Camping in a trailered Mac?

[Berber Boy]

Thanks tkanzier,
That is very helpful. I'll put it up as a new thread and see what else comes up. My challenge living in Australia is shipping an axle and the parts. Puts the price up a bit.

Cheers

David

[GaryMayo]

I live on a 200 acer lake that allows camping 2 weeks max. Down the road is another lake with the same 2 weeks max camping rule. These two lakes have been the year round home of a gay couple for about 10 years. When the two weeks is up, they go to the other lake and set up there for two weeks. They have tarps up over the boat to make additional space, and they live in Nebraska, year round. It gets down to 20 bellow sometimes in the winter.

Take along a step ladder to help get in and out

[Boblee]

Wouldn't even give travelling and camping in the Mac a thought as it is easier than most caravans and has more room and especially without the mast etc an absolute dream to live on and tow, we have camped in ours for over 18 months in all and over a wide variety of camping spots from coastal/rivers/ lakes/ side of road/rest areas/and approved camping areas with only a couple of nights at marinas, never a problem.
No idea how many k's but would be a minimum of 20,000k's with only a slightly beefed up standard trailer over some very rough roads.
Remember any water drinking,grey or black adds weight to the load, it's easier to use a ports potti and top up drinking water as needed on the way.
Would need more planning with three kids but seen that happen with plenty of smaller vans than our boat has.

[Herschel]

As both a Mac26X owner and a travel trailer owner, I have learned one thing that I have not, yet, seen in this thread. The 30 amp shore power plugs commonly used on boats like ours for shore power setups at marinas have different prong configurations for plugging into power receptacles. The marine ones have an elbow on one of the three prongs and different shapes, apparently to help secure it in the receptacle. 30 amp RV receptacles like you find on RV's and use in an RV parks has three differently configured strait prongs. I managed to plug my boat electrical system into an RV receptacle at my storage facility using a wiring harness I bought at an RV supplier that allows a connection from a standard household 3 prong plug and got an adapter for my marine cord that reduced it to a standard household three pronged plug. Wallah! Connection!

[mastreb]

Thanks for all the advice everyone! Yes, this is a "dad-driven plan" at the moment--This post is phase 1 in getting "buy in" from the admiral. The kids have already been subjected to far worse so they're troopers (three days of 14 hour drives from San Diego to Cape Canaveral, one day watching shuttle launch, one day at Disney land, and three more days of 14 hour drives back to San Diego). It's the "Motel 6 Experience" that I'm hoping to avoid with the Mac.

Trailers and surge brakes: The tow vehicle is an extra heavy duty 7500 class IV with exceptional brakes but I think I'm going to let the brakes do what they're supposed to do. The vehicle has "Trailer Stability Assist" which individually damps any swaying or surging coming from the trailer by selectively applying individual vehicle brakes, and I have to say it makes towing a piece of cake. I can sometimes feel the trailer start lurching on the hitch and then just get settled by it. I need to check the tongue weight because it feels as thought it might be too light.

Excellent advice on the RV mains. We don't use a lot of 120VAC aboard so I currently just have a 50-amp to 20 amp adapter and a regular extension cord. I'll just get an RV adapter for that and be good.

I'm either going to track down or make my own version of that HabiTent. We have no need for a real dodger or enclosed cockpit (and I'm too tall for the off-the-shelf stuff) but that's a fantastic idea for camping.

Unrelated topic, but we just bought one of those new Coleman Quick Tents at walmart. Those things are fantastic! No instructions, we literally had it up in four minutes, and back down in two. Now I just need to "mod" one to fit the Mac!

[Herschel]

If you are headed to Orlando, one option for camping, when you get here, that is pretty nice is Moss Park. It is a county park with nice big camping spots, heavily wooded, near a lake with a launch ramp if you want to consider that. I have stayed there twice with my RV. The cost is very reasonable compared with Disney or other tourist spots. It is just a "stones throw" from the State Rd 417 expressway that heads down toward Disney, and very close to the State Rd 528 (Beachline) that goes to the Brevard County space attractions. http://www.visitusa.com/florida/camping/mosspark.htm My wife and I just did the opposite trip with our travel trailer--Orlando to San Diego and back. We are retired and have family there and in Colorado, so we took our time and did a lot of sightseeing. Good luck and stay safe.