Where and How to Find Vintage Travel Trailers For Sale

Trying to find vintage travel trailers for sale? In this article, we’ll show you our 12 favorite websites that have vintage travel trailers for sale and an arsenal of free tools that will help you search for your favorite vintage trailers. 

You don’t have to look on eBay or Craigslist every day, you don’t have to travel through every campground in your state, and you certainly don’t have to hire an agent (though that’s an option if you have the money).

To find vintage travel trailers for sale you just have to know where to look online and how to use a few free tools that will make your search a bit easier.

 

Best Websites to Find Vintage Travel Trailers for Sale

Craigslist and eBay are musts for anyone searching for a vintage trailer but there are several other vintage travel trailer sites that you’ll want to bookmark as well.

 

TinCan Tourists

TinCan Tourists is a vintage trailer fan’s heaven. The club began in 1919 so it was cool before trailers had a chance to even become vintage.

You don’t have to be a member to list a travel trailer for sale but members have their listings featured on the front page.

 

Little Vintage Trailer

Little Vintage Trailer has been one of the best online resources for vintage travel trailer lovers for years. It’s also one of the cutest sites online (I may be partial). I love everything about this site!

Sisters on the Fly

The Sisters on the Fly are the coolest ladies to ever hit the road! This group of women vintage travel trailer owners started in 1999 and have grown to over 10,000 members that all know how to have fun. They meet several times a year and their site is full of great articles and has listings section.

Vintage Campers

Vintage Campers is the go-to site for vintage travel trailer fans. They have a cool magazine and their site is the most thorough resources I’ve found for travel trailers.

 

Airstream Classifieds

Airstream Classified is another brand-specific site but there’s a reason there are so many: Airstream is the most popular travel trailer in American history. They are iconic!

Airstream For Sale

Airstreamforsale.com is a good resource if you are looking for an Airstream but not so much if you have your heart set on a Spartan. Still, it’s a good site that can help you learn about the iconic brand.

 

Spartan Trailer 

Spartans are my second favorite travel trailer brand. Maybe I’m attracted to aluminum on a weird psychological level? This is a small site but you can find vintage Spartans for sale which is always awesome.

Tin Inn Travel Trailers

I don’t know much about Tin Inn but the owner appears to have a ton of experience restoring travel trailers. There are a few trailers for sale and I suspect that if you had a specific model in mind this lady would be able to find it.

Flyte Camp

You may recognize Flyte Camp because they have their own TV show. I’m a big fan and since you are looking to buy a vintage travel trailer you will be, too! I’m gonna go ahead an warn you, they ain’t cheap but you can be guaranteed that if they’ve restored a trailer they did it right. This amazing Holiday House is available for sale on their site right now. I’ll let you click to see the price. Just be warned it’s a one-of-a-kind collector’s piece. Oh, if only…

 

eBay

I’m hesitant to include eBay on this list because vintage travel trailer listings are often scams. You have to be very careful with these listings. 

My rule is that if it costs more than $200 you should only use eBay as a tool to start the buying process but never finish it. You should never bid on an item like a vintage travel trailer without seeing it in person. Your eBay searches should only be for local listings unless you really are willing to travel to get the trailer you want.

Common eBay Scams

One common scam is to list a really awesome trailer at a dirt cheap price while the seller always has a sob story like they are in the military but can’t store their prized possession so they have to get rid of it fast. All you need to do is pay them a storage/holding/delivery fee and then they’ll meet you tomorrow. Click here to read about the top 10 scams on eBay. 

 

Using Advanced Search on eBay

eBay is a popular site for a reason. They have an easy to use interface with a powerful search engine that can help buyers look for exactly what they want.

The advanced search function on eBay is easy but tends to pull up irrelevant listings. I searched for vintage travel trailers within 100 miles of my zip code but was shown stickers, lamps, and postcards. You can refine your searches with their exclusion/inclusion tool and the results are more relevant. Read 7 tips to help you search eBay. 

 

Saved Searches and Watch Lists

Saved searches, also called followed searches, can help you find vintage travel trailers for sale before everyone else. You just enter your criteria and they will email you when a new listing meets your settings. You can save up to 100 searches.

A watch list is another helpful tool to find vintage travel trailers for sale. This is helpful for things that you look for a lot (say you collect vintage mobile home magazines). eBay will email you when a new listing is found or when an auction you’re interested in is about to close.

 

Stuff Alert

Stuff Alert is an outside service that may be helpful to you. They continuously crawl eBay for whatever it is you are looking for and will email you when a listing is found. It’s a good tool to use for local searches because in many cases the early bird gets the worm (well, it used to be like that but I think the vintage travel trailer trend has died down quite a bit since 2015).

 

Facebook Marketplace is a Great Place to Find Vintage Travel Trailers for Sale

I think I may be addicted to Facebook Marketplace. It’s so easy to see a listing and communicate with the seller in real time. I found a brand new doggie door that goes into a sliding door for $40. It was $140 at Walmart. All it took was a quick text (and Facebook even writes that out for you) and meeting them at the agreed place.

The marketplace has a great search tool. You can choose the category and distance area and use keywords such as ‘1965 Airstream Safari’ to pull up all the listings. Here’s an Airstream I found that is just down the road from me.

 

Related: This Vintage Airstream Remodel is so Cool

 

Facebook Groups

There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Facebook groups dedicated to vintage travel trailers of all makes and models. Within these many groups are people buying and selling vintage trailers. Some of the groups that appeared when I searched ‘find vintage travel trailers for sale:’

 

How to Search Craigslist Like a Pro

You can find just about anything on Craigslist. It’s the original online marketplace but I have a feeling Facebook Marketplace will be taking over the top slot in no time. Until then, it’s a must visit to find vintage travel trailers for sale.  We use Craigslist here a lot to find great Craigslist mobile homes for sale.

Craigslist is a site that is simple, yet a bit intimidating at the same time so here’s a quick tutorial on how to use Craigslist.

 

Go to Craigslist at http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites and you will see a page that looks like this:

 

 

Click on the US link on the top left or click on a purple dot that is close to your home. Personally, I like to click on the US link – it just seems easier for me to read the states than look on a map.

If you click on a purple dot you will see the map zoom in to the dot you clicked and then see more purple dots like this:

 

If you click on the US link, the page will change to a listing of states and their cities. Like this:

 

 

Find your state and then the city closest to you and click on it. You will then be forwarded to a page that looks like this:

 

Scroll down to the ‘for sale’ section and click on the rvs + campers:

 

 

 

Clicking on rvs + campers will take you to a page with all kinds of listings! Some will be from dealerships and some from individuals but you can use filters to block out the listing you don’t want. You can also change how the listings appear.

To see listings by owners only, simply click on the ‘by owner’ section, you can also block out any listings that don’t have an image.

 

Another great feature is how the listings appear. Personally, I like the gallery view best because the images are larger and I can quickly find any listing that catches my eye. Just click on the list, thumb, gallery, or map to see which one you like best.

You’ll have a whole screen of listings. If you like one just email or give them a call! Be careful though, never go to a listing by yourself and always meet at a public place. Here are 18 things every Craigslist user should know. 

Search Tempest

Search Tempest is a great tool for Craigslist, Amazon, and eBay. They describe themselves as a classified ad search engine. You type in what you are looking for and where you are looking and it takes you to each site automatically. You can also have it email you listings based on keywords which are super handy.

See 5 more Craigslist helpers here.

IFTTT

IFTTT is one of the most powerful tools ever made for the internet. They describe themselves as a way to connect apps, services, and sites together. It is powerful so you will definitely want to use it to find vintage travel trailers for sale.

You’ll also want to use IFTTT to do other neat things like creating a Google spreadsheet of all your online purchases as you receive the receipts or add songs to your Spotify when you like a Youtube video or automatically backup your Facebook photos to Google Drive. There are applets for everything! You can search through all of them here after creating a free account. It’s free to use but there are paid plans.

IFTTT for Online Shopping

Using IFTTT to find vintage travel trailers for sale is pretty easy. You’ll need to connect your craigslist, ebay, and

This applet sends you a daily email of all the Craigslist listings that match your search terms 

This applet goes a step further. You add a search criteria URL and it sends you an email, a push notification, and logs the listing into a Google spreadsheet. You just have to connect the various accounts to IFTTT.

This applet gives you a daily email digest with eBay listings that match your search.

 

Conclusion

You should be able to find vintage travel trailers for sale with all these tools and tips. Ebay, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Groups, and all the awesome vintage trailer sites online are great places to start your search but you should never buy a trailer without inspecting it in person. If it’s a good distance away from you then please consider hiring a camper expert or even a mechanic to inspect it for you.

We’ve written about buying used mobile homes here and it’s the same concept for vintage travel trailers. We also have an entire section of resources and state guides for buying mobile homes here. 

Once you find your vintage trailer you’ll probably want to check out these 9 awesome vintage travel trailer campgrounds. 

 

As always, thank you for reading Mobile Home Living!