"Escape the Ordinary" Rugged Minimalist Teardrop Camper

[Music] Oregon trailer specializes in building small camper trailers for The high-end Market but their prices are surprisingly affordable with base prices starting at just eight thousand five hundred dollars and ranging up to twenty four thousand dollars for their top tier trailer there's an option for every budget additionally their trailers come in a range of weights from as light as 550 pounds to as heaviest 2100 pounds ensuring that there's a perfect match for your Towing needs today I'll be taking Atlas down to Eugene Oregon to show you Frontier Alpha a teardrop like no other so I'm John with Oregon trailer this is Frontier Alpha our newest addition to our lineup it's based on the frontier body shape all curves airplane wing shape happens to be my brother's personal Frontier Alpha so you'll see there's a little dust and grit and grime on it here and there as happens when you actually use these things we have done this shape trailer the frontier for many years it was the very first entry into our Market but as the over Landing segment of the market has erupted we've followed it I think we've maybe LED some of it and this one is the Overland off-road variation of the frontier shape so it's done like our much-loved Terra drop Alpha but without all curves profile that everybody seems to uh really like when we do a built-in stove which is optional it folds down out of the Cabinetry that way it's not taking up all of your counter space all of the time it's only there when you need it you simply click on the uh valve of the propane right next to it it's a very simple system very few fittings which is good when you're taking these things vibrating through the back country you don't want a lot of stuff you want to minimize things as much as possible while still delivering as much as you can so that's what this is all about for us is trying to find that Razor's Edge of what you need what you want and how to do it as simply and efficiently and maintenance free as we can stove folds away when you don't need it a pin goes in so it doesn't flop around on the trail locking it into position our biggest trailers right now are five by eights so five feet wide eight feet in the main body segment four feet tall and that's small uh across the market right now most manufacturers are trying to make bigger and heavier and more complex systems and that's cool there's something for everybody we're not going that direction Our intention with this is to make them as small and as light and as capable as we can in our Cabinetry in our Galley I should say we have lots of storage we have a center compartment behind all of that is our electrical compartment our electrical distribution center you don't need access to it very often so pulling the cups out and stuff's not a very big deal we have lots of little fitment options to manage all of your things um this is again one of our personal trailers so you can see how we actually travel with our actual stuff and Sawyer and I have done our our layouts slightly differently this is uh Sawyer's preference and I think it works really well down below the cabinet or the counter excuse me is managed storage Sawyer uses bags we really like this last U.S Bag Company very high quality soft goods and he has bags like this with managed stuff we use a lot of marine fastening Hardware like these little plugs our drawers are all in retention Springs so you have to pull hard which makes it so they don't fly out on the road little spray faucets and Marine Chrome Hardware 16 gallon main tank underneath that's custom Roto molded for us it has chamfered edges on all the bottom corners so that there's no hard shelves to fetch up on and all of our fittings come up through the floor and they don't hang down below the trailer unlike a lot of companies and that is because we don't want things to get torn out the layout of the trailer we've been doing for many years it's a proven setup it works great and now we're in the fitment phase where we're just trying to maximize the space make it the best to use we're adding little baskets these things can come out transport to your picnic bench the little wing dividers can come out and rearrange and they fit in this pressure fit up into this cleat here and this cleat pair together for our side table and I can show you how that works it stows in the cabin and the pin goes in to keep it secure and now you have a legless section of extra counter space we like to pull these back off of the in line with the trailer so that you have kind of an LC L-shaped counter space and it doesn't take up extra width and cause you problems for kind of getting around your campsite so all of our Alpha trailers that is to say are off-road models come standard with our proprietary roof rack system we have two different styles Frontiers always come with the taller bars and that's to overcome the curve of the trailer and still get enough height so that your vent has adequate space to open this particular one is fitted with a stargazer window what we call a tongue box a lot of people think of this as a tongue box and there's nothing wrong with that verbiage but we call this a tongue box and then this is a cargo box and they can be used in complement this way this is actually inside storage you access through the headboard at the head of your bed through sliding doors so that way you can stay in bed and not move yourself to get access to the inside of that compartment you can see it's a completely seamless integration the floor actually extends in one piece out into that it's not a bolt-on thing after the fact or slap on it is fully integrated into the rest of the trailer a lot of Manufacturers that do a similar thing end up with a seam right here and that's okay for a while but eventually it will in my opinion become an issue everything that we do is as seamless as possible in every system that we that we offer that's especially true with the alpha trailers that have this kind of coating that is everywhere it's it's underneath it's on the top it's on the sides it's all over there are no seams a fully like encapsulated system on our off-road trailers we'll often fit them it's an option but many people use it with these little deflector step wedges for and after the fenders does a number of things one it divide provides a surface to scrape along so that you don't damage the side of the trailer and will prevent your fenders from getting fully ripped off we do offer little drop steps that index into these slots and then allow you a a little bit lower Ingress step we like to include a little Jeep style nylon handles which make these tile doors much easier to close from inside very simple deadbolt for inside locking and then very nice stainless Hardware very traditional this is what they used back in the 30s and 40s for teardrops and it still works we do offer options for AC if you need it if you're in a place that that's required we think for most people in most places and most times it's not necessary we all also offer Heating in a variety of ways but again I'll usually talk people out of it unless it's required for their specific needs and there are many ways to accomplish that my favorite of which is also the simplest and the cheapest which is an electric blanket but we also offer things like forced air propane furnaces for the people that need that kind of integration you can get a little hint of our frame reinforcement that we always do for our Alpha and off-road trailers we have a traditional a-style boxed in tube steel frame but then we add extra strength gussets where it's appropriate and you'll notice the very thickest point is right where the tongue of the trailer exits the body of the trailer where the highest stresses are on that part of the system and so we're trying to be as efficient as we can with the material and the weight and the product so that it it does what it needs to do and it stays as light as possible we always use our Max coupler for our off-road trailers years I should say kill the off-roads max coupler very simple product there's a yoke that cradles this from the back of the tow vehicle and it couples is just a simple pin rotates on this axis on this axis and then the Yoke also rotates so you have full articulation it will not come off we always use a receiver in the front of our trailers so that you can use something like this or something else if you have a different preference if you prefer lock and rolls or some or a pintle hook or a regular ball coupler we always use a wheeled tongue jack with an eight inch wheel on the front between this and our stabilizing leveling jacks in the back you get tripotal full leveling potential you can see we have tents on top of our trailers because we have kids and so one of the good reasons to drop the stabilizing Jacks is just to help isolate that movement and keep the suspension from reacting anytime people move around we like a 55-inch traditional awning on this style trailer they fit the shape and the size very well you get about seven feet of extension you can get these with zip in rooms to create a enclosed space outside of your trailer there's many ways of achieving that I personally prefer a light speed style potty tent those are great it goes up quick and it allows you to stand up and you can change and you keep a little potty in there if you're off grid shower also works great for that so it's a nice way a nice complement to these kinds of trailers oftentimes what we'll do is we'll have this deployed and then mating up to it a regular 10 by 10 canopy which is gold for teardrop people I'm sure you know it's 100 square feet of of really nice coverage from both any kind of elements rain sun doesn't matter we like to put side mounted propane tanks it doesn't stick out farther from the body than the fenders it is inside of that surface this is actually the shore Inlet this comes standard so anytime you're at a campsite or at your home in your garage you plug in here and the trailer is powered we then on this particular trailer have opted for both types of power outlet so if you have a fridge for instance that you want to sit here in power that's a great spot for it these are 20 amp capable and then we have 120 volt Outlet this trailer is equipped with a 2000 watt inverter so it's a nice way to get power outside of the trailer without having a cord strung from inside or out of the galley this trailer is also fitted with area lights so we can come and switch oops so we have these lights that flank The Galley and that way if you're in here it's dark and you have all your light on here it can make outside of your little light envelopes seem very dark and so this is a way to kind of give you the comfort of your peripheral vision back I've never seen anybody do that yeah well it's a came out of necessity basically just noticing that boy this feels great but this feels like a black wall of nothing and so it's nice to have the ability to light that space as well we also offer porch lights of course we do them differently than most on most trailers your porch lights would be a little wall mount unit here facing down I don't like those personally I think it blinds you instantly usually the wrong color temperature the like the white blue which is awful what we do instead is we put our lights under the door and that lights the ground and not your face it gives you light where you need it but not where you don't want it we use a very warm color temperature for our exterior lighting so that it's not annoying for your neighbors and also doesn't wreck your night vision instantly when you get up to go to the bathroom or whatever the case may be lighting is really one of the things that I think separates us from many of the other entries in the market and that we spent a lot of attention on it the way that you experience these things a lot of it has to do with what it looks like and what it looks like is how it's lit just like with photography the you can have the best camera in the world but if your lighting is poor a lot of times it doesn't look good same thing in real life you want the right kind of light to experience the thing well so we use indirect lighting as often as we can it's all dimmable it's all warm color temperature a wide beam angle when you're this is not in bed mode at the moment but when this is the matte full mattress layout and your head is here the light is shining away from you and not at all in your face and it's extremely useful kind of light because it's the same color temperature as the wood and it just refracts and reflects and fills the cabin really well you struggle to even form a shadow so this is what the inside of our trailers lay out like Cabinetry above your legs your feet shoot underneath what we call the foot well here we always have 12 inches of space between the top of the mattress and the bottom of the footwell which for most people has plenty we have a six foot six long bed in all of our trailers every trailer always has six foot six in length the width varies depending on model this is a five foot wide trailer so after you take away the thickness of the material we're left with 58 and a half inches of interior width which is pretty common in this kind of sized trailer it's plenty it's effectively a queen size bed I sleep very well in it with my wife on this trailer we've put in some little nice storage shelves things that you can use at Camp just to place your dinner or your coffee or Sawyer's wife will do her makeup here using the mirror and have you know it just work surfaces are critical but they fold away when you don't need them and then we outfit them with little Nets underneath so if you want to store your book your hat or um inside of the Cabinetry lots of good space adjustable shelves we always put a mirror up in here which helps a couple things makes the cabinet look a little bigger and also prepare yourself in the morning and you'll notice a perimeter of screws around these plates making them removable for servicing all of our electrical plates are like that as well so you can take the whole entire plate out as a module or replace you know Parts as necessary and everything's on a switch so if you need to you know if you want USB power or not you can kill the power to that device so it's not just a drain on your battery we use these touch capacitive dimmers so you just press and hold it until the light is at the level it's appropriate for the time this is a bit bright for an actual night time so you just press and hold and it will dim all the way down to there and press again it'll start dimming up the side table that we showed earlier mounts right up in here when it's not being deployed there's a little bracket there and there and they've insert into that bracket and this one and then a little catch holds it and now it's fully away it's still plenty of foot room for uh most people to leave it in place if you don't want it deployed we like to put these what we call a door skirt in this keeps your bedding from getting squirted out of the door as you close it basically and interrupting your seal causing a leak in the front you'll notice the access doors to that outside space that we looked at again we call it a tongue box really it's a forward closet one of the things that we also offer is what we call a panic siren so this is a way to scare off Critters that have uh encroaching in your space uh four-legged two-legged whoever in the front here we like to put a this is actually our reading light it is at his heart just a USB set of outputs and then we have map lights that are gooseneck that come out of those and they're great they're warm white they're LED we always like to use our fantastic fan by now by Dometic free speed reversible has a little thermostat control they move plenty of air they're pretty quiet very um very efficient and so the roof is very well insulated all the way from basically the bed to the galley the walls are uninsulated except by the material and then the coating on the outside actually adds to it it's not rated for that purpose but in effect it works rather well so it goes a long way as to actually helping to insulate and and and keep the space both quiet and weatherproof obviously but also resilience to temperature change the Oregon trailer has switched over to a new galley design as seen here the cabinets are now cnc'd using that beautiful Baltic Birch you see throughout the trailer John says besides having less waste and a quicker manufacturing process versus the traditional style cabinets you saw earlier he says this new style also increases the overall strength of the trailer now for what I like about this trailer the small details I've never seen a manufacturer dial in the small details like Oregon trailer like you heard during this walkthrough they've been doing this for a long time and now they're in the refinement stage I can't specifically remember when John and Sawyer started Oregon trailer but I know they've been running this business for over 10 years now these two brothers are doing something right when you realize how rare it is for a small camper company to survive past the 10-year Mark the next one is quality of components and build materials in relation to the price John and Sawyer consider themselves to be targeting the high-end Market meaning they didn't set out to create a budget or even mid-range teardrop trailer if you're looking for a high-end teardrop at a mid-range teardrop price this is where it's at the final like before getting to dislikes is the material they use to seal up this trailer basically they're using a raptor liner when I visited the shop Oregon trailer said this coating essentially turns the trailer into a one-piece shell all eliminating water intrusion boosting insulation and obviously adding additional protection from scrapes and bumps while I like the use of a protective liner this liner also leads me to my dislikes while I'm not saying John is wrong here I tend to often look at trailers for the first time with critical eyes I've talked to many trailer manufacturers over the years and learned that trailer liners like Rhino liner Raptor armadillo they all have their weaknesses and two of these weaknesses are around cracking either due to vibrations or from expanding and Contracting due to weather conditions these factors can lead to problems over time anywhere two surfaces joined together allowing for some movement for example walls subfloors roofs like traditional manufactured teardrop trailers that need some Shoring up after about five years on the road it's difficult for me to imagine that this trailer's liner won't crack in high stress areas within four to five years as well however this doesn't take away from this trailer it still adds additional protection that 99 of trailers on the road just don't have I'm just alluding to the fact that underneath this liner you still have traditional teardrop construction that can shift over time if you know me you know that I have to mention that three-quarter Galley on this trailer if you wonder why I dislike it just check out my high camp Teardrop trailer walkthrough I go into great detail within that video on the limitations of a three-quarter Galley Hatch I will link that video for you in the description below I had a hard time finding things I disliked about this trailer so instead of nitpicking I'll use my third dislike as an opportunity to educate adding heavy Overland components like Oregon trailer did here has little impact on gas mileage you may be surprised how well a 1500 pound trailer performs versus a 900 pound trailer when they both have similar aerodynamic properties and size but adding frontal area in the form of a wall such as a rooftop tent awnings boxes this is where you will see a dramatic decrease in your overall gas mileage throwing this stuff on is bad enough at 55 miles per hour but wait until you start driving above 60. each additional mile per hour you add has a significant decrease on gas mileage just to give you an example when I was zipping on the interstate with the rooftop tent installed last summer I was seeing gas mileage between 9 to 11 miles per gallon with the Subaru Outback and this was on flat land if you're looking for the best bang for your buck I think it can be found in Oregon right now if you haven't seen our walkthrough of Aero teardrops check out this video on the left this is another great mid-price trailer coming out of Oregon but with high price features and if you're on a budget or need additional space check out our 6x12 teardrop walkthrough on the right here from Bend teardrops in Oregon and if you're new here don't forget to check out all of our playlists or trailer walkthroughs as usual stay safe out there and we will see you in the next episode

Channel: Playing with Sticks

Views: 549,090

Keywords: teardrop camper, teardrop trailer, travel trailer, rv life, teardrop camper tour, teardrop campers, small camper trailer, teardrop camper trailer, oregon trailer, camping, camping trailer, small camper, tiny camper, tiny home, trailer tour, trailer walkthrough, walkthrough, tour, teardrop, off road, overland, off road trailer, overland trailer, playing with sticks, alaska, best camper, best small camper, best small trailer, rugged, off grid, galley kitchen, small trailer

Id: _vAu7j-m4J0

Length: 21min 21sec (1281 seconds)

Published: Thu May 04 2023