Van Life 101: 10 Reasons to Choose a Cargo Trailer

[Music] hi everyone welcome back to my next video uh this year at the rubber rendezvous the rtr i sold my cargo trailer uh that i've had for six years now so i just thought i'd let you take a quick run through with it that's mine in the back the guys i'm going to put it in storage and he's going to pick it up in a little while and i just thought i would uh give you a quick run through on on why i chose a cargo trailer and i'll actually take you inside absolute minimum build in in this particular cargo trailer and i'll tell you all about that and why um there are 10 reasons i thought i thought to myself what are the reasons i bought a cargo trailer instead of instead of a regular uh travel trailer and uh i thought i'd give you those reasons and help you make it just that decision for yourself what would be best for you so there are 10 reasons i bought a cargo trailer number one price that that was a brand new cargo trailer it's 6x10 by loadrunner which is made by the interstate company and uh it was in very good shape it was brand new it was high quality it's lasted me six years with trouble for years i just replaced the tires and um other than that i've done nothing to it uh so the price was twenty five hundred dollars brand new i paid uh 300 for license tax and registration so i walked out the door for 2800 with a brand new vehicle now let's say i bought a travel trailer and a lot of people said that why did you buy a cargo trailer why didn't you buy a travel trailer to live in because i'd been very lucky to have found any travel trailer for two thousand twenty eight hundred dollars it would have been tremendously older and in much worse condition anything that i could afford for two thousand to twenty five hundred dollars would have been trouble on wheels and so for the same amount of money i bought something brand new and that was going to give me decades and i do mean literally decades of trouble free service in this cargo trailer so to me there was just a no brainer uh buy something brand new or an old somebody else's old headache so i bought the brand new cargo trailer um i paid 300 i paid 2500 for it and then i did uh i put 300 in the windows there's two windows on each side and two vents on the roof another hundred dollars on the ladder racks i bought the plywood and put on it another two hundred dollars on the uh on the lumber for the inside so i probably have about thirty one hundred dollars in it just as you see two vents two windows the ladder rack on top the plywood on the ladder wreck so i that was really cheap i thought brand new trouble free decades of trouble free service think about that you buy an old trailer you're probably going to be working on the on the roof immediately you're probably going to be discovering uh water damage for as long as you own it and dry rot and soft floors and you'll never know when the fridge is going to give up or when the hot water heater is going to fail or when it's going to flood and the plumbing's going to leak uh i don't have any of those problems or the black water tank is going to leak oh joy none of those problems will forever be a problem with me so i for brand new i want it brand new is what i can afford and i want it brand new and there's no other way to do it other than this uh better installation so one of the first things i did was go out and buy insulation i put a one inch of styrofoam in the walls and three inches in the roof you cannot buy a cargo trailer you cannot buy a travel trailer that well insulated for within even a ballpark of the price that i've paid and so when it's really cold it stays warm it after a really cold night it might be uh 20 degrees cooler than outside temperature it just stays it holds its heat really really well and i've been very very pleased with it 20 degrees warmer than outside temperature so uh the installation has worked extremely well and that's something i would recommend to all of you that you buy a cargo trailer and heavily insulated that's easy they've got straight walls they do have this one has a curved groove something more do uh that's a little harder but it's still easy to do and so uh i really highly recommend in having heavily insulation durability the roof of this will probably never fail now the roof on any cargo on any travel trailer you buy will not only will fail it will fail soon and if it's used it's already failed and chances are there's water damage and water rot and dry rot up inside it now and if it hasn't failed yet it's only a matter of time it with it any kind of an rv the question is never if well that may not be true of a lazy days but then they started over 100 and like 150 000 so 125 over 100 so the one possible exception well no i'd have to give that go back to the casita the casitas shouldn't fail either not for a long time but they start at 15 000 and use they hold their value eight ten thousand were people about the best you could hope for a use casita or scamp or one of the fiberglass eggs so those are really expensive too although you won't probably won't have a failing roof on any traditional rv travel trailer car any of them you know the roof is going to fail it's never a question of if it's only a matter of when and has it already and i don't know about it it's creating huge problems for me that the net last guy found and discovered and hid and passed on to you and i've known a lot of people who bought somebody else's headaches and then had to tear out the walls rebuild the walls be reeled the interior resurface the roof they bought they buy a four or five thousand dollar travel trailer and then they end up putting five ten thousand dollars in it and just to bring it up to what it was should have been so the durability is all in front and it goes to all of this to a cargo trailer decades of trouble free service is is what you can expect out of an even used travel trailer cargo trailer as long as it's in pretty good shape wait i don't you know if you got two four two three four five thousand pounds six seven eight thousand pounds worth of travel trailer behind you your tow vehicle is working hard it's burning gas it'll need more repairs uh i didn't want any of this this travel trailer this cargo trailer left the showroom floor at 300 pounds well you can't beat you can't beat that with any any of the rvs because they're all much heavier uh and so the weight was a significant issue to me i got better gas mileage because of it i got less wear and tear on my tow vehicle because of it i could use a smaller tow vehicle you can probably handle this with a with an suv with a good sized v6 engine whereas almost any of the cargo travel trailers you're going to be struggling with anything but a v8 in a pickup or a full-size suv so to my mind number four the reason number four is the weight they are so much lighter that it's just worth it so number one was the price 2500 new brand new uh dramatically breeze beats any rv price used number two was a better installation i insulated it to match my needs and my desires rather than what crummy thing the factory did with it number three was the durability it will last a very very long time number four is the weight it was weighed so much less so much easier on my cargo on my tow vehicle number five are back roads uh i can take this down really pretty bad back roads i've taken it down some some roads that you would be really surprised at it's it's narrower and shorter than any travel trailer practically and so it can go back those places and because it's better made it's not going to rattle itself to death and be a problem on on washboards or get torn up by trees and i'm not going to drag a limb through it and and put a gash all the way down with the aluminum it's strong i i've really i've really beat this thing up with tree limbs and and brush and it just bounces off and has no impact on it whatsoever uh number five is number six is a blank slate i don't want the systems in any rv i don't want tanks i don't want to dump them i don't want it to carry around my poop i'm perfectly happy with the five gallon bucket if you don't like a five gallon bucket if you like carrying your poop around with you get a porta potty carry it around for a week or two and then go dump that down any toilet how much i think that's just infinitely better than carrying black tanks or you can get a composting toilet make your own or buy a already made composting toilet and then you have uh you'll have an uh you'll eliminate that whole system which is nothing but problems the whole life of it uh i wanna i like mister buddy heaters i don't want an rv furnace i don't want the the electrical draw they have i don't want the high propane draw they have i don't like the high failure rate they have i don't like the how it is expensive it is to replace a furnace a mr buddy heater is 60 to 80 hundred dollars and will do all those things without any of those problems so why would i spend the money to get a heat furnace that i don't want so it's a blank slate and the inside is just the way i want it i didn't if i want next to nothing then i can build next to nothing if i want it to be a beautiful mansion that looks like a log cabin i can build it like a beautiful mansion that looks just like a log cabin it's my choice it's a blank slate for what i want and no more and no less it pleases me not some designer of cheap crap rv in in indiana so number seven is resale these things cargo cargo trailers really hold their resale if you i first thing i did was try to find a used cargo trailer because i thought well why buy a new one i can get i can get so much uh get a better deal on a used one they don't wear out they don't get abused uh i'll buy a used one man the prices on the used ones was very nearly the same as a price on a new one so i just went and bought a new one uh i think the best price i rarely saw used ones and the ones that i saw used were you know uh of a few hundred dollars less maybe than than a than a uh a brand new one so i bought a brand new one they have a tremendous resale and they really hold their value really really well uh no systems to fail to me that is so significant uh you buy them you buy a nice three-way fridge and you love it but then it fails and it's sixteen hundred dollars uh sixteen seventeen eighteen hundred dollars to replace it you buy a furnace it it fails it eats your batteries up it makes a lot of noise uh puts out too much heat then too little heat uh and and then replacing it's three four five hundred dollars uh all of the systems are are just uh things i don't want when i go off-road if i've got uh valves and tanks hanging down the back and i rip them all off i've got to clean that up and then i've got to replace it all and i don't want the systems i'm half perfectly happy with the mr buddy heater i'm perfectly happy with uh with just a five gallon bucket and one gallon jugs so to me it's i'm i'm buying what i want and if i want a shower how hard is it to install a shower and install in a hundred dollar echo therm uh on demand hot water heater and build my own systems into it for a third of the price and brand new and when they fail they're easily replaced uh so in every way i want the systems i want and i'd rather put them in if i do want those systems so in every way i think number eight no systems to fail is is such a winner number nine is stealth now i put in windows and the ladder rack and and the vents so i don't really have much dell but how had i left all those things off had stealth been important to me i could get some stealth in a cargo trailer you cannot get any kind of stealth in any rv uh and so you can get some stealth out of and i know a guy the first randy vinnie the first guy that turned me on to the idea whole idea of living in a converting cargo trailer he would do it he would go and live in cities in these things and he would go to uh to places where a cargo trailer and a work truck were normal they were just routinely around there and he would blend in and have some stealth in the city so if you need stealth in the city there it is that's the only really the only way you can get it with that much room and finally the versatility uh if you get a drop down ramp door you build the inside just right you can carry your quad in there you can carry your motorcycle in there your bicycles in there you get a lot of versatility that unless you spend the money and get a uh a toy hauler in a cargo trailer or a class c or something fifth wheel maybe uh the huge amount of money to get those things you just cannot get this much versatility in any other vehicle so uh it goes really well with my van i was living in the national forest so why did i want to do anything besides live in a van i'll because i was in the national forest i wanted to be able to park my trailer and drive my pickup around doing my rounds and where i was they reimbursed me per mile and i drove my pickup so that's why i got the cargo trailer and in the winter i i would live in the cargo trailer in the winter i'd have all the comfort all the room and the space the extra insulation and then i would put it in storage and go two three four five months at a time in the van in the summer so i had the best of both worlds i had the the freedom and the flexibility of just being in the van in the summer and the comfort uh and the convenience of having the cargo trailer in in the winter and for me that was the best of both worlds uh today i'm i don't want to i i need to downsize i i just gathered one problem with having this much space is uh the amount of stuff we own expands to fill the space and with me i've expanded to fill the space and i just want to i just want to downsize and get really small again and fit into no more than a van uh i was gone i put this in storage in april and haven't lived in it since it's now february and so if i can go this long without the comfort of the trailer then i don't want to own it anymore i'm going to sell it and i've got it sold and so um to a guy here at the rtr the rubber rendezvous so let me go over those 10 reasons why you might want to buy it is for the flexibility of all the space and comfort in the trailer and then uh and then the mobility of just the van or your pickup whichever you're towing it with so the 10 reasons why i think you should buy a cargo trailer let me go over them one more time price you're going to get a cargo trailer for so much less it's going to be brand new 2. so much better insulation it's easy to insulate these exactly how you want if you're going to be in cold country put two or three inches of styrofoam on the wall put six inches on the roof and you can be in cold country with a cargo trailer you can't try that with any any uh car any rv travel trailer of any kind and you will soon find out they are not built for cold country and you can't endure them i've done it durability this will outlast and out endure any rv the roof will not fail there's nothing to fail except the brake bearings and you repack the bearings replace them periodically and even the trailer even the whole axle you wreck the whole axle on one of these you're looking at two 300 bucks for a brand new ax1 axle on the 6x10 cargo trailer the the durability is off the charts uh it's it's a lifetime durability thing whereas rvs you count rv's durability in years at the best you certainly never count in decades because they won't have it uh weight this is 300 pounds compared to two three four five six thousand eight thousand pounds for any other rv uh it's off-road ability tremendously better number five off-road ability is tremendously better than any rv and i know it from direct experience six it's a blank slate you do it exactly how you want put in what you want no less no more you it's yours to utterly customize make it beautiful make it ugly make it absolutely nothing and it's your choice it's not someone else's choice made for you uh resale is going to be outstanding on any cargo trailer no matter how old it is practically you you buy one of these five years later 10 years later you can sell it you're gonna not have a problem reselling it and losing a huge amount you buy a twelve thousand dollar travel trailer take it off the lot it's now worth eight maybe eight maybe ten at the most you're losing thousands the moment you drive off the lot and that doesn't happen with these because you don't have thousands to lose uh no systems to fail nothing in there that can fail uh and no low end crap that they're putting in the the cheapest trailers uh no systems to fail great stealth if you once fell this is the only way to get it you could get some stealth not the best but you can get some out of a cargo out of a cargo trailer finally the versatility putting stuff in other stuff out whatever you want to do carry cargo okay so that's it 10 reasons why i think you should consider a cargo trailer why it worked so well for me why then when i wanted to sell it i didn't have any problems selling it i had people jumping at them so now let's go on inside and take a look and i'll show you a ultra simple design that anybody with any mechanical ability can can replicate it's just driving a few screws and that's it so let's go on inside and take a look so i towed the trailer with my one ton van it just tows it like it's not even there a chevy with a 350 one ton long extended bed just tows it extremely well i put in this window i bought the windows off of ebay no problem installing them it's very simple to install a window if you have any you have basic handyman skills it's six foot by ten foot and uh so the the wheels on the outside add another foot on each side so it really ends up being eight foot but the big thing is it doesn't drag around i got one with barn doors instead of uh drop doors uh so i can't drive things up but that is doesn't matter it's a load runner loadrunner.com that's who makes it this was 2500. it had several upgrades it was i bought it from trailersplus.com there you go bought it from trailersplus.com i had several upgrades led lights in the in the lights the uh had a spare had these uh diamond plate here there's diamond plate up front uh i added the the the ladder rack was made by uh trailers plus it's it's from the factory just like you see it there that is a arb touring uh bag awning it means it stays in a bag and then uh it folds out and has legs inside it i've been pretty happy with it uh i really don't use it and i'm actually i'd never buy probably not buy never buy into the running at all uh it has a standard uh man door here on the side that's not it's really common and this is just a standard door latch i'll show you how i lock it on the inside that's always something that confuses people now i had built a much more elaborate build myself and the guy i had initially sold and he sold it and then they backed out on that sale and so he had in the meantime torn out my entire build and put in an ultra simple build this is a 65 quart uh winter uh 12-volt compressor fridge and you can just see and really really simple build countertop he didn't care what it looked like just really basic one one storage unit up there so this is as simple as it can get um you know doing this would be a few hundred dollars and you could probably find some used lumber or you could have put it in something and really really nice and put in um you know nice countertop here and more shelving or even uh cabinets up there so the choice would have been yours you could do it any way you chose the first the first vent and the windows that i put in i put some reflectix on it to cool it down and and you can see out just real simple he's got about an inch of styrofoam in the walls the ultimate in simplicity for a bed just a bed made out of two by threes ultimate simple a little uh i don't know what just counter area in the back and this chair a friend gave to him um out of their rv she pulled it out of her rv and gave it to him it's bolted down so he just has a real basic chair i mean you could not have a simpler build this is what worked for him so this is what he did just really simple but you know you could make this as elaborate as your skills and your tools and your money allow you could make this a gorgeous home this has uh 190 watts of solar it's got a solar boost 2000 e for a controller at 14 volts right now and underneath here it has two full river agm 6-volt golf carts that's how i sold it to him so you see there was just very little skills or carpentry work involved here um it could be as much or as little as you want it's 100 your choice this guy wanted very little he was a true minimalist he had been living in a car he'd been living in his car for oh um a year and so to him this was a mansion and this was all he could possibly want because he was a true minimalist but that's up to you let me show you how you can i built this latch to last this door people always wonder well how can you possibly lock the door okay let me see if you're gonna be able to see that or not okay there's the door okay let me zoom you in a bit i'll just leave you sitting right there okay okay this is a bolt this is a simple bolt from any old uh gate you build a gate a fence uh you just have a handle and a bolt and that's it and so i puzzled for quite a while over how to how to lock the door and then one day it dawned on me it's just a simple bolt and i had to get it lined up right and so i added this a little piece two little pieces of plywood to line it up right with the door jamb and it's just that simple and then it can't be um no one can open the door without me they'd have to break the bolt off which they could but it wouldn't be easy and uh and people say well aren't you afraid to lock in will you just put your padlock through the door so it cannot be locked from the outside with the with the padlock through one of the um one of the um holes in the latch it can't be locked again so it's just a very simple very very basic design and and uh not much to see back here people ask me i want to see inside your rig and they're just six by ten cargo trailers not much to see just some insulation uh some very basic um now if you wanted to look nice you could go to home depot and buy some paneling just go to home depot buy paneling and put nice paneling up uh buy some uh nice wood and build in the cabinets however you wanted them and and uh you could have a really really pretty home and you we see them sometimes i'll show you some really pretty homes this is just a basic one okay well that's all i'm going to show you it's just really basic really simple anyone could do this with some basic carpentry skills it's his screws it has 3 8 inch of plywood that was one of the reasons it was an upgraded trailer and it has 3 8 inch of plywood on the roof on the walls so everything just screwed into the walls or into the ribs let me show you how tall it is even with uh even with the insulation in the roof you can see see if i can show you i'm standing in the center but i'm about there i've got you know six eight inches i guess six foot tall guy i'm five foot eight a six foot tall guy could pretty easily stand in here it's a lot of room and even on the edges you a six foot tall gate could easily stand in here i would say maybe even a six one six two guy so based on all the many advantages that i've told you about i do really recommend cargo trailers for you i think you should consider one there's reasons that they work and people buy them rather than anything else if those 10 reasons that i gave you work for you and apply appeal to you consider use cargo trailer right or even a new cargo trailer and i think you'll be really glad that you did okay we'll visit with you next time in the meantime like us on youtube subscribe to the channel and tell your friends there's another way to live there are options in life that can bring you a lot of joy and happiness and and i hope each and every one of you considers them so i'll stop there and we'll talk to you later bye now

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 1,387,409

Keywords: Travel, van life, van dwelling, simple living, van tour, tiny house on wheels, van conversion, vaN, vanlife, living in a van, camper van, van build, diy van build, sprinter van, diy van conversion, van life build, van living, sprinter van conversion, van life tour, #vanlife, van dweller, campervan, camper van conversion, van conversion ideas, vandwelling, florb, diy camper van, stealth van, solo, female, solo female, solo female travel, van

Id: 3UhkIBUhM-k

Length: 26min 37sec (1597 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 23 2017