A hiker from Boulder found a middle ground between backpacking and hotel stays in Moab, Utah: rent a teardrop trailer, have it delivered to a campsite, and spend four days ticking off day hikes. The total bill for three nights came to $445 — trailer rental, a $40 pet fee, and $20-a-night camping included — which works out to roughly $150 a night. That's less than Moab's chain hotels ($300-400 for three nights) and far under adventure properties like Gravity Haus (around $750), though it's pricier than plain tent camping.
The setup came courtesy of Red Rocks Base Camps, a local company that drops rented trailers at pre-arranged campsites. She picked a first-come, first-served spot at the Big Bend camping area along the Colorado River, about 20 minutes from town, marked it, and went for an afternoon hike — by the time she returned, the trailer was pitched and waiting.
Inside, it's more cabin than campsite: a queen bed with room for a dog, electricity, charging ports, heat for cold November nights, and a rear kitchen with a coffee setup, Yeti cooler and drinking water. Leave the trailer locked up each day and head out on foot.
The itinerary mixed tough mornings with easy afternoons: the 4-mile Jeep Arch Trail through red sandstone; a 6-mile, 1,200-foot out-and-back on the Hidden Valley Trail (extendable to the Moab Rim Trail), followed by the short Mill Creek Trail; a flat 4.5-mile walk up Grandstaff Canyon beneath Morning Glory Natural Bridge plus a paved stroll on the Moab Canyon Pathway; and a final 4.6-mile, 1,500-foot climb at Fisher Towers on the drive out, with rock towers and climbers overhead.
The appeal is obvious for anyone who wants real trail miles but balks at sleeping on the ground or towing anything. Rental platforms like VRBO work, and services such as RVezy, Outdoorsy and RVshare let individual owners deliver campers to your site so you never have to drive or hook up a trailer. The model works anywhere you can pair a trail-dense town with campsites within an hour — Moab just happens to do it spectacularly.