What are the pitfalls of camping in a Hybrid?
Versus camping in an enclosed TT? I just want to know what I'm getting myself into before we decide what to purchase. We are leaning heavily toward the hybrid as of now because I like the idea of st...
Forum Discussion
I love our HTT. It takes a little bit longer to setup and tear down than a TT for sure, but with a little planning, you can do it rather quickly.
I have three beds to fold down on my HTT. Th latches on my Coachment Freedom Express are high enough (actually the entire trailer sits higher than even a Rockwood Roo), so I have to take along a 6 ft. ladder with me to go around and open up the beds. I would say each bed takes a total of 5 minutes to open up. That includes, removing the mattress from its travel location and straps, to unlatching two latches per bed, dropping the bed, putting the rod in and putting the mattress in place. I would add another total of 5 minutes per bed for putting on my Popup Gizmo's. That includes unfolding them, and throwing them over as well as securing the bungees and clamps to the canvas. So a total of 10 minutes per bed, with three beds, im spending 30 minutes max setting up beds. Oh, and that doesn't include my wife making the beds behind me after I open them up.
Heating/Cooling is not a problem in a hybrid at all. With the popup gizmos and the reflectix cut for the windows of the canvas ends as so many do in a HTT, I can run a space heater and keep the inside temp at 70 degrees all the way down to an outdoor temp of 35 degrees. And thats with the space heater turning on an off, so I know it could be colder.
In my experience the true trade-off with a HTT over a regular TT is the beds. Like I said, Its an extra 30 minutes of setup time total on my HTT with three beds. However, the space that I get in a HTT is not matched by a TT because of the beds. In my 23 foot box, I have a dinette slide. And all the space is for living... not sleeping. Because the beds drop on the *outside* of the box, you can walk into my HTT and what you see for the living space is what you get. On a regular TT, most of the bunkhouses we would look at for sleeping our family of 5 means that we would end up with a 29 ft. box. Sure that 29 ft. box is 5 ft. longer than my 24 ft. box, but your chewing up that floor space with an 80" long queen bed for mom and dad, and 8-" of bunk beds for the kids. Thats a total of 13 feet! 29 minus 13 is only leaving you 16 ft. of that box for living space! So, my 23 ft. length box is all open as the beds drop to the outside meaning I have 7 more feet of that box for living.
I personally like camping and hearing the outdoors, so having the Canvas ends allows me to have that camping feel. Also, because of the canvas and their large windows that zip open, I get more natural light and breezes than a normal TT.
For me, I would love to get to the campsite, drop the trailer, level it, put out the awning and slide out and be camping. It would be nice to remove that 30 minutes of setup time and just have the beds all made up and ready to sleep in. The main reason I would like this is for the time saving. It would be nice to do shorter camping trips without so much setup time.
I have three beds to fold down on my HTT. Th latches on my Coachment Freedom Express are high enough (actually the entire trailer sits higher than even a Rockwood Roo), so I have to take along a 6 ft. ladder with me to go around and open up the beds. I would say each bed takes a total of 5 minutes to open up. That includes, removing the mattress from its travel location and straps, to unlatching two latches per bed, dropping the bed, putting the rod in and putting the mattress in place. I would add another total of 5 minutes per bed for putting on my Popup Gizmo's. That includes unfolding them, and throwing them over as well as securing the bungees and clamps to the canvas. So a total of 10 minutes per bed, with three beds, im spending 30 minutes max setting up beds. Oh, and that doesn't include my wife making the beds behind me after I open them up.
Heating/Cooling is not a problem in a hybrid at all. With the popup gizmos and the reflectix cut for the windows of the canvas ends as so many do in a HTT, I can run a space heater and keep the inside temp at 70 degrees all the way down to an outdoor temp of 35 degrees. And thats with the space heater turning on an off, so I know it could be colder.
In my experience the true trade-off with a HTT over a regular TT is the beds. Like I said, Its an extra 30 minutes of setup time total on my HTT with three beds. However, the space that I get in a HTT is not matched by a TT because of the beds. In my 23 foot box, I have a dinette slide. And all the space is for living... not sleeping. Because the beds drop on the *outside* of the box, you can walk into my HTT and what you see for the living space is what you get. On a regular TT, most of the bunkhouses we would look at for sleeping our family of 5 means that we would end up with a 29 ft. box. Sure that 29 ft. box is 5 ft. longer than my 24 ft. box, but your chewing up that floor space with an 80" long queen bed for mom and dad, and 8-" of bunk beds for the kids. Thats a total of 13 feet! 29 minus 13 is only leaving you 16 ft. of that box for living space! So, my 23 ft. length box is all open as the beds drop to the outside meaning I have 7 more feet of that box for living.
I personally like camping and hearing the outdoors, so having the Canvas ends allows me to have that camping feel. Also, because of the canvas and their large windows that zip open, I get more natural light and breezes than a normal TT.
For me, I would love to get to the campsite, drop the trailer, level it, put out the awning and slide out and be camping. It would be nice to remove that 30 minutes of setup time and just have the beds all made up and ready to sleep in. The main reason I would like this is for the time saving. It would be nice to do shorter camping trips without so much setup time.
