+1 on the Surly LHT...excellent bike. I managed to find a used one on Craigslist this spring that was my size and it is now my all-purpose bike (aside from trails, I have an old mountain bike for those rides). So far the biggest loads I have had on it have been 30 pounds of groceries...rides nicely with the weight and could handle much more, especially if I installed a front rack in addition to the one on the rear. Also can take fairly fat tires, even with fenders, so you're not limited to skinny tires and perfect roads. I haven't ridden any of Surly's other models but they all look good. There are a few (Troll/Ogre/ECR) that look like they would make good off-road touring/camping rigs. As far as cargo bikes go, there's a company called Xtracycle that makes a kit you can use to convert a regular bike (like, say, that old steel MTB) into a longtail cargo bike. Check it out...http://www.xtracycle.com/freeradical-x1. Much less expensive than buying a ready-made cargo bike.