Get outside! How We Fit 4 People and Dogs in a 13ft Uhaul Camper.

When people see our little fiberglass camper, there's usually some statement about how cool or cute it looks. That's usually followed by questions about how small it is and how do we all fit in it. :) What makes it ideal for towing and storing, is also the one thing that people seem to think is a problem for actually using it. In America, we live in spacious houses where everyone has their own room. The thought that you'd have to sleep or hang out in the same room with the rest of the family for a couple days seems inconceivable to a lot of people. We camp. We don't live out of it 100+ days a year. Yes, we would need a larger camper if we were going to actually make it our home for most of the year. But most of our trips are going to be less than 15 days.

When camping you need to realize that it's not about taking your house with you. It's about making the most of your time and experience. A tent or camper is really just a place to sleep. I explain that to people when they ask about how we all fit. We have an outdoor screen we can sit under, We go hiking, We have hammocks. When I go camping, I want the kids outside most of the time. I don't want them watching tv in a big luxury camper all day. That defeats the purpose of going camping in my opinion. That doesn't mean we don't have electronics. We have tablets with access to books for the wife and I to read. We carry dvd players that go over the back of the front seats in the car for long trips. And we can and do use them on a rainy day to watch a movie. But we don't sit inside the camper all day. So we don't need it to have a lot of room. We just need it to be warm and dry (or cool in the case of summer in the south).

The times in the camper can sometimes feel cramped if you don't plan ahead. Rainy/cold days happen. And with little ones, you have to be prepared to entertain (See my post on Entertaining Kids on a Rainy Camping Day). The other thing about the little camper is that there's not a lot of floor space. So only about 2 people can stand at once in the camper. This is why it's important to keep a neat camper and put things back in their cabinet/place. This is also why you only take what you need. Space is a premium!. One of the things my wife did was to design a way to make everyone feel like they have their own space. Each kid has their own bunk bed and we have the main bed area. See my post on the bunk bed setup to see how we gave each kid their own little room.

When you have a small camper, you have to figure out how to pack what you need without having too much stuff. There's just no room for extra stuff. The back end of our SUV becomes a key storage space during camping trips. I try to keep it organized and we keep any bulky items there plus some of the dry food. The items we keep in the camper are imperative to the camping and cooking and are the items we keep packed in the camper even when we aren't traveling. Items we keep in the camper include plates, bowls, utensils, dish detergent/cleaning products, paper towels, pots/pans, small coffee maker, toaster drying rack, and an expandable tub for washing dishes in. I also keep electrical cords, flash lights and camper maintenance gear in the camper as well. While that seems like a lot, we've trimmed down the gear to the essential. So we only take 4 plates and 4 bowls, a couple of pots and a frying pan. Most of this stuff stays in the cabinets and cubbies in the camper. All cold items are either in our mini-fridge or in a cooler left outside or in the back of the SUV. Clothes are stored in bins under the main bed.

While there is a stove in the camper, We hardly ever use it (except that one time in South Dakota when it was too cold to cook outside). I take a Coleman camp stove and my Weber Q grill and cook outside. We also do clean up outside. The camper does have a sink but it's really small and we mostly use it just to wash hands and brush teeth at. We bought a collapsible dish tub (here's ours) that we use to wash the dishes outdoors. See my other post on Adding Space to Tiny Fiberglass Camper for how we use our screen room.

So I didn't mention the dogs yet. We have 2 currently. When we first got the camper we had 2 Yorkies and a Silky which were perfect size for the little camper. Our current dogs include a Miniature Pincer and a Border Whippet. Zelda, our Border Whippet, is a lot bigger than the other dogs we've had. At ~45 lbs. she is the size of another small child. Fortunately, she is a major couch potato and loves to lay in our bed. We'll take her on walks and hikes but when we're at camp, she's happy laying on our bed and staying in the camper. At night she'll ball up at the foot of the bed usually between our feet. It's amazing how small she can make herself. We do have an outdoor dog crate we'll put smaller dogs in under the screen room. Inside, we'll either let them sleep with us or on the floor. We have put a small crate under the bed before. I usually keep my clothes in the back of the SUV to make the room under the bed for the dog crate. 

I don't think we could add another kid or a larger dog to our equation. As the kids grow, we'll need to find ways to adjust. I can see us maybe adding my small tent to the equation at some point. We also have the hammocks we take with us and I have tarps that can go over them to provide shelter. I personally love sleeping outside in a hammock. But that's part of the fun for me, figuring out how to make it work. Limiting the amount of time you feel "cramped inside" is a major win in making it work. So most importantly: GET OUTSIDE!

Adding Space to a Tiny Fiberglass Camper

Our screen room at Hard Labor Creek SP

One of the biggest complaints I hear about the small fiberglass campers is that they're too small. And they are pretty tiny. However, having come from tent camping I prefer the small, dry space to a tent. (Well at least when I have the whole family with me; I still love to tent camp if it's just me and a friend or when I go solo.) The question I get asked is, "How do you guys survive in that tiny camper?" Along with various remarks about claustrophobia, pulling out your hair, etc. I usually have to explain that I have two purposes for the camper:

1. To provide a dry, warm place on cold or rainy days/nights.
2. To provide a sleeping space.

My goals for our family is that we'll spend a lot of the time outside our camper. We do carry portable DVD players for the car for trips and can put one in the camper for a rainy day or something to help entertain the little ones. But I don't want them staying in the camper watching movies or playing video games the whole time. That kind of defeats the purpose of camping. Not to mention that if you don't get them outside running around to burn off that energy, that small space will become even smaller as the day goes on. There's no room for bouncing off the walls.

With that said we carry a screen room/awning. It provides an extra sheltered place that can keep some bugs out but mostly to provide shade and some dry outdoor space if it rains. You can put them up over the picnic table or put your camp chairs and gear under it. It provides some flexibility depending on the layout of where you're camping. 

There are two types of awnings: free standing and attached. Attached awnings are nice since they're attached to the side of the camper usually in a bag that you unzip and pull out the poles and stretch out the awning. The pros are that it's compact, you don't have to pack it inside the camper, can usually be setup by one person, and it provides shelter over the camper door/entrance for side door campers. The downsides are that you are forced to set it up right at the camper and you can't move it (maybe your camping spot is right next to a tree and you can't open the awning because the tree's too close?). Free standing awnings (aka tailgating tents) are more like screen rooms in that you can position them anywhere. Up against the camper, over the picnic table, etc. They may be cheaper but they typically take two people to setup. They have a variety of options as far as adding "sun shade walls" or screened sides to them where/when needed. They can be heavier and you do have to pack them inside the camper.

There are many different types of screen rooms/free standing awnings on the market. I suggest reading reviews on Amazon before you buy. There are a few of things you'll want to consider when planning your purchase:

1. Do you want to put the awning over the camper? If so, you may need a tall one or to come up with a mechanism for making it taller (i.e. furniture risers, pvc extensions, etc). Many people want to do this to provide shelter over the door for rain or shelter over their roof vent so they can keep it running for air circulation even if it's raining. We originally thought we'd want to do this but gave up on it and I figure if I really need coverage I carry tarps that I can string up between trees.
2. How much space do you need? Awnings cover a specified square footage (i.e 10'x10', 12'x12', etc). So figure out what you want to place/store under it and you'll have an idea of how much you need. The larger the square footage, the heavier it will likely be though. Also, if it's bigger it'll likely take at least two people to setup. So keep that in mind.
3. Do you need protection from the sun/blowing rain? If so then you may want to look for one that has a "sun wall(s)" or carry an extra tarp(s) to rig up as needed.
4. Do you want a screen to keep out big insects? (I say big because a screen does have holes and bugs can crawl under them so their not going to be as bug proof as your camper.) Also, keeping the screen doors zipped has an impact on that. I'll put a note here that many screen rooms taper out like tents rather than straight down like awning legs tend to do. So the actual square footage protected from rain is smaller than the screened footage. Also, it's not going to stop blowing rain (but neither is an awning without a sun wall).
5. Do you need something that can be put up by one person or will you have two available? By rule the heavier and bigger it is the more people you'll need to assist.

So what do we use? We tried a round screen room but I just didn't like it. We've gone to a Coleman 10'x10'  Instant Up Screened Shelter (ours is an older model of this one but looks the same except I don't have a wheeled storage bag). Price was a big factor and I've been impressed. Sometimes we put it up against the side of the camper and other times we put it on a flat spot behind or to the side or over the picnic table (so is the flexibility of a freestanding model). As I said before, the poles taper out so the roof doesn't cover the entire screened area due to the design. I like being able to zip it up when we leave the campsite. Not really secure as someone could cut into it. I do lock the zipper and at least it should deter tiny thieves and passers by. When we went to South Dakota, I used it to store some gear and it held up to some heavy wind gusts up to 30mph. I did check my tie outs twice a day. I had to re-stake a couple after one really windy night but it never blew away. I'm probably going to come up with a way to add a tarp to at least one side for better rain coverage. I can put this up and tear it down by myself without help. I typically store it in it's bag on the front bench in our camper. It fits well there and I can pull it out quick and pop it up. Usually, we do that first and setup the kids under it to play while we're unpacking and setting up the beds in the camper and getting dinner going. It also has a loop in the center inside so that you can hang a light or one of those battery fans (I use it to hang a light). Overall, I'm happy with it.