A family camping, fishing, and fixing up a Coleman 17B. Real trips and honest reviews, sponsored or not.
Gear we actually useOnly gear we have bought and used on real trips. No paid placements.
Which Coleman should I buy?A 5-question quiz that matches you with the 13B, 13R, 17B, or 17R.
Coleman reviews and comparisonsReal-owner reviews of our 17B and side-by-side model comparisons.
Upgrade or fix your camperThe upgrades and fixes we made to our Coleman, and how they held up.
Rent our Coleman 17BDelivered and set up at your campsite around the Cedar Valley, from about $75 a night.
Find a campgroundHonest reviews with rates, photos, the sites worth booking, and nearby options on a map.Upgrades, trip reports, and honest notes on living with the 17B.
Bringing a 1961 aluminum boat and its outboard back to the water.
Write-ups of the trips, builds, and campground reviews, in more detail than the videos have room for.
Every Coleman 17B spec in one place, checked against Keystone's own spec sheet, plus what it really takes to tow one. Here is the length, dry weight, GVWR, hitch weight, tanks, and how we pull ours with a 2012 Ford Expedition.
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How we winterize our 2025 Coleman 17B, start to finish. We blow every line out with air, then pump pink RV antifreeze through the whole system. Here is every step, with photos, plus what the tankless water heater changes.
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Our score: 8.0/10On our second trip to Glacier, we spent five nights at Mountain Meadow RV Park in Hungry Horse, Montana, in my parents' teardrop, about nine miles from the park. Wooded sites, our best-scoring bathhouse yet, and the trip that got us into camping.
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Our score: 7.5/10We spent three nights at Mackinaw Mill Creek Camping on the Straits of Mackinac. A $29 water and electric site, a sandy beach, the bridge on the horizon at sunset, and an easy base for Mackinac Island. The one catch is how tight the sites are.
Read the write-up →Every product I link is something we've run on real trips. When it holds up, it makes the list. When it doesn't, it doesn't.
I'm Aaron. I have a desk job, so getting outdoors with my wife and our toddler is my happy place. We fell in love with camping after borrowing my parents' teardrop and taking it up to Glacier National Park.
Now we camp in our own Coleman 17B, I'm restoring a 1961 Sea King boat, and every review here stays honest, sponsored or not.
