UKH

Hoping the collective minds of UKC can help on this one! 

We've got three little people (7 and under) and having resigned ourselves to UK holidays in the next few years (no bad thing) we have just bought a behemoth polycotton family tent (~70kg) that should last us a while.  Even going camping a year or two back with a much smaller tent, our VW Sharan with large roof box were absolutely maxed-out. 

Does anyone have any experience of camping trailers? - brands to look at/definitely avoid, any tips or advice on where to look, sizes, considerations etc.  I know nothing about them!  Like everything, there seems to be masses of choice and a range of styles, prices, sizes, weights, axle configs so any pointers greatly received.

Thanks

I have a Brenderup trailer.  The model I have is a bit big for camping use but the quality is very good. I believe they are owned by Thule.  

https://www.brenderup.com/en/gb/

You might have to travel a bit to get to a distributor. 

Alternatively there are normally a few about on Gumtree or FB marketplace so it's worth having a look there.  

One big decider is to think what you're going to do with it the other 48 weeks of the year. Whilst some might have other uses, they take up various amounts of space, and are both highly attractive and very knickable.  So how big is your safe secure storage space?

Great, thanks - will check-out Brenderup.  I like the idea of being able to stick bikes on top of it in the future too if possible so will bear that in mind when looking at bike racks (which is another rabbit hole for the future!)

Good point.  We have a garage which we never park in, but ideally I wouldn't want to lose all that space for the majority of the year.  I will look at rental costs too as that's always an option, but I think it worked-out at a couple of hundred quid for a fortnight's hire when I made some cursory enquiries, so made me think buying one might not be a bad idea.

I've shared the same trailer with 2 friends for the last 35 years (£30 each at purchase). We've never wanted it at the same time, it stays with whoever used it last. Could that work for you?

It's certainly worth considering as I agree it would be good to share the cost and burden of housing it if we could!  The only thing is most of our friends also have school aged kids so I imagine anyone interested would also be wedded to the dreaded school holiday windows like us, so might all want it at similar times.  Might be worth putting the feelers out.

Small trailers can be tipped up and stored flush against the wall. Take the tyres off and they can have only a small storage footprint.

It's easy to think I'm going to tow it anyway and the speed limit is already reduced, so I might as well get a big one. But you have to resolve all the trade offs. 

Really? I can get 3 adults, two large teenagers, all the camping gear ( 6 person tent + extension) and a boat, outboard and all the associated junk in/on my Galaxy.

Many years ago we had access to a 'Camp let'. Lightweight, easy to tow, easily sleeps two adults and three children, very quick to put up, cooker integrated.

Camp-let Trailer Tents (camperlands.co.uk)

It may suit your needs...

You need a bigger boat.

You might need to check if you need to take a DVLA trailer test. This depends on various factors such as the size and weight of the trailer, plus when you passed your test.

Well it's exactly the same overall length and width as the car so somewhat large really! Then there's the mast.

I have no knowledge of these trailers but they will save a lot of space when not in use - https://www.foldy.co.uk/

Unfortunately they are expensive.

Dave

Thanks - they look good from the space saving angle, but as you say, quite pricey!  Will add "foldy trailer" to the ebay alerts!

Thanks - I've checked and we should be ok provided car plus trailer doesn't exceed 3.5t.  I think the Sharan is about 1.8t so provided we get a reasonably lightweight trailer we should be ok - can't see us loading more than 100-120kg in the trailer as the tent is 70kg and about the size of a washing machine so unlikely to leave much leftover space!

It's worth checking what the maximum vehicle weight is, as it's this, combined with the maximum trailer weight that must not weigh more than 3.5 tonnes. 

My old Volvo has a max laden weight of 2190kg. and the trailer of 1300kg, so it just sneaks under. 

Ah, thanks for clarifying.  Looks like the gross vehicle weight for VW Sharan is 2,400kg and the trailers I've looked at so far have been around the 500-650kg gross weight, so hopefully still ok.  

What a minefield!!