And, when we got back, we mutually agreed to sell the pop-up and get a 179.

Kimmie, you have a lot of options, with a trailer that you don't have with a class C both in places you can visit and the kind of campgrounds where there is space.  A small class C will fit in many camp grounds where small trailers fit, but you're stuck there unless you towed a car and if that's the case, you lose the small camping vehicle advantage and eliminate some campgrounds.  Some of the roads to campgrounds, even though the spaces are big, are hard to navigate with a class C, while you may find an articulated vehicle, e.g. towing a trailer where the vehicle bends in the middle allows you to make tighter turns and allows you to traverse rougher roads.  "At  the end of the day" you need to analyze what kind of places where you're going to camp and whether you need the flexibility of a trailer.  If it's going to be mostly in commercial campgrounds, then you may as well get a class C and a little car to tow behind.  If it's going to be remote Forrest Service campgrounds, then a small trailer may fit the bill a little better.  

There are plenty of good deals out there, especially if you can travel a little to look at them.  But if you buy something with a motor and drive train, you'd be a lot better off finding one close enough where you can have a mechanic check out the drive train and make sure it's sound.  

One other major consideration is the difference in function between an R Pod and a class c.

with the R Pod,you park it in a nice camp site, enjoy the comforts, leave it there and drive to  your daily tourist destination in your van.  Return to your camp and the R Pod is already set up and waiting to be enjoyed. with the class c, you have to break camp, pack everything up and then drive it to your daily tourist destination, find a place to park it and then come back to the campsite and set it up again. Same thing next day.

there is a LOT of daily setting up and tearing down, packing and unpacking with any class C if you leave the campground once you are set up.  the R Pod is simple, set up once and leave as often as you wish.

just my 2cents

Vann

I'm so glad you contacted us about this. It has been said that "A boat is a hole in the water to pour money into", a 'land boat' is the same.

I'm afraid you should consider 'recalibrating' your wants/needs. A hard sided trailer is quiet at night for sleeping, usually has air conditioning (my favorite) and a decent bed. A toilet/kitchen can be improvised or just stay at rv parks of some sort. It sounds like a walk around bed is more important for you than any of these. Trailers smaller than an r-pod won't ever have a walk around bed.  

The original 171/172 r-pods were designed to enable a smaller vehicle to successfully tow a decent-sized trailer but they still require a minimal 3500 pounds towing capacity, and that is truly 'minimal', and they don't have a walk around bed. R-pods have successively gotten bigger, requiring bigger tow vehicles, until now a 191 really isn't in the original r-pod tradition. 

Realistically, if you want an inexpensive hard sided trailer with a walk around bed you will have to buy a larger used one and have a tow vehicle somewhere in the 5000-6000 pound towing capacity range, or maybe even larger. If you don't have a good tow vehicle, sooner or later you will be very, very, sorry.

So, welcome to the board and we hope you get as much use and enjoyment out of the things you learn as we have.

The one problem I see is.. buying a used class C, anything in the price range of a new pod,($16K +/-) it's going to need lots of work and have issues.. and.. you are buying a new(er) truck.. you can't use for anything else.. that's a waste IMHO.

A quick RVTrader search centered on 67410 zip code, 250 mile radius shows 2 class C's in that price range both with very high miles..

Ouch.

Well your answers here will naturally be biased toward the r-pods, and trailers in general, but your two vehicles are a bit long-in-the-tooth for pod-pulling.

If it has been maintained well and everything is in good shape and set up for towing, the van sounds like it should be able to do it. It probably has a 4 speed auto, and probably does not have a tow-haul mode or a towing ratio on the rear diff, so you might just have to slow down on hills and take it easy.

You might want to consider a pop-up tent trailer or an a-liner style trailer to reduce the towing load on the van or the pickup.