Overland Trailer - should I go crazy and buy one?

[CornishDaddy]

I have fallen in love with the idea of an overland trailer. This follows a normal pattern of me wanting something, trying to clear my fuzzy head so I can think clearly, and at the same time holding off buyng one. My wife is usually trying to talk sense at to me at the same time, and usually we can fight off the urge.

Often I come here to try and hear some proper advice.

So, tell me, why shouldn't I buy one?

The one I'm looking at is like this, but with a Myway trailer tent on top (Sam you may see some sort of comprimise here!!!!)

Buzzard Industries

Thanks for those who can talk sense into me

[KTMmartin]

Why not go the whole hog?

Kimberley Karavans.Home

[CornishDaddy]

Another 10 years and we could end up in the caravan club

[RogerM]

They are a great way to travel, easy setup, no packup required for that 50km trip to buy a carton of milk.

Downsides - you need to have a proper off road hitch if you dont want to shake the trailer and vehicle to bits. Getting stuck is about 50% easier, and 100% harder to get out. You might want to invest in a good hand winch.

The temptation to fill the vehicle and the trailer has to be overcome - pack the vehicle with everything you want to take, then put 50% of it in the trailer and DONT pack anything else.

Have the trailer built with Landrover wheels (or Toyota or whatever make) so that wheels are interchangeable.

Do some homework on entry and departure angles, the rear overhang on the trailer can be a problem - I've seen a 4x4 trailer almost backed over after it dug in and the driver reversed "over" it to get himself out of trouble.

Lash out and buy a Sankey PTO driven trailer.

[silver G]

Before you spend your hard earned, get hold of a sankey trailer(non powered) and go to an off road pay-n-play course - that should cure you

[onlyMark]

And take a spare tow hitch.

[bigpond]

I saw some amazing trailers at Billing this year. They were from SA and a Dutch company are importing then modifying them for use in the EU, sorry but can't remember their name.
We thought that they would be great (we were interested in the Supra model) as you could just hitch and go. The Supra was about GBP12,000 but that included almost everything from a tent and all the awnings, split charge system, lighting, water tanks, storage compartments and much more.
I know there are downsides to trailers, especially for people like us who are planning a long overland trip around the world because of carnet hassles, shipping costs as they won't fit into a regular container and not to mention getting stuck but the main attraction to us was we wouldn't have to modify our vehicle half as much, we could unhitch and go off and explore while our camp stayed behind, we could leave the rear seats in for passengers/guides and if we ever wanted to sell the vehicle it could easily be turned back into a regular car quickly.
We would love one but I think if we were in Australia (no border crossings) we would seriously consider a trailer but for this expedition we're going trailer-less.

[CornishDaddy]

It was those crazy trailers at billing that set me off on this route. Too much mone yfor me, although had Iseen them at the beginning, things may have been different.

Now, Carnet and shipping, two things I hadn't considered.

With the carnet is it just more value for you to stump up for? Or are there further compications.

Shipping I woudl guess, the worse case scenario is doubling your shipping? Hmm we will be shipping at least 3 times as part of our trip. this could be costly.

Anyone know anything about these two things for sure?

Thanks everyone who has helped so far.

[diesel jim]

Why not get an ex militrary sankey 3/4 ton trailer, or just the chassis, and build a body onto it?

much cheaper than one of the "custom" jobbies, and definately built for off road use.

Have a look at what Chris has done over on LRx4 for his 110

[mattsavage]

I've not really looked at the messages and the links but I am very familiar with overland trailers and they look really good, a great idea in fact.
However, in real life I do quite a lot of towing and I can honestly say that I think that it would be a real pain to take a trailer on a long trip. There is the extra worry of tyres, wheel bearings, lights, parking, things falling off it etc.
Less is more!

Cheers,
Matt

although, if less is more, just think how much more is!

[CornishDaddy]

I'm erring towards less is more, however I am going to sleep on it, and will update next week with my rumminations.
Thanks all

[bigpond]

Yer Matt, I know you are probably right - there are hassles with towing and parking, things falling off blah, blah, blah but they are pretty good and a tempting item to purchase.
Imagine, almost anyone with a good 4x4 could hitch one of those things to their Toyota or similar and head off into the sunset. It would make the whole planning process a lot easier and probably cheaper as well, especially the ones at Billing as they were fully kitted out for long overland trips. I thought that a better set of shocks wouldn't go a miss but other than that I couldn't see too many other changes I'd make.
As I mentioned before the hassles would be shipping costs and border crossing problems with officials and general hassles and having to pay 'extra' for all sorts of crazy, made-up rules.
OK, if you are someone who is keen on some serious off-roading and crazy driving on your trip then maybe a trailer would cramp your style but for me they get the two-thumbs-up for convenience and I reckon if you did a costing on kitting out your truck and hitching a trailer the later just might come up trumps.
Barbara

[JulianVoelcker]

Having four children the only we can go overlanding again is with a trailer.

I had a good chat to the Ithende guys at Billing and am very tempted by what they are offering, however they aren't cheap so I am still toying with going down the route of getting something like a Sankey and using it as a base for building my own.

Graham Smith from here had a great trip down to Cape Town with his trailer and I'm sure will provide some great feedback.

My attitude is that they are expensive, however once you have one it's very easy to just hitch it up and take off when ever you want, whether it is a trip round Africa, a trip round Europe or even a few days on the beach with the kids.

Also worth noting that I know of a UK company looking to produce Sankey based kits for trailers so you can either buy a complete trailer or just the bits to bolt onto your own sourced Sankey. I believe that there should be some writeups about them coming in one of the LR mags in the coming months. Costs wise these should come out about half the price of the SA offerings.

[JulianVoelcker]

I've seen Graham's Desert Wolf, a fantastic trailer, but I would be worried with everything being stainless.

OK, yes it doesn't rust, however stainless is more brittle than conventional steel and also obviously harder to repair in the bush.

I have to say that the Ithende trailers I saw were just as good as the Desert Wolf trailers, and coming from a military background should be every bit as rugged.

[ChrisC]

Ollie/Julian

who makes the Ithende trailers?

I was under the impression they are imported from SA!?!

If you look around the web there are lots of trailers out there but how many of those are trully built to withstand the harsh of road battering that they would suffer on an overland trip.

Chris