Pop up as a base camp for family hiking?

[Cristobal]

My wife and I are pretty avid four season campers and hikers. We occasionally backpack, but more typically we drive to a car campground, pitch a tent, and go out on day hikes, paddling, biking, etc., and are back at the campsite to enjoy fresh food and cold beer at dinner.
We're expecting a baby girl this summer, our first, and we hope to keep camping and hiking with her and any siblings that may follow. I'm worried about the logistics of tent camping with an infant, so I've been considering a small pop up camper trailer.
My question is wether anyone is using a pop up trailer as a base for hiking and camping with kids, and how useful do you find it? Is it easy to find campgrounds that accommodate a small trailer and also offer access to good hiking trails? Does it make it easier or harder to set up and break camp? Do you find many campgrounds open in winter? Does a pop up stay warm enough to keep small children comfortable in winter?
I'd be grateful for any thoughts on your experience.

 

[peakbagger]

I don't have personal experience but here are my observations from folks I have met over the year. Most folks who buy pop ups end up replacing them within a few years with a larger either fifth wheel or full bore motor home. A standard camper be it pop up, fifth wheel or motor home is not well suited for winter conditions, there are units set up for these conditions but they are rare and cost more money. They have to be kept heated minimally all winter while at home or on the road. Most folks just winterize them with antifreeze when its gets below freezing and find other hobbies for winter. More than few folks try to push the season and end up having freeze damage at least once in their career. If they are lucky they can thaw things out but most campers are not designed for easy repairs so if there is damage its either costly or time consuming.

Pop ups with fabric tops or sides when left up for long periods tend to have a short life. UV attacks most fabrics eventually as well as sap from trees and the folks I know of figure about 5 years at best for campers left out all the time. If put away wet and not dried out, mold and mildew can be an issue for campers that are only used on weekends. There are frequently great sounding deals for popups with marginal fabric and many folks may not know what to look for. Replacing the fabric is expensive as its inevitably has to be custom built.

Most campgrounds have shifted to long term campers who lease out spots for the season or intervals of a season. There are some drive up spots plus the NF campgrounds that accommodate short term campers.

If you have unit with a toilet, it adds a lot of maintenance that most folks don't realize and campgrounds with sewer hookups for short term are rarer. Emptying a holding tank is generally a PITA.

Be aware that like many hobbies, the camping life is not for all and many campers end up becoming yard ornaments. If you look around, good used units are always for sale.

 

[sierra]

I do not like Pop-ups. I don't like the canvas and screening, god forbid you put it away wet you have reset it up like a tent. You would be better served getting a self inclosed camper and it doesn't have to be big.

 

[yogi]

We had a baby girl in February and went this way. It has worked out great. A pop up would be nice in the sense that you could leave it at camp and the girls could hang if they were not up for a hike.

 

[Dana]

When our children were infants we considered a popup but ended going up with a small (13') box trailer (Winnebago, from back when they didn't just make motor homes). We didn't want to deal with setting up a popup after a late arrival when the babies needed to sleep. We'd configure it for sleeping (it was one of those where the couch converts into one bed, and the dining table to another). We used it for a few years, then went back to tents when the kids were older.

But before we got it we camped in a tent with our 6 month old daughter.

 

[skiguy]

We've done the whole gambit of Campers and I would say that the Pop-up we owned was my least favorite of all. They all have there advantages and disadvantages. The thing I really didnot like about the pop up was all the popping up and down. You need to pop it up before you leave to pack it and the pop it down to drive to your destination. Then when you get there you have to pop it up again. When you leave you have to pop it down. When you get home you have to pop it up to unpack it and air and clean it out. Then you have to pop it down again to store it. Lot's of popping all around.

 

[skiguy]

We had a baby girl in February and went this way. It has worked out great. A pop up would be nice in the sense that you could leave it at camp and the girls could hang if they were not up for a hike.
View attachment 5256

Nice looking bus. I had a couple of these. This one looks in real nice shape. Too bad VW stopped making any kind of "Transporter" just recently. I really like this kind of set up except for the soft top during the Winter months and also not being able to leave it in camp as you mentioned. Enjoy the memories with your new family. Your daughter will be asking for the keys to that thing before you know it!

 

[sardog1]

"It depends on what your definition of 'pop-up' is."

We own a 2009 Aliner Ease, essentially the option-loaded version of their Expedition. It has rigid panels and can be set up, from hitched on the vehicle to leveled and fully ready for occupancy, in about twenty minutes. It has a SURPRISING amount of headroom. It has a heater, refrigerator, microwave, shower, toilet, air conditioner, dining table and two beds. We had no intention of spending for all those amenities until we stumbled across a slightly used one, being sold on consignment by a single woman who found the panels hard to lift. We have camped in it in the winter and found it pretty comfortable for that.

This thing is built to be hauled into some fairly rough locations, certainly anything you'd want to drive to in the Northeast and many places out West. It tows like a dream behind a 4Runner with a six.

I grew up canoe camping as a kid, then moved on to backpacking and winter camping. It was tough to wrap my head around the whole RV concept, until I stepped into this thing. YMMV.

 

[griffin]

We did a lot of car camping in a pop-up Starcraft as a kid, and I loved it. I don't recall camping in the winter, but it was definitely comfortable in early Spring/late Fall. I don't think the popping up and down was any worse than dealing with a tent (and one would hope the technology has improved in the past 35-40 years), and it gives you more room to haul stuff and keeps that stuff out of your car. Unlike a camper van, you don't need to haul it with you to the trailhead. Can't speak to the cost, space and ease-of-use vs. a hard-sided trailer, but we were able to get it into smaller sites than our friends/fellow campers with even small trailers from what I recall and it was definitely easier to store (took up less room) at home.

 

[TomK]

I enjoyed it as a teenager

Like griffin, I did a lot of 3 season camping with my parents when I was younger. Ours was a Cox camper. When we arrived at a site, we'd unhook it, and my Dad and I had no difficulty wheeling it into whatever spot seemed best. I don't recall any difficulty putting it up or down, Dad and I could get that done in pretty short order. I wouldn't say it's much easier or more difficult than dealing with a tent, just different. But if you are organized and have a good method of making camp with a tent, you should be able to do the same with a pop up camper.

You definately need to pop it to dry if you packed it wet, and if you did that, after drying, just pack it for the next trip before closing it. If it was dry, we'd just put anything that needed to go into the house when we got home in the car, so no need to unpack it when we got home.

The weekend of Woodstock, we were across the VT border at Lake St Catherine "enjoying" the thunderstorms that occured that weekend. But we stayed dry

TomK