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RV review: Safari Condo Alto A2124 - aerodynamic star

Tony Barthel

Today’s RV review is of the Safari Condo Alto A2124. I wanted to share this travel trailer because so many of you wrote in with questions about RV aerodynamics in response to my review of the Snoozy II.

In fact the Safari Condo Alto A2124 has been tested for aerodynamics as well with 11 tests for aerodynamics. According to the company, this trailer has 47 percent less aerodynamic drag than some of their other offerings which is saying a lot as those other offerings are not bad as far as trailers go.

As just about anyone who tows a traditional travel trailer what kind of fuel mileage they get and the answer is almost invariably the same: 11-14 miles per gallon. This could be a big trailer or something smaller. The problem isn’t as much the weight as the aerodynamics.

When you look at race cars or electric cars or even your garden-variety sedan they all have one thing in common - there was a lot of time spent in a wind tunnel to optimize their shape to cheat the wind as much as possible.

Surprisingly if you have a large pickup truck it, too, was tested and re-tested for its ability to cheat the wind and use as few resources as possible to shuttle down the road. And then you go and hook a barn to the back and that’s the end of the efficiency story.

Aerodynamics

There are a very few travel trailer companies that I come across who actually do anything more than pay lip service to the sciences of aerodynamics, or the study of how an object moves through the air. Oh, you can bet that most brochures for RVs talk about their efficiency but the gap between truth and claim is as wide as the Grand Canyon.

That’s a very different story here with Safari having tested its Alto A2124 Series for aerodynamic efficiency. They didn’t do it in an actual wind tunnel but did do it with software which is how most wind tunnel testing is done nowadays.

As such you get a really, really unusual-looking trailer but the trailer’s build is unusual too.

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Materials

Roof and walls are made of a sandwich-type material with a plastic honeycomb core laminated with aluminum skin on one side and Alufiber or aluminum on the other. Alufiber combines the lightweight of aluminum with the durability of fiberglass. The only materials used in building the Alto are those on which water has little effect such as aluminum, Alufiber, plastic, Formica and glass. Inside, the furniture consists largely of aluminum and composite materials. Rigid and ultra-light sandwich panels are integrated into the bed cushions, while the entire bed structure is made of aluminum extrusions.

The frame, too, is aluminum with an independent Toriflex torsion axle suspension at the heart of it all. Since the trailers are ordered from the company directly you can have them set the suspension height either to optimize aerodynamics (lower) or optimize the ability to travel on rougher roads.

Water is heated by a Truma Combi system that also serves to heat the cabin of the trailer by circulating glycol in tubes. This provides a wonderfully even radiant heat but doesn’t heat up the interior as quickly as a fan-forced furnace might.

The grand tour

While the odd exterior shape, which I actually dig, is completely stand-out the interior is much more like what we humans are used to.

At the front you start with a wedge-shaped dinette which can be converted into a 52” X 74” double bed. While I’m not sure I’d want to sleep in this wedge shape it is a nice place to sit surrounded by windows. The table is a Lagun model which would facility ingress and egress, especially for folks like me who displace a lot of water in the pool.

On the road side of the trailer is a wet bath and there’s another big window in here. I saw several owner videos, some with a sink in the bathroom, some without. In a small bathroom where there is a sink right across the hallway in the galley I can see the logic of not having a sink and it’s cool that you’re given the choice. I would imagine that it definitely affords you more room for showering.

All the windows on these are the European composite type that swing upwards up to 90° and feature day/night shades as well as screens built right in. These are a premium window and follow other high-end components being used in this trailer.

Out back are two benches that can be used by day with a table between as a large dinette, a seating area or to sleep on at night. You can also lower the table and use the area as a large sleeping surface measuring 75” X 81”. It’s not a totally square surface so that’s something to get used to.

A few owners I came across on the Internet had the same complaint with this type of bed as almost every other RV owner and that’s that the cushions don’t make for the most comfortable bed. A few had added a memory foam topper but they had to cut theirs to fit the somewhat wedge-like shape. This would be another be where an RV Superbag would be a must.

Several of those owners choose to leave the bed down in bed mode during the day and just use the seating at the front, others switch between bed and seat depending on demand.

Lastly, the galley consists of a two-burner propane stove top and a round sink along with a microwave, although you can delete the microwave if you choose to. The two burner stove features an electronic ignition and seems to be much higher in quality than what you’d normally expect of this design. The sink is one I’ve seen in a lot of Class B RVs where the top features a round glass cover that swings up and a faucet that sort of tilts upward with a stainless steel bowl.

For this small a trailer there is a tremendous amount of storage, relatively speaking. There’s storage up front under the wedge-shaped dinette, and storage out back under the twin-sized seat benches. That storage is accessible from both inside and outside the trailer.

There is a halo of cabinets all around the trailer and even a hanging closet behind the bathroom on the road side. The use of space in this is as impressive as the aerodynamics.

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Also different

I like that the two standard propane tanks are up front inside a compartment. There’s a sliding screen door for the main entrance as opposed to the typical screen door though if you have pets you might want to protect the lower section of this. There’s also a three-speed fan near the door to move air in the trailer.

I love, love that they’re using SeeLevel tank monitors. The SeeLevel monitors are external to the tank and give readings in one percent increments. Typically you’ll see tank levels displayed as a small number of LEDs - is the lowest level 10 gallons or just one? The SeeLevel gives you much more reliable readings.

I also like that the fridge is three-way so you can run on propane, 120vac or 12vdc so it’s perfectly safe to use it on 12 volt when rolling down the road.

Air conditioning on these is an option and the AC sits below the front dinette if you choose the option, rather than sticking up above the roof of the trailer.

On the flip side

While the Safari Condo’s construction method results in waterproof materials, definitely a plus, I spoke with several owners who said the insulation factor of the walls are not as good as typical RV walls. And that’s saying a lot.

These are built up in Canada and more than one owner said that the combination of the wall construction and the less-capable air conditioner meant that these things got pretty hot in the summer time. So if you camp where the temperatures are warmer, that would be something to be aware of.

In summary

I’ve been really, really intrigued with Safari’s line of trailers as you may have guessed reading my reviews of them. I like the materials used in construction and the way they see things. Rather than building rolling houses they’re building vehicles so they feel a bit different but will likely serve their owners better over the long haul.

For folks with mid-sized trucks and some SUVs or even an electric tow vehicle like a Tesla this trailer makes a huge amount of sense. By significantly reducing the aerodynamic hit of a traditional trailer you offer much better tow ability without such a dramatic drop in energy consumption, whether you’re using a liquid fuel to move your tow vehicle or electricity.

In terms of usability the Alta A2124 offers just about everything you could want in a travel trailer. While some compromises between interior space and usable space have to exist because of physics, Safari has really done a great job of  putting together a design that really works and may actually be more of a sign of things to come than we realize today.

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