Campground Review: This was a pleasant surprise on the way back to Vegas from Death Valley. The description is pretty obvious, it is a LARGE sand dune with plenty of space to play on 4 wheelers and plenty of beautiful desert to set up tents or RV's.
Since it is a recreation area you will have to deal with generators and motors and lots of people from nearby towns coming out to play after work. It isn't far from Beatty which has amenities if you want to be close-ish to a town.
No services on site so make sure you are set up properly. The road to get out there is washboard dirt as well, so make sure you have good tires.*Not advised in Travellers Campervan*
The Dune itself is beautiful and a gorgeous spot for sunset or sunrise. It was cloudy when I was there so i didn't get that opportunity.
Travellers Autobarn Kuga Campervan Review(Sleeping and hanging out):
While out volunteering over a week for the Audubon Bird Counts, I was able to evaluate the AWESOME Kuga campervan. Since I was gone for 7 days, I broke my evaluation up into sections where the most important features of the van were utilized. If you want to see the rest, check out my reviews for **Pahranagat Wildlife Refuge, Cathedral Gorge State Park, Ash Meadows Wildlife Refuge, Desert Wildlife Refuge, and Big Dune Recreation Area. **
This company is awesome, they come from Australia and New Zealand and we are super excited to have a truly affordable rental camper van in the United States! You can rent out different sizes and get an array of gear with them. This is perfect for music festivals, road trips, and for camping in extreme weather. Check them out here: https://www.travellers-autobarnrv.com/campervan-rv-rentals/kuga-campervan/
- Sleeping(bottom bed): Sleeping in this campervan was a true luxury. It rained (and snowed) overnight and I stayed nice and comfortable. The Double bed (bottom) was incredibly large, I would say it was as big as my queen bed at home at least. I was able to lay in almost every direction comfortably (i’m 5’6). It was really easy to set up too. Take the table and pole out of the slot and lay the table down between the benches and take the extra boards out from under one of the bench storage spaces to fill in the rest. The rest of the cushions are your back rests for the benches so you just lay those in the middle. It took me about 5 mins to set up my bed fully each night. The cushions were the perfect blend of firm and soft so I was able to toss and turn and stayed sleeping comfortably on all sides.
- Sleeping(top): This bed packs away and can be used for storage of sleeping gear when not in use too. I kept my bag up there since I didn’t use it much since it was just me. This extra bed is perfect for traveling with 3 people but I lasted up here for about 20 mins before I became claustrophobic. I toss and turn at night so sleeping where I could touch the ceiling when I turn over on the bed wouldn’t work great for me. For kids, or smaller adults or people that don’t move in their sleep, this would be just fine. The cushions were the same as below so they were comfortable. But there isn’t a stopper at the end so I could see myself losing part of my cushions to falling below in the middle of the night. It was also a little awkward to get up there too, you have to climb up from the counter and if the bed is already in place, you will need to be a little acrobatic(or nimble) to make it happen easily.
- Warmth: I will say that the van is not insulated so I did use a small space heater for one night while camping when it got below 20 degrees but otherwise I didn’t use it much unless I was spoiling myself to warm up in the morning or before bed.*If you use a space heater, you have to open the top vent or a window for ventilation. The heater in the front cab was quite warm as well, although the heat seemed to come from under the dash instead of the normal air vents. Easy of access: You will need to be going in and out of the van often as there is no bathroom in the van. I found that going out of the back of the van was easier(and faster) than going out of the side door. The handle for the side door to open and close it from the inside was behind the cabinet so it was a bit awkward to reach.
- Bonus features: There is an LED light for the outside of the side doors if you need some outside lighting. I used it when we were building our fire pit so we could see what we were doing. You can totally leave the bottom bed down for the entirety of the trip if you want. I would recommend putting the pole up in the loft so it isn’t clanging back and forth on the floorboard.The curtains make it impossible to want to wake up. They are blackout curtains so on my day off when I wasn’t hiking for sunrise, I slept till almost 10 on accident. They help keep the heat in and the sun out. It also offers perfect privacy for changing or being solo in the middle of BLM land.
