Today we’re looking at the Forest River Cherokee Grey Wolf 27RR, an interesting toy hauler. But this might be one of the best travel trailers I’ve seen if you have crafts or want a separate office and don’t even need to bring toys along for the adventure. This is especially true if you and whoever you’re camping with have different sleep schedules.
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RV quality
I look at a lot of Cherokee units for the simple reason that I feel the company is doing a good job in the stick-and-tin arena. These are typically the least expensive type of RVs. Some makers use this as a reasoning for including fewer useful features or building to a lower standard.
While I don’t think that a Cherokee RV is going to be as well made as something like the Embassy Traveler or a Bigfoot trailer, they are a decent balance of build and price.
Use case of the Cherokee Grey Wolf 27RR
This floor plan is really unusual in a number of ways. As a travel trailer with a big garage in the back, it’s not what you would call a traditional toy hauler only in that it’s not taller or wider than most other travel trailers.
Most trailers have about a 6 ½-foot interior height and are 96” wide, which is just what this is. More focused toy haulers tend to be 101” wide (an extra five inches) and are also significantly taller inside to accommodate larger items like side-by-sides and that sort of thing.
Because most traditional toy haulers are designed to accommodate exceptionally large loads, they also have exceptionally large tanks with some more than 100 gallons of fresh water.
The Cherokee Grey Wolf is superior to bunk house models
This is more a travel trailer that can accommodate some toys. But it’s also far superior to many bunk house models, depending on your use case.
The reason I write that is that the entire rear area features two benches, one on either side of the space. These can be bench seats, able to hold three people apiece. They can be individual beds, which means bringing friends or another couple along for camping also affords them their own space.
They can also become one large bed. So, if you have a large child or are one yourself, this is a great place to sleep.
But this open area can also be a craft room, play room, office or things like that.
Further, Cherokee includes a patio for the ramp door. So this door can also serve to add floor space to the RV.
If you bring pets along, the ramp and patio can serve to allow them to go in and out of the RV without actually being loose in the campground. For some folks that would be a novel concept. I often camp with those folks. Yes. It’s annoying.
But if you have littles, it also means they can go in and out, too. That same enclosure can keep them happy but safely confined.
There’s a big screen that can be fitted to the opening so, on nicer days, the ramp door can be down, the margaritas flowing, yet the bugs stay out and the people stay in. This would be a great place to work, honestly.
Privacy
The bathroom spans the full width of the RV and acts to isolate the front from the back—another plus. There’s a high-performance vent fan in here. So if you do have motorized toys in the back, this can help to clear the smell out. But that’s also true if one camper thought that the term “all you can eat” at the taco bar was their personal challenge and now everybody’s paying for it.
But, again, if you do camp with another couple, this affords them their own entrance to the bathroom and you, as well.
There’s also a separate entry door into the back of the camper. So this could be the office door or the other couple’s entryway.
Main living area
The main living area is decent with a slide room that holds a U-shaped dinette. The kitchen features a 12-volt refrigerator, and the counter has a peninsula and a large sink.
There’s a couch at the front, so really you could seat four around the dinette and two more at the couch. That means every camper has a place for the seat of their pants. That’s not always the case.
That couch is part of a folding bed system where the mattress rests on the folded couch. The mattress, too, is a folding unit and is a camp queen.
One thing: The mattress can just stay flat if you choose, as it does clear the slide room. But that means the couch would be out of service, although this isn’t the worst arrangement I’ve ever seen.
Cherokee Grey Wolf
There are some things that are customary in Cherokee Grey Wolf products. Those include the fact that they all have zebra shades, which allow you to almost customize how much light is being let in. They’re pretty slick.
There’s also a battery disconnect right inside the trailer. ANd I’m suuuuuuuuuure little Johnny isn’t going to turn that and disconnect the power in the trailer ever. Never ever.
These also come with an ice maker in the outside kitchen—which was always a big hit. And that outside kitchen features a 120-volt refrigerator and a mediocre two-burner stove top. Oh, well.
But I’m noticing that Cherokee Grey Wolf products also seem to be cutting back on the camp-side windows. A lot. And the outside kitchen door blocks one of the only windows on the camp side.
Plus, someone at Cherokee Grey Wolf got the bright idea to paint the cabinets black as a further insult to a bright and open interior. Come on, seriously? They do so many things right. But whoever works at Cherokee and likes depressing interior decor needs to go work at a funeral parlor instead.
Boondocking and Travel Access
As for travel access, the fact that there’s a rear entry door here means you can get to the bathroom, fridge and dinette from this door. You can use the second, front entry door to get to the bed, and the bed can be used with the slide room in. So while it’s a slightly circuitous route, I would say this is a good trailer for road access.
As for boondocking, all Cherokee products feature a 50-watt “Juice Pack” solar panel on the roof. Think of this as nothing more than a battery tender for when this is in storage. That’s because it’s not even going to keep that fridge running when the trailer isn’t plugged into something.
I’m getting spoiled by Keystone and their SolarFlex packages. Now these 50-watt solar panels are just, well, not so hot.
There are 40 gallons of water storage aboard with 38 gallons each of gray and black. This is about average for travel trailers.
In summary
One of the things I like about the implementation of the “stick-and-tin” construction Cherokee Grey Wolf uses is that the individual panels are all painted instead of relying on decals for their color. This means this trailer is going to look good longer.
They also use a thicker aluminum sheet in the nose rather than a corrugated material. This is a plus as this will resist flying stuff, but is smoother so a bit easier to pull.
Speaking of pulling, at 6,571 pounds dry weight, it might seem like a good idea to pull this with a half-ton pickup, but I don’t think it would be. Forest River estimates that the tongue weight is 1,159 pounds and, considering that many half-ton trucks have a cargo carrying capacity of about 1,600-1,800 pounds, this means you’re consuming most of this with the trailer empty.
I wouldn’t let a dealer talk me into pulling this with a half-ton truck, frankly.
Lots of uses for the Cherokee Grey Wolf floor plan
But if this is a good choice for you, that would likely be because of how very many really good use cases I could find for this floor plan. I like it quite a bit as a super-flexible but very useful floor plan at a relatively affordable price that does a number of things really well.
Now, someone at Cherokee Grey Wolf, go get a whole train load of windows and then get a new interior design person so we can have bright, airy, open feeling trailers that also combine with all the other good things about what the company is doing.
I would love to read your comments and suggestions over on our new forums, where you can weigh in and start or join a discussion about all things RV. Here’s a link to my RV Reviews Forum.
Tony comes to RVtravel.com having worked at an RV dealership and been a lifelong RV enthusiast. He also has written the syndicated Curbside column about cars. You can find his writing here and at StressLessCamping where he also has a podcast about the RV life with his wife.
These RV reviews are written based on information provided by the manufacturers along with our writer’s own research. We receive no money or other financial benefits from these reviews. They are intended only as a brief overview of the vehicle, not a comprehensive critique, which would require a thorough inspection and/or test drive.
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I would never buy a trailer where I couldn’t get from the bed to the toilet at 3:00 in the morning without going outside when the slide is in. And that’s exactly the situation I would face when parked overnight in a Flying J RV parking lot with this trailer. Flying J provides those parking spaces specifically for overnight travelers to eat dinner, breakfast, or both at their Denny’s and sleep for 8 hours without taking up space in their truck parking area. But, although the spaces are long enough for anything under about 41′, no slides can be extended due to the narrow width of all the RV spaces.
I definitely agree with Tony about the black interiors. I want every RV “interior designer” (what an oxymoron!) to be required to spend a week living in a prototype of their “masterpiece”. Then they might find that old motorhomes with light oak or pine cabinets, mirrors, and desert earth-tone fabrics were brighter and more livable than their black cabinets and gray fabrics!
You can get to everything with slide in, it’s just a very small walkway
I totally agree with Tony on the towing thing. There’s no way I would want to tow this (or any trailer, frankly) with a half ton pickup.