Dry Camping and Fifth Wheels

Hi, Old Duck.
Just found the ARCTIC FOX 29-5T with the rear living option that we like. It does look really nice. Probably a much higher quality than the Keystone Sprinter. Good tank numbers as well.
We aren't real adventurous going off road. But we like small campgrounds as opposed to RV campgrounds.

Will look at this one for sure! Thanks for the recommendation.

kohai wrote:

Old Duck wrote:
If you can street chat tyour limit by 6" I would suggest looking at an Arctic Fox 27-5L. We have had ours about 18 months, haven't found a place we have wanted to go that has limited us due to size.

Oh, oh, I like this floor plan. It's basically the same as my Crusader without the bunk house and built by a company more known for quality.

# of people in the unit matters, we need the bunk and Arctic Fox hasn't made a similar unit to the one I have.

One comment to the original poster.... if you want to get off on rough boondocking roads, a 5th wheel has less articulation capabilities than a TT. e.g. you run the risk of the trailer hitting the bed of the truck.

Thanks everyone for sharing and for the great tips. We are considering a 2016 Keystone Sprinter 269FWRLS. Love the rear living area with big window. Love the fact that the tanks are 87 fresh, 44, black and 88 grey..... Would prefer a tad bit more storage but should work for the two of us plus our boxer and cat.

Anyone have any reviews of the Keystone Sprinter?

Old Duck wrote:
If you can street chat tyour limit by 6" I would suggest looking at an Arctic Fox 27-5L. We have had ours about 18 months, haven't found a place we have wanted to go that has limited us due to size.

Oh, oh, I like this floor plan. It's basically the same as my Crusader without the bunk house and built by a company more known for quality.

# of people in the unit matters, we need the bunk and Arctic Fox hasn't made a similar unit to the one I have.

One comment to the original poster.... if you want to get off on rough boondocking roads, a 5th wheel has less articulation capabilities than a TT. e.g. you run the risk of the trailer hitting the bed of the truck.

If you can street chat tyour limit by 6" I would suggest looking at an Arctic Fox 27-5L. We have had ours about 18 months, haven't found a place we have wanted to go that has limited us due to size.

RoyB wrote:
We have both the fifth wheel and a OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer. Solves the problem just fine...

My POPUP trailer gets used almost all the time camping off-grid and occasionally we would use the fifth wheel. It mostly sits here at the house now up against the woods line... Grandkids loves it sleeping over night here...

Roy Ken

The Popup in your sig line sure looks a lot nicer than the one I had years ago. They didn't make them for off road, so it was kind of a frankestine sort of beast I'd highly modified, to include stall matt rubber lined brackets to enable me to jackknife it when towed behind a tight turning radius S-10 Blazer. Could go about anywhere with it, mostly places no one has heard of, but also places like Canyonlands Shafer trail, white rim trail etc. Roads a lot of folks won't even take a full sized pickup on. Utah still has a lot of small campgrounds way back in the middle of nowhere, like the Henry mountains where towing a large vehicle isn't at all feasible, let alone trying to get one into the small campsites.

We also mostly use forest service campgrounds, or sometimes no campground. Our rig is just a bit less than 29'. There are some places we camped with our smaller trailer that we had to give up when we went to a fiver. You will find you have to compromise, regardless of the length you choose. We compromised when we move out of the tent and into a trailer too. Also, you might get into the same campgrounds, but have a smaller selection of sites that you can fit. And with occupancy so high in FS campgrounds, that can be a problem. But really, for the most part, 29' fits our wants and desires pretty well.

I don't agree with the small tanks on light fivers comment. We have 60g fresh, and that easily lasts us for 7 day visits, and ours is the light version trailer. But there are just the 2 of us, and larger families will use more, especially the kids. But I do agree that tank size is something you want to pay attention too, and some of the shorter units do have tanks that are too small for us. If you want a shorter trailer, it is likely going to have to be the lite or half ton style. They work just fine for boondocking.

I've got a 35ft 5er. It has a 60 gallon fresh water tank. Up until now we have been dry camping for 37 years or so. We occasionally use campgrounds. I have a 45 gal. U.S. bladder that I have used for many years. It fits between the Tgate and the 5th wheel. I also have a 60 gallon bladder that goes in front of the 5th wheel and behind the aux. fuel tank. It looks like a large duffel bag and is round when full of water.The other bladder is a flat, rectangle shape and I got that one at Camping World. There's an 8ft box on the dually but I used to use the one bladder with my 3/4 ton short box. We used to dry camp in lower, northern Michigan but haven't done that in a while because the forest was clear cut right across from the place where we always put the 5er. The trails leading into the site have had tree branches grow over them and with a 13ft high 5er it would scratch the heck out of the sides let alone damage the roof , etc. I used to trim them but it's been a while since we've been up there. We checked out the place on our way home from out west last summer. It's a bummer.

ssimmons23 wrote:
We are planning to move to a 5th wheel from a 29 ft. Class A. We like to camp in small campgrounds in the mountains (boondocking) as well as other larger campgrounds.

Currently looking at 5th wheels 29 foot or under. Some will have overall length of up to 36 feet.

What recommendations would you have for overall length of 5th when manuevering through small campgrounds?

Any other recommendations are more than welcome!
Thanks, All!
Sheila

For boondocking, don't consider "light", or "1/2 ton towable", models. One way they make these rigs lighter is by reducing tank capacity all 'round. Many mfrs make near-identical "light" and "standard" models and a side by side comparison will show this pretty quickly. If you do find something you like, but the tankage is small, then you can plan accordingly. Take extra fresh water in jerry cans or a bladder. Grey water can (usually) be dumped without issue, but you can do a lot to conserve space there, too. Hand-washing and tooth-brushing can be done outside, with one of the jerry cans (this is what we do). Face washing can be done with wipes, which can be tossed in the fire. Wash dishes in a basin, then dump the basin outside. Black tanks are where you're going to find the real problem in some light models. You either have to just "go" outdoors or, if you happen to be in a CG, then use the CG toilets. (In this case, dump your dish water in the FW toilet to help wash it out!) This latter issue is what makes one model #2 on my short list.

The 2 main caveats are 1) how many people will you have with you and, 2) if you're a campground-only camper or like to fully dry-camp.

Lyle

Veebyes wrote:
Size of the trailer does matter but for dry camping the size of freshwater capacity matters even more.

X2 but I'll extend that to the grey and black water tanks - although black tanks are usually sufficient. These days the shorter trailers are frequently of the "Lite" variety. One way of achieving shorter length and reduced weight are to cut down the capacities of the holding tanks. I found a few newer models with decent holding tanks. But, the champs in this category are the older Alpenlites. Even the shorter models from the mid 2000s had copious 100gal fresh and grey capacities. I compromised some to get the later model trailer in my sig. It is a tad over 28' with 76/70/35 holding tanks (fresh/grey/black).

We have a 35' 5th wheel toy hauler and a 17' TT. A crew cab long bed TV (longer than the TT). We have a favorite NFS campground we go to once a year in the Sequoia National Forest (would go more often but the last 16 miles is really slow on winding, steep, some single lane, some washboard road). I can barely get the 17' TT around the single loop of that NFS campground. Come within inches of touching the wood barriers along the paved loop, as well as low over hanging trees. Only a few spots will accept both truck and trailer, and can be tight to get into, due to the wood barriers and boulders next to the loop. If the tow vehicle were shorter it would be much easier to maneuver. Entering the campground I remove the weight distribution spring bars, due to a very large/steep dip in the road where a creek sometimes passes over; the 5th wheel would never make it through there. There is no way the 5th wheel would make it around that loop.

The 17' has a 50gal fresh water tank - that will last at least 5 days.