The End Of The Road

Sold.

I am a wee bit surprised to be writing a final Towed Haul Airstream blog, not least because things moved a little quicker than we'd anticipated. It was always going to happen one day, but it's still a bit of a shock when you actually part company with something as personal as a travel trailer/caravan. 

Towards the start of the 2025 camping season, I realised that Towed Haul was in need of some maintenance, and I wasn't sure that we had the money, or the will, to commit to that. The Toadmobile, our Toyota Sienna Minivan that everyone said wasn't going to work, was also getting very long in the tooth and would have to be replaced at some point, which was something else we were not sure about committing to, especially given that we are now on fixed incomes. Add to all that our dwindling use of the trailer, and as a wise American woman recently said, "...the math ain't mathing".

So, we decided to sell.

Although I'd prompted the debate, I was sub-consciously very reluctant to actually put the old girl up for sale. We spent June in the UK, then did a hotel trip to Niagara, and I used those things as excuses to put off doing anything about the sale, but in  August I was seized with the need and bought a couple of "For Sale" signs to display when we were camping at Rondeau.

To our eternal surprise, the signs did spark some interest, and we ended up showing some other campers around. While the man seemed quite keen, his wife wasn't as struck on the idea. But, we'd had a nibble.

When we arrived home from that trip, I put an advertisement up in the Airstream Adventures Canada Facebook group, which cross-posted the Facebook Marketplace. We braced ourselves for a lack of interest, even though we'd priced the old girl competitively, and confidently expected not to get a sale until the new 2026 season. Goodness, how wrong we were!

There was immediate interest from private buyers. However, just before we were about to pack up and travel for a week's camping at Selkirk Provincial Park the dealer that sold us Towed Haul came in and said he'd buy it, and for the asking price. He was also going away for a week, well it was Labour Day, so we put things on hold until our return.

I confirmed that the dealer did indeed want to buy and arranged a time to drop the trailer at his lot, and then had the tricky task of letting a couple of private buyers know that we'd already sold. One guy was piqued to the point of writing me a snippy e-mail, but given that I'd made no commitment to him, I didn't feel too bad about how things had worked out.

We spent a couple of days removing fifteen years worth of stuff we'd collected inside the trailer as well as giving her a good clean inside and out, before setting off on our final tow. Almost as if the camping gods knew, we had a stiff wind behind us for the ninety-minute run, and achieved an amazing 14.6 litres/100km gas mileage, probably the best since we'd had the LT tires installed.

Handing our pride and joy over wasn't quite as hard as I'd imagined, largely because of the work we'd done up to that point meant that this was really the logical conclusion. That said, neither of us dared look back as we drove away, trailer-less.

Curiously I feel a little lighter now. Owning such a big and fancy bit of kit is actually quite a responsibility, and now that's gone. We perhaps could have worked to get a better price on the sale, but at this point, to get a clean break was worth undervaluing the Airstream a little, and having the money sitting in our savings does go a long way towards easing the pain.

As for the Toadmobile, well she's in a kind of semi-retirement. No more hauling a couple of tons of metal around behind her, but we'll keep her going as long as we can.

As for next year? I'm sure we'll find other things to do.

I will keep this blog going because I can carry on using it for our other travel adventures, if not for the benefit of the world at large, then purely for me.

So long, Towed Haul...