I like having my Tracker but the thing is it has no room in it. I wanted to go up with the wife and 2 kids to the Vedder river in Chilliwack BC to meet up with my buddy and his family to spend the night at a campsite that they were already at and do some fishing at first light. It was gonna be fun. One of the fun things was that I would bring the Tracker and if we had the chance, my buddy and I could have some fun on a couple small trails near the river.
So it's time to load the family into the Tracker.
"Ok, one 7 year old in the back seat, Check! One 5 month old in car seat in back seat, Check! On the floor below the kids, a few pillows and a couple of sleeping bags, Check! Hmm, no more room here, better move to the back."
"Hey honey, where are we going to put the stroller and tent?"
"STROLLER AND TENT?!?! THEN WHERE WILL I PUT MY FISHING ROD?"
"Ok, so we'll carry the baby everywhere and sleep outside, but what about the food and our clothes and stuff?"
And into our family car we go.

So here's my question, is there a small trailer out there that is small enough for the Tracker that is a kind of extension to the trunk? Big enough for a big cooler and some bags and fishing rods and stuff like that? I would love that. It can't be a huge trailer cause the Tracker might have a hard time pulling it. I have seen motorcycles pulling trailers so there must be one for the Tracker. I guess I could make one but I am not really the, home-made-wooden-trailer type of guy.
What's out there? Where do I get it? Who's got one? and so on.
Robert

Robert,
You have a few options to this.
1- Roof rack from Calmini $349.95

2- Add a recerver hitch (if you don't already have one) and use a cargo carrier.$127.50-$153.50 (I found this one on the web doing a search for "Draw Tite"

3- Go with a hitch and a utility trailer. You can get small utility trailers starting around $350 and going as high as you want. If you plan on carrying camping gear on a utility trailer I would highly reccomend spending a little extra and getting a small inclosed trailer. You would be amazed at how much dirt gets slung up off the road onto items straped to a trailer.

HTH,
Zig

I started just like you. I first had a single tent for the gf and me. Got married, then it was wife and me and a lot bigger tent (one you could stand in to get dressed). Then 2 kids, so 2 tents. Had a military M416 trailer. Packed everything in it, even firewood.
Now MIL, so now I've uped to a Scamp 16' camper. It's a rolling tent on wheels w/ a kitchen. Still have a tent for the kids (8 & 10 now). Scamp weighs near 2200#'s so it's still light enough for anything to pull it.

Other ideas: tear drop trailer (neat!), small utility trailer for hauling the stuff, small enclosed trailer doing same, back end from doors back from a wrecked Trackick convertible (neat also!).

back end from doors back from a wrecked Trackick convertible (neat also!).

if i ever needed more space in my tracker then thats what it would be.  but i don't know if i would use a hard top or solfty.  hard top you would have to worry about stuff getting stolen as much and you could build a roof rack to the hardtop roof farily easy.  but not only would a solfty be cooler looking but you could put bigger things in it.  don't know if i would ever need one but if i did, i would build one in a heart beat.

stu

I had a similar need to carry lots of gear.  Especially with carrying a full sized spare inside the Sidekick.  My brother and I built a rack, similar to the Draw Tite cargo carrier, but a bit beefier, and large enough to carry a full sized cooler, and a bit of other stuff.  It isn't a perfect solution, after completing it, we found some improvements that could be made, but works quite well for us.  



It mounts to both the receiver hitch and the stock spare tire mount, though we found that it is snug enough in the receiver to do without the spare tire mount.



Here are some pics:













- Craig

BarbieTracker,

This might work for you.

It has storage under the sleeping area and will go anyplace your Tracker will pull it!

http://www.tentrax.com/allTerrainTrailer.html

Cwkick

Mike Hagen is the expert on packing family members in his rig for rides to Florida and such.

I gotta get one of those Tentrax !!!

Just build something yourself, $40.00 worth of material at Home Depot, it bolts together so no welding is required. I have yet to see any adverse effects from using it (note: keep the weight reasonable) other than the constant questions from locals asking how I did it and what it's for.

Well, I have been thinking of getting
a small used pop-up tent trailer and
adding a 4 or 5 foot extension on the
front to store gear/tires/fuel .......

So it would be cheap to start with and
haul all of my crap so I have room in the
Zook to stretch out  


Wild

I found another hitch mounted rack for $54 at www.masterbuilt.com
I ran into this same problem on 7/4.  Wife, myself, 2.5 year old in a carseat, 9 yearold, two small suitcases, cooler, food, diaperbag, one lawnchair and one bag chair.  My wife was amazed that I got it all crammed in there.  Luckily we only had to drive an hour to drop of the 9 year old nephew.  It was way to crowded!
J