Too many hobbies for one van

[MyShadowandMe]

This is actually my very first post on any forum, tell me if I do anything wrong. I do beaded jewelry, multimedia art, herbal stuff- tinctures, capsules, wildcrafting; I also collect wildfoods, I write, love rockhounding, I work with leather, etc. This means I have a small library that I plan on taking. I am not on the road yet but if things go my way maybe by September. I have a minivan. At least for now. Does anybody use a trailer with a minivan. I thought a 4'x6' would be okay. Will it go boondocking very well?? Any advice???

 

[Gypsy Freedom]

trailers can be a blessing or a curse.

what ever trailer you get, keep an eye on the loaded weight and be mindfull of the tow rating of the minivan. most are not rated to tow much.

a trailer should improve your boonedocking by being able to have more storage and be better equiped. though if boonedocking takes you down rugged dirt roads, some trailers can reduce you ability to get through tougher spots. but it is not like a minivan is the best off road rig in the first place.

 

[Cammalu]

Rockhounding? Ever watch “The Long, Long Trailer”? It’s a must if you haven’t seen it.

There is an art caravanning group you might want to meet up with.

Also, in Quartzsite you can join the gem and mineral club. There are weekly rockhunting trips and a facility with all the rock cutters and polishers you could ever use. It’s $20 for the year and any classes you might want to take are $4.

This is part of my pile from last winter:

I also joined the quilt club and started quilting last winter. We have a lot of fun and stay very busy in Quartzsite.

I would find my bad habits unsupportable in a minivan.

 

[RoamerRV428]

HI

agree with Gypsy in that it could be wonderful or a nightmare....lol....it all depends on your idea of boondocking truly.
it will come down to where you are gonna drive this minivan and like mentioned, a minivan ain't the best boondock vehicle out there anyway, but a trailer tow could curtail that even more.

best of luck

 

[vanbrat]

We are not on the road yet but we will be pulling a 6x10 trailer that is also our store/vending joint. But we plan on using some storage places if we camp sometimes so we won't have to haul it everywhere. The joke is that I am hauling around my sewing room....we sell patches and hand sew name patches so we have 3 sewing machines and 'stuff'. We have a larger van though and as I said we plan to leave the trailer sometimes in storage. We are not going full time either we plan to live in our house.

 

[maki2]

This is actually my very first post on any forum, tell me if I do anything wrong. I do beaded jewelry, multimedia art, herbal stuff- tinctures, capsules, wildcrafting; I also collect wildfoods, I write, love rockhounding, I work with leather, etc. This means I have a small library that I plan on taking. I am not on the road yet but if things go my way maybe by September. I have a minivan. At least for now. Does anybody use a trailer with a minivan. I thought a 4'x6' would be okay. Will it go boondocking very well?? Any advice???

It just depends on the weight and volume of the individual items and the amount of tools you need. You have to look at the weight of the trailer and then look at the towing capacity of your minivan. You don't want to take a lot of heavy glass containers along. You don't want to take a library of heavy books along. Leather can get pretty heavy especially if there are steel tools involved. Rock hounding is fine if you don't accumulate every stone you see and then make sure you sell or give away what you make ASAP. Packages of paper can be surprisingly heavy given how small a stack of it is so watch out when accumulating multimedia supplies.

My suggestion is you can do it all but take a seasonal approach to it. Do certain hobbies at certain times of the years making sure you use up most of the supplies and then keep only the real treasures and give or sell the rest of the things you produce. Then move on to the next season's hobby. That way you won't be overwhelmed with too much stuff all at once.

Because I make things for sale I do have a lot of "hobby tools" and materials. But some of the things I made are mostly sold in the fall and early winter. So I will have a small storage room that I can stop at on my way north for the summer where I can leave most of those holiday item supplies, tools and extra inventory items. Then in the summer I will be north where I have access to my friends larger workshop space and I can prepare materials for the spring and summer projects and work on them before I head back south for the winter. My summer projects will be ones that tend to generate a lot of debris, dust, etc. While camping in the wild I can work on those outside and take advantage of the long daylight hours. For travel time between the north and south I can work on other things including doing more design time work for the next season and the next year's projects.

 

[jacqueg]

I've towed trailers. And I hate doing it. I'd be especially leary of towing with a minivan. Find out what your vehicle's towing capacity is, then make sure that your trailer and its contents are safely under that capacity. I note your interest in wildcrafting, and think you might find that towing a trailer would limit your access to the best places for finding materials.

I'm not a full-timer (and may never be), but I do take camping trips and do my best to minimize the driving and maximize the camping. Reading, walking, and internet surfing are assumed. We all do those.

In addition, I'd pick two indoor hobbies, and one outdoors one. They should be the most portable hobbies of your current list - the ones requiring the least amount of equipment.

For me -
indoors - knitting and zentangles (https://zentangle.com) - I'm not a bit artistic, so this is by way of developing that currently non-existent capacity. But drawing in general would be a good indoor pastime.

outdoors - stargazing with binos

 

[waldenbound]

The long and short of it is you may be curtailing some of those hobbies. It’s got to be about the practice out here. Pick the hobby with the least amount of equipment.
In fact he hobby I took up was, getting rid of stuff!

 

[RoamerRV428]

In fact he hobby I took up was, getting rid of stuff!

Too funny!  love it