Forum Discussion

mkl654321's avatar
mkl654321
Explorer
Jan 03, 2016

Leaving a tow dolly outside the campground

I am gravitating toward getting a 21-23 foot class C and towing my Mazda on a dolly. As in my contemplated full-time adventures, I am going to be camping in national and state parks, I anticipate that I'll encounter many campsites that are incompatible with the combined length of my contemplated setup as well as the inability to back up. So I may have to drop the dolly+toad outside, take the rig into the campground, get set up, retrieve the car--but what about the dolly? Solutions seem to be confined to a) wheel the thing back to my campsite by hand--difficult at best, often impossible b) just leave it there c) just leave it there, but chain it to a tree or something.

If anyone deals with this issue on a regular basis, I'd like to know how comfortable you might feel with leaving the dolly outside or on the fringes of the campground; also, how tolerant are authorities/campground owners of dollies being left alone?

The pain-in-the-ass factor of various solutions isn't relevant--I just want to know if lone tow dollies tend to survive their loneliness. I've noticed, in national park campgrounds, that nobody even tries to bring in a toad on a dolly, because very few of the sites there are pull-through, even if the length isn't an issue. I would expect the busier campgrounds to forbid you to drop your toad outside, but if you don't ask, you can never be told "no"...

15 Replies

  • I pull into a CG in a 29' Class C, with toad & dolly, unload the toad,unhook the dolly & put it all the way at the back of the site, then back the RV in so that the rear bumper is hanging over the tongue of the dolly, & the ramp part of the dolly hangs over the back of the site, this usually leaves enough room to back the car in, in front of the RV, or crossways in front of the RV, depends on site length.
    Many CG's have overflow parking for dollys, boats & trailers.
  • Ditto what Horsedoc said. I always put a receiver hitch on my toad to use it to spot dollies, trailers, etc. Much easier to maneuver than any motorhome - B, B+, C or A.
  • Have a hitch on the rear of the toad and that will allow you to drop both, take the MH in the park, then use the toad to tow the dolly back to the MH and slide the tongue of the dolly under the chassis of the MH to store it out of the way.
  • We see lots of tow dollies parked inside the campgrounds in visitor parking areas or other on site designated areas...Lots of RVers have dollies or even bring boats with them and most campgrounds are aware of this and make accommodations.

    Other option is to tow 4 down

    Call ahead.