RV review: 2023 Forest River Wildwood FSX 161QK travel trailer
Today’s RV review is of the 2023 Forest River Wildwood FSX 161QK travel trailer. This is essentially one of the best single-axle small travel trailer floor plans I have ever seen. How’s that? What makes it so special? We have the story today. Oh, and you can also get this as a Salem FSX 161QK. Same trailer, different stickers.
Why I love the Wildwood FSX161QK
I have a thing for smaller travel trailers simply because they open up the door to so many opportunities by virtue of their size. You can get by with a less-capable tow vehicle but you can also pop them into spots larger RVs won’t fit. With single-axle, no slide trailers they are always fully accessible inside and tend to be lighter and simpler.
But often small trailers of this size have the disadvantage of being a series of very significant compromises. For example, my first trailer was a single-axle no-slide trailer and it had a Murphy bed. That’s all well and good but when the bed was down, there was no couch. There was a dinette, but still.
Further the bedroom and kitchen were all in the same space so if I wanted to make coffee I would have to turn on the vent fan and they are always noisy in RVs. Always. If you’re camping near a graveyard and kick on that kitchen vent fan, you might arouse the residents. So making coffee while someone is trying to sleep isn’t really all that practical and waking up without coffee, well that’s just wrong.
Sleeping well in the Wildwood FSX161QK
Despite being just 23’ 6” in total length and weighing in at 3,691 pounds this trailer actually has a separate bedroom with a walk-around RV queen. I know, I’ve lost some of you with this being an RV queen but there do have to be some compromises.
Being a Wildwood/Salem product means that many of the unique things that that brand celebrates are here in this little trailer. For example, under the bed is a shelf and on that shelf are a number of totes. You could take these soft-sided totes in and out and have them ready for camping with whatever clothes you need.
The shelf and totes share space with a cavernous space under the bed and that bed is held up with gas struts. You can also access this space from outside the camper through a lockable hatch.
While the night stands on either side of the bed have some of the smallest amount of surface space I have seen in any RV, they do have a cabinet in front so they are additional storage.
Many travel trailers with the beds up front have very deep cabinets on either side of the bed to make the front pass-through storage larger. Since the bedroom on this is at the back of the camper this isn’t a concern so the night stands are very short meaning it’s much easier to get into the bed than on most towable RVs.
With the bedroom at the back there are also a surprising number of windows around the bed with there being one over the head board plus a very large window on either side of the bed. Unfortunately the blinds here aren’t the best so if you like a completely dark room you might be over at the Lippert store shopping for replacements.
The bathroom in the Wildwood FSX161QK
The bathroom is in the middle of the camper and bisects the floor plan. This gives you two doors between the bedroom and the main living space which is unheard of in a camper of this size.
Space around the toilet and in the shower are surprisingly generous and this is a place where you can easily accomplish all the things you came in here to do.
Since I mentioned the living space it’s not bad either. At the very front of the trailer is a U-shaped dinette. A table slots into a mount at the very front of the “U” and can swivel to let folks in or accommodate different sizes of people.
I am actually not much of a fan of these only because I think that some people can more easily break these off, but that’s just my impression and not based on actual facts. I mean, who uses actual facts anyway? Oh, wait, that’s the point of these reviews - to help you by providing those.
This space also can make into a bed that can accommodate two.
The kitchen is a smaller “L” shaped affair with a round sink and a two-burner in-line stove. There is no oven but there is a microwave. This would be one of those situations where I wish you could option in a convection microwave.
There is more cabinet and drawer space than you might expect in a rig of this size.
Also, the fridge on these is a 12 volt model but one that has doors that open to the left or to the right. This is a pretty nifty gadget and those of you who like vintage appliances will remember this type of functionality in Philco fridges of the 1950s.
Exterior features of the Wildwood FSX161QK
Wildwood (and Salem) are unusual in that the standard version of this trailer is a wood-framed aluminum-skinned affair. From there you can also option an fiberglass-skinned version in their “Platinum” package. The advantage of doing so is that you get a bit easier maintenance but the wooden substrate used with the fiberglass skin adds weight and that can really affect the cargo carrying capacity when you’re in a trailer this small.
A wood-framed aluminum-skinned trailer is just fine and is less expensive but do know that you should be more diligent in your regular inspection of the seals around windows and doors and such. No biggie, just something to do.
Know the difference in RV construction types
One of the things that really struck me is how long the awning is on this given the overall length of the trailer. There is also a decent amount of camp-side window coverage although the bedroom does get the lion’s share of this.
There’s also a flat-top griddle that takes-up a portion of the front pass-through storage and mounts on a drawer slide mechanism. I can see some people delighted with this and others looking for their screw guns as soon as they get home.
My thoughts on the Wildwood FSX161QK
This is absolutely a unicorn floor plan with a fixed (as opposed to folding) walk-around bed, privacy between the bedroom and the living room and great space in the bathroom in a trailer of this length.
Further, Wildwood and Salem have some things that I really like including those portable totes for storage but also the access-I-belly which is a segmented underbelly enclosure so you can remove panels you need to affect any repairs or inspections rather than having to peel back the whole cover.
There are a few things I don’t like about this floor plan including the fact that the furnace is not ducted so if the two bathroom sliding doors are closed the bedroom is shut off from heat.
Conversely the air conditioner is ducted which is highly unusual in a trailer of this size.
I happen to have a lot of friends who are single campers looking for smaller trailers and this one just pushed to being in my top five in this category.
It is at the more affordable end of the price spectrum so you get cheap tires and have to option in a power tongue jack, but that’s not bad with the rest of what’s so right about this model. I really like this unique little unicorn and think it deserves a look if this is your style of camping.
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