Pop Up

We had a smaller, lightweight StarCraft of '88 vintage, and loved it - kept and used it (copiously) for 16 full seasons and into a 17th. Loved the versatility - it was so simple we could camp with hookups or without, only lacking a heat source w/o hookups. It was light enough (and had a wheel on the tongue stand) so we could manually push it around to take advantage of a site's view or to afford ourselves more privacy in a site. Loved the fresh air, and for 2 of us it had plenty of room (2 double beds on each end, and an end dinette - which we usually didn't use, eating outside much of the time) and an awning so it was comfortable in rainy weather. It was easy to tow, though our underpowered vehicles did struggle with it in mountains (trailer brakes would have been nice; we had none) and probably didn't cost us even as much as 1 mpg. Uncomplicated - we disabled the water system after finding out it was nearly impossible to change the check valve, which failed at least once a year; no a/c, no furnace, no fridge.

The main thing that grew old along with us :) was all the toting & carrying. We had to store most of our clothes, food, and some other items in the vehicle, and carry them into the camper when setting up camp, and back to the vehicle when breaking camp. One-night stays were a LOT of work. Dampness is a problem in anything with tented sides and bed ends. And having to set it up just to put things in it got to be a pain. Once we went to a full-height camper and could load & empty it without setting it up first, we haven't gone back. But we do have a lot of great memories from our popup years.