Vistabule Teardrop Camper - Review by Cosmo Weems!

So we will be camping in the Catskills this week. We're going with Cosmo Weems, so we can see behind the scenes how his channel films. Hopefully I have a lot to learn here this week. how to make this channel a little better and we're going to take a look at that Vista Buell trailer with the Airstream aluminum and we're really excited so let's take a look at it and we'll go find Cosmo. He's in the woods over here. Somewhere, usually, where there's running water there's a

cosmo

, so come on, let's go find it, so meditative, you know, it's great to have a couple of minutes to sit there and look at a stream, really good.

Hi Brian, here with your outdoor life today. it's a very special day because we are outdoors but we are also going to do it with uh mr

cosmo

weems

cosmo how are you doing very well brian thank you very much for inviting me up here you know uh this pandemic has kept me locked up and you know, look at this place, you know that he lives here oh my gosh so it's just beautiful thank you so much we stumbled across the web and you meet some people you just email and click it's like it's destiny. It's funny how we met, it's been great for me and it really makes me nervous.

It's good to be here. We are both vaccinated so yes, so we can enjoy. We are doing our part to stop the spread. Yes, now, yes. I've been living under a rock. Cosmo has one of the oldest and most successful YouTube channels. About the

camper

s in the form of tears. Cosmo. When did you start doing that six years ago, Brian? And it was, you know, the same as you, you know? I just wanted to spread the word about what it's like to camp in a

teardrop

trailer. It is fun. He started out as a backpacker and it morphed into this thing between traveling and backpacking, so he just clicked.

Like you're right, yes, absolutely, you know I was a backpacker like you were for a long time, but having a

teardrop

camper

seemed to give me a little more comfort, exactly, you could have your cake and eat it. You also have this level of comfort and you know all this too. You know I haven't stopped traveling with a backpack. You have returned? No, I haven't stopped. Yes, but how many days would you say in a year? How many nights do you spend? in your tear, one year last summer it was 50. the pandemic gave him a big cramp.

This summer I'm really trying to break that. I'm hoping to get at least 100 this summer and I'm on track. It's going well, you know, I'm camping a lot, it's winter, I started in winter and now in spring, one thing I'm going to try is to go out in May, when the bugs are the worst and Look what it is, you know, I don't use bug spray , I'd rather die from insect bites than from cancer. Quick death from insect bites instead of slow death from cancer, so I'm going to give it a try. some great features with these screens and I know you use a clamshell set.

I have a very similar setup, so there are a lot of things we can do this year. I'm experimenting with that uh duracell, full cell thermos, thermocell, thermacell, yes, we'll see if that works for me, yes, there is no wind, I imagine it works quite well, very well, yes, they are very popular, I see that I get my feedback, people talk about it every time I hear about the show and which is great. I'm sure you understand it too. I get a lot of suggestions from my viewers which is really helpful and you know some of them are a little weird but you know some of them are pretty good too.

You know even the weird ones are entertaining. I also have some weird suggestions. I've left some weird suggestions, yeah, yeah, so it's pretty cool, but yeah, well, you know, I'm really, really excited because I've been a fan of the channel for a long time and As much as you are who and we all love watching you, one of the stars of your show is that it's around this Mississippi trail. The damn trailer always shows me man, it's uh, so what are we going to do? You know, I'm very, very excited about this, we'll put the camera on a selfie stick and give you a tour of the lobby.

I just wanted to tell you that you know I watch a lot of channels and you know that you can. It just smells when a channel is good and I was very impressed when I looked at your channel for a new channel. You have very good content and it is really refreshing and I look forward to learning a lot more and seeing what you have. So I appreciate that a lot of people have been very generous and so have you. It doesn't take much to hit the subscribe button. No? No. I hope people subscribe. It's the least they can do.

You already know. We're both after the same thing, we want to save our viewers money, we want to give them our experience, not that we know much, but you know we started too and we had a lot to learn and this. It's a great opportunity to share and uh, and that's the real intention here is to help people, no, it's not a commercial venture, we just want to help people you know and have fun, we both love nature, you know, yeah, so no, definitely when, uh, when. I finally got high speed internet. One of the first things I did, which was this year by the way, was watch these outdoor channels and I was subscribed to your channel for years, but without high speed internet I didn't do it.

I can't get through the first few minutes of the year, yes, it's painful, yes, but I really appreciate all the tips and tricks I learned, and when you buy a platform like this, it's a steep learning curve, yes, it's also a significant investment. You just buy a hundred dollar backpack, you know you're spending tens of thousands and I thought what you did in your trailer

review

was really good so I'll be happy to

review

your trailer as well and uh you know these are tips for save money and, uh, experience, you know what works and what doesn't, including the platforms themselves, you know, which is very important, so I agree, so you want to do it, let's do it, yeah, okay.

I'm just going to enjoy this view while we do this. This is my Vista Buell number 23 from 2015. This is a relatively new model. The trailer vestibule of the early models holds, I believe, about 400 trailers. It is now an aluminum skin over plywood trailer with a steel frame the newer ones are completely different they are aluminum skin over a metal frame but the frame is custom made now it is custom made for the lobby and has Lots of bells and whistles. I wish I had whistles, I wish I did, but the base design is still the same, you have the traditional lobby window, which is just spectacular.

I haven't seen any progress that even comes close to the feeling of sitting in it and looking out. You know, teardrop trailers feel like a fun niche where you live in an r. you live in a motor home but you live in a teardrop trailer, which my friend steve says on the Vista Buell forum on Facebook, which is a good place to get information if you are interested in these trailers or want to compare, so this. it has a lot of screws holding it together, the newer ones use adhesives and things that have taken their manufacturing to a much higher level, but again, the basic design of the system is the same, so I have a 10 pound propane tank and is in the Now when you buy a trailer people often tell me why don't you buy a bigger propane tank and the reason is this trailer has a 200 pound tongue weight because of this tongue box and that's what This car can drive so I don't want to put a bigger tank in there because it would affect the suspension of the car.

This car fits this trailer perfectly as is, so I'm very happy with the trailer, uh, the electrical outlets that are there when I plug it in. The car charges the trailer battery, which is a big help for me. I had to use it a couple of times in the six years I had the trailer. I had to rely on the car to charge it, Liz Winter, about an hour which is a pretty good record, I'm mostly solar so that's pretty good and when I drive the car from campsite to campsite obviously the ability to charging the battery while driving is very useful for camping and getting away if you're on tour so it's a really cool feature um the trailer one thing you know that's been really burned uh I have to say it incorporated a lot of things that I really like them when I camp in a tent, I always open the bottom of the tent and I always look for a tent that has maximum ventilation and helps me remove moisture.

You know, RVs are famous for condensation and this trailer has these open van ports, now they open and close. and they go in both directions uh I never saw much point in this because it would bring rain right into it, but it's available if you want it so I really like them. I will open them and break. the ceiling and I get this flow which is very very nice now the windows are very simple that's what I like about the lobby their designs are very simple the kickstand is all you really need and this window I have taken out in very heavy rain and I never have to close this window because it rains and it works perfectly for me now lobby.

You also know that they take into account amenities like this table Bert puts here. You know, and she's very pretty. It is very useful. I've had dinner with it and there's also one on every door and that's very helpful, you know, when I'm here at night, I have a flashlight on here, I use the interior lighting and you know. It's really useful to have outdoor lighting. You know I use it from time to time, especially if you arrive at a campsite you know late at night and need a little more lighting. Without a doubt, it is very effective the darker it is. the more effective it is, it's very nice, these fenders, you can sit on them, I think they are 14 inch tires, the wheels come with a little hub cover, this is the Dexter, I think it's a 2000 or 3000 pounds. spring, now, this is not built like an off-road trailer, but of course, I take it off road, you know, fire roads and things like that, I think it has 10 or 12 10 inches of ground clearance, so that's a feature one might want. to consider when purchasing a trailer, what's the point if you have a trailer with 20 inches of ground clearance but your vehicle, like mine, only has 8.75 inches of ground clearance when loaded, maybe it's eight and a half ?

I could lift it with a jack. I could put air bags blah blah blah, but you want to know that you want a combination system where things fit together the right way for a battery power system. I have a 120 hour agm battery that I am very satisfied with. I chose agm because I can use it in very cold weather, you will lose efficiency in very cold weather, but you can take these lead acid batteries to zero or less, that's why your car starts. You don't see lithium batteries in cars and there's a reason for that. They just can't handle the cold weather that this battery can handle, so what I did was numb myself.

It had an internal controller to charge the battery and what I did was just take it out and put it in. The internal controller myself, the vestibule will give you like a Vectron controller, but I didn't know my needs and I put these Zamp connectors and they go directly to the battery. There is a fuse in them and it is simply connected directly to the battery. and what this allows me to do is use external drivers. I chose the dokyo controller in the last few years. I have two of them here and two of these controllers.

You can see I didn't bother installing them. I'm just stuck here, you know, and I'm happy with it, so it's not polished, but it's very versatile and I'm really geared towards being off the grid, I don't want failures and if one controller closes, I have I have a second controller here . I have two. I can get by with one, so everything is redundant and multi-purpose. I am using 600 watts of solar and I am currently using these 300 watt dokio panels and there are 300 watts in each one. Now I could get by with 100 watts if I lived in New Mexico and had sunny skies, but right now we're in the Catskills and it's pretty cloudy today, not a good solar day, but they're working great so that extra capacity is for one day like today where they may only produce 100 watts instead of 600 watts and that's all I need to get by.

It is working well. I'm still learning with it and hope to try it in severe cloudy conditions under the trees and I think I can do it. I had these conditions in October when I had one of these panels. I was in the Adirondacks and that kept me going, so I hope this is exactly what I want on a good day. This trailer is loaded. At 9 am. At this point I realized I was watching the most beautiful teardrop trailer I have ever seen. This includes customs. The house builds things really high end. This lobby has it all.

So what I'm going to do is. get the gallery out of this thing with its own video, i'll post them at the same time, but you have to see this gallery, the only way to do it justice is with a separate video for the rest of this. To get them inside the trailer with cosmo, let's look at that futon sofa that folds out to the bed. This thing has it all. Stay tuned until the end because cosmo and I were able to takesome amazing images. We have aerial images. We went underwater, watched the trout feed, so be sure to stay tuned until the end to see what we were able to do.

Back to the cosmos, it's a real adventure vehicle, so of course one of the really great features of the lobby is what separated it from the campsite at 560 for me was this couch, this futon, I can use it as a couch, which I do quite a bit. I really like mobile offices. I like working here and I work. I can lift this. I can leave it. I'll do it later. I can leave this. It gives me space for a bed or a sofa. Now you know, it's really wonderful. Getting into my trailer and not being in bed every time I come in.

It's really nice to have a place to sit and look at the beautiful scenery around us. You know, I would take my car out and just you know. enjoy all the scenery so it's a really nice feature, combined with the front window and side windows it's really nice to have a space to sit. I have underfloor storage, which is quite extensive, it goes from here to here. and you can put a lot of things in there, that's where my spare tire is, by the way, it's under here, towards the back, it's a small tire and it's not optimal, but it's enough, you know, to help me.

I have storage space under the floor. the tab box on the front that uh vista build is no longer a maze, this is the last trailer I had, only two of them were made with this and I think it is a collectible and it increased the value of this trailer quite a bit and there is an ocean There will be an auction later, so it's quite useful. I also let myself go the other way, Brian, I'm still on the theme of the mobile office and indoor dining, which you know, sometimes you have to dine indoors when you have a trailer and you know you don't.

If you don't have your clam shelter set up, you need to shelter from the storm. I have this little table that the foyer provides and it is sturdy enough for dining. You know, you combine it with the side tables and you have a lot of usable space inside and it's uh, I've always known, I don't use it much, but I use it and I always say I'm going to take it out of the trailer and I never do and I always do. I end up using it, you know, every time I say I'm going to take it out of the trailer and the next trip I have to use it, so it's a really welcome feature now that this trailer has a ton of windows and, uh, I'm not a total exhibitionist and I can put this here on the window covers.

I have, of course, the window blinds, which they are. I am using these magnetic silicone seals which are just fabulous and I can close those things, the window covers and the curtains. The curtains really add insulation to the trailer when you are in extremely cold weather you can feel it and they will calm down if I leave it down for a time, they will calm down and stretch now in the front, here I have a uh, leave it. I take this out, of course I have, there's a huge window, which is, you know, the voyeur is a dream and you can leave this.

This is a skylight blind and what that does is it provides very good thermal insulation. I was out at minus five when I opened this. I mean, of course, you're going to have frost on the inside of this window glass because it's not thermal glass. You could feel the difference if I was lying under here and the heater. It was warming up nicely, but when I opened this up you could feel the cold air coming in now because it's a fabric thing that tends to sag a little bit, but Vistabuild gives you this nifty little support here that maximizes your interior space. works great it's not invasive or anything it's just a smart design another feature so I'm very happy with it now that my trailer is heated and it's a 6500 btus propex propane heater and when I bought my trailer I didn't understand it, it was something new at the time for Vista Buell, they showed it to me and said, you know, we're thinking about doing this and I wasn't interested in it, that was six years ago, but since then.

They have proven themselves and gave me one later, which is very good. With Vistabuild you can modernize almost anything they make. If they come up with some new designs, you can usually retrofit it on your trailer, so they retrofitted it. In my kitchen they changed that and changed the heating system, which was really good. I have a lot of weight here, so all you have to do is pick this up, push it down and close it and you're done. the inside now we're in kind of bed mode and here I have these wonderful storage areas back here that are really good.

I've got all my stuff back there, there's three of them and then up here I've got the stereo, the treasure trove of toilet paper, you know, I just took this off the rail, I have to put it in, I had it too full, I'll put it back in, but I've got all this storage here, a really nice environment to live in with a couple different types of lighting, these lights are extremely inefficient, maybe extremely efficient, maybe 90 milliamps each, they are very low and these are 200 milliamps each, so I can last quite a long time, the roof ventilation I often don't even use the fan. most of the time, unless it's really the middle of summer and that works very well, so it's a pretty good atmosphere here, I can't overestimate it or describe it, or anything like that, the feeling of the trailer when you're here is very similar to a dome tent, you have this wonderful curved space above you and I have a wooden roof, which is like you know, I'm in a wooden cabin here, it's a really cool cabin that I love, you know, I mean every time I enter.

I sleep better here than anywhere else. I've been here at Brian's place docking for a couple of days and it's been fabulous, let me, yeah, the funniest thing of all is how we met. You know he was driving. Catskills in the middle of nowhere, on a mountain hiking and I came down and I saw this zendo and you know, I stopped there and I got this email like a week later from this guy and so it's a strange story. I've been a fan for years, but I couldn't dig deeper until I got high-speed internet, which comes a little later when you live in places like this, so I tuned in to an episode that cosmo was on. a couple miles from my house and it started raining and sure enough he gets in the car and drives to my house so I'm looking out the window to see if it's a live shot but sure enough yeah cosbo passed by by my house in one of their episodes, so I went over and, well, it's where you work, yeah, so I live and work in a Zen Buddhist monastery and, yeah, it's a cool place to poke around and what is zendo, What is daibo satsu? zendo or zss and study society is such an amazing place and let me tell you this place is practically a zendo I mean we are meditating on a mountain it was just fantastic here so thank you so much for having me I mean it's been really cool.

I'd shake your hand, but we're in the middle of the panda, do this, yeah, yeah, we do the uh, he'll do it really well and I felt like I was the only one doing it because I had to come here and learn to uh. filming each other in nature we had a great time learning all this stuff I mean we exchanged ideas about YouTube you know I need to learn a lot you know my videos are like and uh Brian's channel is really taking off it's doing really well , so we are. just having a lot of fun so you never know where it will take you you know look alive life is so strange it takes you to some really wonderful places and this is one of them so thank you so much for being my mooch doc host. you've been great it's been a lot of fun it was wonderful to be here uh like and subscribe to cosmo's channel and like and subscribe to brian's channel we're here patting ourselves on them see you later so ah so I I think you've got something good foreigner uh hmm you