Often either cold, spartan towable garages with fold-down furnishings of questionable comfort, or fully outfitted campers with bikes shoved up against the sofa, toy-hauler campers usually flash a spotlight on the compromises of two-in-one design. The new Karoo Adventure camper looks to minimize those compromises, serving as a dual-purpose towable with a completely empty floor for carrying gear and a cushier living pod with breezy, panoramic design, modular furnishings and a hidden wet bathroom.
The Karoo Adventure looks at first like the type of new-era design that would come from Silicon Valley and, like such trailers, includes a focus on electric power, with a 6-kWh lithium battery and rooftop solar. However, it hails from halfway around the world, designed in the beautiful northerly nation of Finland.
Karoo keeps the overall footprint of its trailer down as small as some teardrops at 5 m (16.4 ft) from tip to tail and 2.2 m (7 ft) to the top of the roof. Still, it manages to squeeze in a roomy, multipurpose floor plan that sleeps up to two adults and two children by using a lift-away double bed and bunk bed. The company also plans a version with foldaway lounge chairs that drop into bed form.
The main purpose of the lifting beds is to clear out most of the Karoo trailer floor area for gear hauling. Load it up with bicycles, hunting equipment, fishing tackle, skis, snowboards and sleds, or whatever other gear fits your specific trip plans. Gear loads easily through the oversized rear hatch door and side hatch.
One piece of particularly unique trickery in the Karoo Adventure trailer is the hidden bathroom. Built into the nose of the trailer, the bathroom sits covertly behind the kitchen block wall, accessed via a sliding refrigerator/wall. The lower wall can then slide back, with a roll-down partition completing full privacy with the refrigerator out of the way.
Watch it in action:
The sliding design seems a bit overly complex and likely to be the first part of the trailer begging for repair, but we do like the speakeasy-style secret-room feel of it. Beyond that, the bathroom is a common wet bath with a shower, cassette toilet and clothes drying rack.
As for the refrigerator, it slides over top the dual-burner stove when opened for bathroom access, leaving it in closer position for when the kitchen is being used outside. The dual-purpose kitchen supports both indoor and outdoor cooking with a sliding gas cooktop and sink that can be used in the open air.
Other planned amenities and accessories include heat, hot water, an entertainment system with TV and Bluetooth speaker, a touchscreen command center with mobile app, and a smart alarm system. Karoo has worked to optimize both weight and aerodynamics to help ensure a more efficient driving experience, citing a dry weight of 750 kg (1,650 lb) and payload of 75 kg (165 lb).
Karoo says it wrapped up its latest round of startup funding earlier this year and plans to begin showing its prototype publicly in 2024 ahead of pilot production in 2025 and initial deliveries in 2026.
Those who want to get in on the first round of deliveries can preorder now with a €100 (~US$110) deposit on prices starting at €29,900 (~US$32,450). The first 500 models sold will come with a side awning and tent walls and an extended three-year full warranty (normally two years). Seems too early to put money down to us, but that's the way these startups roll.
Source: Karoo
