Welcome back to Part 2 of our series Tips for Towing Your Camper Trailer in any terrain! When we left you last time, we had discussed various aspects of towing an offroad camper trailer and getting it ready to take offroad – like how to set the trailer up, and more importantly the 4WD gear you need like a 4×4 winch that give you the confidence you need to tow your camper trailer offroad, whether it’s a soft floor camper trailer, a hard floor camper trailer or even a hybrid caravan. In this article we’ll talk about camper trailer tyre pressures, plus how to tow your offroad camper trailer on the beach – every Aussie’s dream! Without further ado, let’s get into it.

TRAILER TYRE PRESSURES – THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP!

Okay, so let’s now start talking practical offroad camper trailer towing tips – and it all starts here with the correct camper trailer tyre pressures!

There’s so much mis-information and confusion about whether you should or shouldn’t lower your camper trailer tyre pressures when you’re offroad. I’m here to tell you – you absolutely should! Lowering tyre pressures increases tyre footprint, spreading the weight of the vehicle or the 4WD camper trailer over a greater area. Think of it like walking in mud in bare feet, and then doing it with big wide planks of wood for shoes. The wider the surface contact area, the less likely you are to sink down into the terrain.

Generally speaking, lower your 4×4 camper trailer tyre pressures to the same pressure as your tow-rig for any given terrain. That’s 16psi for sand, 20psi for low-range hills and 28psi for long dirt roads. In really soft terrain like super-fine sand, or if you feel like you’re struggling, there’s no harm going lower than that – we’ve run as low as 10psi on the beach in the middle of summer, but be aware you’re substantially compromising your steering, accelerating and braking ability, and you’re much more likely to roll a tyre off a bead if you turn sharply. The lower the tyre pressure, the easier you have to go.

The exception to the rule here is if you’re running small tyres with a heavy load – like little boat trailer tyres and a big boat. In that case, play it by sight – definitely lower your tyre pressures, but it may not be all the way as low as you drop your tow rig pressures.

BEACH DRIVING WITH A TRAILER

Towing an offroad camper trailer up the beach unlocks access to some absolutely amazing destinations – here’s how to do it and avoid – or at least minimise – getting bogged!

Tides, tyre pressures and throttle – they’re the three keys to successfully towing your offroad camper trailer up the beach. Ideally you want to hit the beach about 2 hours before low tide, so you’ll have a solid 4 hour window of the tide running out and back in again, giving you access to as much hard-packed sand to drive on as possible. Look up your tide charts for the beach you’re heading to, and stick to them – I can’t stress this enough!

I covered camper trailer tyre pressures in the previous section, but let me say again – no higher than 16psi, but don’t be afraid to go lower if you feel like you’re struggling. The bigger the 4×4 camper trailer, the more traction you’ll need – and the only way to get more traction on the sand is to lower tyre pressures.

Now for the big one – throttle control. Towing on sand is all about controlled momentum. The aim is to get the vehicle rolling as easily as possible with as little throttle input as possible. The more you mash the throttle, the more the wheels spin and dig into the sand – and that’s not what you want. You want to sit up on top of the sand, so when taking off or accelerating, drive like there’s a rusty nail under the accelerator. It takes a bit to pick this up, especially if you’re towing an offroad camper trailer, but if you keep in mind that one idea of using as little throttle as possible to get up to and maintain speed, the easier it’ll be. This will make it much easier to keep your 4×4 camper trailer rolling nicely on this ultra-soft terrain.

When you’re coming to a stop, time it so you slow down without the brakes wherever possible – slip the gear lever in to neutral and let the sand slow you down. That will prevent sand piling up in front of your tyres as you stop, and make for easier take-offs. The extra weight of your 4WD camper trailer will naturally help with this of course.

And remember what I was talking about earlier in the previous article, about matching your camper trailer’s wheel track to your tow rig? It’s a perfect example of what that means on the sand. The trailer is following in the vehicle’s wheel tracks, across the top of the already compacted sand, instead of dragging through soft fresh sand creating its own wheel tracks. It makes a huge difference!

And just in case – a set of recovery tracks is always a good idea on the beach – two sets if you’ve got the space and the budget to carry them!

TOW YOUR CAMPER TRAILER ANYWHERE WITH CONFIDENCE WITH KINGS MT1 CAMPER TRAILER!

The Kings MT1 Camper Trailer has been designed to genuinely go offroad to anywhere in Australia – with incredible off-road clearance and articulation. In fact it’ll go anywhere your tow vehicle can go, and will never be the limiting factor. And when you get to that dream campsite, you’ll camp in style and luxury too!