We've seen a few compact tent-top box trailers out of Australia over the years, but the all-new Adventurer from Road Warrior Campers takes the "smallest of the bunch" cake. Well under 10 feet from hitch to bumper and just over 500 lb on the scales, the trailer comes ready to be towed by a larger motorcycle, trike or small car. Of course, you could pull it with a diesel truck, too, but you might just be tempted to pick it up and throw it inside the pickup box.
With a personal history of trailer-touring the open road atop a Yamaha FJ Sport, Road Warrior founder Kris Umhauer set out to build a light, compact bike-specific trailer in 2016. He didn't take the task lightly, putting several years of R&D into the project before putting the trailer through a rigorous test behind a 2017 Harley Davidson Ultra on a meandering, 8,500-mile (13,680-km) tour from the California Coast to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally that also took in stops as out of the way as the Grand Canyon and Memphis.
After getting peppered with questions about the possibility of towing it behind virtually every make/model of small crossover, Umhauer ultimately decided to focus Road Warrior's marketing on small cars and trikes more so than motorcycles. In a Facebook post, he makes clear that the empty trailer is still light enough for a bike, with a width purposefully sized to fit within the bike's track, but stresses that it'll require a bigger bike like his own Ultra or a Honda Goldwing. Road Warrior is working on an even smaller, lighter motorcycle-specific version.
Given that motorcycles of all shapes and sizes make up only around 5 percent of registered vehicles in Australia, focusing on cars first seems the most logical decision, especially since users will likely load the trailers up with rooftop tents, cooking gear, luggage, sports gear and all manner of other provisions that would quickly overload a motorcycle's towing capabilities. And as a car trailer, the Adventurer becomes an absolute featherweight rather than a trailer that might be light enough for your bike.
Oftentimes, camping trailers look tiny when standing on their own out in an empty parking lot, but then stand just as tall as the tow vehicle, if not taller. The Adventurer really is as low as it looks, measuring just 4.7 ft (144 cm) high with its crossbar rack lowered down in drive mode. Without anything mounted on top, it's quite visibly shorter than the 5.1-ft (155-cm) Venue, the tiniest of Hyundai's seemingly bottomless pool of American and Australian crossovers and SUVs. With the iKamper Skycamp 3.0 mounted on top, as in some of the photos, the Adventurer measures closer to 6 ft (1.8 m) high.
As far as overall length goes, the Adventurer measures a mere 7.4 ft (2.3 m) long to the tip of its tongue, well shorter than most other tiny camper trailers, including the 8.5-ft (2.6-m) HEO T3, 10-ft (3-m) wagon-wheeled SportsRig TrailStomper, 10.2-ft (3.1-m) Kleox Shelter and 10.7-ft (3.3-m) Taxa Woolly Bear. At 507 lb (230 kg) empty, the Adventurer is as light or lighter than those other trailers, with the exception of the TrailStomper, which now lists in at 450 lb (204 kg), a bit heavier than it was billed at when we first covered it in 2019.
Like many a compact cargo box trailer designed to accommodate a rooftop tent (RTT), the Adventurer includes an upper rack with crossbars. A little different than average, its box-tube steel rack's supports extend down to the chassis rather than the top of the cargo box, lending the appearance of an exoskeleton. The upper rack is adjustable via its liftable, strut-assist supports, tilting forward toward the tow vehicle to clear room for opening the rear hatch door or rising straight up to its 5.6 ft (1.7 m) max height to maintain access into the central cargo box while also lifting the available awning and RTT higher off the ground. The rack is rated for up to 220 lb (100 kg) when driving or 628 lb (285 kg) when parked.
In addition to the exo-rack, the Adventurer offers four sides worth of storage space. The main 1,150-L central body compartment is accessed at the rear via the lift-up top hatch and swing-out tailgate or from either side using the lockable red side doors. The long, 51-L upper toolboxes at the sides include lids that fold down 180 degrees to work as countertops. Finally, the 148-L front storage box offers space for a generator, portable grill, firewood or other large provisions. The trailer can carry over 800 lb (363 kg) up to its 1,320 lb (600 kg) aggregate trailer mass (ATM).
The Adventurer's powder-coated aluminum body sits atop a box-tube aluminum chassis with a box-tube steel hitch. The trailer's 175/60R13 tires are cushioned by a torsion-axle suspension. Unlike the average landmine-proof tent-top box trailer we see out of Australia, the Adventurer appears better-suited for road touring than off-roading.
Road Warrior starts the Adventurer bidding at AU$10,500 (approx. US$7,300) and offers various options, including iKamper rooftop tents, a storage drawer for the tailgate compartment, and a side awning. Rather than selling any type of large kitchen gear, Road Warrior has kept the focus on a fast-and-light setup by offering several small, portable Enki biomass stoves.
Source: Road Warrior
