The COOLEST Airstream Trailer | 2023 REI 16X Basecamp - Walk Through

[Music] hello and welcome back to Colonial Airstream I'm Patrick Botticelli and today I'm excited to go through the all-new 2023 Airstream Basecamp 16x REI Co-op Edition this special edition trailer has a 3 500 pound grow speed weight rating 2800 pound dry weight giving you an 800 pound neck carrying capacity before options the hitch weight is 450 pounds the exterior length is 16 feet 2 inches exterior width is seven feet next to your height to the top of the air conditioning is nine feet the interior width is six foot four and a half inches giving the interior Headroom of six foot three and a half now this trailer is just as cool on the outside as it is on the inside I'd like you to take it through and around the outside first before we dive into the details on the inside now the REI Edition comes standard with the X package that is an option on the regular base camp so you get the heavy duty stainless steel wrap protectors the protects the body from the rocks that kick up from your tow vehicle and you get the solar Stone guards that protect the glass they're tinted to lessen the UV light that comes inside the trailer and keeps the heat down inside you also get the Wrangler Goodyear off-road tires and a little bit higher ground clearance on this trailer that's part of the X package so if you were ordering a base camp and you didn't want the REI special edition you could get a regular base camp 16 with the X package and get some of these items here the whole exterior is made out of aluminum it's got aluminum ribs it's all Buck riveted in place has a steel entry step that goes in when you're towing the entry door has a double lock system and a tether that locks it in place so it doesn't blow around on a windy day there is a privacy shade on the entry door and this is all insulated with equal bat insulation the flooring is a heavy duty coin style rubber floor and it has composite deck flooring below you get a special REI entry mat there is a retractable screen door on board with magnets to keep it and this door is just as beautifully made as the doors in the traditional Airstream travel trailers except it is a flat door it's not curved it does have weather seal all the way around it has a gutter rail over the top a grab handle to get in grip tape over here so you don't slip on the way out and if you look up top on the trailer this black band is removable and you have a keter rail that goes around the whole entire trailer so you can buy key to rail accessories things that fit in that key to really just slide in you could buy a moon shade for it and different types of awnings that are available to Market there's an LED porch light that illuminates this area this Trail has a rubber torsion axle system on board it has regular bearings that need to be repacked as a part of the proper maintenance and I have never adjust braking system the tanks are heated on this trailer so if you get an unexpected drop in temperature you're going to protect your tanks from freezing there's a tank heater switch on board which is 12 volts 12 volt heat pad and that will come on thermostatically controlled and give you about a 7 to 10 degree boost inside the tank for temperature in that insulated chamber in the back here there is an electrical outlet so right now we're plugged into Shore power and we're able to power this electric outlet so that you'll either plug into a portable generator you can buy or a Shore power to power all your electrical outlets on board including the microwave which is an option and the rooftop air conditioning which is an option over here we got a reflector light and I just love the lines and the design on this Airstream base camp the look is uh back that takes you back to the original airstreams that were made pre-World War II this is the style and design that Wally beim our founder came up with and the base camp was launched in 2007 as a collaboration with Nissan design and it ran from 2007 8-9 and then it was relaunched in 2017 as our current design but they all shared the similar form factor and look and appearance this window here pops out it's event style window so if you have your owning out and you have light rain you're not going to get water in there's Beautiful cast aluminum tail light housings of course LED lights and look at the departure angle on this trailer has a much higher ground clearance and departure angle than your traditional Airstream travel trailer and it has these bumper guards here so if you are coming out well it protects underneath of your trailer it'll hit those first heavy duty stabilizer Jacks in the back two corners and there is a hand crank for them it's a three-quarter inch nut so you could always buy a cordless drill with a socket and zip those down pretty quickly the REI Edition has special green accents throughout including on this back door frame which has a gutter rail there's some running lights up top here this also has a roll down insect screen so if you wanted to leave this back door open it snaps in all the way down to the bottom and gives you plenty of ventilation there's Pockets here in the back door one of them is for the first aid kit that comes part of the REI Edition you can slip that in you got a window in the back door and it does also have a roll down privacy shade so if you want to make it room darkening and you want some privacy to snap that in place and then you have a white board here so you can write notes hey I'm going out for today I'll see you in a little bit you can write that to your family members and friends and the back door is made out of fiberglass but then it's clad in aluminum and it shuts nice and tight you got a license plate bracket over here aluminum hinges and then this door has a system built in if you look over here when you bring the door around that latches it in place now it's not designed for like heavy wind but if you're loading Cargo in and out and you have the door open it's a little Breezy it's going to keep it from moving around now another thing we have is a full-size spare tire on board and there's a tool that fits into this socket and the whole thing can crank down to the ground you can undo it and you could change your tire you're always going to use the jack that your tow vehicle came with and you're going to have to purchase some tools to remove the lug nuts at the 13 16 shallow wool deep socket to get your lug nuts off part of the REI Co-op it comes with a lot of accessories now most of them will fit into this large bag here but this comes as part and fits right in between this well here and then you have some USB Outlets you have a 12 volt socket here and an electrical outlet back here and again all electrical outlets run off of the shore power when you're plugged in at a campground this side gives you access to additional storage here that you could load items in the back and then you if you look down on the floor you could see some tie downs and some L tracks so if you load a mountain bike in standard 26 inch wide handlebar on a bike and then you can buy accessories they have to Market that fit into the L track that you could tie the bike down into the fork you'd remove the tire too if you have larger handlebars you can maneuver it in and around too it's just as easy I've done it I've tried it myself coming around on this side we have the shore power connection now this is a 125 volt trailer 30 amp Shore power and you would need 30 amp full Shore power if you want to run everything in the trailer it says microwave and air conditioning we give you an adapter here at Colonial Airstream that adapts this 30 amp connection down to a regular 15 or 20 amp electrical outlet and you could do most things in the trailer when you're using that adapter one of the things that you shouldn't be able to run would be your rooftop air conditioning that we do sell at a dealership Soft Star capacitors that you can put in which lessen the load when the initial startup which could potentially allow it to work on a 20 amp outlet but best case scenario you always want to plug into a 30 amp electrical outlet open this door here and this is the fresh water tank fill this has 21 gallons of fresh water that you could hold on board and it has waste tank combination gray and black gray would be sink and shower waste black will be toilet waste that is a 24 gallon tank that is heated just like the fresh water tank below that we have a city water connection this will allow you to fill the freshwater tank and use your water pump on board the city water allows you to supply water pressure to all your plumbing and systems on Demand with the campground's water pressure this also has a water pressure regulator built into it in case you get a unexpected Spike and water pressure in the campground your trailer is protected this does not fill your freshwater tank this bypass is the tank because there's a check valve built into the water pump so if you want to fill the tank you just put the hose in here this has a continuous hot water heater made by suburban and it has a recirculate feature which allows you to not waste cold water when it's first initially firing up it does not have a reservoir of hot water so it makes hot water when you turn on the tap over here is a 12 000 BTU furnace it's a propane furnace on board that heats the whole entire trailer and that is on 12 volts so you don't have to be plugged into Shore power to use your furnace over here in this wheel well you see there it has a drip tube here so when the air conditioning is running at 9200 BTU air conditioner you don't have condensation running down the side of your trailer making water stains it trips right over the tire at the campground this is a cool feature here this is a unique to the base camp because other trailers have like a regular shower with hot and cold water but you could reach in and the faucet and the shower wand is right here you pull it out and you could use it to hose things down on the outside it's a pass-through shower I like that feature a lot over here is the dump station so this is that combination gray black tank where it discharges you take the cap on you snap on your waist hose we do have a great catalog of how-to videos on our YouTube page I recommend you subscribing so you can see our service quick tips and we've demonstrated how to empty the waste in an Airstream travel trailer before but the waste hose snaps on you pull the blade valve out and now allow your tank to discharge if you're doing it at night there is a LED light out here that illuminates this area so you can see a little bit better and then there's a storage compartment here that allows you to store additional items and hoses outside close to and then there's a storage tube below the trailer cap comes off and you can slide in the waist hose up to 10 feet long and that is separate storage and everything else in your trailer over here is the REI Medallion that comes with the trail these are all aluminum a lot of RV manufacturers use like plastic stickers and decals these medallions are built to last a lifetime of the trailer back up to the front we see our Rock cards below that there is an external solar Port so you can hook that up on the inside and use an mppt solar charge controller and have an external solar panel for solar gain this trailer is equipped with the optional solar charging system with lithium so there's 360 watts of solar panels that are adhered to the roof of the trailer Merlin solar panels and they max out every inch possible they can on the roof with solar and then it also comes with with this package and option two 100 amp hour lithium batteries with heat built in so if you're doing some cold weather camping and you want to charge the batteries they have the internal heat built in which will allow them to charge when it's too cold that whole thing makes this trailer pretty much Off the Grid and you can control everything except for air conditioning microwave and electrical outlets when you're running on battery and solar which is pretty awesome up front on the nose cone area has special lift up storage area is a good area where I can show you there's a QR code here and there's several throughout the trailer you can scan these with your phone and there is tech support available it goes right to airstream's website they put it in areas where people might have a lot of questions at our dealership we give you which is very awesome a Hands-On orientation everybody that buys an Airstream from our dealership when you come to pick it up we go through it on a scheduled date and time and teach you how everything works inside the trailer takes a couple hours to do this and when you're done with your training we always welcome our guests to spend a night at our dealership to do their Shakedown why they're here on our property that way if there's any questions that come up you're still here we can help answer when you're out at camping there are QR codes that you get scanned for additional tech support this allows you to store some tools in here this is a has an external propane connection so if you have a low pressure barbecue grill you can hook it in over here on this side is where it goes so you'd have this attached to your grill you take the weather guard off you snap this in you turn the gas valve on and then you could cook on your grill now this is low pressure some people might have a high pressure Grill that's not a problem there's two 20 pound propane tanks down below and uh you know this ties into the trailer but you don't need both tanks at the same time so you could always disconnect one tank and use that for a larger barbecue grill outside these tanks are clamped down nice and tight and if you have them both on they're both connected they will automatically switch from one to the other if one of the tanks goes empty internally if you take a look at this little selector here you would first start off and have this selected to one of your bottles and this would be green when the bottle's full when the bottle goes empty it would turn to red but internally you would automatically switch to this bottle and start running off of this bottle and then that would show red to show you whatever one it's pointed to is empty you could leave one tank off and one tank on and manually switch it from left to right there's a little hour on this thing that allows you to manage like sometimes people like to know when one of the tanks empty so they could go and get one changed what's nice about these tanks is there's a standard 20 pound propane tanks they use on your barbecue grill so they are exchangeable so very easy to get if you're getting fuel some of the places have propane exchange or you can just swap out your tanks you don't have to find a place to go out and get them filled then this cover goes back on and slips into a little Groove and it has also your stabilizer jack crank with the three-quarter inch socket on the end helps you ZIP down your stabilizer Jacks and this tether goes in place to keep it down and this is all the REI coloring that comes with it manual hitch jack up front this trailer does have electric brakes so you are required to have a seven-way wiring harness on the back of your vehicle with a dedicated charge lead very important your vehicle is also going to need to be equipped with an electronic brake controller and whether you do wireless or hardwired or you have the integrated Factory controller you do need to have one the hitch ball size is 2 and 5 16 and it has a Demco coupler lock on it which lifts up to release the ball there's also a hitch lock built in that we give you here at a colonial Airstream which prevents this from coming up and allow Fred's home from stealing your trailer so it's very important if you do not have one with your Airstream that you could buy one we sell them here in our parts store there's safety chains which you attached firmly to your hitch receiver on your tow vehicle you make sure you crisscross these take any slack out so they're not drained dragging the ground there's one on each side and it also has a trailer Breakaway cable here which gets firmly attached to your tow vehicle and in the case that the trailer comes attached from the tow vehicle this will pull out and it locks up the trailer brakes now people laugh when I say this but you don't want your trailer passing you in the shoulder what happens is if the trailer ever came detached you'd say oh no and you hit your brakes and your trailer's gonna Zoom right past you so this is going to make sure your brakes are activated on your trailer and you don't want to use this as a parking brake because when this is pulled out you got full Voltage going to your brakes supposed to burn out the magnets if you leave it on for a long period of time and it'll rapidly rapidly in a few hours completely drain your battery system on your trailer so always make sure this is in and the cable is not frayed this is a box frame construction with a heavy duty paint on here which is resistant to chipping and it has a jack foot on it which allows you to skid and slide it across smooth pavement if you're trying to move it over but we also sell jockey wheels at our dealership that allows you to easily roll them around on pavement now looking underneath the trailer I want to mention again because it's very important if you compare this to other RVs most sterilers don't have enclosed underbellies now this is a key feature of an Airstream trailer that really gives you a higher threshold protection if you're going to do some cold weather camping so now that we've gone around the outside let's dive into some of the details on the inside let's let me just review before we dive inside this trailer has an MSRP price of 62 550 and what does that include that includes the optional 9200 BTU air conditioning 360 watt solar with the 200 amp hour lithium batteries the microwave and the REI Edition that's a great value great package there they put together and these special edition trailers I've been selling airstreams for over 20 years now every time Airstream comes out with a special edition trailer and they're all gone because they do eventually not make them anymore everybody really really wants one now those values start going up so if you look at the Pendleton that Eddie Bauer all the different special edition models like the Quicksilver and dwr they all have excellent resale values today and I'm sure this will perform the same um welcome to the space this is an awesome layout they have on the 16 base camp and the layout's the same whether it's an REI a regular 16. it has a front Galley kitchen area a center wet bath and a large Lounge area in the back which converts into three different size beds now we'll start back here and work our way up to the front what's cool about these beds is they're 24 inches wide and 76 inches long so this could be a twin bed just as is if you just want to crash real quick and take a nap you could sleep on this there's also an option you take some boards out of the upper cabinet you assemble them across the back they sit into these little notches right here and you could make this into a U-shaped sleeping area which is fantastic and then there's little tables below so you lift up this side check out the storage underneath here I look at the materials it's all plywood with laminate they do a beautiful job but you can store a lot in here and there's tall tables and there's short tables and these just screw right in you slip it in spin it until it locks got another one over here and then you can take your tables out and they just bungee core right in and you can make it into like a low coffee table you kick your feet up but this is what supports the bed there's two long tables in there if you want to play cards with your friends because part of that REI kit comes with playing cards everybody can sit around and and have the high table or low table experience a unique feature about this bed is that there are additional flaps so see this here you could flip this down on the other side you could do the same thing then you take these two backrests here and now you have another size bed you got a double bed you can sleep sideways across the back and then if you want the mega bed you flip these up this way flip this over same thing on this side now you have a bed that's 76 by 76 this thing is Big you can actually fit four people back here if you want it but two people would be recommended another cool thing is this is a lockable compartment over here now when I lift it up if you look inside there's a storage pocket over here there's USB over here this is not down so you could plug USB and close this and still have the wires running out if you want to do it even cooler there's another notch here and this plug comes out you can run wires up to here and charge your phone there's an electrical outlet over here above the bed there's a storage rack here and one on the other side you also have the vent windows which open up and they have the insect screens built in and if you want some privacy check this out this is such a simple design it's simple but genius these just zip right up and the room darkening it's it's a heavy duty material oh and that's how all the shades operate in this Trail you get complete privacy you have some more L track if you want to hang some accessories on the wall over here we have a reading light over to bed which you just push right in then on this side there's USB charge ports here there's some coat hooks up top another window that opens this has the control for the Suburban tankless water heater so you can dial in the water temperature you'd like there's the 12000 B2 Dometic furnace on board you could turn it on and off and you could change your temperature the sea level 2 tank monitoring system allows you to monitor your battery charge fresh water capacity in percentage it's not quarters and thirds you get a precise percentage of what you have in your tank and your gray black waste tank combination there's a water pump switch over here which will illuminate and let you know the water pumps on now the water pump just doesn't run all day it turns on and pressurizes the water system on board and then once it's pressurized it shuts off and then every time you turn a faucet it kicks it back on I think you would never leave that on if you have no water in the tank because that'll just burn itself out over time and because this has this optional solar charging system you get the victron energy solar display you can buy aftermarket a smart dongle for the MBT PPT solar controller so you can monitor the battery charge and the solar gain on your cell phone which is pretty cool up top is that optional 9200 B2 air conditioning has filters over here you could clean periodically vents in the front and back and you got a low medium high fan speed and a thermostat control on board over here is the wet bath check out this really cool mirror if you look at the top you can see it's gapped there's two fans so you have a bathroom fan on the inside but then you have a fantastic fan on the outside so if you get really hot and really steam in there you can just kick on this fan it'll help vent that compartment out there's a mirror on the back of the door a handle to close the door and this extruded aluminum frame around which really keeps this door clamped tight there's a Dometic porcelain toilet on board there this is a standard foot pedal put your foot partially on the paddle all the way to flush it's a little ball valve the drain for the shower really cool wall material that they have as part of the REI your shower faucet hot and cold a little ledge there for soap a water resistant toilet paper holder some hooks on the inside so you can hang things your shower wand LED light bathroom fan just push up and then press the button and that Vents and there's even a really cool clothesline built in that pulls across and you can hang some items another hook over here and just give you an idea I'm five feet nine I'm wearing boots and there's plenty of ground Headroom in here and also a lot of width even though the toilets in here I can still maneuver all the way around in this compartment and there's a shower curtain that covers this whole door assembly to keep the water from running against the door when you're showering and when you're done it just drip dries down the drain you could use a small hand towel to dry yourself off inside the big full-size towels and then just lay it on the floor when you're done and Airstream at the Airstream Supply Company website they'll sell different teak mats that you can put in the bottom of the shower over here by the door there's some hooks some bungees for additional storage some more storage here a furnace duct all your lighting controls for the inside of the trailer over here is that beautiful front Galley kitchen I love that panoramic view that goes all the way around the front I'm not a big cooker but like if I was making my coffee in the morning this is just so cool I could see everything that's going on I could see out the side the back lots of visibility in this trailer but it's all applied with the laminate very durable materials fire extinguishers over here storage lead you can put your boots in this little tray and take it out hose it off if you need to there's also vents here for a refrigerator which is a 3.1 cubic foot novacool refrigerator with freezer up top and to turn it on off there's a little dial one through seven normal operation people put in three or four you don't need to go all the way and this just sips power on your battery system it's so much more efficient than those older style ammonia absorption tile refrigerators which are being retired out of the RV Market this is the way to go I have two different Nova cools one in each one of my airstrum trailers and I had them for three to five years depending on which model and they've operated unbelievably REI branded right into your cabinet optional microwave if you didn't get the option it would just be another storage compartment over here and then there's a storage compartment here and I love how they instead of having a door that swings out you just undo the little bungee and you can put stuff in the batteries are in a compartment below here and there's a storage Ledge in the back of this compartment the faucet has a water filtration built in it's a UV LED light water filtration and uh that is for your filtered drinking water over here a really thick gate I mean you like ring on this thing it's so thick stainless steel sink then it's really deep and you got a designer faucet here to the side there's a GFCI protected electrical outlet that pops up out of the counter same one like over here now these will only work if you're plugged into Shore power the other USB that are on board operate off the 12 volt system over here is a two burner gas cooktop by Suburban put it to highlight put that it will spark up and ignite make sure you have your ventilation fan on when you're cooking which to operate just open the lid you can buy different fan cover accessories for this but you can put it on your different fan speeds one two three this is just a fuse the screen is quick release you can pop this out you clean your blades and you can have the fan operate thermostatically controlled but this one does not have a motorized lit or rain sensor built in so it's very important to remember if you have it open or closed and always keep this thing closed when you're driving unless you buy the optional fan accessory on board there's a combinations carbon monoxide NLP leak detector down there it's hardwired into your battery system up top there is a nine volt battery in the regular smoke detector so you got fire extinguisher carbon monoxide LP leak and smoke and egress there's two different ways to get out of the trailer all the glass is safety glass in the trailer too so if you had to bust a window to get out you could do so without getting cut down here is the tank heater you just flip that up and that will thermostatically kick on if the tank temperature gets below a certain temperature and you have a battery kill switch so if you turn that off shuts all the power off inside your trailer shuts everything off except for your solar controller so it'll still allow you to charge your batteries off the solar with that kill switch off some more stuff here another pocket here and over here is your owner's bag you can put that wherever you want there's another ledge you got some Pockets here off to the side and some more hooks so I think I showed you most of what's on the inside before we head outside to see all the cool stuff you get with this let me show you a little bit more back here last thing I want to show you the inside is the battery charger and all your fuses and Breakers and then this portion of this cabinet is where the water heater and the furnace live so these are just access panels for service now let's head outside and take a look at all this really cool REI gear you get so we have it assembled on these tables over here but this is actually one of the roll top tables the king Camp table that comes with it you get some Flex like camp chairs you get two of those you also get this really cool cooler bag you put 32 cans in here stays cool for up to 32 hours you also have another table over here a blanket a tablecloth so if the campground has a standard picnic table you know how dirty they get well you can put your own cover on it and you can even cover the seats you got some Oxo knife and some kitchen accessories over here here's the first aid kit very important to have one on board your playing cards some bars of soap two mugs here illuma Aid light here and phone charger a gear line that you can hang across the back Nets and hang up all your gear let it dry out a hose line for outside a little pouch here and lots of little storage bins and some towels this Airstream REI Edition and several more are available here at Colonial Airstream Millstone Township New Jersey our telephone number is 800-265-9019 you can visit us on our website at colonialairstream.com and make sure you follow us on social media as well we have some excellent Tick Tock Instagram and Facebook reels if you're into like the 60 second short videos we have nailed that down pretty good and I'm sure you're gonna enjoy them well this is Patrick Botticelli thanks for joining us today thank you

Channel: Colonial Airstream

Views: 115,051

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Id: N3YY3jMvN4o

Length: 32min 27sec (1947 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2023