Towing a pop-up vs. a self-contained

I loved my pop up, if you wanted your door to face the lake. just back in and manually turn it sideways.

Here's a calculator that you can use to match your tow vehicle to a perspective TT. Click here.

Towing a PUP, you may not have been concerned with some of these terms. They will be very important in matching your tow vehicle with a TT.

Payload (AKA max occupant / cargo weight) is what your tow vehicle is rated to carry. It gets eaten up by weight of aftermarket accessories , people, pets, cargo (in or on the vehicle), the weight distribution hitch, and trailer tongue (AKA hitch) weight. There is a tire / loading sticker, on the drivers door post or drivers door itself, that has this information.

GVWR - Maximum weight on your tow vehicle. The TT will have a GVWR of it's own.

GCVWR - Maximum combined weight of tow vehicle and TT, together.

Max tow capacity - This is max weight the tow vehicle is rated to tow. It does not include passengers or cargo in the vehicle. As you add people and stuff to the tow vehicle this tow capacity goes down, pound for pound, as does the available payload.

You may also want to read the towing section of your owners manual. Some vehicles (some crossovers and SUV's) have restrictions on frontal area of the trailer and weight distribution hitches. You may also find the manufacturers recommendation for front axle weight restoration. Some recommend as little as fifty percent, some as much as one hundred percent.

When you hang the trailer tongue weight on rear of the tow vehicle, it adds weight to the rear axle and takes weight off from it's front axle. The weight distribution hitch uses leveraging to restore that lost weight.

Well the OP certainly has a lot of great answers, most of which we noticed when we switched.

Basically, you are trading flexibility for convenience, lots of convenience. That is why when I retired we bought a TT to tour the country.

However, I feel that there is a definite loss of the feel of camping when you "go RVing".

Folk praise the fact that you do not have set up and take down, no lugging tote boxes full of food and cloths, no staking out the awning, no packing wet, bugs, etc. etc.

All of this it true, but it is what makes camping camping.

Many folks are glad to be rid of these things and I admit, when I am touring and sightseeing, camping is just a place to park the RV.

Still, if you like the sounds of the night, the cold morning damp broken by warm sun, stirring coals to reheat the coffee; popping a cup in the microwave is certainly convenient but not quite the same.

I still have my tent and PUP, and they get precious little use but I am not giving them away anytime soon.

Be safe.

A pop-up trailer is easy to tow. They don't weigh much, have a low profile to the wind, and have good ground clearance. Many can go anywhere a truck can go pretty much. They fit in even the old campgrounds with small parking spaces. they take time to set-up and take down when traveling.

A 27 foot trailer is more comfortable, but does not fit well in most of the old campgrounds in NFs, and NPs. They are relatively heavy and resist the wind. They need sway control on the trailer hitch. They are harder to park and turn around. They use a lot of fuel to tow. With a diesel I could get around 17-18 mpg with a pop-up, but more like 11-12 or less with a trailer of that size.

As far as PUP experience vs TT experience, the thing I DO miss about having a PUP is the ability to move it around by hand. Put the wheel on the tongue hitch and I could push it around anywhere. Can't do that with the TT, just way to heavy.

We really enjoyed taking the PUP and turning it 90 degrees on the campsite spot and facing the front door directly to the back of the campsite. Was wonderful when camping with a woodline behind the campsite. It provided nice privacy that way. Can't do that with a TT of any length, unless it's a little tear drop style.

Other than that, we have no desire to go ever go back to a pop-up.

The other thing that took a bit of adjusting to, moving from a pop-up to our first TT, was the lack of the "open feeling" you get from a tent experience. It took a while to adjust to walls and privacy, and having a bit more secluded feel. Now, after all these years, I'd never want to go back to that "openness" again either.

I don't miss breaking camp in the rain and dealing with wet canvas sides, freezing in colder weather, not having a bathroom or a refrigerator, and no water dropletts above my head when waking up in the morning, or wet side canvas in the bunks waking up in the morning.

You have gotten a lot of very good advice here. I towed a PU for 17 years before moving up to a 21ft hybrid and now a 25ft trailer.

Visibility out the back will be a huge change. Get some good mirrors.

Towing down the road will create some tension for you until you get used to driving in windy conditions and steep hills. Make sure you have a good weight distributing hitch with built in sway control.

Yes, it is easier to back up a longer trailer but you are going to be challenged at times to just get into your site. You can put a PU anywhere. A longer trailer will not be as easy to get into tight spots.

You will get less mileage but much more comfort. I still miss my PU when I go out fishing up logging roads. Simply can't take the big trailer out through the fields like I used to do.

As named above - there are certainly trade-offs when moving away from a pop-up. WD hitches (if not using one with the Pop) are a bit more of a hassle, additional length makes gas/meal stops something that takes more thought, windy days can be a bigger issue, etc... The one thing I didn't see mentioned above is views. Again, depending on what you've been towing the pop-up with, you may have had some rear sight-lines with your current set-up. With a TT, you'd have none. Particularly when backing up, this makes a difference.

In the end, the trade-offs are minor in my mind, and many of them are compensated for by what you gain (setting up a WDH is FAR easier than setting up the canvas of a pop-up). You will feel less 'outdoors' in a TT, but if that is not a big loss to you, I don't think you'd regret moving to a TT.

Lorimack wrote:
I've owned 3 pop-up campers over the last 18 years. I'd like to upgrade to a 27' self-contained camper but I'd like more information about the differences in towing them. Any and all info is welcome.
Thank you,
Lori

Great answers so far. One significant difference is rear view. As in looking out your rear view/side view mirrors to see what's going on behind you.

The perspective, of course, is determined by the height of the tow vehicle vs the height of the PUP. If the TV is a vehicle that sits relatively high off the ground, you should be able to see over the roof of the PUP as to what's happening behind you, if there's a line of cars, or whatever.

With a travel trailer? Not so much. Not at all, in fact. Dependent on the views from your side mirrors, as you've got nothing but a slab from the interior rear view mirror.

The challenge backing up a PUP vs a TT is not a PUP vs TT issue. The reason PUPs are harder to back up is because their wheel base is shorter than the TT wheel base you may consider.

I've had both a PUP and 3 different TT, each one got longer than the one before. By far, the "easiest" to back up is my now 35.5 foot TT. I still have a utility trailer with the same wheel base length as my original pop-up. And yes, with the same tow vehicle, the utility is much more of a challenge to back up than the 35 foot trailer, only because the sensitivity to any steering change is so fast with a shorter wheel base trailer.

So, what I'm saying is, if you can back up your pop-up with no problems, you'll find a longer wheel base trailer easier. The combination is.... the shorter the wheel base of the tow vehicle and the longer the wheel base of the trailer, the easier they are to back up. (This is proven over and over again when I hook up my utility trailer to my John Deere 735 mower-tractor and put it in places the truck navigation would be much more challenging).

Towing ALL depends upon your tow vehicle. If you are towing a TT with a small SUV, it will fail miserably towing a TT. But if you are already towing the pop-up with a 1 ton diesel dually, towing a TT will be non-mute.

We towed or pop-up originally with a Chevy Lumina Mini-Van. We had to go to a smaller pop-up to tow it comfortably, but it towed the pop-up for 6 years with no problems. Under the program "cash for clunkers" we ended up trading the mini-van for a used Suburban 1500. The air conditioning went out and they were wanting over $4000 to switch over to the non-freeon system. We said no, it wasn't worth it. We traded for the cash-for-clunkers program.

The Suburban towed the pop-up absolutely flawless. In fact, we got strange looks when we went to campgrounds because we were towing a smaller pop-up with a big vehicle! But when we decided to go from the pop-up to an 18 foot (lite) Dutchmen Sport, that Suburban towed for 3 months and then the transmission died. The engine had lots of power to pull, but the transmission did not! Little did we know.

We replaced with a new (rebuilt) transmission, and the Suburban handled towing even worse. A month later, we traded the Suburban for a Chevy 3500 dually (gas) one ton and never looked back towing again with anything else but one-tons. We've have 3 different 1 tons now, 1 gasser and 2 different diesels.

Whey did we trade the first one-ton? Dealer informed up the frame was rusting out and we were taking a risk towing a larger trailer(by now we had a 31 foot TT).

Second 1 ton had a fiberglass body. And although the transmission and engine were unbelievably magnificant, the body began to form spider cracks and the doors began to form rust from inside. We traded it and got $18,000 for it.

Now on our 3rd dually (got it brand new)... diesel Duramax 3500, the towing power is beyond amazing! We now have a 35.5 foot trailer, with carrier on the trailer hitch, our total length is 59.5 feet for the entire rig.

Towing is amazing! Except for turning intersections in town, our combination is wonderful. No problems backing up, towing, winds, semi trucks suck and pull, or anything. It tows marvelous in mountains, snow and ice, and flat land.

What I'm saying is, the success for a successful "tow" is to have a tow vehicle that is (literally) an over-kill for what you are needing to tow. If you do, you'll never experience any issues.

With 59.5 feet of "rig", I have no problems navigating almost anywhere. I do occasionally pass a fuel station if it's really a tight entry and exit. But there is almost always another one 1000 feet further down the road that will work just fine.

Campgrounds? we selectively choose our sites to make sure we can fit the space. Never had a problem getting into any campground or getting a spot. It might not be the most popular, desired spot, but that's usually because "that" spot is already taken. But we can get into any campground. We do primarily State Parks.

Hope this helps.

Lorimack wrote:
I've owned 3 pop-up campers over the last 18 years. I'd like to upgrade to a 27' self-contained camper but I'd like more information about the differences in towing them. Any and all info is welcome.

Tow vehicle, which for a trailer of that size might even need to be a 3/4 ton, depending on exactly which 27' trailer. Mismatch TV to trailer and none of the other stuff will matter as you'll hate the experience right from the get go. :(