and Flagstaff) are doing it’s because I am. After a lot of research I bought my first Rockwood trailer in 2016 and towed that thing for half a decade with great success and a lot of adventures.

Our present Rockwood has been terrific and I’ve already clocked over 8,000 miles on it with nary an issue. I’m very pleased with how these are built and the features that are built in that actually do make a difference in the user experience.

Now I know some of you don’t like Murphy beds and the fact that you can’t use this one without extending the slide is probably the biggest drawback to this model. But the long counter top and big u-shaped dinette, or theater seats, might be enough of a counter (hehe) that this model makes a lot of sense.

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