Travelander targets time-poor adventurers

Queensland’s Travelander has just released two new fibreglass-bodied, hard floor campers tailored to the needs of today’s time-poor travellers.

The new Travelander Kwik Camp is deigned for families with younger children while the latest Travelander Lantrex is more couples-orientated.

Sitting on similar hot galvanised, then powder-coated steel chassis, with similar in-house designed trailing arm, coil spring and single shock absorber independent suspension, both feature aerodynamic fibreglass bodies and sub-60 second, linear actuator-operated remote control automatic opening and closing.

The principal difference between the $36,000 Lantrex and $36,500 Kwik Camp is that the former is a rear-fold camper with a single queen bed, while the Kwik Camp is a side-fold model, with two side-by-side queen beds – one for adults and the other for children.

Darren Hoger, who with his wife Julia has been building Travelanders on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast for the past 18 years, said his design of both campers was based on his own family’s changing requirements as their family grew up and was also influenced by talking to fellow travelling families.

"Time, or rather lack of it, is important to today’s travellers, hence they want a quick set-up,” he said. ”People today travel further and experience more in less time than their parents ever did.

"And because they are going further, they don’t want to spend a lot of that precious time setting up and pulling down camp for overnight stops."

Hoger said that parents of young children rated sleeping off the ground as important to safeguard against invaders like dingoes, crocs and snakes.

“This is why we put both beds in the Kwik Camp up high,” he said.

“However, many older travellers still want to enjoy the next-to-nature enjoyment of canvas camping, but for physical reasons they want the experience to be quick and easy and this is where the Lantrex appeals.”

Both Travelanders weigh around 1000kg apiece and are self-sufficient, with 120AH Enerdrive Lithium batteries, provision for plug-in solar panels and 210 litres of water capacity in two tanks, with the ability to draw from a creek or dam.

Both new campers are additional to Travelander’s popular slide-on camper models. Like all Travelanders, they're designed in Australia, but their boxes, chassis and suspensions are manufactured by the company's long-time partner in China.

Finishing-off occurs in Travelander’s Rosemount factory, where ancillary items like the locally-made Wax Converters canvas and Ricky Richards midge-proof window screens are fitted.