The Scamp Page

We ordered a 19 foot fifth-wheel Scamp travel trailer in late December, 2004. It arrived in February, 2005 and we quickly set out to travel around the United States, living in our Scamp and staying in campgrounds along the way. We had a great time for just one month, until Jim received a job offer we could not refuse. Now, we are both back at work and plan to retire again in a few years. We will return to our travels around the US at that time, and will once again be living full-time in our new Scamp.

Our present fifth-wheel trailer is not our first Scamp. We previously owned a 16 foot Scamp trailer. We traveled quite a bit with it during the late 1980's, spending our vacations camping in out-of-the-way places throughout the western United States. We sold our little Scamp when we began preparing for our retirement aboard Razzle Dazzle. Here are some photos of our 16 foot scamp:

Bisti Badlands   |   Mount Lassen   |   Mojave Desert   |   Wilits

We enjoyed our original Scamp very much; the only thing we didn't like was the need to convert the dinette area to a bed each night and back again each morning. This dual-use conserved space, but made it difficult if one person wanted to go to sleep before the other. We decided that if we were to live in the trailer for long periods of time, we wanted a separate bed. The fifth-wheel Scamp has a queen sized bed in an elevated space above the hitch. (See the floor plan.) It turned out to be a great choice.

We tow our Scamp with a 2005 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, with a 4-cylinder engine. We had no problems towing the trailer with that small engine. We got about 20 mpg when traveling on flat stretches of freeway, a little less when going up and down hills. Although we had to slow down to about 40 mph on the steepest mountain grades, we usually were able to keep up with traffic. The fifth-wheel configuartion is wonderful; we never felt that the trailer was pushing the pickup around. And, it follows us around the tightest circles, including making u-turns on residential streets.

Jim is currently at work remodeling parts of our Scamp. He is adding a second solar panel and upgrading the electrical system so that we can spend more time away from campgrounds and the power grid. He has also increased the size of the water tank and added an electric pump, for the same reason. Next, a microwave oven and some added storage for the extras we will want when living full-time in the Scamp.

We will post more Scamp photos when we begin traveling again.