Off-road camping trailers are a versatile way to get your gear to a faraway place without having to commit to a roof top tent. However, for as much gear as they can carry, you don’t have many options if you also want to bring a motorcycle for the ride. The folks of SylvanSport think they have a solution with the GO All-Terrain, or GOAT. This $18,500 trailer carries your gear and your motorcycle just like a cargo trailer, but has a trick roof that turns the trailer into a tent camper when it’s time to sleep.
Something I’ve learned over my years of off-roading and camping is that bringing a motorcycle along for the ride amplifies the fun. Some folks will go small, tossing a Honda Grom with knobbies into their truck beds. Others will buy hitch attachments made for carrying motorcycles and haul a dirt bike behind their rigs. What if a trailer is a better fit for you? Things get interesting. You can buy teardrop trailers with motorcycle platforms and I know I’ve seen a number of overlanding trailers with bike parking as well.
For example, take a look at this Fort MX trailer by Bivouac Camping Trailers. It’s basically a utility trailer with a spot for your roof tent and parking on the tongue for a motorcycle.
There’s also the Twain Trailers Mark II, which is pretty much just a motorcycle trailer with a rack for a roof tent.
Space Trailers are another example of cargo trailers that could haul both a motorcycle and a tent. With that said, the vast majority of the minimalist overlanding trailers out there are essentially cargo boxes with a tent on top without a place to carry a vehicle. SylvanSport sees itself as offering the best of both worlds with the GO All-Terrain. When you aren’t hauling a motorcycle, it looks like any other off-road trailer with a roof tent. Then you can convert it into a trailer to take the bike with you.
SylvanSport is a bit of an oddball in the trailer space. The company was founded in 2004 by Tom Dempsey, a lifelong fan of industrial design and the outdoors. Dempsey cut his teeth at Coleman, where he learned a lot about camping gear. Dempsey also had a hand in Coleman’s famed pop-up camper trailer. Eventually, he left Coleman to get into the kayak business.
Finally, SylvanSport was created with the mission of turning regular cars like the Toyota Prius into adventure vehicles. See, the traditional pop-up trailer is a great and affordable way to get the family camping, but you aren’t going to take one of those into the wilderness. You also aren’t going to hitch one up to the back of a Toyota Corolla. SylvanSport found a niche of people who want to enjoy the outdoors with a vehicle, but their vehicle may not be something like a truck or a Jeep.
The company’s first pop-up trailer, the SylvanSport GO (above), came out in 2007 and it weighed just 700 pounds. Even a first-generation Smart Fortwo could tow it!
You can see Dempsey’s mission in a lot of SylvanSport’s products. The company has a design philosophy that stands out and implements ideas you don’t see often at other manufacturers. The GO All-Terrain is another example of this. As I noted above, multiple companies will sell you a trailer that can carry a tent and carry a motorcycle. This trailer is different, as it turns into a tent after hauling a bike.
The SylvanSport GO All-Terrain
SylvanSport turns 20 years old this year, and in its press release, admits that it has yet to make a purpose-built off-road trailer. This changes with the SylvanSport GO All-Terrain, an evolution of the GO series started by that trailer above.
The trailer starts as a 6061 powder-coated aluminum chassis and exoskeleton structure measuring 13.4 feet in length. Attached to the chassis is a Timbren HD Axle-Less suspension and Vision steelies shod in Falken Wildpeak all-terrain tires. SylvanSport says the trailer has 18 inches of ground clearance and a 40-degree departure angle.
On top of this platform sits a cargo box measuring 7 feet long, and that’s where the magic happens. You can use the GOAT to haul your normal gear like a kayak, a bicycle, or whatever you can fit into the compacted trailer. There’s also a roof rack that holds 200 pounds and side panels for hanging more gear.
However, the trick to this trailer is its expanding cargo box. You can lift the roof of the trailer, allowing you to fit a motorcycle, an ATV, or whatever else you can fit within its 950 pound carrying capacity. Then, when you arrive at camp, you can roll the bike out of the trailer, lift the roof even higher, and drop down its walls, turning the trailer into a tent with room for four with 6’5″ of standing space and a drop-down table. When it’s bedtime, that table can be used to give the trailer a super-king bed. You can enter the trailer through its rear step, which does double duty as a license plate holder.
SylvanSport says the utility doesn’t end there, as the trailer has a rotomolded storage box up front. The fenders are also made out of the same plastic. If you’re concerned about plastic fenders on an off-road trailer, the company says the trailers have been subjected to extensive off-road testing with good results. The plastic used here is of the same kind used for bear-resistant coolers and tough personal watercraft, so there’s that.
You’ll note that thus far, I didn’t say anything about what kind of living space is being offered here. At the stated base price, you’re getting just a tent that deploys in the trailer. The base model trailer doesn’t even have a tailgate, but that is an option.
SylvanSport also plans on offering a swing-out tailgate-based kitchen unit. For now, if you want to elevate your camping experience, you’ll have to opt for SylvanSport’s standalone outdoor kitchen unit. If you option your GO All-Terrain with the Go Off The Grid package, you’ll get the standalone kitchen, a Thetford cassette toilet, a Yakima RoadShower with 7-gallon tank, a solar panel, a power station, a spare tire, and a privacy tent for the toilet and outdoor shower.
Other goodies offered with this trailer are the BIG package, which tosses in mattresses, the aforementioned spare tire, and an awning.
It Costs How Much?
Right, so this trailer seems to be pretty versatile. It also weighs just 1,200 pounds, meaning a lot of vehicles can tow it! While SylvanSport uses a Jeep Gladiator in its photography, the company expects buyers to have vehicles like a Subaru Forester or a Toyota RAV4. I love that. It’s a trailer that you could use to haul mulch one day, then go camping with your motorcycle on another. But there is bad news.
For the sum of $18,495, you get the expandable trailer without any fancy goodies. You’re on your own for mattresses, cooking, washing, and everything else. $19,995 gets you the BIG package, while $21,995 gets you everything included in the BIG package plus the Go Off The Grid package and a screen room. Yes, you read that right.
I love the idea of a trailer that does it all. You could buy a motorcycle with this trailer on Monday, deliver some wood on Tuesday, haul that motorcycle into a forest on Saturday, and sleep in the trailer that night. However, $18,495 is a tough pill to swallow. Remember that Twin Trailers Mark II I mentioned earlier? It’s the same basic concept of a cargo trailer with camping capabilities, but that one’s $5,490 before you add your own roof tent. Or, you could create your own trailer for a fraction of the price. Heck, those Coleman travel trailers I recently wrote about were only $13,000.
Of course, none of those trailers have the built-in versatility or the design of the SylvanSport GO All-Terrain. Likewise, not everyone is interested in putting together their own trailers. So, I have no doubt SylvanSport will find some customers. I like what I see with this trailer, but it would be even cooler with a lower price.
If you’re interested in this trailer, SylvanSport is currently taking pre-orders for $5,000. Deliveries begin next month.
(Images: SylvanSport, unless otherwise noted.)
Met a guy making the rounds of the Moto Guzzi rallies a few years ago, his Guzzi riding on a $1K or so 4’x8′ flatbed with sides behind his V6 Mustang. He’d unload the bike, set up his tent on the trailer, and go riding. Upmarket a bit a lot of riders are going with a generic $3K and up enclosed trailer, they fit motorcycle tie downs inside and some have even built little kitchenettes in, and with the bikes out there’s plenty of space to sleep.
I’d say this is batshit crazy pricing, but everyone here already knows that, and the sort of people who would pay that amount of money for this are the sort of people who would drop that amount of money on lunch with friends. So…..
The fundamental problem (besides price) with trying to be multi-purpose is that you end up with too many compromises. While you *can* haul mulch, you need to clean it out really well before you sleep in it. You also end up dragging around extra weight. For me, KISS works better.
Yeah, the price is awfully steep for these.
I was looking at their stuff for a camping solution that could be towed by a Forester a few years ago, and overall found the pricing to be too steep. I’m curious about the build quality? But at the end of the day you’re paying near camper prices to end up in what amounts to a roof top tent. Sort of a worst of both worlds.
I saw an example of someone doing that already. They had a roof tent on a cargo trailer and a motorcycle in the bed of the trailer. Sure didn’t cost $18,000 either.
On a related note someone in my neighborhood has a Sylvansport Go Easy and just put it up for sale after 2-3 yeaes. Best guess is it either wasn’t a good experience or no time.
I grew up as a nearly feral child.
Spent a lot of my youth roaming around the Uinta Mountains.
I used to just hike around and camp for days, when I was twelve years old.
I’d kill rattlesnakes, gut em, roast em over an open fire then eat them.
I could differentiate the tracks, left in fresh snow, of a mountain lion vs a hikers dog via the lack of retractable claws in the puppers tracks.
All this to say: $18,500?!
To go camping?
But could you differentiate the tracks between a Sylvansport Go Easy and a normal utility trailer?
That’s a neat design and at $10k, it would be compelling. At$18k it’s a hard pass – I could buy a pop up and put the motorcycle in my truck bed for a lot less and get a better combination.
I have seen the non-GOAT versions pop up on Craigslist every once in a while, especially during the pandemic when any and all camping trailers were suddenly made of gold. While I kind of like the design, especially as an ATV owner, I have never been able to reconcile the price with the equipment provided. I did see the older models pretty frequently in when I lived in the Pacific Northwest a few years ago, so apparently some people see the value in them.
This might be the worst deal yet – that’s a $3K utility trailer, a tent, and some stuff.
no it isn’t.
Oh, I stand corrected.
How could you go against such a compelling, well-reasoned argument?
/s
Would NOT spend 18 grand on one of these. I would buy local instead.
https://www.jumpingjacktrailers.com/
For a lot less money you get a lot nicer tent and equal utility.
Wow, look at that!! Same basic concept, but in a variety of different sizes and for a lot less cash.
plus canvas tents not cheap nylon. I’ve seen these at trade shows for years. Never really caught my fancy because I would like more than just basic shelter and a few beds, but they are well made.