Dirt road travel

carringb wrote:
Stick with a Northwood (AF-Nash) or ORV, and you'll be fine. I've hundreds, if not thousands, of off-highway travel with mine.

Definitely go with composite sides. Aluminum dents and gouges any time a tree branch looks at it wrong.

Ditto on Northwood or ORV (Outdoors RV)
Both companies build their own chassis in LaGrande, OR instead of using cheap / undersized frames from LCI / Lippert.

Northwood and ORV are sister companies. Frames for both come from their own frame shop.

The build their frames very stout.

time2roll wrote:
They are all about the same... marginal at best. Plan to upgrade as needed.

ORV and Northwood are the exception to that thought because they build their own frames instead of outsourcing them from LCI

trail-explorer wrote:

time2roll wrote:
They are all about the same... marginal at best. Plan to upgrade as needed.

ORV and Northwood are the exception to that thought because they build their own frames instead of outsourcing them from LCI

Yes I agree. Might be worth a call to see if they do any custom lift to get more clearance. 2" or 3" can be a big deal on some dips, ruts, rocks and road transitions.

We took our Outback tt across the top of world highway as well as gravel and dirt roads around the western US. I’m not endorsing Keystone or Outback and I don’t think most are any better or worse. What I did figure out is bring a compressor of some sort with you. When you get on one of these rough roads, deflate your tires on trailer and tv and go slow. Deflate makes a huge difference.
Reinflate when you get back to a real road.
I like fiberglass siding for a bunch of reasons.
Happy travels!

For whatever it is worth, I've carefully watched the videos on the Northwoods site, and I think they are different because they are specifically designed for off pavement towing, unlike my trailer. The frame is much beefier, for one thing. So is the axle and the suspension.

So since I have an ordinary ultra-light trailer (made by Cruiser), I have upgraded the axle, installed beefy leaf springs, and heavy duty shock absorbers, all with the goal of off pavement towing.

In order not to bust the lightweight frame or the standard-duty coupler, I go about 5 to 10 mph on very rough roads (up to 20 on good gravel roads). I have been doing this for the last 15 years, with no problems. Obviously, most of our towing is on pavement, with only the last few miles of each trip on forest roads.

But if I were going to do a LOT of off pavement towing (more than a few miles at a time), I would get a trailer built for that purpose, like one of the Northwoods models.