I couldn't find a vacation / bike / cargo trailer for sale that suited my needs, so I designed and (mostly) built one from scratch. I call it The Vacationator 5000. It carries six bikes on top, eight 27 gallon tubs + miscellaneous loose cargo inside. It pulls so well that I can't feel it when towing it. It's been from the middle of the country to Florida twice, plus other shorter trips. It was fun to build and makes vacations a blast. We get to our destination, then never drive again until time to head back home. Anyway, I thought that maybe somebody here would be interested and perhaps inspired.

I like it. But you need some artwork on the box! Something reminiscent of the paint jobs on van's we older folks might have owned as teens in the 70's. But a cycling theme of course.

Neat!

Very cool. What about something on the front of the trailer for all those front wheels?

I would try to use the space under the roof to hold the front wheels horizontally. You're not likely to stack the boxes completely up to the ceiling anyway, and with the wheels stored horizontally above the boxes, they would not have to be moved to access any of the boxes.

Just an initial observation. I'm sure you already have a method for this anyway. Nice project.

A place to store a workstand would be useful too. Maybe some 6" diameter PVC along one side at the top would let you slide a workstand in there.

I love solving problems via ingenuity and fabrication and you’ve really hit the nail on the head and Im impressed. Bravo!

I like this! It looks really well done too. Do you use a tie down strap through them also, just in case?

Oh never mind, I see it now!

Cool. When will you be putting it out on the market?

From the pictures, it looks like excellent engineering.

Very cool!

I would leave the stack of front wheels lying on the driveway, and only remember them after I was hours into the journey. Nice trailer, though. Looks very well thought out.

There are lots of jokes about women who have to tolerate their husband's bike obsession. But after seeing how well built is this unit, I'm sure the wife is more than happy of the other repairs he does around the house.

really nice man. if i took that much stuff in the car i would certainly consider something like that.

Wow, that is cool. My only question is, do you plan to build more and market them? I think there must be a market for these. Good work.

Very cool. Have thought about doing something similar but have never gotten up the courage to actually try it.

Did you start with just the base frame and build the entire box yourself? If so, can you provide a brief outline of the materials/process?

genius! & looks like you wired directionals & brake light? small trailers don't need a licence plate?

No trailer plate required in KY. Depends on how much the state wants to take out of your pocket.

I've considered it, but have no plans to do that. But I agree that there is a market for something like this. I looked a very long time before deciding that nobody made anything like this and set about to build my own. It was fun to build, but I'd have bought one off-the-shelf if they were available.

I started by buying a $239.00 cargo trailer kit from Northern Tools. However, after we started building it up, we decided that the frame was not rigid enough, so we discard it and welded a new primary frame from 2-1/2" x 2-1/2" x 1/4" steel. From the beginning, we had planned to weld the secondary frame from lighter weight 1" x 2" and 1" x 3" box tube. Instead of welding that secondary frame to the Northern Tools frame, we welded it to the primary frame we created. In the end, we used the wheels and axle and the coupler from the Northern Tools kit, but nothing else. We started to use the Northern Tools tongue, but decided that it was (a) too short and (b) not stiff enough, so we also fabricated that. The kit came with lights and a wiring harness, but I bought LED lights and used them instead. I also replaced the wiring harness and used a 7-pin connector instead of the flat-4-pin connector that came in the kit. The skin is aluminum. It's on the inside of the secondary frame so that we could have the side skins all the way out to the fenders, creating a wider interior space. Otherwise, the Home Depot bins would not have fit as shown.

The bike hardware on top is a combination of ordinary fork clamps bought on Amazon and some aluminum U-channel which we cut to hold rear wheels (along with yards of double-sided male-female velcro straps). A 3/4" plastic-wrapped steel cable runs through the main triangle (top tube / seat tube / bottom tube) of every bike while in transit, so if any bike should become un-moored in transit, it can't fall off the trailer and onto the highway. And not one bike has even loosened a bit on any trip. At night (if we have to spend the night on the road) the cable is replaced by a maximum security, super-hardened, 1/2" square-link chain and iron-shrouded padlocks and the trailer itself is chained to the vehicle in a similar fashion. No locks can withstand a motivated thief, but I have this secure enough that I don't expect anyone to be willing to spend the time and make the noise required to defeat my security.

My original design (not shown) had five aluminum wheel forks that looked like this

but mine were homemade and were about 14" taller. These were interspersed between the bikes on top of the trailer. The design worked (so then I only had to store one wheel inside the trailer), but it made loading and unloading the bikes and wheels a much bigger chore. After one 1900 mile trip, I removed them (but still have them).

My current thought is that I'm going to take the forks and make a new bracket that holds three wheels low and three high at the front of the trailer above the triangle of the trailer tongue. Depending on how it fits, I may remove the existing trailer spare tire holder and re-mount it under the trailer. By the way, the third wheel was not included in the Northern Tools kit. Funny, but true, even when the trailer is fully loaded, I can tip it on one wheel just by doing a military press on the outriggers that hold the bikes. I literally can hold it up long enough for someone else to swap a trailer wheel. Anyway, if/when I get around to adding the wheel storage back to the outside of the trailer, I'll probably post a pic.

The trailer has brake lights, turn signal lights and side ID marker lights.

Trailers don't have to have license plates in my state.

She loves the trailer and how it enables our vacations. We still have three kids at home. Vacations with our kids are incredibly important to us. We prefer to give our children experiences rather than things. This trailer lets us go where we want to go, then leave the car parked for the entire vacation and just rely on our bikes, skateboards and feet. And I am the luckiest SOB in the world to have her.

Good job using a long tongue.

I had a utility trailer with a short one, & it was horrible.

Super job on building that trailer. My only question is, "With so many bikes, what do you do to secure them if you have to stop overnight at a motel/hotel?"

Sorry that I am just now replying.

During the day a 3/4" dia. vinyl coated cable runs through the main triangle of every bike to steel arms on either side of the trailer (the middle of three arms; located under the cranks of each bike). The vinyl cable is attached to the trailer with padlocks. At night, the vinyl cable is replaced with a super-hardened, square-link security chain. The trailer is locked to the pulling vehicle with a tongue lock (that prevents unlatching the hitch) during the day. At night, the trailer is also chained to the pulling vehicle using security chain. All padlocks have shrouded shackles. We park in well-lit areas. We only need this sort of security when driving long distances (>900 miles) where we need to stop overnight. The places where we vacation this is not an issue.

In my state only trailers over 2,000 lbs. need to be licensed. Of course, they'll gladly take your money and license any trailer you want, but you don't have to if the total weight of the trailer (loaded) is under 2,000.

does your state require annual safety inspections? I recently learned that not all states do

A longer trailer makes it easier to back in as well.