After 12 years together, 6 of it married, and 5 of it with children, we decided to embark on a new adventure a year ago, taking on RVing and making camping a way of life. Now, I want to share it with our friends and family.
Our first tow vehicle, a 2010 Toyota Venza with at the time more than 200,000 kms on it. A little front-wheel drive, 4 cylinder engine putting out approximately 200hp. Why is this important? Well, your tow vehicle is the most critical component in determining what you can tow, and can make the difference in safe, stress-free adventures.
So what were our wants and limits?
- We had certain limitations due to our 4 cylinder engine (which many would say is not a suitable tow engine, they are probably right in many ways, but it doesn’t have to stop you from enjoying a travel trailer/camper). So, we had a 2,500 lbs tow capacity, which realistically put us at 2,000 lbs, loaded with all our gear, so searching for a dry weight trailer for the family of 1,600 lbs was going to be challenging.
- The wants: bunkhouse for the kids, bathroom, fridge, and small galley for indoor cooking days.
- I spent months researching different units. Let me tell you this, ultra-lightweight units are EXPENSIVE. Armadillo, a BC produced trailer building modern fiberglass Boler-shelled travel trailers start over $25,000.00CDN. While lovely and practical, didn’t fit all our wants.
- Then, months into the search and just before the camping season was to begin, I found Prolite, specifically the Profil. This built-in-Canada trailer was ultralight, at 1,685 lbs dry, 16 feet long, bunkhouse, bathroom, fridge with indoor galley, electric breaks, awning and the conveniences of home, it had what we wanted. Test tow looked good, reviews were hard to find but looked good from what I saw. So, we wrote up the cheque and a couple weeks later we picked up the trailer, and keys, to our first new travelling home.
First few trips were just last-minute single and two-night trips to local parks, we learned and perfected backing into tight campsites, leveling, general setup and tear down processes. Things worked great, we did find it tight, but RVing with a soon-to-be 5-year old and 8/9 month old was easily doable in this unit. We became HOOKED on RVing. Little enhancements here and there and we really felt that it was becoming ours.
Then came slightly longer and further trips, BC’s Southern Interior has an abundance of provincial and private campgrounds, all beautiful on their own accord. a whirlwind 5-night trip visiting Shuswap Provincial Park, Lake Louise – Banff National Park, and Summit Lake Provincial Park is as crazy as it sounds. In 6 days we had driven over 2,200 kms.
A hot and dry summer led to the last two weeks of August being commited to assisting the provincial government and I deployed with the Canadian Armed Forces on Operation Lentus to the smokey and burning BC interior.
Upon return, we rounded up our first season RVing to some local sites, wrapping up at Whistler RV Park. A beautiful RV campground located just south of Whistler, an amazing base for adventure seekers ATVing the many trails, or hitting Whistler/Blackcomb without the enormous accommodation costs.
There was one thing we knew for certain when we wrapped up season one, we loved RVing and were already looking forward to the next season to come.
Adventures of the Nguyen Family 