Kamparoo Trans-Continental delivered today!

[jmaxch]

Good morning everybody,

I am new on this forum but I thought I would give you my impressions from buying a Kamparoo Trans-Continental. First of all I will start by saying that I am not a crazy hardcore balls to the walls guy who is going to go rock climbing and crossing rivers but I just enjoy having the peace and quietness and not being stuck on the paved roads and I believe that the simpler things are, the more time I can actually enjoy life instead of spending my time fixing complicated systems. Anyway, I had a travel trailer before, it was a Quebec made Safari Condo Alto 1723, great unit but my main problem was that you could never go off the beaten path with this travel trailer, you would always be stuck in a paved road because it could not tilt very much before it actually touched on the back of it. It was nice and luxurious inside but still... Now after a couple years of research and some reading on the internet, I found Kamparoo campers and found out the only dealership for north america was in Alberta, Canada. I made my initial contact with Glen at Kamparoo on January 3rd and we started emailing back and forth several questions and specifications about the customization process. Glen is a fantastic guy, I had read some great comments on this forum and I can tell you that it is all true, I had not seen a easy buying process like that for a long time, you name it, he delivers. Anyway today is Feb 10th and my Kamparoo Trans-Continental has just arrived at my home in Québec province, 3600km away from where it was built from scratch to my specification. I am telling you guys, Glen and his team delivered above and beyond quality and they know how to take care of business. Anyway now it's time for me to enjoy this trailer, I am going in the USA for a 1.5 month road trip and I will let you know my impressions about liveability after that adventure.

Thanks a lot to Kevin T on this forum for explaining everything with lots of pictures and also explaining the delivery process because you need a little bit of logistic to get that baby out of a 43' van but I had everything ready and it took only 30 minutes from the time the van showed up to the time the Kamparoo was in my garage.

Find joined a couple of pictures of my unit, it looks fantastic if you ask me ahaha

I will add some more pictures later but I can't really open the camper now, too cold outside up here.

If you have questions let me know.

You guys have a great day!!

 

[Mark Harley]

She is a beauty.
Post more pictures when you get her unpacked and hitched up.

 

[jmaxch]

Hi guys, here is a few pictures of the construction and after that of the unit deployed in my parking.

I have bolted four (4) retractable binders on my roof rack and will be using that to secure cargo when I reach more favorable weather because for now anything I put outside will be full of salt and wet snow...

I am leaving for my trip with it tomorrow so more pictures in action to come.

 

[Jr_Explorer]

Awesome! Can't wait to see how it lives up to your adventures. More pics!

 

[loren85022]

looks like the start of a good venture.

 

[jmaxch]

Hello guys,

I realized that I did not do any comeback regarding my Kamparoo Transcontinental so here it is, a full review that I wrote to a couple we met in Florida that was interested in buying one plus some pictures of the road trip I did this winter in U.S.A and also some additionnal pictures of northern Québec.


Ease of setup: Honestly it really takes 2 minutes to setup. You can watch this video that shows you how it opens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovPbZ8SDILs


If you are going to spend more time in one spot and want additionnal shelter, the Add-a-Room will take you longer to setup. About 20 minutes perharps at the beginning to figure out how the poles works etc... It is quite nice, it surrounds one side of the unit and gives you the opportunity to have shelter for cooking, reading etc but during day time the mesh windows on the side panel allows for air and light to pass trought. It even includes a skirt that goes under the trailer and blocks the wind (and bugs) from entering your Add-A-Room.

Ease of towing is definitely an advantage over a conventional pop-up trailer. With only around 800 pounds, you do not need electric brake and it will brake and accelerate very well with the Subaru Outback. Never in the 11 909km that we had a situation requiring "un-pinning" or "near miss" situation. Sometimes we ended up in some dead-end roads and ohh well, just backed up and turned around at the first dirt intersection we found. In order to be able to reach 90 degrees angle with the car without damaging your aft bumper you will need a "tongue adapter" that is quite long. The drawback from a long "tongue adapter" is a more downward moment (weight x length) on the aft of the vehicle and also a reduced ground clearance when you take a vertical pitch, the tongue might touch the ground. Anyway when it comes time to go technical on what type of hitch and everything contact me and I will show you. So to sum it up, it's no stress at all to tow the Kamparoo, you can go groceries shopping around town and it's no big deal. We even screwed up in New-York and ended up in the middle of Manhattan with it and even tough I cannot say it was pleasant, it was by no means dangerous to get wedged.

Cargo capacity. This is to me another big advantage. Inside the Kamparoo you can put quite a lot of things in the center under bed storage but also on top of the bed itself before you close it. Keeping in mind that the suspension of the trailer is more rough than the suspension of the car, you can keep a lot of items that are not fragile inside the under bed storage. We were keeping there the Add-a-Room, dry food such as cans that we do not need immediately, any supply that you keep long term. On top of the bed, you can put around 1 foot high of stuff like folding camping chairs, folding table. Nobody knows it's there so no worries about getting it stolen if you park in the city. This frees up the car and provides better visibility for the driver. On top of the roof rack you can place items like Kayaks, Bikes, boards whatever really. The roof rack can hold up to 400 pounds. The only recommendation from Glenn is that if you are to carry a Kayak, you should secure it not only to the roof rack but also using straps to the main frame in order to prevent a updraft force to rip apart the whole roof. Since the roof becomes the floor and that is resting on some "legs" you have about of 10 inch of space left under and I use to leave my kiteboards strapped on it, did not have to get them out in order to open the camper. This goes as well for a bike rack, you will have to remove the bike itself but that takes 1min.

Comfort Ok I might be only 32 years old but I like a comfortable bed. The one that we got for the Kamparoo is the Deluxe Mattress. It is a Queen size bed with memory foam coming from Ikea. It has a folding 1/3 at the bottom of the mattress which you can flip over in order to access more easily the center storage. It is very comfortable and just like a tent you can play around with your windows to provide a nice comfortable breeze. One problem that we have experienced and I would like to share with you is that when camping in cold weather, condensation was forming under the mattress and we had to lift it up the next morning to dry the condensation underneath. This is probably due to the big temperature difference between us and the frame of the Kamparoo. I will look maybe this summer to "shoot" a isolation foam under the floor bed to avoid this. BTW, we were using a Propane heater called Mr Heater Buddy heater. It works well but we did not use it while sleeping. Probably if you use a electric-ceramic heater during all night long, you will not have humidity problem caused by temperature difference.

Cooking station: I was in a bit of a hurry to get delivery of the Kamparoo so I did not get the full cooking station that was being designed in Asia. What we had was a sliding tray where we stored common cooking items, cutlery and Coleman burner. Worked well but the space was not optimized like it should have been and some lost space results from having a slide-out tray if you do not take advantage of the full space. It worked well but I will get the "kitchen" unit at a later point because it helps. It is very nice to be able to have everything you need handy in a rest-area. Another good thing is to have water all the time. With 72 liters of water holding capacity, you will fill up only every now and then. The water system is very simple. You look visually at the tank which is partly transparent and see how much water is left. The hand pump provides the flow. I cannot say that the hand pump is "great" but it does the job. One of the drawback ( since we don't have the sink and slide-out kitchen yet) is that you need to pump with one hand and hold let's say a dish in the other hand when washing the dishes.

Electrical system: Simplicity. Glenn provided me with a simple solution... Just a good old power pack. It provides 12v outlets and has a built-in 120volt inverter. Every now and then when we are in a camping with electricity we ran a 120v extension inside. Music via a good quality battery powered bluetooth speaker. You can store the powerpack in the front storage on the opposite side of the slide-out kitchen, there is enough space there to store powerpack + propane heater.

Points to consider:
Lightweight = Simple: There is no second doubts about connecting it to your car... you just back up and pull the Kamparro by hand to connect it. Compared to some other trailers wich can be complicated and long to connect, it takes 1min to connect this one.

Wind: There are a few things to consider that might be a deal breaker for some people. One of them is the windage factor. The Kamparoo is narrow and high. It does not perform very well under crosswind condition and if it is going to be windy night, I recommend that you try to park into the wind so it goes from forward to aft. We had a few very windy nights in the desert ( no shelter from trees or anything ) and the tent is shaking as well as the posts holding it. You have to pay more attention to the wind forecast in the Kamparoo then let's say in a Casita or hard shell camper. I would not recommend a Kamparoo to someone who lives let's say in Terra del Fuego where it's blowing gale force wind all the time; they would simply not be able to sleep.

Storage: Another good thing is that it is small to stow in the garage. Camping comes in phases and sometimes during the year we do not want or cannot ( winter ) camp. It is an advantage to be able to store this small unit in the garage.

So there it is, simple yet efficient. It does what it is suppose to do, that is provide a rapid and comfortable shelter. Yes it is much more comfortable then a tent, yes it is faster to setup and yes it is more expensive. Will you loose a lot of money if you decide to re-sell it after 2-3 years ? I don't think so. You will loose the transport, the taxes and a low depreciation. It is quite unique product, low quantities available on the market and there will always be someone willing to take an adventure on it. My advice is to make it unique by custom color etc...

I am a very satisfied customer of this simple, confortable camping solution.