This New Camper Is Simultaneously One Of The Coziest And Smelliest RVs I’ve Toured In A While

Much of the old RV industry still builds campers using techniques that are not much different from what was common several decades ago. NüCamp is one of the newer brands that does things differently, discarding the ways of the past in favor of something fresh. The company’s newest camper is a small unit that somehow seems larger on the inside than it appears on the outside. This is the nüCamp Haven 220, a weirdo that’s built pretty well, looks like an apartment, and has some odd quirks. And I’m not even talking about the smell.

The nüCamp Haven 220 actually launched a handful of months ago in 2025, but I did not write about it because I had a few questions that were unanswered from the press release published by nüCamp. I finally have those answers now, and, most importantly, I have also seen the trailer with my own eyes and touched it.

The nüCamp Haven 220 is going into 2026 as nüCamp’s sort of flagship trailer. It is front and center here at the 2026 Florida RV SuperShow, and it was the trailer getting all of the attention at the display. Some RV influencers have laid all kinds of praise on this thing, and I have even seen headlines asking if it’s the best camper of 2026. Is it? Well, let’s take a look.

Euro Designs In America

First, let’s have a little primer on nüCamp. If you’re familiar with this company, skip on. However, it’s not exactly a household name in America, so I’ll explain why nüCamp is different. From my previous coverage:

The company was formed in 2005 by Joe Mullet. Back then, the company was called Pleasant Valley Teardrop Trailers. At the time, Mullet had been a plumber for years before getting into building lawn furniture. But he wanted to build something unique, and the lawn furniture wasn’t really cutting it. That’s when an acquaintance asked him to build a teardrop trailer, and Mullet got the idea to build his own teardrop trailers.

As nüCamp RV notes, Mullet opened up an eight-man, 3,000 square foot shop where its retro-styled teardrops were hand-built. Their goal was to create quality trailers, something that some companies may struggle with even today.

Like many companies, Mullet’s company didn’t survive the initial hit of the Great Recession, and closed its doors in 2008. But a lucky call from a distributor the same day meant that his company’s fate wasn’t sealed. The company reopened and started building campers again.

NüCamp built its reboot on the back of the Tab, a camper that was originally designed by Knaus Tabbert in Germany. By repurposing a German camper for America, nüCamp figured out a way to stick out among the endless sea of camper manufacturers. Since then, nüCamp has expanded by adding the Barefoot, another design that came from overseas, Cirrus truck campers, and the company also used to make Little Guy trailers.

All of nüCamp’s trailers are built around the same idea of tossing out the old ways of camper manufacturing. Instead of flimsy wood framing and leak-prone rubberized roofs, nüCamp likes to adorn its campers in aluminum, fiberglass, and composites, backing it all with aluminum framing.

The Haven 220

Weirdly, despite priding itself on building campers with better quality, nüCamp’s press releases never explained the build materials of the Haven, which is why I initially skipped on writing about it. The Haven 220 is this company’s first so-called “full-size” travel trailer, and you’d think the marketing would be a bit more thorough.

The Haven 220 launched in October 2025, and nüCamp says it was designed with input from current nüCamp owners. The idea here was to maximize interior space and comfort, while also adding in features that lots of RV buyers are begging for. Namely, nüCamp has identified trends like buyers wanting dry baths – a bathroom where the shower and toilet are separate – as well as a bedroom that has space to walk around the bed.

The Haven 220 begins with nüCamp’s standard build, which calls for a steel chassis and aluminum structure. I’m told that the Haven sports laminate walls, a composite floor, and a roof that has aluminum caps and a fiberglass top. While not the most amazing build sheet of materials I’ve ever seen, it’s several steps up from the “stick-built” campers that remain in production. Based on my talks with nüCamp owners, it seems nüCamp’s products hold up better than typical. In other words, we’re off to a great start.

The Haven design is pretty simple outside. There are no slides and only a simple decal package. Some noteworthy touches include a surprisingly meaty rear bumper and a nice covered area for the equipment on the front of the trailer. Also, I found no rust on this frame. “Of course not, Mercedes, it’s brand new!” So you might think, but I make the note because some brands still crank out trailers that basically start rusting immediately, and I’ve seen rusted metal on display.

Looking good so far, but here is a problem with the exterior – see if you can find it before I bring it up later.

Like An Apartment

The inside of this trailer is where the fun begins.

The folks of nüCamp gave the interior a bit of an open concept. There are no walls to make the trailer feel smaller, and the ceiling stands fairly tall at 6’10.” Add in the giant front windows, and the camper feels light and airy inside. My first thought upon stepping in is that I walked into a nice studio apartment. I noticed that a lot of the showgoers had the same reaction. I’ve never heard the word “apartment” so much at an RV show before.

But I get it. The dinette is small and cozy, like the little table you’d have in a small apartment. The kitchen looks like the kind of space where you’d share some wine with your spouse while cooking dinner. But the most striking impression, I think, is that the bedroom seems bigger than it actually is because there are places to walk beside the queen bed. This trailer is only 23.1 feet long, but like an ambitious little kid, it seems to swear it’s actually bigger than it really is. The dinette also turns into a bed, resulting in what should be decent sleeping for two adults and two kids. I love how welcoming the interior is.

Interior materials felt a pretty good few rungs above average. I wouldn’t say you’ll be camping in luxury, but it’s not Spartan, either. The counters are really solid and are put together well. The cabinetry feels hefty, and the doors close softly. Even the wood ceiling trim feels pretty good to the touch. I could see this interior lasting some time with minimal upkeep.

Equipment inside is pretty standard. There’s a deep sink, a two-burner stove, a 4.6 cubic foot refrigerator. The spec sheet talks of an Alde Hydronic Heating System, a Nautilus Water Management System, and the Froli Sleep System, which is a low-profile sort of bed platform known for its good ventilation. The heating system uses a fluid, coils, a pipe, a flame, a pump, and other bits to heat both the trailer and its water.

Stores sound decent for a unit of this size. You get 34 gallons of usable water, a 35-gallon gray tank, and a 25-gallon waste tank. It also weighs 3,933 pounds empty and has a gross weight of 5,000 pounds. This means you should be able to tow this thing with a large crossover or a mid-size SUV, depending on the tow vehicle’s capacities.

Moving on from there, you also get a 100 Ah 12-volt lithium battery (can be upgraded to 270 Ah lithium 12-volt Battle Born batteries), a 1,200-watt inverter, and a solar panel. Weirdly, the output of this panel is not published. You can upgrade this solar, too, and the upgraded solar output is not mentioned.

The bathroom is supposed to be a highlight here, and it’s meant to work and feel like your bathroom at home, just smaller. As a bigger person, I thought the bathroom felt a little bit on the cramped side, but no worse than the average travel trailer.

It Got Weird And Smelly Quickly

What I was weirded out by was how parts of the interior were put together and by how it all smelled. The walls of the interior, namely on the bathroom and the lower portions of the cabinetry, were covered in what I could really only describe as the sort of plastic screw covers that you get when you buy cheap assemble-it-yourself furniture. The walls sort of looked like someone only got halfway through finishing them. And this wasn’t a prototype trailer, either.

This feeling wasn’t helped by the inside of the bathroom door, which, at least visually, seemed like the kind of door that you’d get with a cheap cabinet from a furniture store. Still, everything felt like it was reasonably well built here. It was just visually very odd.

Additional weirdness came from the smell of it all. The back of the trailer smelled like a Harbor Freight store, and the bathroom turned up the Harbor Freight musk past 11 all the way to 20 or so. I can’t imagine what the smell would be like without the airflow from the open door. I do think the smell will go away as the trailer is actually used, but at first, it’s going to be unpleasant in there.

There’s More

Alright, so are you ready for the catch?

Many of the people who came by the display said that they thought the Haven 220 didn’t have nearly enough storage. Yes, there are cabinets and cubbies inside. There is also a front garage that spans the width of the trailer. But storage falls fast from there. Some of the folks I spoke with mentioned that they probably wouldn’t have a problem with what they’d want to bring inside the trailer, but were disappointed in the lack of places to carry outdoorsy gear.

This was interesting because, in its press release, nüCamp said the Haven 220 was built with storage in mind. I think the interior storage is sufficient, but the people I talked to had a good point about gear that you don’t want to store in the interior. Other nüCamp fans I spoke with also said they think the Haven 220 is missing some of the wow factor that’s normally included in other nüCamp models.

The other difficult pill to swallow might be the price. With an MSRP of $60,000, the Haven 220 is solidly priced in the premium space for travel trailers of this size. RV buyers can get well-built campers that have bigger refrigerators and better storage for less money. Those buyers also won’t have to peer at what looks like an unfinished wall or enjoy the aroma of a hardware store.

All of that being said, I think nüCamp’s first big travel trailer is a real solid effort. The bill of materials seems better than the industry average by a decent margin, and I do adore the open concept. But there are a handful of catches that you’ll have to be okay with. You’ll also have to materialize some wads of cash, too. So, I’m left conflicted here. Is this the best the RV industry can build in 2026? I don’t think so, but I can see this finding some fans for sure.

All story images: Mercedes Streeter
Top image: nüCamp