Why aren't ute or tray back style campers more prevalent in the US?

[oliverlove]

Hey guys. I have recently gone too far down the rabbit hole of the interwebs and have found some amazing campers with multiple foldouts with different sleeping areas and dining areas, all up off the ground. Heck, just the trailers that are build in Australia are amazing...

Why aren't these more popular in the US?

 

[calicamper]

Hey guys. I have recently gone too far down the rabbit hole of the interwebs and have found some amazing campers with multiple foldouts with different sleeping areas and dining areas, all up off the ground. Heck, just the trailers that are build in Australia are amazing...

Why aren't these more popular in the US?

They are just starting to gain momentum. But I suspect the big reason for them not being very popular is pretty simple. Americans get very little vacation time most workers actually do not use the vacation time they do get. This lack of vacation time plays into how much American's invest into costly vacation related items like a UTE bed camper set up which primarily is strictly for camping and not something you would drive to a work meeting or use as a daily driver etc. Also this time issue impacts many different types of things for example all our sailing yacht clubs have been fighting declining membership for years and a big reason is competing areas of interest for the limited time they have like kids sports teams etc.

However!!! I would say just in the last 5-7yrs it seems like Americans are starting to value adventure. I meet more younger folks who have traveled out side of the US multiple times and plan on doing more travel than I can ever recall seeing in the past! This is GOOD!!!! I have always felt one of the biggest issues with American Voters is their LACK of exposure of the rest of the world as such we vote horrid politicians into office that create terrible US policies affecting other countries in very negative ways. I hope traveled Americans change this!!! And I hope we see the trend continue!

Most of the flat bed camper rigs you see in the US today are used by either retired folks with lots of time or younger folks who have a mobile life working on the road etc. Its not really something you see a working dad with that might make a few camping trips a year. At least not yet.

I'm your typical working DAD two kids one dog duel income house hold. And I basically gave my wife an ultimatum at Christmas this past year when she asked what I wanted for a gift. I told her camping trips! Given we got sucked into that never ending typical every weekend was booked with sports, birthdays etc etc and we never could get away! Our current camping rig is a Subaru Wagon which tows a small very compact trailer. We have already done more camping in the past three months than we have done in the past 5yrs. And we head off this weekend for a week long trip which will be our longest camping trip for the summer.

I would buy a midsized 4dr pickup and love to have a flat bed light pop up camper but only!!! If the truck had crash safety standards like my Subaru and ONLY if that truck could return similar mileage our Subaru gets otherwise it just doesn't make much sense to have that truck for the few times a year we would be using it for camping.

 

[Ozrockrat]

You could probably answer this by asking the reverse question. Why are there so few slide in campers in Australia. In Australia the % of well backed Utes compared to tray backs is probably 1%. Tray backs are easy to get and take a lot more abuse than the well backs. Given the number of tray backs I would expect to see people using them and developing campers to suit them.

Also you will find a lot of those Utes will have a removable camper on the tray. Most are used as work trucks or daily drivers.

Then there is the fact that Australia is a small market so a lot of stuff either is imported or not available. You get used to building to suit your own needs. We have been doing that for generations.

Now there is some truth in the amount of vacation. I used to get 6 weeks a year with an extra 13 weeks after 8 years of service. That's about as good as you could get when I left. Everybody starts on 4 weeks a year and 13 weeks after 10 years (I think it's 10 don't quote me on that one). Most people also get a pay increase of 21% for their vacation time (leave loading).

This does enable people to do more.

 

[calicamper]

You could probably answer this by asking the reverse question. Why are there so few slide in campers in Australia. In Australia the % of well backed Utes compared to tray backs is probably 1%. Tray backs are easy to get and take a lot more abuse than the well backs. Given the number of tray backs I would expect to see people using them and developing campers to suit them.

Also you will find a lot of those Utes will have a removable camper on the tray. Most are used as work trucks or daily drivers.

Then there is the fact that Australia is a small market so a lot of stuff either is imported or not available. You get used to building to suit your own needs. We have been doing that for generations.

Now there is some truth in the amount of vacation. I used to get 6 weeks a year with an extra 13 weeks after 8 years of service. That's about as good as you could get when I left. Everybody starts on 4 weeks a year and 13 weeks after 10 years (I think it's 10 don't quote me on that one). Most people also get a pay increase of 21% for their vacation time (leave loading).

This does enable people to do more.

The easiest thing to negotiate when being hired in the US is your vacation time. The primary reason being rarely ever do employees use it. My wife and I get 4 weeks a year which is typically Double what most American's get if they are lucky to have any sort of vacation allowance to start with. We rarely EVER take more than two weeks off a year and its no more than 1 week at a stretch. The other remaining two weeks a year we do not use in the sense of vacation trips get used up by smaller one or two days off here and there during the rest of the year.

One of the biggest issues with the US is the insane mad rush to get out of town on weeks that have a national holiday because its easier to add a couple of days vacation to a national holiday than it is to just take 5 strait days off work etc. American's are LOUSY at taking vacation!

 

[Ryanmb21]

Unused vacation day = unpaid work day

 

[peneumbra]

I've been on vacation since 1992...

 

[DirtWhiskey]

I have always felt one of the biggest issues with American Voters is their LACK of exposure of the rest of the world as such we vote horrid politicians into office that create terrible US policies affecting other countries in very negative ways. I hope traveled Americans change this!!! And I hope we see the trend continue!

Right. People in America don't have flatbed campers because they don't vote like you think they should. I get it. Or perhaps it's because we, particularly in the western part of the country, spend much more time packing stuff onto our backs, into our boats or onto our bikes than our trucks. It could be because I'm from Utah, the outdoor recreation capital of the world. Our six hour radius runs from Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon. We can drive three hours to the put in for the best desert whitewater rafting on Earth or we can drive 30 minutes to some of the best powder on Earth. Hell, the entire state used to shut down for a week for the deer hunt.
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I would love to see more flat bed options in America but I think, crazy as I may be, that I can build or have built something to my desires for way less than people in Australia get charged. The pricing I've seen is nothing short of spectacular. Plus I like being able to throw my coolers and boats into my truck and go float through 130 miles of God's country like I did last week (Labyrinth/Stillwater canyons). Can't do that many other places in the world. America is unique. It's a playground for motored and non-motored sports alike.

 

[mmc]

I wouldn't be so quick to conclude that Ute campers are an inherently superior design. There's all that unused space in a pickup, true, and there are certainly applications to put it to use. But a Ute based build has drawbacks of its own, especially in distributing weight out and up as opposed to the centered and down approach favored by the better US manufacturers. Starting from a platform two thirds of the way up from the bed to the wheelwells and packing water and batteries on the outer edge of the platform makes for more space but that old basement design derided here is makes for a superior ride. In a way, the trend towards Utes parallels the trend the U.S. market followed forty years ago in favoring capacity over vehicle dynamics.

 

[mmc]

Calicamper--not to give you a hard time, really not, but I joined this forum out of a love of expeditions, something I've done for many years. I like and admire everyone here including you. You folks have built a fantastic forum. Now could we leave the politics, ethnocentrism, and celebrations and denunciations of "national character" out of it? What is an "American" anyway? The place is a collection of subcultures bound together only by belief in a common project.

 

[adam88]

Hey guys. I have recently gone too far down the rabbit hole of the interwebs and have found some amazing campers with multiple foldouts with different sleeping areas and dining areas, all up off the ground. Heck, just the trailers that are build in Australia are amazing...

Why aren't these more popular in the US?

You ever been to Australia? It's a huge country with about 1/6th the population of the USA, and the weather is HOT HOT HOT. People don't need heated, insulated campers.

In the US, the weather is different (half the country freezes to high hell for about 6 months of the year). And all the roads are paved here.

I'm not saying there's not warm areas with abundant wild life in the USA, of course there is, but it's a niche market. In Australia, it's everywhere!

 

[Pilat]

Insulation works both in the cold and the heat. And it can be cold (relatively) in Australia too. At least cold enough to go below freezing in certain areas. Also, I'm sure a lot of people from the US are going to disagree with your claim that "all the roads are paved" in the US.

 

[Mountainhound]

Yesterday on 2 radio stations they were talking about camping coming in dead last for vacation destinations.

 

[adam88]

Yesterday on 2 radio stations they were talking about camping coming in dead last for vacation destinations.

Another good reason. Look on craigslist and there's so much camping stuff. People buy stuff, go once, then realize they hate it.

I guess the simple answer to this thread would be: Americans prefer RV's, not small tray backs.

 

[oliverlove]

You ever been to Australia? It's a huge country with about 1/6th the population of the USA, and the weather is HOT HOT HOT. People don't need heated, insulated campers.

In the US, the weather is different (half the country freezes to high hell for about 6 months of the year). And all the roads are paved here.

I'm not saying there's not warm areas with abundant wild life in the USA, of course there is, but it's a niche market. In Australia, it's everywhere!

I've never been, hopefully one day I can change that.

I do understand the heat though. I live in South Texas, directly on the border with Mexico and we get some HEAT!

 

[oliverlove]

I guess what I like most about the designs that I have seen is how rugged they build them, and how it seems to be much more widely accepted. My wife and I are both HS teachers and with our summers off we love to travel and camp.

Pricing - The prices I have seen are insane for some of the offerings online and we would never be able to afford them. I do love how modular they are, and would love to see more US based companies building options like these.