Canned Hams and Other Hobbies

I have a friend who has gotten into ‘Van Life’ in a big way. I’ve been watching his progress and listening to his podcasts (which you can find Here) even though I have no interest in building out or traveling in a van myself. His stories cover the technical aspects of dealing with a van conversion, but he also talks about interesting things he sees along the road.

Example of a refurbished 1950s camper trailer aka “Canned Ham”

A couple of weeks ago, a casual acquaintance told me about her search for a ‘canned ham’ – a term used endearingly to about 1950-60s era vintage camper trailers. A few days later, I find myself the proud owner of a 1970s Serra Scotty Highlander trailer. It’s definitely in rough condition, but I have some talented sons and I’m handy with advice and a checkbook.

Found on https://www.nationalserroscotty.org/rebuilds/qualls/index.html
Before and after photos of a Serro Scotty Highlander, 1969 vintage. Click the picture, it takes you to show you more before (and scary looking!) and after images.

My son-in-law JE picked up the camper and created a workspace. We’ve found all sorts of online communities dedicated to enthusiasts who refurbish camper trailers, full of advice and resources.

My “new” camper
Pretty rough, but we can get there!
The previous owner had started demolition but decided it was too much for them
Welcome to the foyer

This will be a learning project, likely with smashed thumbs and frequent cursing. Our goal is to create something safe, comfortable, and cute.

Stay tuned.



Categories: Travel

Tags: , , , , , ,

2 replies

  1. This is adventurous -and cute as hell – and looking forward to your trips in it!

What do you think?

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: