The Most Configurable Cargo Trailer Camper I’ve Ever Seen!

New Jersey Outdoor Adventures

What makes the Search for Outdoors S4 trailer unique? The S4 travel trailer features a fully modular interior where every element—including the kitchen sink, wet bath, and furniture—can be moved, alongside a rear fold-out glass sunroom that expands the living space from a 13-foot box to 20 feet.  In this video tour, Patrick Botticelli from New Jersey Outdoor Adventures meets with Mike, the creator behind Search for Outdoors, to explore their revolutionary prototype travel trailer. Specifically engineered for extreme action sports enthusiasts—surfers, skiers, snowboarders, and mountain bikers—this heavy-duty off-road camper trailer handles true four-season off-grid living with ease. Packed with 800 watts of standard solar power, high-capacity lithium batteries, CruiseMaster independent suspension, Havlock wool insulation, and an integrated vestibule/mudroom for cold-weather gear, this trailer changes the rules of RV life and custom camper van builds.  Whether you are looking for overland trailers, off-grid toy haulers, or innovative micro-campers, the Search for Outdoors S4 demonstrates how flexibility and heavy-duty engineering can transform your outdoor adventures.  Chapter Select

Transcript

00:00In our trailer everything is movable including the kitchen sink. Welcome back to the show this

00:05is Patrick with New Jersey's Outdoor Adventures YouTube channel. Today I have a very special

00:10episode for you. I have Mike with Search for Outdoors. They build these awesome travel trailers

00:16that are going to fully transform your camping experience. Now what I mean by that is the whole

00:22inside is transformable. You can move everything around and in the back there's a sunroom that

00:28pops out that really transforms your camping experience and brings the outside in. He's

00:34going to give us a full tour inside and out so join us. Hey Patrick nice to finally meet you.

00:40As mentioned I am Mike with Search for Outdoors. This is our prototype travel trailer. We're a New

00:46Jersey based company specializing in a single trailer. This is our S4. It is designed with the

00:54action sports market in mind. Specifically surfers, skiers, snowboarders, and mountain bikers.

00:59Today I'm going to be giving you a walkthrough of this trailer. We designed this trailer because we

01:05felt like there was a lot of trailers already out there for people that want to RV, people that want

01:10to go camping properly. So this is designed more for the individuals that of course want to do that

01:15but use it more for specific purposes. Chasing powder to Vermont, heading down to the outer banks

01:21for a hurricane or taking your family mountain biking somewhere. As I want to mention this is a

01:26prototype. A couple of things will be changing during the production. So out here we have aluminum

01:32skin just to start. I figure if it's good enough for Airstream it's good enough for us. Also if something

01:38gets damaged you only have to replace one piece at a time as opposed to an entire wall. We have

01:43a

01:4312 foot manual awning. This is a 13 foot box with a 4 foot V-nose. We did make the

01:51decision to go with

01:52the V-nose because it does allow for a little bit more storage with having a shorter hitch. The height

02:00of the trailer is just under 10 foot. It's 9 feet 9 inches with the air conditioning unit included. It

02:07is 84

02:08inches wide. Tip to tongue is approximately 19 feet just under that. Going over a couple other things

02:18here as well. We've got RV lock standard grab handle. We use arctic turn double paned windows

02:27European style with integrated screens and shades. We have a little table here outside as well.

02:37We use off-road independent suspension. We use cruise master. The production is going to be XT

02:44cruise master XT suspension. We did make the decision to use the coils instead of an airbag.

02:50Airbags are obviously great but in our opinion it's just one extra thing that can break. Not to

02:55mention the fact that you're going to be using this to go skiing, snowboarding, whatever and airbags don't

03:00typically love cold weather that much. One thing I will mention, axle placement here. We did make the

03:08decision very late in the production to shorten the entire trailer. Originally it was a bit longer

03:14which is why the axle is where it is. We decided to shorten it because 19 feet is big enough

03:21to fit or

03:21I should say short enough to fit into a single parking space which is very important. When you go skiing,

03:27you can unhitch, pull it into a parking space. You don't have to worry about it. Also storage wise,

03:32renting a regular parking space versus an extended space is a bit cheaper. So the production version,

03:39the axle placement will be obviously in a more normal area. We have e-track anchor points on both

03:49exterior walls which allow you to hook things in as you'll see when we get the other side.

03:53As I mentioned, we've got the arctic turn windows. We have a light up here as well and

04:00LED light and as I said a 12 foot manual awning. Coming around back here, this is the roof of

04:11our

04:13sunroom which I will be showing you shortly here. This pops up. You're going to see a couple of ports

04:18like this on the inside. These are marine grade. You'll see them on the inside and I'll explain

04:23what those are for once we get in there. We have a backup camera standard.

04:31We've got four corner jacks on each corner. Obviously stability. We have our ladder that takes you up to

04:39the roof. Up top we have 800 watts of solar standard. This is an ARB just tent with walls and

04:49everything.

04:49I refer to this as the shed when we go mountain biking. We pull this out and we keep our

04:53bikes

04:53under it. This is just mounted in the e-track so you just unclick right here. This comes off and

04:58you

04:58can mount other things here as well if you'd like to. So coming around the side, we've got full size

05:04spare.

05:06This is an access port for the electronics. We do have color options. So although a lot of things are

05:13standard, you do have customization options. The exterior color being one of them along with the

05:19graphic as well. This hitch you can kind of ignore. We overbuilt the frame and everything. This is very

05:28thick steel gauge frame using kind of Australian best practices. As you can see the hitch is

05:35very robust. The production version will have a articulating hitch as an option. And we're

05:43probably going to move over to aluminum just to save some weight and also just make it a little

06:05cooler. However, my wife just likes to use it as a bathroom sometimes as well. We'll bring the toilet

06:10in here. More importantly, you can fit skis in here. You can fit surfboards in here. We have our

06:17electronics in the back. It does come standard with an air pump as well. And again, we've got

06:35it's designed to be fully off grid. Obviously, the wiring on this production or on this prototype is a

06:40bit messy. The production version will have things cleaned up a little bit. But as you can tell,

06:45plenty of power to get you through everything.

06:48These walls in here are aluminum. However, the main interior is Asdell. So during production,

06:55this area will be Asdell as well. You can see here I've got a lot of ceiling height. The ceiling

07:00height is 80 inches. So with my shoes on, I'm probably just about 6'2". I've got plenty of, you

07:06know,

07:06standing room here. This door right here and this is the other element of this room is a vestibule. So,

07:15you know, we mentioned that the inside of the trailer is completely configurable. Sometimes,

07:20this is how you come into the trailer. So in the wintertime, for those of you that have ever been

07:25winter camping, you know, as soon as you open up the door, all that cold air comes in. This allows

07:30you

07:30to walk in, close the door and then go in this way to the thing. So when we take the

07:35skiing, we always

07:37walk in through this door. We can take our boots off, leave them right here and walk in. I can't

07:41physically open it up right now because you'll see why in a second. So we've got just a manual step

07:50here. We do have the ability to keep the door open with our little latch right here as well.

07:55As mentioned, we've got handle, standard RV lock, or RV lock comes standard, and we've got our inside.

08:04Now we've got e-track everywhere. We call this our e-tierier and infinity floor plans. So we'll show

08:11you why in a second here. But you can do things like this where you can move things around and

08:17I

08:17need a table out here. I can just simply click it in and now I've got a table right there.

08:23So coming

08:24into the trailer, this is a fairly standard configuration that we'll use a lot of times.

08:33This is a bunk bed. So we've got one bed there, bunk bed here with kind of like a storage

08:38loft.

08:39This is a thousand pound or maybe two thousand pound netting. So you can use it to sleep in as

08:47well.

08:47You can move it around. This table drops down. You can, you know, fit four here. You can also have

08:54this gone and sit people here. But this table will drop down, turn this into a full queen size bed.

09:00So 80 or 60 by 80. You can also slide these forward and rotate these ones. There's a second table.

09:08As I mentioned, it will drop down and it will give you seating for six or eight people

09:12and give you an 80 by 80 full, you know, bed, a king size bed, residential king size bed. You

09:19can

09:19also do stacked king size beds if you want to by putting another thing here and having two king's

09:25beds, which we've done in the past before. So we've got some overhead storage. These are,

09:31which I'll show you in a little bit here, can be lifted up and moved around. We have a projector

09:37with a screen. So this can be moved. It can be taken out altogether. You can set it up outside

09:43if you

09:43want to. We have an air conditioning unit, 12 volt. So everything runs completely off the battery. I do

09:49not need to be plugged in to use this. I can just turn it on and it runs. The production

09:53version also has

09:54a heat pump on here as well. So you can heat and cool all again off the batteries. This particular

10:02model,

10:02since it's our prototype, is not inverted at all. Everything is 12 volt. So we will have regular,

10:08you know, plugs here, 120 volt plugs in the production. But for right now, it's just all 12

10:14volt. The nice thing about using the e-track is magnetic. Things can be kind of put anywhere. So

10:21this is a towel rack. We've got a garbage can. Maybe I want it outside. I can simply take it

10:27and

10:28click it in right here, just like I did with the other one. So I got that outside now.

10:33This is same thing here. This is our carbon monoxide. Move this around based as you need to.

10:41Lights and air conditioning. This is magnetic. I can move this around as I need to based on,

10:48again, where I'm putting everything. We've got the arctic turning windows. So we've got shades

10:53integrated along with the mosquito netting. And you can go like this, close it. These are great in the

11:02wintertime. Stays open.

11:06So this is our, these are our storage bins here. As you can tell, they're very large. So all four

11:13of

11:13them are like this. You can see they have a hole here. So everything clicks into the e-track. So

11:20everything here is completely movable. You do have the option to have the front off. So you can see

11:27these things just go like this. That particular one has it off. So you can still access things from

11:31either the top or the front, depending on how you want it. The color here. So this particular version,

11:39I just happen to really like the darker walnut with navy blue and gray. But the resident, this is

11:46waterproof residential flooring that is, can be chosen by you. Same thing with the color of the

11:54fabric and same thing with the color of all the furniture. So if you would like to have white

11:58furniture with, you know, green fabric and kind of like that oak style, same thing with these,

12:05you can pick that. So everything is customizable from a color standpoint. Now, one thing I want to

12:11mention here is these marine grade ports, as you saw outside. This trailer is designed,

12:20as I mentioned, for the action support. So skiing and snowboarding is a big part of that. These are

12:25ports for our wood burning stove. So you can put it right here, right there, move your front, you know,

12:32move things around as needed to and have the wood burning stove. We've taken it skiing a couple times

12:37and the wood burning stove works amazing. We also have a diesel heater as well that you can use

12:45to kind of keep things, you know, warmer without the stove if you need to and save some space.

12:51This is Asdell Walling. We use Havelock insulation on the inside. So again, completely for season. So

12:58uh, it works, I would say very efficiently. The, the wood burning stove probably a little too well

13:04sometimes. Now the real magic here, because sometimes there are things that can be moved

13:10around in other trailers. In our trailer, everything is movable, including the kitchen sink. So the

13:17bathroom module and the kitchen module are all completely self-contained. So this is a wet bath.

13:23We use the Jolka composting toilet that can be taken out and put into the v-nose if you want

13:28to.

13:30Again, I'm about 6'2 with my shoes on. So you can see I've got enough space here. I have

13:35this.

13:36This does have hot water. We do use a Bouges RV water heater, which is not installed right now,

13:43but it typically sits up right there. This shower has a 10 gallon tank, a gray tank as well. And

13:51this just

13:51slides in and I can close this. This is to fill up my ports and everything.

13:57This wall right here, or this door, I should say, closes obviously when we're traveling.

14:01But this also makes a divider wall because depending on how you have this set up, sometimes you might

14:06want to rotate the shower this way. And then this will actually enclose the whole front. So it kind of

14:12gives you almost a private bathroom. We have just shelving here that can, again,

14:18can be moved completely. We have a two burner propane stove. We've got a nice deep

14:27fan in here. So again, magnetic things. Nice thing about the E-Track is you can put things using

14:32magnets anywhere. Nice deep sink. Again, 12 volt. Everything is 12 volt. So the IceCo 65 liter

14:44refrigerator just plugs in at all different points. This particular thing here, we have our Renogy

14:52power system, and we just keep track of everything right here. The production version,

14:55this probably won't be here because this also controls the heat. But on the production,

15:00the air conditioning unit will actually have heat built in. So the extra heater that we had won't

15:06actually be necessary. So this thing won't even really be there. Again, this is a paper towel thing.

15:13We've got the refrigerator. So again, nice size. You can get a bigger refrigerator, 80 liter,

15:21which would remove the drawer. But a lot of people like the drawer. Also, just thinking about that,

15:28the shower. This is a 30 by 30 shower. We do offer it in a 36 by 36 size as

15:34well. So if you want

15:35something bigger than this, the issue then though, is that it does limit the configuration options

15:40because of the size difference. So 30 by 30 is a standard, but a 36 by 36 is available.

15:47We've got our drawer right here. So one thing you may have noticed, or maybe not, is that there was

15:54no propane tanks on the front. So there's no plumbing in here, in the trailer itself. That

16:00includes propane. Everything again is completely self-contained. So the only thing that propane runs

16:05here is the stove. You used to use a one pound propane tank. This right here powers the burner.

16:13So if I want to start it up, that's that. It also powers the pump for the sink. We have

16:20seven gallon

16:20tanks, both gray and fresh. Of course, we do offer an optional 18 or 25 gallon corner tank for this.

16:29So

16:30if you want to have more water available to you, you can, you can have that. All right,

16:35now I'm excited to show you guys kind of the part that we've been talking about, the transformation

16:40and setting up the sunroom. Now, the one thing to keep in mind is that you're not going to be

16:44moving

16:45this around when you're at camp. Ideally, you're going to have it all set up, ready to go from home.

16:50And then when you get to camp, you just maybe open up the back or do whatever, but nothing is

16:55in here.

16:55So I can move them around. Obviously, again, if you're fully loaded, you're not going to be able to just

16:59slide things around easily. So just kind of keep that in mind. So what I'm going to do is,

17:04I'm going to make it so that we can come in through the front door here. So I'm just going

17:08to

17:09start doing some things here, get this table folded up.

17:22Use the storage bin, storage area.

17:46Close this up.

17:48Close this up.

17:49Close this up.

17:55Close this up,

17:55That was thrift.

18:02so

18:44So then this would be closed right we've got that and then now the door going into the

18:56vegetable is usable so this is in the wintertime a little bit more how we have it set up so

19:00we can

19:00come in this way you got the bathroom right here the other thing it's nice too is that we can

19:06set

19:06it up so that these things are very easy to move no tools required so it clicks in there we

19:21go

19:30there's that and then you can also use these as a sitting area if you want to so I do

19:40my cooking

19:41and just use this as a little platform I've got some space right here as well and I still got

19:46my bunk beds all right now we're gonna set up the sunroom so as I mentioned this back actually

19:57becomes the roof so so you go ahead and start opening it up here now in the production version

20:08you won't need to do this part I'm just kind of getting the actuators set up typically on the

20:14production it's gonna be built in we were trying to avoid actuators all together but realized that

20:19it was just too difficult to do it manually so the actuators will be a big help and it will

20:25be you

20:27know built in so the other thing too is trying to source the correct actuators for this exact situation

20:52all right now that we have the roof up we're going to lower the floor first thing I'm going to

20:56do is

20:57bring these support legs up now one thing that will be very different on the production is this

21:04part of it everything is going to be automated so what I'm doing right now is kind of manual we

21:10completely underestimated the weight of the flooring when we were doing this so we didn't put in the

21:17proper infrastructure on the prototype to lower this without too much of a manual process so again the

21:26production version will be a bit easier to do with this so we're gonna just unclick these here

21:39you're going to come on this side with me if you can

21:53there you go all right so we have our floor down now it's time to go ahead and get the

22:02glass panels up

22:28so this is the first panel here this goes to the top of the roof and we're going to go

22:33ahead and

22:33take those on the passenger side it's got some magnets here just gonna line it up and click it in

23:19yeah so this obviously seals it and then also keeps it from uh falling out all right now we're gonna

23:27put in this other panel here you can see here that this panel has some wear and tear from uh

23:32uh using it a lot clicks right in

23:39so

23:51so

24:07we've got panel number six here um again you know this isn't awful but the um the process is a

24:16lot more simplified on the production so it was a good learning experience with these and

24:21and uh this will be a much faster process like i said whenever you do this at your campground

24:31there we go

24:32there we go

24:48last thing is you secure it

24:59all right

24:59all right now we can go ahead and take care of our insides

25:10so

25:13pretty nice view

25:15i'm gonna have it set up kind of just in a i guess maybe a two bed format

25:42you can see here we've got in floor wheel chocks as well for mountain biking so

25:49if you and

25:50if you and a couple buddies are taking your bikes you can do that

25:53um

25:55one thing that's really neat here too

25:58is that

26:02these

26:07boxes

26:08can

26:09go into

26:11stand-alone bunk beds

26:13so what i would do here

26:15is

26:17open

26:18this

26:19i would set this down

26:23right here

26:30close it

26:31put the other one

26:33on this side and then if you remember the beams we had that came across here for the bunk beds

26:37they would come here so now i've got standalone bunk beds so

26:41you could in theory

26:44have this set up in a manner

26:45that would let you sleep

26:47two

26:47four

26:49six

26:50eight people

26:51would it be

26:53extremely tight

26:55yes

26:56but

26:57it is doable

27:00so i'm gonna have this set up here

27:02um if i wanted these to be

27:05beds i have you know obviously the tables that go in between here

27:08um but a typical setup that we have

27:11is

27:15is

27:17if we wanted to

27:18just to show you

27:20and then

27:21i've got one more piece in here

27:30your couch that also turns into a full 60 inch queen size bed

27:42nice little rug if you want to

27:45this is particularly helpful in the wintertime

27:48when the floor might be a little on the cold side

27:52and what we'll do

27:53here too is put up a bar right here

27:56we have ski racks you can hang up

28:01like i really appreciate the opportunity to showcase this awesome build

28:06now you i would say you really thought outside of the box

28:10and you're literally outside of the box

28:13i've never seen anything like this before

28:15maybe like in a tiny house like one of those postcard cabins i've seen on instagram

28:20but not something that you could move around and travel with and set up

28:24i know this is just a proof of concept prototype and you're going to production very soon

28:30so there's gonna be some tweaks and changes

28:31i know off camera you talked about there are some panels that go up around the roof line

28:36to fill in the gap we didn't set them up for the video just to just so people understand what's

28:40going on

28:41but this is incredible so now we go from how big to how long

28:47so we go from about um a 13 foot box to about a 20 foot box in here

28:55as i mentioned everything's 80 inches so we got 80 inches of width 80 inches of height

28:59and then enough room for you and your whole family or you and a group of friends

29:04and off camera we talked a little bit about you know there's some advantages to having a trailer that grows

29:09in length

29:10because there are some beautiful state national parks and some off the beaten path parks

29:16that restricts size because you can't make the turns

29:19yes exactly uh we had this down during our testing process in bahia honda state park

29:26and we were able to park right on the beachfront lots just because we were able to get this in

29:32as a uh as a shortened trailer

29:34um and then when we got there we opened up the back and had a beautiful oceanfront view

29:38awesome and uh pricing hasn't yet been determined because you're still in the prototype stage

29:43trying to figure out what the cost is going to be very soon i guess and uh

29:48do you have a website i know you have social media

29:51yep search for outdoors.com search and the number number four outdoors.com

29:56i'll put that link in the description thank you for joining us today

30:00thank you for joining us today

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