Gallery: Unconventional RVs
Two relatively new players have tapped into a growing market for outdoor enthusiasts and adventurers with camper and trailer products that can hit the road – and off-road – with a zest for exploration that’s redefining RV design and function.
Photos (below) courtesy of SylvanSport and TAXA Outdoors.
As Millennials become the largest purchasing demographic since the Baby Boomers, and as some Baby Boomers seek to downsize, SylvanSport and TAXA Outdoors offer towable units that strike at the heart of the REI outdoor retailer demographic.
When asked if “unconventional” best describes SylvanSport’s GO camper, founder and CEO Tom Dempsey agrees, but also offers a more detailed description.
“We’re a ‘category creator.’ We reinvented the travel trailer,” he says. “It’s unconventional compared to traditional campers, but, at the same time, it’s also resilient to classification. Folks have referred to it as an ‘adventure trailer.’ I call it a three-in-one gear hauler/camper/utility trailer. The GO offers so much, it’s difficult to put one tag on it.”
Antonio Gonzalez, president of TAXA Outdoors, the manufacturer of the Mantis, Cricket, Tigermoth and Woolly Bear trailers, says “unconventional” is a fitting term to describe the company’s products.
“Our mission and our vision is to provide our customers with a rugged and comfortable way to camp and experience the outdoors,” he says. “It’s adventure equipment that you can sleep in.”
While each manufacturer espouses similar philosophies of driving design innovation with a shared DNA of purposeful outdoor utility, many of those similarities diverge in each of the manufacturers’ respective designs and functionalities.
SylvanSport Trailers Built for RVers on the Go
The GO appeals to a broad range of people, according to Dempsey, who says SylvanSport has two distinct customer personas: one is active, young retirees who are either interested in simplicity or downsizing from a larger RV with more complex systems; the other is Millennial young families that want a little more creature comforts than just sleeping on the ground in a tent and who want to bring along amenities without a lot of hassle.
“There’s a broad range of appeal,” he says.
Dempsey grew up as an outdoor sports enthusiast near the Appalachian Trail, climbing, kayaking, hiking and mountain biking. He worked as a designer at the Coleman Co. when it made pop-up campers and, later, he started a kayak manufacturing company before he founded SylvanSport in 2004.
“I had a blend of adventure outdoor sports with one foot in the RV world with Coleman. I thought there was an opportunity to bring the two together,” he says.
He created the SylvanSport GO to take the RV to the REI crowd, for which the average age of the REI-buyer is in their late 50s.
“When somebody said they were going camping, it could mean two distinctly different things: camping in an RV; or primitive camping. The two activities and all the related gear associated with each were completely separate from each other,” he says.
To read the rest of the article, check out the May 2018 issue of RV PRO.
