As we slowly reimagined the rear bath (in between camping trips) in our 1971 Tradewind after gutting it to repair some rear end separation, we become pretty appreciative of the advantages of facilities in the Airstream.
For short camping trips, just being able to pee in the middle of the night w/o getting dressed to traverse the campground, playa, etc. was a definite win. For longer trips, having a shower readily at hand is really nice; there are a lot of older national parks w/o showers in many of the campgrounds.
Fixing the rear end separation basically stripped the bathroom down to the bare walls... After epoxying and painting the repaired floor, we replaced the old toilet & blackwater tank w/ a composting toilet. We took out the bathroom closet, replaced the Univolt and moved it into the base of the new dinette that replaced the rear gaucho. This gave Webspinner (Barbie) enough room to build a separate shower (curved white shower pan laminated from wood and epoxy to fit), w/ a custom vanity in birch and aluminum. The bathroom is now a pleasure to use; for really tall people it's probably a bit low but that's life w/ rear baths.
I'd definitely carefully consider your use cases and how they may change.
- Bart
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