HAVE TRAILER WILL TRAVEL!--Part 5: Trailers Vs. Motor Homes! 13/07/79 DFO812-5
1. YOU COULD PULL ONE OF THOSE SMALL VANS BY HORSE, but one of these bigger campers, big motor-homes, it'd take a team of horses to drag one of those things!--Because you'd be dragging a heavy truck motor & chassis along with you! But most of your camp trailers are fairly small & light, & you can push them around by hand!
2. THEY'RE SO LIGHT & WELL-BALANCED that I saw a trailer man the other day pick up a 5-meter trailer by the tongue single-handed & just pull it along & park it where he wanted to move it to on his lot! I was amazed, because I didn't realise they were that light & well-balanced! If it's well-balanced, the wheels are right in the middle, & the weight on the tongue, ball or hitch is almost negligible!
3. WHEN THERE'S NO MORE GASOLINE OR OIL IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO MOVE YOUR BIG VAN OR HUGE MOTOR-HOME, as one horse would hardly be able to budge it! It'd take a team of two or four! But one horse could still pull your camp-trailer or small caravan, with proper adaptation, & you could still move or push it onto a boat & sail away!
4. THE GREATEST ADVANTAGE OF THE CAMPER-VAN OR BIG MOTOR-HOME IS THAT YOU CAN USE IT WHILE YOU RIDE! If you're doing a lot of travelling & you're on the road a great deal, that's one of the biggest advantages, together with the ease of handling & parking. But there's one big disadvantage to the camper-van or motor-home: when you get all camped & set up & then you want to go someplace, you gotta take your house with you! You can't separate the two, so wherever you go, you've gotta drive that house around, with its gas-guzzling engine & all that weight! So that is a big disadvantage.
5. MOTOR-CAMPERS ARE GOOD FOR VERY FREQUENT OR CONTINUOUS TRAVEL, but you have a big disadvantage in not being able to separate your transportation from your home, so that after you set up camp, you can't go any place without taking your house with you!--Whereas the trailer-caravan you can disconnect in a moment, & off you go, leaving your house behind! I would say that unless you're going to be travelling most of the time, a motor-camper is not for you.
6. SO IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE STATIONARY MUCH OF THE TIME, AS MOST CAMPERS ARE, A TRAILER IS BEST FOR YOU. Even though you might move frequently, your house can stay in one place while you go about your business in your car. You won't have to move your house for at least a few days, or maybe even a few weeks or months or all year! So you certainly don't want your vehicle of transportation tied onto your house so that you can't get loose! And in case of oil & gasoline failure, the motorised part wouldn't do you any good anyhow, if it's inextricably attached to the living quarters. You're just bogged down & sunk!
7. WHEREAS A TRAILER OR SMALL VAN could be pulled by a horse or pushed onto a boat, which would be quite difficult with one of these big heavy motor-campers or motor-homes as big as trucks or busses! Maybe they're gonna have rent-a-horse companies!--Hertz, Avis & Eurocar will have to go in for horses!
8. THERE'S GOING TO BE NOT ONLY A WORLDWIDE OIL SHORTAGE, BUT HORSE SHORTAGE, & SHORTAGE OF SAILBOATS & BICYCLES! A guy who has any kind of animal transportation or sailboat, or even a bicycle, is going to be the fellow that's well off in that day! That's one form of camping we neglected to mention--bicycling! You can have a pedal bike that you can pedal without gas & oil--no motor except you!
9. WITH A BIKE YOU'LL BE PRETTY SAFE THAT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE CAUGHT WITH YOUR MOTOR DOWN DURING THE OIL SHORTAGE! You can still pedal, still move! You can put your back-pack & bed-roll on the back end, & maybe have a bike for your wife & kids too! Two bicycles could carry you, your wife & two children, one behind each of you & a minimum of camping equipment, & you'd still be able to move!
10. OF COURSE, WHILE WE STILL HAVE GASOLINE, A MOTORBIKE OR MOTORCYCLE WOULD BE MORE CONVENIENT, because some are quite powerful & could carry saddle bags, camping equipment, a tent, cots, a stove & all the things you'd need to camp out--especially if there are two of you on two motor-bikes, & you can split the load & the equipment. - And the kids!
11. TWO CAN CAMP BETTER THAN ONE! Because you don't have to take much more camping equipment for two people, than you do for one! You could even ride a child or two behind you on each bike! So maybe whole families can go camping by motor-bike! Some motor-bikes also can have sidecars where someone can ride, or you can carry your duffel or whatever.
12. MY BOY PAUL, OR AARON, USED TO CARRY HUNDREDS OF HEAVY NEWSPAPERS IN HIS SIDECAR, & he just had a scooter with a sidecar. But it came in very handy to carry a lot of papers, & that's why he could deliver more papers than anybody else on Miami Beach!--Or maybe you'll want to get a horse or a camel or a sailboat! There are many different forms of gas-less transportation you could use if you're going to be a travelling camper.
13. HOWEVER, THE MOST PRACTICAL, CHEAPEST & MOST CONVENIENT IS THE TRAILER OR CARAVAN. If you're going to be a permanent year-around camper & traveller, by far the cheapest & most practical for both transportation & housing is a car & trailer, or caravan. This way you've got both your housing & your transportation, & you can separate the two.
14. ONCE YOU GET TO YOUR CAMP & GET YOUR TRAILER SET UP, YOU CAN DISCONNECT & TAKE OFF in your car to wherever you have to go, & commute back & forth.--You can also leave the family behind when necessary. Whereas you can't do that with a motor-camper or one of those huge house-cars! Also, when you have a car as well as the trailer or caravan, it's like having two rooms or double housing space. You can even sleep a couple of children on the car seats or other people in the van or station wagon you tow your trailer with.
15. I'VE ALWAYS FOUND A CAR VERY CONVENIENT FOR MY PRIVATE OFFICE WHILE CAMPING. I used to set up my typewriter on a box in front of the back seat of my taxi-cab & type my letters & do my work & business in the privacy & quiet of the car, away from the bedlam & hubbub of the trailer & the family & all the family life & kids! And even if it gets too noisy on the same lot, I just took off with the car to some place quiet & parked it & did my work there!
16. SO THERE'RE QUITE A FEW ADVANTAGES TO HAVING YOUR OWN AUTOMOBILE SEPARATE FROM YOUR TRAILER, & having separate transportation & extra room, & trailers are much less costly than the big fancy vans, motor-campers & motor-homes! Trailers are much cheaper, & that's another strong case in their favour with most of us poor missionaries! Whereas you can buy a small convenient camp trailer for so little, the average big Dodge motor-home or Winnebago or whatever can cost you three or four times as much! You might have to pay 5-6-7000 dollars for a new trailer, whereas a big Winnebago or Dodge Motor-Home can cost you 25 to 30 or 50,000 dollars on up!--As much as a house!
17. SO AFTER MANY YEARS IN BOTH CAMPERS & TRAILERS OF VARIOUS SIZES & KINDS & SHAPES, I'd advise a trailer for most of us. Of course, if you already have a motor-camper, Winnebago, Dodge motor home or big camping van, & it's all equipped & ready to go, & you're going to spend a lot of your time on the road, OK. But I would advise against going in that deep financially for most of us, unless somebody gives it to you, like your parents, which wouldn't be a bad idea!
--Right!--Why not get your folks to set you up in a trailer instead of a house or apartment?--Then you'd be free!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family