Starling Travel

I love the design of these fold up shelves found on some Coleman popup trailers. Here they are unfolded.

When it’s time to close up the camper, here they are folded up.

The efficiency of these campers is surprising to me. Why don’t all popups have these fold up shelves? They would be so helpful.

I really love this motivational poster I saw on Facebook a while back:

It reads:

Go at least once a year to a place you have never been before.

This is an argument that I have every year with Mike. He always wants to go to Yellowstone, which we have been to almost every year for a decade. I want to try new national parks, like Yosemite. This year, we didn’t go on a big trip. Our biggest trip was to Lagoon Amusement Park up north. It was a really fun vacation and we got to see our friends and family while we were there, so no regrets.

Still, the argument rages on. Yellowstone or Yosemite. Mike argues that Yellowstone is different EVERY time we go there. I can hardly describe the difference of Mammoth Hot Springs now versus when we saw it that first time together. I wish I had photos of Orange Spring Mound from that first trip because it has LITERALLY taken over the road and they have had to make a new road around its massive orangeness. Yellowstone is truly different every time we’ve visited from the year with the ten foot snow drifts to the year with the bear with a porcupine quill in its paw. We have never had a repeat experience.

But I have never seen Yosemite. I would feel like an idiot if I never got to see the mountains and trees that so inspired John Muir in his writing and activism. I would regret never seeing El Capitan in person when it was the focus on so many of Ansel Adams’ photographs. How can I keep visiting Yellowstone over and over when Yosemite is there, waiting for me to visit?

Then again, Ansel Adams spent his whole life visiting Yosemite over and over. Georgia O’Keefe loved Taos so much she moved down there. Additionally, every time I visit a place, it looks different to me because I AM DIFFERENT. What was boring to me as a child is gorgeous to me as an adult. What was interesting to me before may be gone, but has been replaced with something just as strange and captivating. When our national parks are different every time we visit them, it doesn’t matter which one we visit as long as we get out.

If I were to change that poster on the top, I would make it MUCH more simple. Instead of it saying, “Go at least once a year to a place you have never been before,” it was only say, “GO.”

I love these photos from Deborah Carson on the Glampers on the Loose Facebook Group.

She posted:

Here is my Grandmother…the Original Glamper… they had a Spartinette

love these pics…;)) Then later on a Terry..

I took these from slides and transfered them to disk for my Grandparents Anniversary.

I adore everything about these photos, especially the orange table in the last two photos. Such great design!

I saw a link of Facebook for this camper. It made my heart leap for a moment.

• Happier Camper

It is a tiny and lightweight (only 1100 lbs.) camper that has modular furniture inside that can be moved, stacked and adjusted for whatever you need. Here is a video showcasing that idea.

The modular furniture can be removed from the camper and used outside as well.

There is storage in the cubes as well.

Here is another video showing some of the other features like the cool blind on the window and the lighting.

There is an optional Transcool cooler. They are a 12 volt cooling system that are supposed to work pretty well.

The table can be used in a wide variety of spots in the camper.

There is a cute and lightweight awning that can give you some more shade.

There is a spot to charge your devices using the 12 volt system.

Now, here comes the part where my heart skipped a beat. Because there is a huge hatch in the back of the camper, you can use it to store your gear. It’s big enough to hold a kayak.

You can load up your mountain bikes into it.

You can even use it to transport your motorcycle!

There is so much to love about this camper! The pricing starts at $15,950 for the base model, so it is actually cheaper than the base model T@b, which is really cool. If you are looking for a tiny camper, this one has versatility down pat!

Via Happier Camper HC1 | Outside Online

I adore road trips, but I have read very few books in which the characters go on a road trip. In fact, of all the books mentioned in this obsessively detailed map of American Literature’s Most Epic Road Trips from Atlas Obscura, I have read NONE of them. NONE…

Here is the list of books:

• Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
• The Cruise of the Rolling Junk by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes by Ted Conover
• Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins
• Cross Country by Robert Sullivan
• The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson
• Blue Highways: A Journey into America by William Least Heat-Moon
• On the Road by Jack Kerouac
• Roughing It by Mark Twain
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
• Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck
• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

If you are unable to travel this year, take a trip in your mind with one of these books. I’m sure there is one here that will give you the feeling of being somewhere else.

Via Engadget – ​This interactive map crams in American literature’s greatest road trips

When I was a kid, my parents owned an AMC Hornet. We drove that thing from Salt Lake City to Millwaukee and back so many times and it never let us down. I had no idea that AMC made a camping tent to attach to the hatchback.

Here is a promotional photo from the Seventies.

Instead of having me search for the nearest Holiday Inn when we were tired and it was time to sleep, we could have slept in the car with this sweet tent.

Even as I say that, I realize that my mom would have never even considered that an option. It was Holiday Inn or nothing. Still, I can imagine what our travels to Wisconsin might have looked like if we had camped instead of stayed in hotels.

I didn’t camp until I was in my thirties with my husband. I wonder how my life would have been different if I had camped as a child. Would I have hated it? Would I have adored it and wished to camp even more than now?

Seeing these photos of Hornets with tents attached to them give me a glimpse into that other life I could have lead.

If this looks like a cool thing that you would like, there is something available for SUV hatchbacks that is very similar. It’s called the Explorer 2 SUV Tent.

If you are regretting not camping more, here is an easy tent that turns your SUV into a Tent. I may not be able to go back in time and change the adventures my family had when I was a child, but I certainly can change the adventures I have in the future.

I saw this on Pinterest. It’s called a Buddy Box.

They are really cool chuck boxes that latch into the seat rails of certain vans. They are made in Germany, but fortunately, they have an English language version of their site:

• BuddyBox

I thought these were genius. There is a box for water, one for a porta-potty and one that turns into a table. Unfortunately, the prices are absurdly expensive.

• Buddy Box Price List for April 2015

In order to get the setup like you see in that photo (including the mounting plates for the C-rail), you would need to spend 1994 Euros or $2195. When I can get a pretty good tent trailer for only $700, it seems insane to spend THREE times that much for just three little units.

Of course, you could build little boxes just like this to fit into your vehicle. The Cook Buddy is very similar to the plans for the Work Top Box from Blue Sky Kitchens.

They sell it starting at about $200. For a TENTH of the cost, you get a great work station. If you’re handy, you can build them yourself with their plan book:

• Blue Sky Kitchens – Woodworking Plans

In the end, those Buddy Boxes are cute and look kind of cool, but with a little plywood, you could recreate them and it would only cost you a tenth of what they cost.

Via: Camper Kit: Convert Any Van with the Buddy Box System | Designs & Ideas on Dornob

This Starcraft tent trailer came up for sale on our local classifieds and it is something totally different. At first, it looked completely normal, until I realized that this was the BACK of the trailer.

The bunk ends don’t pull out over the hitch and the back. They pull out over the driver’s side.

And the other bunk pulls out over the passenger side.

They were selling it for only $700. Here was their description:

Awesome little trailer by Starcraft. It has running water, spare, new cables on the winch to pull trailer up. All canvas in perfect condition. No tears, rips or even stains.

I really wish they knew the year and make of the trailer. I am so interested in the history of it and how long they made sideways tent trailers. The inside makes it look like late Sixties or early Seventies.

It has one of those built-in ice chests. We had one of these on our Palomino. I loved it because it would just drain the melted ice out of the bottom of the trailer. It made it REALLY easy to keep it filled with ice and cold. I think that’s the ONLY thing I miss from the Palomino tent camper we used to have.

I keep getting surprised by all the different ways that you can make a camping trailer. This sideways tent trailer is really interesting and I wish I could find more information about it!

This video was recommended to me by YouTube and they were spot on. I LOVED this video of Jeff Furr showing his camping trailer that he built from a Harbor Freight Trailer. It’s a long video, but it taught me so much.

After watching it, I wondered if they slept in the camper or only used it for galley and gear storage. Fortunately, someone already asked that question. Here was his answer:

I just use it for hauling gear, also for water storage and power supply. I had considered making it into a sleeper at some point but not at this time.

Here is a slideshow of the trailer build.

The most important thing I learned from this video is the existence of hurricane hinges. I have seen many teardrop builds and everyone has trouble with the hinges leaking. They’ve done things to prevent the water from entering at that point, but all of them end up with leaks. I had trouble with my teardrop galley because of that as well.

Image via: planovet – Photobucket

With hurricane hinges, the water is less likely to enter the camper because it’s designed to keep the water out. I had NO idea that they existed and suddenly, my camper build project has gotten that much easier. The hatches over the bed bunks will have hurricane hinges!

Every time I look at the camper build projects online, I learn something new. I am very excited!

Disneyland is 60 years old. I was there for its 25th anniversary and then again for its 50th anniversary. I can hardly believe ten more years have passed.

Here is the website talking about all of Disney’s celebrations for the anniversary.

• 60th Anniversary Celebration | Disneyland Resort

At their Tenth Anniversary, they made a Wonderful World of Disney. They talked about the new features and there is even a cameo of Mary Blair talking about her design for It’s A Small World.

They are going all out on their nightly fireworks. Here is a video of the complete fireworks show for the 60th Anniversary.

Disneyland is one of my favorite vacation spots and it has been a couple of years since I’ve been there. I guess I really should go. I’d hate to miss the 60th when I’ve been to two of the other huge celebrations.