RV podcast - 12 small high-quality RV trailers
Our 12 favorite brands of small high-quality travel trailers: RV podcast 369
What are the best brands of small travel trailers? Who makes the highest-quality trailers in a smaller and more easily towable size? Today we have our 12 favorite high-quality compact trailers for 2027. The StressLess Dozen?
Tony railroaded our brother in law Kerry into a tour of the garage of a passenger train line. Maybe you’ll recognize it from about a year ago.
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Mentioned on this episode
We have a full written story about our 12 favorite brands of small high-quality RV trailers
You can join Tony as he nerds out over being given a shop tour of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
If you’re confused about solar, battery power or just want to upgrade your RV we have found the solutions from ABC Upfitters are both reliable and exceptional.
We have a podcast episode and video where you can learn more here.
Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 369
Peggy
What are the best brands of small travel trailers?
Tony
Who makes the highest quality trailers in a smaller and more easily towable size?
Peggy
Today we have our 10— no, I mean 12 favorite high-quality compact trailers for 2027.
Tony
The Stressless Dozen.
Peggy
I think that's what we should call it.
Peggy
Also, Tony railroaded our brother-in-law Kerry into a tour of the garage of a passenger train line. Perhaps you'll You might recognize it from about a year ago when we talked about it.
Tony
Yeah, he wasn't steamed at all. We have this week's podcast along with the notes and all the stories that go with this episode, plus discounts, deals, helpful tips, and more, more at our home on the web at stresslesscamping.com.
Peggy
Thank you for joining us.
Peggy
Thank you for liking. Thank you for sharing. But especially thank you for joining us for this episode 369.
Tony
Stressless Camping. I'm Tony.
Peggy
I'm Peggy.
Tony
And we're 2 RV industry veterans who travel part-time in a not quite so small trailer, looking to share— looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips, tricks, and discounts.
Peggy
Forget to say—
Tony
how about to say it again? Well, at least we have our blooper.
Peggy
It's only 368 times that you've said it before. I find myself always leaning in against you. I need to remember to sit up.
Tony
I like it.
Peggy
Well, yeah, but I think because I think I'm not Oh my.
Tony
Oh my.
Peggy
Oh my. Okay, so this week we got an email from one of the millions of places that we get emails, and they said, are you sure— well, I'm paraphrasing— that you're maintaining your slides properly? And so I thought this would be a good time to remind you that if you have a Lippert slide, which most of you do, You can find the maintenance guide on Lippert's website, and we will put a link in the show notes. I think I have a QR code I can put right here.
Peggy
You don't want to just generically follow the same rules that everybody else follows. You want to do what's right for the kind of slide that you have.
Tony
Yeah, and there's— you will get all kinds of misinformation on social media. Lippert actually has these videos that take you step by step, not through— not only for maintenance, but Adjustment, repairs, things like that, right? So that's the place to go.
Tony
So you are in the know, and you don't— your slide blow.
Peggy
Okay, I think you can stop now.
Tony
So people don't go, no!
Peggy
Oh geez. All right.
Peggy
Hey, is it spring yet? Oh, wait a minute, I think we, we missed spring. But this week we did some spring cleaning in our Rockwood Mini Lite.
Tony
Yeah, top to bottom, front to back.
Peggy
Yeah, and in this summer heat That would have been really miserable, really impossible to do if we couldn't run our air conditioner.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
And that would be impossible to— well, not impossible.
Tony
We'd have to hook up a 30-amp plug.
Peggy
That would be a real pain to do because we're on the wrong— parked on the wrong side of the house.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
But since we have a lithium and solar system from ABC Upfitters, we were able to just turn on the air conditioner, cool it down enough in there to work, and get in there and work.
Tony
Yep. I actually could turn on the inverter with my phone.
Peggy
Yes.
Tony
Turned on the air conditioner, we still have to push a button like cavemen.
Peggy
Gosh.
Tony
But that'll change soon enough. But the nice thing is we can run the air conditioner on battery power. And the solar and lithium system that ABC Upfitters installed, it's reliable. It just works.
Tony
We haven't been camping in a little longer than we would like to admit. Yeah, it's been a while. But just fired it up and bing bang boom, we're rocking and rolling and chilling.
Peggy
I guess one good thing about summer and heat is that there's plenty of sunlight. So all those solar panels up there on the roof were keeping that battery nice and charged so that we could run our air conditioner, so that we could run our vacuum cleaner.
Peggy
Yeah, sort of.
Tony
And refrigerator. We keep extra rub in the outside fridge. So anyway, if you would like a system that's reliable and just works, give our friends at ABC Upfitters a call at 574-333-3225.
Peggy
That's 574-333-3225.
Peggy
Check the show notes, check the QR code for more information.
Tony
Yep.
Peggy
A long, long time ago—
Tony
In a galaxy far, far away.
Peggy
In 2020, Tony wrote an article about the top high-quality small size travel trailers that he liked.
Tony
And that thing just is still one of the most popular things at Stressless Camping.
Peggy
But now it's almost 7 years old, so we just— so we decided— we didn't— I didn't decide anything. Tony decided that this was a good time to update that article. So he's been working on his list, and I think the, the previous list was like 5 or 6 trailers, and he said he was doing 10, and I counted, there's 12.
Tony
Hey, I, I can only count up to 10 with my hands unless I take my shoes off.
Peggy
So I'm calling it the Stress Less Dozen. This is going to be small travel trailers. Yeah, but good quality. So we're focusing on the quality and we're only looking at the small trailers. So the combination— a lot of these companies also build bigger trailers But we are going to just focus on the small ones.
Peggy
Maybe someday Tony will write the 12 best midsize travel trailers or something like that.
Tony
You never know.
Peggy
It seems like a lot of people really, especially solo campers, are looking for something small.
Tony
And there are some really great choices. Yeah, there's big choices in little trailers.
Peggy
Oh, clever. So in order to not show any favoritism or show our bias too strongly, We are going to do these alphabetically, and so I'm going to start with A. Do you got anything with an A?
Tony
I do. Uh, I really like the Airstream Basecamp.
Tony
It is a different— if you're used to the Twinkie shape of a normal Airstream, this is different, but it's still similar in that it's an aluminum exterior. I like this because it has a door or a hatch at the back, and you can put bikes and such in it. It's got this dinette at the back that you could sit face to face, or it turns into a bed. I also like the big windshield in the front. So a lot I like.
Tony
And of course, it's Airstream, so it does have some of the better features. But it also is probably the most expensive on the list. I would imagine it's by far the most expensive on the list.
Peggy
On this list of buses today? On this list.
Tony
Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, without a doubt. It's like you could buy 3 of some of the other trailers for one of these Airstream Basecamps.
Peggy
Yeah.
Peggy
Now I'm going to say right now that there might be brands that we're going to talk about today that some of our listeners, some of our people have never heard of.
Tony
Well, you just find the article at stressescamping.com and there'll be a link.
Peggy
But my point is, I don't know anyone who's never heard of Airstream.
Tony
No, that's, that's for sure. By the way, I haven't had a chance to look at it.
Tony
We will In September. But Airstream does have a new Caravelle, which is the small trailer. Like, it's also a very small Airstream trailer that's traditional Airstream.
Peggy
So they used to have a Caravelle.
Tony
They did.
Tony
And our friend Eagle has one.
Peggy
That's right. So they discontinued it and now they've brought it back.
Tony
It's back, Jack.
Peggy
That's very cool.
Peggy
Yeah. All right, we're still on A, I think.
Tony
Yeah, we are. Okay, so the next thing I wanted to talk about is Aliner. And some of you are like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, pop-up?
Tony
I don't like— I don't want no stinking pop-up trailer. But truthfully, these newer pop-ups are not that difficult to pop up, right? The nice thing is, let's say you live in an HOA, for example, and they're like, oh, no, we don't want to see your RV outside. These things are garageable.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
And also, one of the big impediments of towing for something, you know, like smaller tow vehicles is the wind resistance. Well, these things sit completely behind your vehicle, so they're not that challenging to tow. And yes, you can get them with toilets and showers inside or not. There's— they make a variety of different sizes. We did interview the president of Aliner, and we'll put a link to that in the show notes.
Tony
But they've been doing those pop-up trailers for 40 years now.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
And doing a good job.
Peggy
They know what they're doing.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
I think you mentioned it, but it used to be a lot more work, I think, to lift the roof pieces of an Aliner shape. trailer. And they've, you know, with modern technology and everything, uh, I mean, I know there are some that just push a button, but that's not really what I'm talking about. They're like the hydraulic lifts and stuff. So it's really, really kind of self-lifting.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
And even if you don't get the power lift, there's gas struts. So they're not—
Peggy
That's what I'm trying to say.
Tony
They're not difficult to put up.
Tony
You know, the challenge of them, of course, is that you can't get to the kitchen or bathroom when you're on the road.
Peggy
Sure.
Tony
Right. I mean, everything's folded into a box. So that's, you know, that I could see that as a legitimate counter to why you wouldn't want one, but they're still cool.
Peggy
But that towability is— there's something really to put that one higher to the top of the list.
Tony
And they're well made.
Tony
They, they tend to last a long time.
Peggy
Yeah. B? No. C, D, E. How about C, D, E?
Tony
C, D, E.
Peggy
We kind of have a tie here.
Tony
Yeah, it's Tacita and Escape, and They're both those fiberglass egg trailers. I mean, you probably already know what a Casita is. It's like a little fiberglass egg.
Tony
They don't have slides. They're built kind of like boats. So they build a bottom and a top shell and then kind of fuse it together.
Peggy
Almost like 2 boats stuck together at the middle.
Tony
Yeah, they're like 2 boats or 2 bathtubs stuck together and fused around the middle.
Tony
And the advantage of that is that there are just a lot fewer seams. So you see some of these Casitas from like decades ago.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
Still showing up on ads and they're fine. You know, they, as long as they're reasonably well taken care of, they still look good.
Tony
Escape is a Canadian company and they're similar in how they build things, but they're very flexible in how you order them. So you order directly from Escape. And they will tailor all kinds of fabrics and colors and features on the inside. So I really like that aspect of Escape. But Casitas are made in Texas, so you can just go right to— well, if you're in Canada, you just go to where Escapes are made.
Peggy
Sure.
Tony
They are neat little trailers that tend to last a very long time, and they are also relatively easy to tow. And now both Casita and Escape have, think a 24-foot. They have much longer versions now, so you can still get the tiny one, but you could also get longer ones now. Okay.
Tony
So of course, if you're really gonna go and you want something bigger and fiberglass, I'm gonna sneak in the Bigfoot. Oh, but that one is, is fairly large for a fiberglass egg trailer.
Peggy
And kind of heavy.
Tony
And heavy.
Peggy
But very weather resistant.
Tony
They're tanks. They're absolute tanks.
Peggy
Winter resistant. I guess so. Again, we have reviews.
Peggy
We'll put links for the Escape and the Casita. Oddly enough, both called the 21C.
Tony
Yeah, well, I was looking for the biggest ones they made when I wrote those. They have larger ones now, so maybe it's time to get a type in.
Peggy
And they have smaller ones too.
Tony
Yeah, they have smaller ones too.
Peggy
Okay, uh, let's see, we're still on E.
Tony
Yeah, and we're gonna visit our friends in Indiana, uh, Ashley Bontrager and Christopher Barth. And that means we are looking at the Ember RV. And Ember RV— so Ashley and Christopher, we interviewed them.
Tony
They're 2 of the founders of Ember who are just celebrating their 5-year mark.
Peggy
Mm-hmm.
Tony
Congratulations, guys. They started out as sort of a different way of looking at how to design trailers. And Ember's the only company I know of that actually has a campground on their property, and they actually have Like loaner trailers for some of the employees.
Peggy
And I don't know if they require, but they definitely encourage the employees to use them. Use the trailers, go camping, understand what it is that a camper, a person who's camping in a trailer, wants in a trailer. Yeah.
Tony
So there's a lot of stuff that Ember has developed that is now showing up in other brands of trailer. For example, They worked with Curt to develop the Touring Coil Suspension, which is really my favorite trailer suspension system.
Tony
They have blinkers that are like redundant blinkers on the upper ends of their trailers. And there's so many things that they do that are just cutting edge or state of the art. Well, they're unusual, but not in a bad way. For example, EmberTrac. EmberTrac is A provision where it's like rails on the sides of a space in the trailer, and it lets you put in bunks or hammocks or just tie up bicycles or create a desk or have an auxiliary space for the kitchen or however you want to do it.
Tony
And it's just such a useful thing inside a trailer. And Embers have been pretty well made. So they do have 3 series. They have their E-Series, which is Essential, and that's kind of their entry level. But they're not entry level like cheap, right?
Tony
They're—
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
They are not. Embers aren't cheap, but they're not like Airstream expensive. So there's the E-Series Basic, you know, like entry level, or Essentials is what it stands for.
Tony
There's now the Touring Edition, which was reimagined last year, and that one is was designed around the touring coil suspension, and that was an Ember design, or, you know, Ember was complicit in that design. And then they have their Overland Edition, which is my favorite personally, and that has the CURT fully independent suspension, and it's got like metal edging around the exterior. It's just built completely differently. But they're relatively heavy and beefy. Even their smaller trailers are not that much smaller in the Overland series, but they're still— they, they just do a good job.
Tony
So if you haven't heard of them, heard of them.
Peggy
Yeah. In all those series, you can get kind of a range of sizes.
Tony
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Peggy
But I would imagine the Touring probably tends to be on the bigger side because it's more like long trip Kind of focused.
Tony
Yeah, the E-Series you can get all the way down to a little teardrop-like size. Oh yeah, yeah, we debuted that.
Peggy
That's right, I remember that.
Tony
Yeah, so, and then up to, you know, like full-on travel trailer size.
Tony
So another thing I really like about the Ember, especially the Overland, they are one of the only companies that actually puts their RVs into a climate chamber, and they're like, no, we We don't just say this is winter ready. They're winter ready. They've tested the doggone thing down to 0 degrees. So Ember, that's something only a few companies do, and Ember is one of those.
Peggy
We're on E, F, G, H. I feel like I'm that nurse asking Hector what word he wants to spell.
Tony
Wait, let me get my bell.
Peggy
I.
Tony
InTech. So InTech is another company. It's an independent.
Tony
Ember's independent, and so is InTech. In fact, a lot of these are.
Peggy
Sure.
Tony
They are not part of the bigger RV companies.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
InTech is a company that makes a lot of commercial trailers. So cable splice trailers and utility trailers and car haul trailers and all that. And the way they do it, they build the frame and like a cage, an aluminum cage in their shop. So the frame and this cage structure are all one, you know, they're all welded together. So it's really strong.
Tony
And then for their travel trailers, if they are a fiberglass shell trailer, then the fiberglass is put on the outside, or like those OVRs, which is a bigger trailer. That is an aluminum skin trailer, but it's put to the outside of this. So they really use a lot of state-of-the-art stuff or best in class, like torsion axle suspensions and a lot of other stuff. And InTech has completely redesigned the Sol Dusk for 2027, and it's a single axle. You can get it with twin beds.
Peggy
But the cool thing is those twin beds There's like always an insert. Yeah, I mean, a lot of, a lot of brands, if there's twin beds, you can also put an insert in there and make a big old king the whole width of the trailer.
Tony
Yeah, yeah, which is pretty cool. And then for 2027, they have a new outdoor kitchen option, so you don't have to have it. You could just have that as a cargo space.
Tony
But a lot of attention to detail, like the bathroom door in, in Tex is an actual sort of exterior-style door, and the way it's gasketed. So There's not a shower curtain, but it is a wet bath. So you close the door and now you're—
Peggy
And it seals.
Tony
Yeah, it seals from the rest of the trailer.
Tony
So a lot of neat stuff. InTech, I think, does a very, very good job.
Peggy
All right, IJKL. Lamps.
Tony
Lancer is the answer.
Tony
You probably have already heard of them. They're very well known for both truck campers and for travel trailers. And for a while, they were owned by a company called the REV Group, which makes all kinds of fire engines and all that kind of stuff. Well, REV Group basically got folded into Terex, who makes those giant dump trucks. Oh, my goodness.
Tony
And they're like, well, we really don't need a travel trailer company way the heck out in California. And so a guy who started Rexall Motorhomes and is just a very well known in the RV industry, even though he retired, he's like, I'll buy it. And he did. And they are really refocusing Lance on the quality and the innovation that Lance had been known for for years that may or may not have faded a bit under—
Peggy
Under the REV Group.
Tony
REV Group. So they're just busting butt there in California and working to bring Lance not only back, but kind of make it even better.
Peggy
One of the things I really liked about Lance is, and I think that more and more companies are starting to do this, but they were among the first that we saw that sort of intentional wiring.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
Wire harnesses where if a wire started at the battery as blue and went to a light fixture in the very back, it was still blue.
Peggy
And some companies, you know, they ran out of blue in the middle of the trailer and they'd just splice in some red to get to where they wanted to go. So if you were trying to fix your white in the back and you had a red wire and you're going to the front and you can't find a red wire, it was confusing. And I think that more and more, I mean, it makes a lot of sense to me. Like someone else that's not trying to build the trailer is building the harnesses and giving them, getting them ready. And then someone, then it's just a plug and play into the trailer itself.
Tony
Yeah. And that's also good because From my experience with warranties, what I found was the trailers that were intentionally wired tended to be wired much better and have fewer repairs. But on those rare occasions we did need to do a repair, it's like, no, the blue wire is always this brake light or whatever, instead of there's somebody on the assembly line just pulling wire. Oh, I need 40 feet of wire. Well, there's green.
Peggy
I'll use that. Yeah.
Tony
It's a better way of doing it. And that's a lot of how Lance does things.
Peggy
They're also very, very kind of winter ready, right?
Peggy
They make them very well insulated and very 3-season or whatever.
Tony
Yeah, they do. They are very well insulated, and a lot of them are available with generators on board or provision for a generator. So kind of neat. Kind of neat stuff.
Peggy
You have a favorite, I think.
Tony
Well, and it's not that small, but by gosh, I love the Lance 2075. It's a no-slide, so there you go, no-slide trailer. It's got this huge U-shaped dinette in the back, and you can get this pull-out kitchen outside in the back, and you could be passing stuff back and forth with this big window that flips up. I like the Lance 2075 a lot.
Tony
M-N—
Peggy
Nucamp.
Tony
We are the knights who say Nucamp. Nucamp is another brand that not everyone has heard of, and they've traditionally made the Tab, which is a teardroppy looking trailer. They really have earned a great reputation for how they build these.
Tony
So there's the Tab, which is a teardrop Now they have the Haven series, which is new, and it's more of a traditional kind of squarer travel trailer, but with a lot of what NuCamp has done. So, like, this has the stargazer window. But the big news for NuCamp fans is there's a dry bath. So that means no taking a shower and sitting on the toilet at the same time.
Peggy
Yeah, but that was convenient for shaving legs.
Tony
Yeah, that's true. Although some of the TABs have no bath.
Peggy
Right.
Tony
So, right, this has the full bathroom and it's a dry bath. It also— some, some of the things I like about them is they use an Alde heating system, which heats both the water and the interior, and they are just silent.
Tony
So at night you don't hear the, the heater come on like a freight train. Not that I have anything against freight trains.
Peggy
So you do have a couple of reviews that we'll put links to from New Camp. And O, P, Q, R.
Tony
R. Although you could put the E.
Peggy
Or E or G.
Tony
Yeah. But anyway, it's the Rockwood Geo Pro and Flagstaff E-Pro. And what happened is a few years ago, Rockwood was like, hey, instead of everybody's small trailers being the cheap entry level, let's just make them the same as our larger trailers. just smaller.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
And the rest of the industry went, what? And the customers went, yes please, yes please. And they sold a ton of them, and they still do. These are the Rockwood Geo Pro and Flagstaff E-Pro, the smaller.
Tony
A lot of them are single axle, but not, not all.
Peggy
All. But I think that it, it was all kind of the Rockwood Mini Lite slash Micro Lite, Flagstaff Micro Lite line, right? Because our first travel trailer was a 1905. It was a Mini Lite 1905.
Peggy
And by the time we were shopping again, yeah, it was 1905 single axles were called Geo Pros, right? And it kind of split— the Mini Lites stopped at 21 feet and the Geo Pros went from 19 down to whatever.
Tony
Geo Pros are also narrow, so ours was a full width.
Peggy
Oh, I see.
Tony
These are, are 7.5 feet, I believe.
Peggy
Okay.
Tony
But they are built the same, the same vacuum laminated walls that Rockwood laminates in-house, same vacuum laminated roof. They have just the same cabinetry, most of the— all the same features. Even the ovens are 21-inch ovens. So still Dexter torsion axle.
Tony
aluminum framing on things like beds and dinettes. So they're, they're not cheap. They're not stupidly expensive, but they're not cheap. But they are smaller, and they've done some creative things with them. They also have a thing, that HeyPower Pro.
Tony
Oh, if you're listening in your trailer, I'm sorry.
Peggy
Sorry.
Tony
It's like Hey Slow Mo, you know, that lives in my phone. But it's instead, it lives in your trailer. So you can say, you know, hey Power Pro, you know, turn off the lights.
Tony
Now some of you are going to be sitting in the dark, but I don't know if that's good or bad, but it, it is what it is.
Peggy
It is what it is. We were on R. What comes after R? S?
Tony
S.
Peggy
Oh yes, S.
Tony
Well, we're gonna go back up to Canada and we're going to look at the Safari Condo line. And these are interesting, very light trailers that are smaller but not small. How does that sound? It's a Canadian company.
Tony
And when I finally got to see them in person last year at open house, and they're all speaking French, and there was a language barrier because they speak English, right? But not— that's not what they do all the time. So again, torsion axle. They use this alufiber wall And it's like an aluminum on the outside and then like plastic fiberglass on the inside, then aluminum on the, um, the other side, right? So it's really strong and really light.
Tony
It is not the greatest at insulation though. So if you're a winter camper, you might consider elsewhere. I've been told these are also, when it gets really, really hot, they get really, really hot.
Peggy
But if your goal is really, really light, That's the way.
Tony
Yeah.
Tony
And so like the— they use the cutouts for the windows for like bed bases, and they're, they're really efficient and really well made. They use a Truma Combi water heater and furnace. Um, I think they use the Truma Venta air conditioner, torsion axle. None of them have slides. There's a couple— the Safari Condo Alto A2124 is an odd, very aerodynamically shaped trailer.
Tony
We have reviews of these, so you're going to want to go see them. They are different looking, but they are neat.
Peggy
Say a little bit more about that window to the bed thing. What did you say? They use the window cutouts for the bed?
Peggy
Oh, whoa, whoa.
Tony
Yeah, so when you're building wall, you know, there's where the window goes, you cut that out so they can use that as like a dinette base, the same alu fiber piece of panel.
Peggy
Yeah, okay, so they don't throw away the insert that they cut out from, right? No, they use it another place.
Tony
Yeah, and it makes sense.
Peggy
If you ever notice that your dinette seat and your window are the same size, this is why. Yeah, let's stick with this and go with the Sylvan SylvanSport.
Tony
Good old SylvanSport. Okay, so this is a trailer that barely qualifies as a travel trailer.
Peggy
It's an RV.
Tony
It's a tent trailer sometimes. And what this is, is it's a very small single axle trailer that you can order a tent that fits on top of. And when you put the tent on, it's pretty big. But it's a tent. However, you can take the tent off easily, and now you have a little gear hauler, like a little motorcycle trailer.
Tony
Or, you know, if you're— let's say you're driving a Subaru, whatever, and you're like, oh, I need to go to the lumber store and buy some lumber. Well, now you have a little hauler.
Peggy
Gear trailer.
Tony
So there's no built-in infrastructure on this trailer, which is good. Because winterizing is a breeze, right?
Tony
But you could get like, you know, portable toilet, and we have all this boondocking stuff and outfit this trailer, and now you have a full-on camp trailer.
Peggy
So almost like camping. We take all our tent camping supplies and just put it in this trailer with the tent on top, and then we're not in a tent. But we're in a tent.
Tony
Right.
Tony
So I mean, yeah, it doesn't totally qualify as an RV per se because there's not much infrastructure built in, but gosh, they're really light. And you could have this, you know, like as a little weekender getaway. Or if you do have a smaller car, you know, it's like a Subaru or whatever, this should work. And they're not expensive and they are very clever. So it's a good choice for some people.
Peggy
Speaking of a good choice for some people, yeah, let's go to the letter T.
Tony
Yeah, this is our final entry and it's Taxa. And we went to Houston, we did not have a problem. We met Garrett, who is the founder of Taxa, and he was a NASA employee. And this is taxes the product of what happens when you have a NASA employee designing RVs, right?
Tony
They're truly unusual in every sense of the way. They look different, they function differently.
Peggy
They have some cool features, like very cool— for one thing, the steps, you can actually hold water cans.
Tony
Yeah, uh, they have this on some of them. The Mantis, there's a hinged shower base.
Tony
They have They have all these hooks inside where you could hang your utensils or— Or a hammock. Or a hammock, right. Again, not for everybody, but gosh, they're really neat. And again, high quality. So we did do an interview with Garrett Finney, and we have a review of the TAK Symantec 5.2.
Peggy
All right.
Tony
So there you go.
Peggy
So that was the Stress Less Dozen.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
Travel trailers.
Tony
Plus 2.
Peggy
Small travel trailers. I guess, you know, you could eliminate a couple, and then you— if you only like multiples of 10, that's okay. But regardless of which of these brands you buy, you're gonna want to keep your RV clean and shiny, and you can do that with Liqui Shine Wash and Absolutely.
Tony
It's the easy way to take good care of the look of your RV.
Tony
So they have roof wash, they have bug wash, you know, not that you're washing bugs, but you're cleaning them off your rig. I was talking to someone about— they said, oh, there's all these streaks on my slide wall and it's getting worse. And I'm like, well, then get the black streak cleaner because that That'll get that right off and make it nice and new again. And, you know, if you go to a campground, a lot of them say don't wash your RVs here anymore because of the water and getting the water in the groundwater and all that.
Peggy
Oh, yeah.
Tony
Well, here you don't need water with Liqui Shine. You just spray it on, you have a damp rag and wipe it off, and it protects and cleans. And it's just, it's a very good product from good people. When I was in Indiana a month ago or whatever, I went to Liqui Shine. My gosh, they have grown so much because it's just such a great product with good people.
Tony
A few weeks ago while we were visiting Pagosa Springs, I stole my brother-in-law and we made a trip up to the Durango and Silverton where we had a really terrific tour of of the shops there, and these are the largest steam shops in the US. They have a huge collection of steam locomotives. There's only 2 steam shops in the world bigger than this. We had Will give us a tour of all of the workings and how everything is operated there, and they can literally completely rebuild a steam locomotive right down to the wheels, which can go on this giant lathe. that they have there.
Tony
So it's a really impressive operation. Of course, we love the Durango and Silverton. That's where Peggy and I got remarried, or celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary last year. Just a fun time on a great train. And it was really interesting to see the back shops at the Durango and Silverton where they're working on both locomotives and passenger cars and just keeping everything in great working order.
Tony
It's a wonderful train ride, so if you like scenery or mountains or trains or any combination of that, I strongly recommend you board the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway. I do have a longer version of this video where I talk a little bit more about the shops and our experience, so if you want to geek out with me, you can find that linked in the show notes below or at our home on the web at stresslesscamping.com. Well, every week we ask our question of the week over at our fun and friendly Stressless Campers Facebook group. And last week—
Peggy
Last week I wanted to know if you were to attend an RV basic training camp, what kind of— just tell me the main thing that you'd really hope to learn at that camp.
Peggy
And I really appreciate I was happy to note to myself that most of the things that you would all like to learn are things that we do teach. I also tried to respond to all the comments so that either to say, I'm glad you learned that when you took our class, or why don't you book a class so that you can learn that? I know Toni specifically answered a question.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
for someone and stuff that we don't really cover.
Peggy
But honestly, as things change, you know, we haven't always had a big talk about lithium and solar.
Tony
And now it's almost ubiquitous.
Peggy
It's so universal. And we hardly ever used to talk about 12-volt refrigerators.
Tony
And now, like, yeah, you can't buy a gas electric almost at all.
Peggy
So, you know, we change as things change. So if you took a class 5 or 6 years ago and you think, Boy, now I don't know how to use my new trailer. Well, maybe it's time for you to help me book a new class in your area.
Tony
So we're looking, we're looking at booking for 2027.
Peggy
Yes, I would really like to fill up the year with RV basic training camps.
Peggy
So I will put my address here, peggy@stresslesscamping.com, and you can let me know if you're interested and we can work together. You can help me I'm not asking you to do much, just help me find a venue. Really, if that's all that you can do for me, that will help a lot.
Tony
Yeah, we really appreciate that. And then this week we asked, would you be comfortable in a small trailer?
Peggy
I think that for one person, or even for a couple that only goes out for weekends, especially like rallies where you go out with a groups and there's always themes and you want to decorate your trailer and stuff. I think a small trailer would be a lot of fun, but frankly, all the things that we've talked about today pretty much would not work very well for Tony's and my travel and working on the road for months at a time.
Tony
No, that's true.
Peggy
So if I had everything I wanted in the whole wide world, I'd also have a small Vintage travel trailer that we could do these like local rallies and then the trailer for travel.
Tony
Yep, absolutely.
Tony
So anyway, you can weigh in at our fun and friendly Stressless Campers Facebook group.
Peggy
Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe either to our YouTube channel or to an audio podcast. We really appreciate that you are here We really appreciate when you like and subscribe and tell your friends, enemies, and grocery store patrons. And we love that you are here for episode 369 of the Stressless Camping RV Podcast.
Tony
Yeah, remember, our free once-a-week newsletter delivers deals, discounts, and links to your inbox to make your adventures stressless camping.
Larry Richardson
We hope you enjoyed this week's adventure. Time to get out on your own journey, but don't forget to leave the review on your favorite podcast app and visit stresslesscamping.com for photos, stories, an RV calendar, and more. I'm Stressless Camper Larry Richardson wishing you happy camping.
