Tuff Stuff Overland Trailer Review
I am a self-proclaimed car Tetris master for our camp trips. We had bins of our gear that were precisely packed into our SUV. Multiple bins with cook gear, sleeping bags, general equipment, propane tanks, cookstove, table, 5 gallon water jug, and more. We filled a Yakima Skybox with our duffels, camp chairs, and other ecoutrements. We could not fit one more item in the car, on the hitch, or in the rooftop box. Prepping for the weekend involved a major undertaking of pulling all of these items off the shelf and painstakingly loading it, and you didn’t dare put something into the vehicle in the wrong order or you were going to have to redo it all. Coming home was the same process in reverse.
We still wanted the option to camp but needed our convenience level to dramatically improve. We started the search and, lo and behold, found this beauty. Since this is our first overland trailer, we did not want to get anything that would turn out to be too big or too many bells and whistles until we knew we really loved this option. The Tuff Stuff Basecamp Trailer (now made through Tribe Trailers) is an excellent way to enter into this arena. Tribe Trailers calls this trailer “the Swiss Army knife of trailers” and it is the perfect description. Kitchen, awning, drawers, pop up rooftop tent and more!
There are a lot of technical specs I could discuss, but I’d like to focus this post on the conveniences this trailer brings to your camp set-up.
Hook It Up and Go
All of our gear is permanently contained within the lockers of the trailer, which have a large lower compartment and an upper drawer in most. We find items easily and everything has a home. Each door locks as well for safe storage. Bye-bye giant plastic bins and crammed full car.
Kitchen Transformation
My absolute favorite part. The slide out “kitchen” has a two burner cook top, a small sink with electric pump for running water out of the faucet, and a small counter. Preparing meals for a family of five is definitely easier and faster.
Cooler Drawer and Compartment
With a power supply in this compartment, this is the home of our Dometic. This drawer slides out for easy access to the cooler.
Check out our review of our favorite camp accessory by clicking the button below.
Light It Up
There are many LED light options on the trailer or on the inside of the doors. No more rolling into camp to set up the first night when you are tired from work and travel and not being able to see except for the light of a head lamp and lantern. The trailer has a battery power supply, with the option for solar.
Water
Previously, we lugged a 5 gallon jug of water with, carefully rationing what felt like every drop and having to find a place to refill at times. The water tank on the trailer can hold 20+ gallons if we would like.
Propane Holder
There is a permanent holder for a full-size propane tank. Again, like the water, no fear of running out of propane, no fiddling with the tiny portable camp tanks.
Sleep Better
It always felt ironic that we would go away for these camp weekends to do something active and need a lot of energy, but camping is when I would sleep the worst and be exhausted for what needs to be a day of exertion and physical challenge. The trailer has a large rooftop tent. I describe this tent to be similar to opening a book. The tent is a closed book until setup, when you open it up and the ‘pages of the book’ open into a glorious, spacious tent. We call it the penthouse, because it feels so luxurious with windows, space, and being high off the ground. We also added a mattress topper foam and warm bedding. We are now comfortable and warm at night, and well rested.
Click the button below to be directed to the exact mattress topper we purchased.
More Photos
All in all, this trailer has been an excellent investment. It has achieved the goal, and then some, of drastically improving the convenience level of our camping experience. It has performed very well with towing and accessing sites, as well as set-up and take down. As we had hoped, it has been a great “entry-level” overland trailer for us to get a taste of this realm.
If you would like to learn more about this trailer and all the technical specifications, check out the link here.