In camper trailers there is no ‘one size fits all’. We all have different preferences, requirements and budgets so the perfect set up will vary from camper to camper. We want to help you achieve the set up which is just right for you. In order to better understand your requirements we have developed a questionnaire.

Download questionnaire (Microsoft Word Document)

Download questionnaire (PDF Document)

Just fill it in and email / mail / fax it back to us or bring it with you at your next visit to our show room. We will work out a proposal for the perfect trailer set up to fit your personal requirements and budget. We then email it to you and discuss our proposal over the phone or even better in person in our show room at no cost and absolutely no obligation. Why not draw from our vast experience and check out what we come up with.

Most of our customers come and check us out at a Camping and Caraving Trade Show where it is easy to view and compare different manufacturers. However, most will very quickly become confused due to the overwhelming choice. It is relatively easy to narrow down the 50 or so manufactuers on a trade show to a handful of candidates. The following considerations will allow you to do just that:

Price Range

Most of us have a budget in mind and to work with which very quickly will allow to eliminate the first offerings. We believe it is quite hard to virtually impossible to get decent quality under let's say $ 6000 or so. Manufacturers at the lower end of the market will usually offer Chinese Tents of often questionable quality (go and check out your local camping ground when it rains and count the Chinese made Tents with a tarp on it), trailers are quite light weight with used tyres, often bolted together with quite a rough finish.

The next price bracket goes from let's say $ 8000 to $ 20 000 which I would call the sensible level (hey, we all have our opinions on value....). At this price level you should get a well built trailer with new rims and tyres, properly welded and finished with attention to detail. The trailer should be lockable, with quality wind down legs, a long drawbar, brakes as standard, a quality tool box as standard and an off road coupling (if you go for an off road trailer). At the higher end of the price bracket you should get a proper kitchen / storage solution and perhaps some electric set up. The tent should be made of Australian Quality canvas, 15 oz for roof and wall is the way to go for my liking, a quality bed base, straight walls, high roof line, wide mesh. The tent should include a large annex with gable, a draft skirt and a kitchen wall standard. In this price range you will get quite a bit of ameneties which make your camping more comfortable without going over the top.

The next level is the $ 20 000 + level. The trailers tend to become heavier with more sophisticated suspension, a nice shiny kitchen, perhaps with plumbed in gas stove and quite a bit of electrics. The tent will not get much better or larger. The added price goes all in the trailer and the accessories some of them you may find aren't that necessary for a great time in the bush.

Great Aussie Campers wants to provide affordable, quality trailers for families which last the distance. They are not throw away items lasting just a few years but on the other hand don't come with unnecessary frills.

On Road vs Off Road

Once you have narrowed down the manufacturers with regards to price range you'll have to decide if you go for an on road or off road trailer. The decision is usually quite obvious. No need to go for an off roader if you only have a standard on road vehicle with no off road capabilities. Once you have a 4 WD most of our customers will automatically go for an off road trailer. This is particularly true for the more serious 4 WDs (the Patrols, Landcruisers and Pajeros). The Kluger drivers tend to be evenly divided between off and on road trailers. The smaller and more light weight 4 WDs (Honda CRV, Mitsubishi Outback, Subaru Forester etc.) will usually be matched with on road trailers.

Hard Floor vs Soft Floor

Hard floor trailers tend to be more expensive and usually rear fold. This makes it a good tourer for a couple but less convenient as a base camper for a large family. If you are after ample space at a reasonable price a soft floor camper trailer will usually be your choice. We are currently developing a soft floor rear fold trailer at a below $ 10 000 price level whcih we hope will be a value tourer and an alternative to a hard floor trailer.

Base Camping vs Touring 

If you have decided to go for a soft floor camper trailer the next big choice is the size of the tent. They usually come in either 9 foot or 12 foot (as measured by the floor space). Add to this the top of the trailer (usually anothe 6 foot or so) to give you the overall width of the entire tent and annex area. When we see prospects at our shows they are usually first attracted by the large family 12 foot tent which coming from a normal tent just feels like the Taj Mahal. The larger tent is not that much more expensive (just a few hundred dollars) and makes a really good base camper to set up camp and stay for a longer period of time. Setting up a 12 foot tent (particularly if it is properly done with15 oz canvas throughout) becomes a bit of a chore when you are touring for months on end. As a tourer you want to go for the smaller, lighter and easier to set up 9 foot tent. But what are you going to do if you have many children and want to go touring? The solution is bunk bets. In a 9 foot tent you can easily put two sets of bunks thus providing room for up to 4 children (and two adults on the mattress on top of the trailer). The bunks can be easily put in a L shap allowing for sufficient inner tent floor space to avoid a feeling of being overcrowded.

Most tent campers with children finished up with a large family tent, lots of gear, all transported with an open trailer. It will take hours on end to pack the gear up and another few more hours to put up the tent once arrived at the tent site. The quick weekend get away does not happen with such a set up any more. Just all too hard! That's why a lot of campers are attracted by a camper trailer. However, they still have this long set up time in mind and believe they will continue to be base campers, stay infrequently for a longer period. However, a well packed campertrailer is always ready to go with perhaps 20 minutes of preparation time. You can just look out of the window on a Friday afternoon, see that the weather is fine, pick up the kids from school, pack some clothes, food for the first night, a bottle of Chardonnay and a slap of beer and your off to your favourite local campsite in less than half an hour. The set up for a camper trailer tent is somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes (which would include the set up of the bunks for the kids, chairs and tables and connecting all gas appliances. So over time you'll be tempted to go more often for shorter periods which I call touring. If you do this and if you want to minimise your set up time you should go for the slightly smaller 9 foot tent. If size is ever that important to you nothing will beat the spaciousness of the 12 foot camper trailer.

At this point you should have eliminated about 90 % of the manufacturers on a Camping Show. You should be clear about:

• Price Range
• on road vs off road
• tent size

And you're basic trailer set up should be quite clear in your mind.

If you are struggling with the budget you could stop just at a quality camper trailer in a fairly basic set up and add to the base (get the base right first - "buy cheap buy twice") over the years.

Realistically you will need at the beginning a tool box for the "wet and smelly" stuff (petrol, kerosene, wet tarps and shade cloth, pegs and guy ropes).

You should probably not save on safety and add brakes to your trailer immediately. You will load up the trailer with all your gear and it is ever so easy to go beyond the 750 kg GVM level. At this stage you MUST have brakes. If you have an accident with an overloaded trailer there is a good chance that the insurance company won't pay. Yes, brakes cost a bit more money but I believe this money is well worth for your family's safety. At our trailers come standard with brakes. No shortcuts!

If you go off road (and I mean a bit more than just 10 km of gravel road to the local national park) you should definately have a stone guard. This will drastically reduce the chance of a broken rear window. A single Patrol rear window cost $ 1000 or replace, a stone guard just a few hundred dollars.

If you go off the beaten track for a longer period of time a built in water tank would come in handy. Calculate about 5 l a person a day of water (without a shower) which will give a family of 4 just two days with a standard 2 Jerrycan set up. A 70 l or so water tank will increase the time of autonomy byaother 3 and a half days. Moreover, you'll have a bit more weight on the back of the trailer and this will reduce the tow ball weight and make the trailer easier to handle in sand. If you mostly go to Caravan Parks this is obviously not a consideration.

The next nice options are annex walls. They extend your camping time enormously and allow you to go out in the colder season (when you have the camp ground pretty much for yourself). Lower the walls, put  a gas heater in the annex area, allow for sufficient ventilation and you have a nice and snuggly set up even in the most inclement weather! During summer you can roll up the canvas walls and have the mesh as a protection against insects. Well worth the money (but you can live without it at the beginning if you want to save some money.

If you are a camper you already have most of the relevant gear such as gas stove, lights and perhaps a camp kitchen set up. This will do for the beginning but consider a decent kitchen / storage solution where everything has its place and is easy to reach if the tent is up or down. We like the Drifta Marine Plywood kitchens and storage solutions, particularly the Drifta Pull Out Package Deal. It comes with a full size slide out kitchen (including a sink, a hand pum, room for a 3 burner stove, fire blanket, first aid kit). The kitchen has one larger cabinet for pots and pans an three drawers for cutlery, crockery, wine glasses and stubby holders. You slide it out, put down the legs, connect the tap to the water tank or jerry can and you have a camp kitchen ready in no time. It comes with a pantry box (for all your dry food) and a large 7 foot long storage box. This is the place to put all your chairs, axe, shovel, rake, broom, lamps and all the small bits. Easy to reach. No need to crawl into the trailer or bend over a dirty trailer with a folded up bed base (which only works if the tent is put down).

Electrics are not a necessity as you can run just about everything from gas, petrol or kerosene (well, perhaps not a laptop!). But having nice electric lights, inside and outside of the tent, and a cigarette lighter plug to connect your fridge will make your life so much more comfortable. You'll have the power to run your laptop, catch up with emails and let the kids watch a DVD every once in a while. The possibilities are endless and it all depends on your personal circumstances. We custombuild and provide you with the right advice for a cost effective electrics set up which works in real life in real camping conditions.

Our trailer prices start at $ 8,300 for a 9 foot on road trailer (with new tyres and rims, big foot wind down legs, aluminium checker plate tool box, brakes, 15 oz tent on extra large metal bed base with draftskirt and annex walls) and at $ 9,500 for an off road trailer (as above plus off road tyres and an off road hitch as standard. We finish at about $ 18,000 for a Heavy Off Road Trailer with a 12 foot tent, large tool box, annex walls, Drifta Package Deal set up, 120 Ah AGM battery, 7 stage mains charger, fully wired and fused with 4 12 V outlets and a stoneguard. Not much that is missing at this price point. All good stuff but no nonsense and no unnecessary frills.

Give us a call, come and see us at our warehouse to discuss your needs. Or perhaps we see you at the next show where you can touch and feel us (or our camper trailers) and compare us to the rest.

 After the theory above we thought we give you a few ideas on what camper trailer set up works for us and why. The idea is not that you copy everything as there is no perfect solution that fits all. Rather this should be an example how to choose a setup of out the endless options available. Perhaps you'll find a few worthwhile ideas and considerations and you are allowed to disagree with everything which comes below:

The perfect set up for Claus

As you can imagine, once you work in the industry, that you can have just about any set up you want. So which one works best for me and why am I doing what I am doing?

I have four kids and we tend to go away for a few days at a time. The kids and I like to go bush (caravan parks don't do it for us) and I always need to have access to internet / email as I tend to trade financial markets all the time. We like our music but otherwise keep it simple and basic. This is camping after all.

So the camper trailer has to be an off road one. We never go really heavy so a standard off road with 5 leaf springs and a 40 by 40 chassis and a long drawbar will do just fine. The trailer has a large tool box on the drawbar for all the wet and stinky stuff such as petrol, kerosene, fire wood, tarps, chainsaws etc. In order to protect the rear window of the tow vehicle the trailer has a stone guard. It obviously has brakes and an off road coupling. I am not too fussed if the brakes are mechanical or electric or which off road coupling I use. At the end of the day they all do pretty much the same job and all have different advantages and disadvantages. But if I am pressed to choose one off road coupling I would probably go for the McHitch hitch. Beautifully engineered, easy to hitch and pretty much unbreakable.

As we go bush where drinking water is not always readily available the trailer has an inbuilt 65 l water tank and another 3 water jerry cans on the drawbar. One of the jerry cans is black which we tend to put in the sun during the day. The water usually warms up quite nicely and we can have a short shower in the evening using a Primus 12 V water pump (about $ 25). I calculate 5 litres of water per person per day (without a shower) so our 125 litres of water on board can last quite a long time.

Given that I go for short trips I need a quick set up and still a fair amount of room. I go for the 9 foot side fold tent which has a 9 foot by 8 foot floor space which is quite roomy as the tent has a very high roof line (3 metres or so) and all walls are straight. The kids sleep in 2 bunks placed in a L shape thus leaving sufficient room to walk around. I use the Primus padded bunk beds which we use in our hire trailers. They are a bit more expensive but really comfortable. They can be dismantled in a minute and I put them on the bed when packing up. All sleeping bags are left on the bed and there is no need to roll up the sleeping bags every time and trying to squeeze them in a tiny compression bag. Every child has their own backpack and the idea is that all their stuff fits in the backpack. If it does not fit you are not allowed to take it. The backpacks are stored during our stay on or underneath the bunks so the inside of the tent should be (in theory) all nice and clean.

I like the 9 foot tent as I can set it up easily all by myself. (The kids are usually running away to the beach or so.) For a quick overnighter when the weather is nice (arriving late and leaving early the next day), I usually do not put up the annex but just flip it over the tent. I can unzip the annex but I find it easier to just flip it over and tie it down on one end. If we stay a bit longer or the weather is not nice, I obviously put up the annex. I can just put up the poles (8 all in all) without spreader bars for a 'quick and diry' which does the job (unless it rains heavily). If I stay a bit longer, I will put up all the poles, the 4 spreader bars and all C clips to re-inforce the annex. I need to use 4 guy ropes and then everything is stable and wind proof. If it rains heavily I make sure that all is very tied and the rain can run off easily.

Set up of the tent (without the annex) is a mere 5 minutes; a quick and dirty annex set up is less than 10 minutes for one person and I set up the full annex with all the poles, spreader bars and C clips in about 15 minutes. So not too hard and the set up does not cut in too much into precious drinking time.

I like to get out in the cooler season. Scarcely anyone is around, you tend to have the place for yourself. If the sun is out it is quite pleasant even if the air temperature is not that high but it gets quickly cold once the sun sets. So I always carry a full set of annex walls with me which can be zipped on in a mere 5 minutes. I can roll up the canvas during the day to let the light in and close it all up at night. I prefer a camp fire but this is not always possible and unpleasant if it rains. So I carry a $ 50 Companion gas heater with me. I put it on one standard gas bottle. The heater heats up the annex area in no time and only uses about 100 ml of gas per hour. I obviously make sure that I have sufficient ventilation in the annex area and I never use the heater in the tent. This little marvel extends my camper trailer usage time to pretty much all year round. I am totally independant of mains power but have it nice and warm if necessary.

I really like the Drifta set up for storage and kitchen. My favourite is the slide out kitchen (without return), the pantry box and the large storage box. The set up is sturdy, flexible, not too heavy and every oh so practical. I put all my camping gear (chairs, electric and gas lights, torches, hatchet, axe, broom, rake, tripod, BiJi Barbie) in the storage box with room to spare. The kitchen is fully fitted out with a 3 burner Companion stove, a fire blanket and a first aid kit (once you have it you'll never need it), mozzie coils, aeroguard, paper towels, spray oil, spices, and all the pots and pans and cuterly and crockery you need. I go for quality melamine crockery which lasts. I cheap IKEA set of pots does the job but I spend a bit more money on a large Hillbilly Frying Pan with a foldable handle. This goes on the middle burner of the stove (a two burner stove does not work that well as the frying pan is too large) or even better on an open fire. If I want to do a BBQ I use a large BiJi Barbie (round steel plate with a long handle and 3 foldable legs) which I put on the open fire. If that's not possible I put the Barbie straight on a single burner Korean style stove and I can cook outside of the annex area. All easy and fun.

Inside the tent I have a quality Coleman fluoro light (we tried a lot of the cheap ones but they simply don't last); for outside use I either run my Coleman Petrol Lamp (you use standard unleaded gasoline), the dual mantle is my preferred one, or a German Petromax Kerosene Lamp. This one's been around since 1910, is a bit more difficult to light as you have to heat up the Kerosene first, but it is beautifully crafted, all nice chrome thoughout, and you can be sure you have the brightest light of the entire camp side.

With regards to lighting, heating and cooking, I can do everything with gas, petrol or kerosene but I need a bit of electricity for the fridge and the laptop. As I do a lot of shorter touring I go for a 2 way (12 V and 240 V) fridge. My favourite is the 38 l Engle fridge for about $ 990 plus another $ 100 or so for a insulating and protecting case. The fridge is quite energy efficient and probably draws about 30 AMPs in a 24 hour cycle. I leave the fridge in the back of car all the time, connected to a proper cigarette lighter which connects to the built in dual battery system of my Prado. As I leave the fridge in the car I always have cold food and drinks when we are out and about during the day. I also run a hot wire from the car's alternator to the back of the towbar which is connected to a 50 AMP Anderson plug. I connect that plug via another Anderson connection to a 60 AMPhour Thumper Battery. The Thumper is a fully sealed AGM battery with 200 AMP and 50 AMP Anderson connectors, two cigarette lighter outlets and a digital volt meter. It is fully fused. Given that it is an AGM battery (and not a fume emitting lead acid battery) I can safely use the battery in the back of the car. The Thumper is then connected to the hot wire and the alternator charges the Thumper as we drive during the day.

If I am running out of space in the back of the car, I put the Thumper in the toolbox on the drawbar of the trailer and connect it to the hotwire via another heavy gauge Anderson lead.

I need the Thumper to run my laptop and printer to access the internet / email for my trading. To do just that I connect the Thumper to a 300 W pure sine inverter which then produces clean 240 V power. As a printer I use a bubble jet as laser printers just draw too much power. I have a special folding table where the printer and laptop just fit. Connected to a Telstra wireless modem and sitting on the Drifta pantry box (just the right height) I run my "bush office" anywhere within Telstra wireless range. I am totally independant and connected to the world! I love technology.

My power usage is quite low as I just have to run a laptop and printer. As I usually drive around during my stay the Thumper is charged in the back of the car through the alternator. If however, I am stationary for a longer time (and I don't want to use a generator) I take a foldable 100 W solar panel with me. I usually go without but it is quite handy to top up my batteries if I just want to laze around for a bit. We tend to use this set up for trade shows (where we usually do not have mains power) and I can run my bush office (laptop and printer) and the 38 L Engel fridge plus a few lights indefinately.

My set up is optimised for a quick get away. When I pick up the kids from school on a Friday afternoon and the weather is nice, we often decide on the spur of the moment to away away for the weekend. All kids go home, pack their backpack and I take the Drifta pantry box to the kitchen and fill it up with food for the first night. This is usally pasta, a ready made pasta sauce, something sweet for dessert and the usual bits and pieces you need. We get the packing time down to 30 minutes and are on our way. The trailer is already packed, so no need to spend hours on end in the garage to pack up.

The perfect set up for Shane

I’ve been camping most of my life and I love the outdoors lifestyle. Growing up in Southern Tasmania we did a fair bit of back packing and then once I hit my teen years, bicycle touring. When I met my wife at the age of 18 we did a lot of touring on my motorcycle up until our 30’s so we are, by nature, fairly minimalist campers. We kept it very simple up until our boys came along.

Once we had kids the amount of equipment required for even a quick weekend away became more than could be packed quickly and easily into the back of our old Pajero. The amount of time to pack the car, unpack at our chosen campsite and set everything up, pack it all up and fit it all back in the car then unpack, clean up and put it away once we were back at home, soon stopped us in our tracks.    This was when we opted for our first camper trailer.  The trailer gave us back that little bit of fun that we had been missing.

Having a camper trailer means that it is always packed and ready to go. I can get home on Friday and decide on the spur of the moment to go away for the weekend and we can get out of the house in less than an hour. All we need to do is throw some clothes in a bag and some food in the fridge and pantry box and we are gone. Our trailer kitchen has all the essential condiments and tinned food etc packed into it. We have an excel spreadsheet for restocking so we can always restock easily on our return and never forget the “tomato sauce”. We always take a spare set of sheets to remake the bed at the end of the weekend so once we pack up its all ready for next time. The only time we need to set up again once we are home is if it’s been a wet pack up or if I want to wash it all out from a longer term camp/tour.

Having tried a few different set ups we’ve now got it down to simple but comfortable. We do a combination of base camping where we make camp for up to 2 weeks by the beach on a Christmas break, and touring as we have family in Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland.  Our tent is the sidefold 9 foot, the 8 x 9 footprint of the floor gives us plenty of space, particularly as the boys still love the bunk beds, but is still very quick and easy to set up. I can flip open the main tent for an overnighter in just a few minutes when touring and under 15 minutes with the annex roof and kitchen wall.  So that means that for a weekend we are fully set up and making dinner on the Friday night in less than half an hour. There are times when I take the boys away for the weekend by myself so I find the 9 footer a little easier to set up and pack down as the boys are still too little to be helpful when erecting the tent.

As you can appreciate I spend quite a bit of time living under canvas these days, what with all the trade shows we do (we stay onsite in the trailer for most of them) and the trips I do with the family; as such I couldn’t contemplate being under anything less than good old 15oz Australian canvas. In winter it keeps me warm and dry and in summer it keeps the sun off by providing great shade and keeping the heat from direct sunlight off me. The height of the tent keeps the heat layer well away from us and the massive windows all around the tent makes sure any zephyr of a breeze is utilized to its fullest extent.

I love our new bed base, as I’m a shade over six foot I love the extra foot of space at the head of the bed, I can stretch out fully without my feet touching the canvas at one end and my pillow touching the other. The storage compartments at the head of the bed are great for keeping your personal stuff like keys, wallets, books, etc and they also give you somewhere to put your torch and water bottle so you can find them easily in the middle of the night.

 The trailer is an Off Road with a triple jerry can holder on the drawbar, plus another two on the front passenger infill (The Hilux I have now only has the standard fuel tank and this gives me additional range if I need it), two 4.5kg gas bottle holders on the rear infills, battery box on the front drivers step, water tank and stoneguard and AP1250 Alloy toolbox. The trailer has the standard mechanical override brakes; I just don’t see the need for electrics at this point in time even though I have a brake controller in the car. These ones work just fine and it’s more about me handling the trailer off the car anyway. My hitch at the moment is the standard polyblock off road coupling, although I really do love the design of the new McHitch, when I first saw it at the Rosehill Caravan and Camping Show I said to myself now that’s a beautiful piece of engineering and good old Aussie ingenuity. I may change it over one of these days.

We have the Drifta pull out kitchen and storage box package as it is both light weight and very practical, and we love that we can take the pantry box into the kitchen to fill it up. The stove is the simple 3 burner gas one we’ve had for years, in keeping with my KISS principle it’s very easy to pull the gas bottle off the side of the trailer put it at the end of the kitchen and screw on the fitting. This way you don’t have to go to the expense of having a licensed plumber sign off on the gas installation, or fit a totally unnecessary cut off tap to the trailer, that automatically turns a valve off when you push the kitchen back into the trailer.  The large pull out storage box holds our folding chairs our fishing gear, the kids beach the obligatory camp oven (I love being able to throw it all in the pot and dinner takes care of itself) and all our other paraphernalia.

I have the trailer wired up for 12 volt with a fused control panel 4 outlets even though we don’t tend to use it for much; we have a Coleman dual fuel pressure lamp for light, and gas for cooking. The fridge is usually in the back of the ute, we have a dual cab with canopy, but when I go off fishing by myself I usually leave the fridge behind for Lynda and the boys. So at the moment we have a simple 100 Ah AGM battery in the box on the driver side of the trailer with an Anderson plug connection back to the car on the drawbar. This can be charged via the car, a generator and 240 volt charger, or a regulated solar panel.

We may have to revise this in the not too distant future as I’ve just finished building a 12 volt entertainment unit with 16” Digital TV screen, DVD player, CD player, radio and USB in to plug the MP3 player straight into. This is all built into one of Luke’s Drifta small storage boxes so is quite compact and will come in handy on long term touring and camping trips when the weather turns for the worse, you can see the photos in the picture gallery.  The unit draws between 3 and 4 Amps per hour, so if it gets used for a couple of hours per day and the 40 liter Engle draws about 1.2amps/hr over a 24 hr period we can probably manage with the setup we currently have with a 100 Watt solar panel if I don’t want to charge it all off the car.

Well that’s my perfect set up. My philosophy on camper trailers is  Keep It Simple, Simple, if you keep that in mind when you are designing your perfect camper trailer then there is less to go wrong and chances are that Mr Murphy will come visiting you less often.