If You're Sick of $40,000 Small Camper Trailers!

who loves a great deal hey guys it's Drew and today we'll be taking you through four different camper models from hiker trailer these range from their Highway model at five thousand nine hundred dollars base to their extreme off-road model at 14 900 base the beauty of hiker's model is that you can go as simple as you want with these trailers or build them out to come in at prices over thirty thousand dollars and make sure you stick around to the end of this walkthrough because you won't want to miss what Matt and Wendy have to say about these trailers as owners of three hiker trailers themselves and one being a rental trailer they have some great insights to share they'll be sharing with you why they continue to purchase hiker over every other manufacturer out there and why you might want to as well hi my name is Rob Reeve I'm with hiker trailer and I was going to give you a quick little walk through on our trailer models that we offer we have Highway deluxes we have which is more of a highway type trailer we have mid-range deluxes mid-range xl's and extreme came off roads this particular trailer that is here with us today is a mid-range it is very similar to our Highway Deluxe our Highway Deluxe starts at about 59.95 and goes up from there you can keep the trailer with moderate add-ons in the under 1200 pound range and under ten thousand dollars it looks very similar to this some of the differences are the the tire selection the Jacks some of the other items that that happen to be on on the trailer one door two windows very stock and standard rig very very similar to this one the crowd on the highway Deluxe at that 1100 pound trailer really is the Subaru Market or that small light tow capacity vehicle which anything 1500 pounds and less can still get that trailer and be into a trailer without having to buy a new vehicle this is a mid-range Deluxe it's sitting it starts at 79.95 on an eight foot trailer you can do some moderate off-roading this trailer probably averages with gear about 1200 13 hundred pounds you can add so much stuff on it that it can go into an eighteen thousand dollar trailer we try to design our trailers or design what the customers get that they only get what they want to pay for if you don't want all the bells and whistles you don't have to buy all the bells and whistles that go with it it makes it's what it makes our company kind of unique and then this trailer is the mid-range XL who ends up buying this trailer or customers that have a stock SUV or or something of that sort like a forerunner or a Tacoma that are looking for some off-road capability but don't necessarily have a lifted vehicle or want to pay for something that has all the modifications on it this trailer this one starts at 1095 on this nine foot and 995 on the eight foot trailer so this one as it sits is about eighteen thousand but some of the things that changes its price and increases its price a little bit are you know water tanks and water pumps and second doors and screen doors and spare tires if you don't need those things you don't order them you can even DUI this trailer a lot yourself you can buy it stripped down and do some of the work yourself am I a hiker buy a square drop over good question so what I was asked is why a square drop over a traditional teardrop and it really is water a square drop is more efficient at keeping water out of the trailer with the trailers being flat in the back and and square in the front it doesn't allow for that curved door that you have to over engineer to try to keep water out of it the other thing it does I'm not a small guy and so a traditional teardrop that is round in the back and round in the front I I can't change my pants so I I can't lay there and try to get dressed with everything coming in on me so we came up with this design years ago because the the amount of room it gave you inside to it can be pouring down rain and you and your wife or you and your spouse can sit in here with two kids during a rainstorm playing cards and still have plenty of room on the bed it's like you know the whole family can climb in and and just make good memories in Rob's point about the square drop versus the traditional teardrop shape the other thing that you can get with a square drop trailer is a lot more storage space because we have that larger space in the rear you're probably going to get on average 33 percent more usable storage space for Batteries cargo kitchen equipment whatever you might want in that weird square space and if you look at our trailers we've got you know shelving and Galley space back there pre-built but that's completely customizable from our customers so you can add drawers or close off the galley to the cabin or leave it open for extra foot room or leg room the stuff that we do with our trailers is almost anything under the sun we have a very large menu to choose from and then whatever the customers want to build we'll we'll do for them within reason and then my next question for you affordable because they're easier to build this is the extreme off-road model it's still it's still a deluxe trailer which is the cabinet package but the eor the extreme off-road is is the frame package of this particular trailer the trailer bases at on an eight foot this is a nine foot model the eight foot model is at 1295. this one being the nine foot trailer is at 13.95 so you can buy it off our our showroom floor or order it um we're about a 90-day wait on trailers three month to four month wait at the most and you can buy this trailer it's fully functional at thirteen fourteen thousand dollars it's it's you don't have to spend a ton of money if you want to add a ton of stuff this one has a lot of things on it this one's sitting at about thirty four thousand you don't have to be there we sell a lot of these trailers in the nineteen thousand dollar range where they come in and they just they'll put a little electrical system in it and use it the way it is and just do a few things to make it comfortable for them you can add cabinet doors you cannot add cabinet doors you can add custom windows you cannot add custom windows you could have doors with screens fridge boxes refrigerators or you can leave all that off and keep it simple the extreme can have in-floor storage comes with a 33 inch tire it can this trailer can handle up to a 35 most customers just leave a 33 it comes with a five on five Jeep pattern you can put a six on 5.5 which is a Toyota pattern on it this one has air suspension that's underneath it which makes the ride quality pretty nice awnings it has a 23-0 aw awning on the top and it has a small little Galley in the back and all of our trailers kind of have a very similar Galley so the rub rail that we put on it is 100 functional you could jack the trailer up with it you can stand on it stand on the fenders it's a it's truly functional at what it is we just we try to keep the labor down on the trailer as much as possible to keep it affordable that our main goal is to give you a great trailer at a great price and not steal the money out of your pocket so the awning on this one is a 23-0 it has a light suppression technology in it it really it'll drop the temperature under the awning by about 10 degrees in the summertime which in our area here in Colorado is is pretty important this trailer goes to the West Coast a lot there's a lot of customers all over the country that buy it but anyone with a lot of sun it really helps you can put walls on it you can block it in you can put your own awning on it you can order it without one and do your own it's really kind of up to what you want to do the rear Galley is this one is 24 inches deep all the trailers the nine foot and above you can option to have a little bit deeper Galley which allows you to store your stuff this way all the trailers come with a pass-through pass-through opening that's in here and that door originally was designed you know when I first designed the trailer my wife is a big reader we don't we don't get to Vacation a ton when we do we go camping I have 13 kids so we're busy all the time I put the pass-through in so that I could you know pass her a cup of coffee while she's in there reading and we could do some prepping in here and prep for dinner I could pass it through or or if we had a one of our grandchildren in here you know they could be playing in there and you could still see them and talk to them and it's just like a little Playhouse for them too you can set the trailer up this one's pretty stripped down but we we offer drawers water tank this trailer has a water tank underneath it's 21 gallons you can put a on-demand shower on the back of it or on the side of it you can just do a ton of different options it's the sushi menu is so big that sometimes it gets confusing and it's just take your time go through with what you want to order and get it exactly the way you want it can be confusing for customers as well so we've started to pre-select some pre-built packages so we've got our plus pro and Elite options which we took all the custom trailer data over the last five years and kind of figured out what the most popular options were at each price point and we've been able to pre-build some of those units instead of having to wait on a custom unit and because we can kind of build the same trailer over and over again which is something we don't really do that often we've been able to work with our vendors and pass on some savings that are kind of built into those pre-built units for the customers as well we've been building trailers since 2008-ish around in there and hiker has been building hard since 2014. I think we're one of the leaders in the country at trailers we we have a large footprint in the market we are building anywhere from 45 to 65 trailers a month it really depends on which locations You're Building from we're we have a lot of cool things in the works to build even more um we're very active owners Community that's very involved we're very involved with them as far as campouts and support we have a location in Columbus Indiana which is our main manufacturing location we have the location in Lafayette Colorado we offer service and aftermarket add-ons and upgrades at both locations one of the unique things is like Rob was talking about is a lot of people will come into the trailer Market at that lower price point with our units and then every year they'll add on two or three more high dollar items because camping is their Hobby so instead of playing golf they're going to spend you know the amount of money they would spend on a a Golf Course membership on all the off-roading stuff and get more options every year so some of these rigs that we've seen that are you know five or six years old are more tricked out than you know what you can buy today sometimes because they've had that much time to put on additional options and tweak it to what they want to build you know we've been building for so long that a lot of the issues that other builders may have because they're new or they've been only been doing this a long time or short time things we've worked out years ago we just don't have the warranty issues that you would you would think are warranty debt is low we have hardly anything come back and if it is it's typically very minor and we we make everything ourselves from the frame to the box and we work with really trusted Partners like 230 like truma fridges because we want to provide a good warranty and a good product even if it's something we don't make ourselves yeah I mean I think we have we have over 3000 rigs on the road right now so it's it's a it's a big market and we're expanding even more you know we're Innovative yeah like the trailer over here we're running off of a gold zero now because the power stations are all the rage at the moment and with our systems a Goal Zero if it's a 1500x can run a trailer for a week supplemented with a solar you could go even more than that we've partnered with Goal Zero due to their customer service and the fact that they're based in the United States and we have some more Integrations in the works with them and their engineering team so there's a lot of r d in the works right now on portable power solar panels I mean anything that you can think of really that's popular we've been working on with our trusted Partners um and are you know either have a solution for we'll have a solution for it very quickly this is the interior of a deluxe rig they come standard with this this wall configuration you see right here but this pass-through of this opening or where it's closed is typically open on a standard rig and then this is standard and then this is an add-on so a customer requested this to be added in but other than that the interior is pretty pretty normal this is a nine foot interior so it's a full queen bed length inside um and then we block the bottom the customer's request a block off the back of the trailer trailer and that allows them to put their pillows at this end we have some customers that sleep this way some that sleep this way most of the ones that sleep with their head to the front don't put this shelf in they come standard with the lights inside and a fuse panel you can take a base trailer from that point and add your own electrical system or we can add it for you so the standard rig comes with a power strip some lights inside a fuse panel and then from there the customer starts picking battery packages do I add a battery or do I just do it myself you can put a Goal Zero in it if you want to keep it simple or we can build an electrical system it's really kind of what fits your needs decide whether you want side lights or no lights or lights inside or rear lights or under trailer lights you can add cabinet doors the trailer back behind us actually has doors that block these in they come standard open but if you want to block them off and add doors you can did I told you yeah because I really did did I my whole goal with the channel is finding the experts in the industry and pointing people to them yep now at first I thought you guys were hiker experts right like you are like when I picture hiker trailer I picture you guys okay like you're the face thank you I appreciate that uh but after watching you all these years like this is a this is a resource uh for people that want to get into a trailer and not break the bank and then how to expand from there as you go on you start small and you grow this thing uh you guys are on your third hiker trailer we are on our third yes mid-range that we've totally modded out we picked up a rental so people can do kind of a try before they buy it it's on outdoorsy so people can come check it out it's the low end hiker so it helps people kind of take a look at it and decide if that's what they want to get into and this year we upgraded upgraded Notting this one out too it's been awesome and then along with that we've been building out our community and doing an event every year we'd host every September it's coming up here in three weeks we're super excited we're up to 75 trailers and 160 people or so so the community's really been growing it's been pretty awesome I can't imagine that many trailers like if somebody showed up they're gonna see all these modifications the way to store their clothes how to live how many of these people are living full time in these trailers oh we've got two people that are going to speak they're living full-time out of their hiker and we think that's gonna be fascinating we talked to them at the last event last year so one of the couples actually was at the hiker campout last year had their trailer on order and then this summer they're being campground hosts at one of the national parks so they're living in it for the summer so I've had other people with covid that their jobs got kind of pushed back and they were able to be out on the trailers for like six months so it's cool to see how people are using this for more of a long-term thing versus just a quick Weekender so windy and Matt what is your channel who are you what is our Channel I mean everybody knows you I'm pretty sure if you're mad the way it started out with Matt DeWitt was the YouTube channel and then as we added on the rental it became a business so then we made it mwd Adventures Matt Wendy DeWitt Adventures highly playing with sticks recommended everybody knows that we send people so it's a tough one it's like runaway or hiker right that's the question and Matt is a great resource for figuring out are you a hiker person are you a runaway person and I guarantee you if you're researching that you're going to be one of the two and then you can still go to back to their Channel if you are a Runway person because they're very similar trailers they build out very similar and they have very similar benefits right yeah and the gear that goes along with it or the mods work really with boat trailers yeah the thing we like about the hiker brand name is you can start out economical and get into it very economically and then you can build on that and if you're like hey I want all the bills and whistles you can do that too they offer such a variety of different trailers I don't believe they have the in-house capability I know they have come out recently in the last year of an off-road model I don't know all the options that they offer but I just feel like having the tiers that hiker has they've been putting together different package plans now it's like help kind of help the customer along with one electrical package do I need what size tires do I need what you know how big a trailer do I need how much storage do I need and they help you walk you through that process and the nice thing about their website is you can put in all your components and you can build your own trailer all day long you can see the Final prices yes and then you can say oh that's more than I want to spend and so you pick and choose which things to pull back all right last bit here I literally pulled these guys off the street they are not paid by hiker to say this they're just giant hiker enthusiasts right yes yep we are just hiker enthusiasts we enjoy the trailers it was our first trailer when we first got on there was not one video on how trailer on YouTube and because of that we decided to help the community out the more videos we put out the more people were helping the more feedback we got thank you thank you well giving us what are the options how do I build out my trailer and I will say hiker if you're listening to this video these guys should be your brand ambassadors uh everybody who comes to us to ask about a hiker they say they came from these guys's Channel they feel committed to it they're ready to go and they just ask us for like a second opinion like is this the right move and financially yes build quality yes we're looking at a trailer that makes sense for a lot of people it does yeah well thank you guys yeah if you're on a budget but still want a quality trailer like this hiker make sure you check out our road toad walk through here on the left this is a composite trailer that weighs only 400 pounds and it's impervious to water and check out our Bend Teardrop trailer walkthrough on the right here if you want a larger teardrop for your growing family and I should mention it comes in at a great price as well thanks for everything you do to take part in this Vibrant Community we feel so blessed to be a part of something like this stay safe on the road and we will see you in the next episode

Channel: Playing with Sticks

Views: 1,025,685

Keywords: small camper trailer, camper trailer, small travel trailer, teardrop camper trailer, travel trailer, small camper, tiny homes, camper trailer build, playing with sticks, teardrop trailer, teardrop camper, hiker trailer, camp, camping, camping trailer, camping trailerdd, cheapest camper, budget camper, affordable camper, best teardrop trailer, best small camper, camper tour, walkthrough, off road trailer build, travel trailer living, tiny camper, lightweight camper

Id: lXmuCaqP1to

Length: 19min 49sec (1189 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 01 2023