new camper

Thank you for the advice. I had a friend from work that just sold his travel trailer and gave me his reese straightline hitch complete with a set of 1200 and 1000# bars. I'm thinking that I'll to take him and his wife out for diner, as he wouldn't take any money from me. Now We can't wait for spring to bring her home and take her out.

The Equalizer is a good choice. You need to estimate the hitch weight after you load it up to get a good idea what size spring bars to get. I recommend getting the next larger size than your actual loaded hitch weight.

Congrats on the trailer. I'd be interested in seeing what others suggest because the trailer were looking at is similar in weight to yours.

Finally pulled the trigger today' We went with the north Trail 26LRSS No my next question is what to go with for a hitch, our old Catalina has just a wdh with a friction sway bar and 800lb bars. The north Trail has a ship weight of 6030 and a GVWR of 8600 now I know that I'll probably Never get there as We have never hauled with more then 10 gallons of water in the tanks. Im thinking I should go with a 1200# bar just in case, i ever put much of anything in the truck bed. Thinking about the reese dual cam, or the equalizer 4 point, any recommendations? Towing with a F150 ecoboost hd with 9600 lb tow package.

thank you for the advice, after comparing the three, we are leaning towards the North Trail local family owned dealer. love the layout, would have preferred an enclosed shower but there's always compromises' and i can deal with a shower curtain.

A suggestion:

What ever you do, don't just decide on the floor plan.
We made that mistake. It was the exact floor plan that we had been looking for so we bought it (a new 2016 Forest River) and now we are working our way through the worst workmanship that I have ever seen in my life.
We have had three other trailers before this one and two of them were considered entry level.
This one would make them look like the absolute highest end of the trailer line.

jack L

'Ya pays yer money, and 'ya takes your chances......

We bought our Heartland North Trail at a small family dealership. They were very accommodating to some extra work we wanted done before delivery, and even re-packed the bearings for us. It had a few minor issues but I never took it back to the dealer.

While we love the floorplan and features in our Grand Design, it's been back to the (chain) dealer twice for a total of 33 days and still isn't right.

Take a look at Grand Design travel trailers.

Thank you for your help. We do spend most of our time outside the layout is more for those bad weather days. That's we are staying away from the large dealers walked into one and said we were just looking at what's out there and they call us every three days. My biggest concern concerns are about the general quality I've always liked the springdale line but haven't heard much good about Keystone lately. And the North Trail is a new brand to me.

It depends how you plan to use the trailer. The things i mention here may not apply to you but its what i found to be.
If you are 'outside in nature' people, its no problem with those floorplans.
For longer stays using those floorplans like a home , where you spend time inside, i didn't like the chairs being in the entrance aisle, too busy. When you have more than 2 people, its becomes too busy using those floorplans as you described.

If you like to watch a game, then the DW will be in the viewing area as she cooks and preps. tv is kind of far away for sports viewing detail as well as sound. The tv is far away form those chairs , so you really need to crank it up. At night, you can hear the tv outside and that can annoy neighbors unless you use headphones.

Also.....You need to research Mfg.'s See how different Mfg's treat people after the purchase. I prefer the more positive reputation of Jayco, KZ, Outdoors RV or A.Fox (Nash) for decent customer service.
I would travel to buy one and work a deal to have someone like Steve at C.H. Dana in Monroe NH, do the warranty work if that was closer to your home.

If you have the means, I would prefer to buy from a small family owned dealerships opposed to large big box dealerships where the customer gets lost after the sale.

There are small rv repair shops that have dealers licenses that can order new rv's of various brands, check into that.
I know people that have bought that way and were very happy because those shops survive on good service and order only rv's that people know they want because they have run around researching already. They don't play one brand against the other to make a sale like large multi brand dealerships do. However, certain mfg.'s like Jayco, will not sell to independent dealers out of there dealer network.