I'm after some advice. We put a deposit on a Camplair S at the caravan and motorhome show, but have since been offered a barely used Camplet Classic for almost the same money.
We are a family of 4 (including two rapidly growing boys). We have previously camped and are looking for a bit more comfort, but have limited storage space (hence looking at these two units rather than any bigger TT's or FC's) The main pros and cons as I see them are:
Camplair S: extra beds under the 'wings',
option to extend inside living space to 4m with extension, no kitchen
Camplet Classic: No extra beds (would have to buy the annex which is expensive and bulky to store),Acrylic fabric quicker to dry, kitchen included, build quality better overall, bigger awning (but no option for extension of inside space).
Neither to be honest, although camplets are nice,they ain't family units, and camplair are budget trigano,so why not go for a a nice shiny cabanon,great quality,look good (not mine,a tad ugly tbh) and available in just the size you need.
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Tough one. How old are your boys? Do they need a bedroom each in the next 5 years or so? A Camplet would hold it's value better and as you say you've got the kitchen attached. If they need another bedroom you might be better off sticking with what you've got ordered.
Adding the annex to the Camplet was a bit of a pain, we had problems with water coming in, and the loss of the side wall to accommodate it impacted on the living space far more than we expected, making the whole unit feel cramped. If you definitely need extra sleeping accomodation in the unit then you might be better with the Camplair, though I have no experience of those. Have you considered using a pup tent in the future though? If compact is what you need then the Camplet is very good, you get a lot in a small, lightweight package.
Thanks so much for your replies. Our boys are 7 and 10 so they are ok together at the moment but probably not in 3 or 4 years time.
I'm not all that keen on the camplet annex. We would probably just stick one of them in a pup tent instead.
The key thing for us is that we need to be able to fit the trailer on our driveway and we don't have that much space. So we were attracted by the small size of both units.
We currently camp in a really quite small four man tent so any extra space/comfort is a bonus for us! :) The main motivation for buying a TT is to get off the floor. I struggle with more than a couple of nights in our tent without getting grouchy. I'm hoping we'll be able to take the TT over to France for a couple of weeks and be relatively compfortable.. :/
Hi, when we started off our children a girl and boy were similar ages, maybe a bit younger. We started off with a Trigano Chantilly gl it had loads of space was very comfy and gave us over 7 years of great camping.
We changed it just over 2 years ago for a new Olympe, basically we wanted something comfier, the slatted beds a really great, lots of room and quicker to put up, it now takes less than an hour from arriving to fully finished with either a beer or cuppa. This year we bought the sun canopy and spent every meal sat outside in a very warm and sunny Dorset campsite.
Even with the children now 15 and over 12 plus one medium terrier and a mini schnauzer we still have lots of room and space.
Might be worth looking and seeing if there are any second hand Olympe TT s around
True, do you store it on its side? What about all the stuff inside, would it need to be emptied every time? Never fancied trying to tip any of ours if I'm honest, so tend to forget it can be done!
The drying question remains of course, the Olympe is even bigger with an integral awning.
Does the Camplair have slatted beds? We found the bed in both the Jametic, and the Combi Camp more comfortable than the Camplet. There are a lot of pluses to the Camplet, and if it suits you it's great, but its not at all flexible, and as your children grow your needs do change.
Quote: Originally posted by bananaman on 02/1/2015
The key thing for us is that we need to be able to fit the trailer on our driveway and we don't have that much space. So we were attracted by the small size of both units.
As said above if space is limited then the Camplet or Olympe may not be an option if you have nowhere to put it up to dry it out. The whole awning has to fold out and we've had ours up for days whilst waiting for a long enough dry spell! It wasn't something we really thought about when we bought it but I'm really not sure how you'd manage with a TT of the pram type if you didn't have the space or somewhere to fully erect it. Our Concorde is a total of 5.73m long (including the tow bar) by 4m wide when fully erect.