rooftop vs car back carrier

[kathyhere]

Judy you must have ESP.. Your response is exactly what I was wondering about. I received some great info on the portion of our trip through VA from Foy and my next thought was how to implement that info to use on the drive. Never having taken a road trip before I am clueless. I had read many of the posts but never really got the exact way people who go on road trips "go about it". So bless you for giving me the break down.
We are traveling with 2 kids, 4 dogs( toy breed ) so access via the liftgate would be handy. I'm thinking I can use the sides for in and out, maybe the back carrier is easy to clip off too? I just don't like the thought of anything on the top. Thanks so much for helping me.
Now if I could get someone to tell me how to get through all the darn construction through IL, IN and OH...................................

[PNW Judy]

But I'm glad my response helped.

Another thing you can do, if you have enough lead time anyway, is google the tourism departments of the various places you're traveling through for free brochures, maps, etc. And they usually have a lot of good information online as well.

Of course, using the search function on these forums should also yield lots of good information as well.

I sure hope you'll return here after your trip to let us know how it went. We love roadtrip reports! I'm especially curious how traveling with 4 fur-babies went. LOL

[kathyhere]

Judy I recall you wanted an update....

My husband whom initially was opposed to the back carrier found the installation easy. We packed it up with most of our luggage. Since the rear lift gate would not be available we packed the cooler in the van with the lid facing the seats. All the items we may need while in route we put in the rear of the van and could access it all by reaching over the back seats. My husband ended up really appreciating the back carrier. It was a breeze to remove and put back on, it allowed for a lot of storage and unexpectedly was a conversation piece! Seriously every time we stopped for gas/food/rest area people came up and inquired about it. I would highly recommend this purchase and would never leave home without it. We did not do the optional extra custom steps installing the back carrier Lakeland Gear has on the site and the pack fully loaded NEVER swayed or caused any issue while driving - it did rain on our drive and it never saturated the inside.

As for the 4 dogs we brought (came home with 5, it was a planned purchase) they were great and added a lot of fun to our road trip, removing the middle seats of the van gave us/them a whole "room" to lounge in.

[Mark Sedenquist]

Kathy,

Wonderful to get this kind of feedback -- thanks for coming back and reporting about this product!

Mark