Help... 19 or 21ne

[Small but Sweet]

Dave, I’m very curious. I believe you owned 19-21-19-21 Escapes. We sometimes think about our “next” Escape after this 17A. My question is when you went from a 21 back to a 19, what was the thinking there? Was there something you liked better about the 19? I do like to keep life simple and the main improvement for us from 17-19 would be adding a bathroom while keeping similar living space and not being too big/heavy, especially for parking at home. But of course then we wonder about a 21 also. Like you we have a Highlander. In the future we would consider a 150-class pickup truck too.

Harriet

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

I haven’t read all the entries but I can tell you about our feelings on the 19 and the 21 classic.
We have owned both.
The 19 is a great trailer with a very logical and convenient layout. The queen bed is nice roomy bed. The only downside to some is the crawl over. The 21 has these advantages for us
Wider Aisle width, bigger bathroom, if you have a dog or keep stuff on the floor the 21 is more roomy. The bigger refrigerator is nice but not absolutely necessary. If you load the freezer up before a long trip, especially with meat, premade meals, and food you like that’s a little harder to find away from home it makes it pretty nice to speed up meal prep and May save you some money on your trip if you’re out for an extended period of time. We have the widow in the front
(Offset) in the 21 and really like it. The centering or lack of it, does not bother us at all. Finally, we very rarely find a campsite that we can’t fit into. In Michigan once we got an assigned site that was pretty short. We unhooked the trailer and then it just felt awful tight. I took the Highlander to the park entry gate, talked to the Attendant. He was very understanding and gave me a quick list of about 10 more sites to select from. We picked one out, it was very nice and lots bigger. I moved the trailer and then went back and told him which site we had selected. Whole thing might have taken a half an hour. And that’s only happened a couple times in hundreds of nights of camping. So the additional two feet is not a deal breaker. As far as storage there’s an amazing amount in the 19 and quite a bit more in the 21. No scientific analysis here but I’d say about 25% more storage in the 21.
Just my experience. Hope this helps. Can’t go wrong with either. Have pulled both with Highlanders coast to coast and border to border and to the north “and then some”
Iowa Dave

[Iowa Dave]

Originally Posted by Small but Sweet

Dave, I’m very curious. I believe you owned 19-21-19-21 Escapes. We sometimes think about our “next” Escape after this 17A. My question is when you went from a 21 back to a 19, what was the thinking there? Was there something you liked better about the 19? I do like to keep life simple and the main improvement for us from 17-19 would be adding a bathroom while keeping similar living space and not being too big/heavy, especially for parking at home. But of course then we wonder about a 21 also. Like you we have a Highlander. In the future we would consider a 150-class pickup truck too.

Harriet

Hi Harriet
We have only owned the 19 and then the 21. CPA Harley did the 19-21-19-21 doe see doe. And our good friends and the folks who sold us both the 19 and the 21 (AZ Jack and Nancy) have batted the circuit as they say 19-21-17-5.0TA, we did not buy the 17 when Jack upsized to the TA this past winter. We’re real happy with the 21. It has been so good to us. The two main things we like about the 21 over the 19 are a bigger bathroom and wider aisle where we can pass each other. The climb over in the 19 never bothered me at all. Rita would wake me I would get out of bed. She would take her medicine or whatever she needed to do and go back to bed. Then I would lay back down. I am back to sleep in less than 5 minutes, many times much sooner than she. it’s a gift. Everybody camps differently. The bigger refrigerator and tank capacities, under bed storage that is easier to use than it was on the 19 and a little more counter space are nice but not necessary for camping enjoyment and success. Proper setup on the WDH, attention to the job at hand, correctly adjusted trailer brakes and controller etc. has allowed me to tow the 21 about 35 to 40 thousand miles since we brought in home from Tucson in 2017. YMMV.
Iowa Dave

[Small but Sweet]

Thanks Dave! We also aren’t afraid of the “dreaded” crawl-over :-). Yes it had to have been Jim I was thinking about. That’s an interesting progression AZ Jack and Nancy went through. For now our 17 is so delightful and we have simple workarounds for the lack of bathroom, it’s not a problem. We do expect to graduate up at some point though and people’s paths through different models are always interesting. Raises the question, why isn’t bigger sometimes better, and should we not just go for the biggest one we can tow but also consider something else.

Your use of the Highlander with a 19 and 21 is most interesting to me, in fact you gave me a tip or two while we were choosing our tow vehicle - thanks!