Starling Travel

A while back, I wrote about the DualCraft Chalet. It was the first A-Frame trailer manufactured in the Seventies.

• Starling Travel: The DualCraft Chalet – The First A-Frame Trailer

I was under the impression that they did not fold up, but one of our readers, Al Massey, corrected me in the comments:

i borrowed one of these trailers and they do fold down , we liked the style so much sourced same style out in alberta ,we located one built in edmonton that folds up it is insulated ,has a propane grity furnace and propane fridge i installed , we have taken across canada and into bc many times ,we’ve had it for about 12 years. best unit ever! it’s our “swiss chalet” (wife is swiss)

I was so excited to learn more and he graced me with a couple of photos and some of his memories.

Hi Laura,

there are two bars on the inside that hold up the walls ,we use them for coat hangers as well as shelf supports,after you remove them the left wall comes down and rests on a fold out leg then the right wall comes down then the rear roof folds down then finally the front roof folds down and gets buckled for travel,

sleeps 4 comfortably, I’va made cabinets inside that stack when up thus giving tons of storage for long trips , my twin 10 year old girls are quite attached and have fond memories growing up with this trailer ,

i park it inside my garage now so the snow and ice wont kill it so it should live a long time yet ,always a conversation piece at camp grounds , it makes an awesome ice breaker to meet people from all across the world.

I cant find my photos of the inside or it folding up right now, but I’ll keep looking. It was mftd in Edmonton by “national trailer” in the early sixtys ,cant find anymore info about it and only seen 1 the same make a long time ago.

Thanks, Al

Thanks, Al, for the lovely photos. I especially like the Canadian flag flying. It looks so good in contrast to the trailer. Thanks again for sending the photos and may you have many more happy years in your DualCraft Chalet.

A few days ago, when I was feverishly searching the Internet for information about The CarBak Cartop Tent Camper, I found a TON of pictures of VW Beetles with cartop tent campers.

As a former Bug owner, I fell in love with each and every photo, wishing I could find a Beetle of my own to camp in.

They all look so good that I thought I’d share them with you. (Continue Reading…)

John Green visited London and posted this brilliant video about it.

John had an interesting experience at the “British Museum of Old Things And Other Miscellany.”

And then I found this thing, which for some reason I found really fascinating, so I looked at it for a long time from many different angles and I still couldn’t figure out quite what was going on. So, I read the wall label where I learned that the guy was apparently about to stab himself in the penis, but, more importantly, I noticed that the thing that I was looking at was currently on loan to the Royal Museum of Ontario, and, while I was reasonably jet-lagged, I was pretty sure that I was NOT in Toronto.

So, in fact, I was not looking at a thing at all. I was looking at an incredibly well-made photograph of a thing installed so perfectly that I’m not sure that you can tell that you are looking at a video of a photograph of a thing rather than a video of an actual thing. Which calls into question the whole relevance of looking at actual things when virtual experiences are so compelling, but more on that in a second.

He had a busy day, trying to walk off his jet lag and at the end, he viewed the beautiful London Bridge in the dark.

I found myself wondering how different it was from a photograph. I didn’t need to be here to see this, after all. Of course, the reason for our trip was [to speak to his fans], but after thirty hours awake and the optical illusion at the British Museum, I couldn’t decide if sites really need seeing or if virtual experience has become enough. And I still can’t decide, so I made this virtual experience for you. Let me know how real it feels.

What do you think? Is the virtual experience enough? I haven’t found that to be true. I’ll never forget my visit to the Legion of Honor Art Museum in San Francisco. They had one of Monet’s water lilly paintings at the end of the gallery.

If you could see an even higher resolution version of it, you would still not be able to fully understand the magnitude of this painting. I had seen this painting hundreds of times in books before that fateful day in San Francisco, but I was never able to grasp its grandeur.

The painting was at the end of a huge hall and took up the entire wall at the end of said hall. When I stood at the furthest point, the water lilies were clear as day and the water looked almost transparent. I felt as if I could reach into the water and snatch out a fish with my bare hand. My viewing point was at least twenty yards from the actual painting.

When I walked up to it, I felt dwarfed by its size. I suddenly understood why this Impressionist had been rejected when he had his first show. Such a behemoth of a painting would have been impossible to see in the cloistered art galleries of France. Up close, Water Lilies looks like a globular mess of thick paint in huge patches of color.

To give you an idea of its size, here is a photo of paintings conservator, Tricia O’Regan, removing the synthetic varnish off it in 2011.

So, was my virtual experience of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies (seeing it in books) as good as seeing it in person? NO! NO! A thousand times, no! And the saddest part of all is that I didn’t KNOW that I had been missing the whole story until that moment when I walked so close to the painting that it transformed from a beautiful pond of lilies into a clumpy mess of paint.

THAT is why travel is so important to me. You can’t smell the River Thames in John’s video. You can’t feel the cobblestones under your feet while you see what remains of Winchester Palace. And you certainly can’t fully view the magnitude of Monet’s Water Lilies in a book. As detailed as they are, virtual experiences are not nearly as engaging as seeing everything first hand. Until they are, we will need to travel to enjoy them fully.

It all started with this photo:

I found it on the Classic VW Beetle page and with a simple description:

Here is a VW Camper Bug

It was obviously an oddity because the picture shows a plaque next to the vehicle. How I wished I could read that plaque. What does it say and what the heck IS that thing?!

I found another photo of the same tent camper from a different angle on The Samba:

The person on that forum said:

Does anyone know if these roof top tents are worth anything.

I have never seen one and I think they are cool.

No one had an answer for him, though.

It took a lot of searching, but I found out what they are and found a bunch of other pictures of them. (Continue Reading…)

Every time I plan a huge road trip, all our friends question me, “Why don’t you just fly?” It’s an easy question to answer when the airline designers at Aviointeriors are creating saddle-seats that shave even MORE of my personal space in an airplane.

• Huffington Post: New Airplane Seat Fitted As A Saddle, Offers Less Room

This man, who is 6’2″ doesn’t seem to fit at all.

I sincerely couldn’t believe the hubris of Fredrick Meloni, the man showcasing those seats.

If he really wanted to convince me of why these are better, he would have sat in the SECOND row, showing me how comfortable and roomy they are. Instead, he sat on the front row, throwing about his hands and showing me just how unpleasant a flight on a plane with those seats would be.

THIS is why I drive our trailer all over the country instead of “saving” time flying. They don’t care about me. They don’t care about my comfort. All they care about is cramming me into a tighter and tighter space to maximize their profits.

No, thank you.

Even though I now have a kitchen in my tent trailer, I am still obsessed with camp kitchens and chuck boxes. I believe Springtime designed by Bloondesign is an ingenious idea. It’s a picnic basket, a picnic table and stores your food and utensils.

It’s a clever design, as you can see from the original sketches. (Continue Reading…)

I love this image that I found on Flickr the other day. It’s called, “Camping Has Beautiful Rewards” by Gem E Piper.

Gem is right! Camping not only has beautiful rewards in the form of sunsets, forests, mountains and deserts, but it has beautiful rewards in the form of family memories and exciting venues. The next time you’re feeling like life is ugly, plan a weekend trip camping and enjoy it. You’ll come back feeling as if at least one thing in the world is beautiful.

Another interesting camper from German company, Heku, called the Carcamp really lives up to its name.

• Heku – Carcamp

It sleeps FOUR people, believe it or (Continue Reading…)

While looking around, I found this tiny article in Popular Science – March 1981

It reads:

Compact, 17-ft. Quantum 5 fifth-wheel trailer from Contempo (left) is designed for towing by small pickups. It sleeps four and has fully galley and bath. Price is $9,200.

When you account for inflation, $9,200 in 1981 is the same as $22,410 today, which seems incredibly pricey for a trailer that can barely sleep four. Despite its initial cost, it looks like a cute and efficient design.

Here is a photo of one that was for sale on the Fiberglass RV Forums: (Continue Reading…)

If you are in love with the old canned ham styled trailers, then you’ll be happy to know that Riverside RV has a line of brand new travel trailers that look like they are straight out of the Fifties. Here is what the Riverside Retro 130 looks like:

If that wasn’t cool enough, there is one other feature that will make your life easier… (Continue Reading…)