Camping Options/ Shell?

[DamageWagon]

We are moving from Southern California up to Portland and are planning a 3-4 month off-road trip throughout the US before we move. We also camp almost every weekend normally. I like to move quick off road and use my truck for its purpose every chance I can. She is getting some Thuren suspension treatment soon

About a month ago after a lot of deliberation we purchased our CVT tent. We had gone to their facility in Bend and checked out all our options, and asked a few people with RTT's for their opinions. Long story short I built a rack and we were super excited about it until the GTG in Big Bear last weekend. I found out the hard way that these tents in the wind give the worst sleep I have ever experienced (ear plugs help) and that our tent apparently missed the water resistance treating. After speaking with Bobby and Crystal at CVT their finding was that it wasn't treated. They offered to ship me a new one free of charge and hinted at possibly a refund.

Here is my question: what is your method of choice for a long duration trip like this where you are expecting a lot of off road? We are open to buying something for the trip and selling it when we finish. We CAN do a ground tent but it needs to be a nice one that is roomy. This is at the bottom of the list though, too much setup time. We can also just take a replacement RTT. I was thinking of a camper shell but that really limits space in the bed and I have heard that shells hit the cab when you go fast off-road. Pop-up camper is an option but makes us too heavy and we have a budget of only about 1500-2000 and would like to be even lower than that.

Ideas?


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[Reloaderguy]

Ideas?


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Slow down...hauling ass with a full camping load-out sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

Roof top tents sound and look cool but suck in reality. They expose you to more wind, reduce your fuel economy, are expensive, inflexible, etc. Just take a regular tent if you want soft sides. I went with a truck cap and bed system but that's not for everyone, if you hit big enough bumps you can damage the cab. There's no free lunch, you will sacrifice no matter which option you choose. If you plan on spending a lot of time outside on the west side of the Cascades you will probably want something solid over your head instead of a tent. Good luck, Portland is wet...and weird.

[DamageWagon]

I like to move at a happy pace. Sometimes that means a slow crawl, most of the time it means moderate trail speed, and sometimes if I have an easy open road it means 45-60. I try to be safe and mechanically sympathetic. Bending an axle doesn't sound like fun, and neither does driving like a grandma. I save that for the street

I agree that there is a sacrifice to every option. I already made the bed rack but I'm open to selling it. Camper shell sounds good for a permanent shelter but the bed space is hard to load and I don't want to always unload gear to go to sleep. We are planning on camping at a different place almost every night, that is a motivating factor to find a solution that is fast and comfortable.

I did see this. http://www.oztent.us/products/tent-rang ... lamoo-mega



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[coder]

My vote goes for a good quality ground tent with cots and all the necessary gear this makes for a low cost flexible option with the only downside is you spend more setup/teardown time and it's not very high tech.

[fbenross]

I couldn't do a trip that long and have to deal with a tent. My wife and I have been using this for 10 years and Its comfy and secure. Porta potty-outside shower-stove - sink- hot water- queen bed and a heater. And I go pretty much anywhere off road but not at a high rate of speed. After about 10 days your ready for a night in a hotel. Buy one used on Craigs List http://sfbay.craigslist.org/scz/rvs/5842618570.html for 5k and sell when done, but you'll want to keep it.

[BigRed2007]

We use an oztent Jet Tent 25x it's great. It sets up in about the same time as an RTT, you can guy it out to combat the wind, stand up in it, expand it as your family grows and you dont have to go down a ladder in the middle of the night to relieve your ladder. We put a queen size insta bed in it and have plenty of room. It is also big, heavy and expensive; not as big, heavy or expensive as a camper though.... unfortunately the only pic I can find is of us in a camp ground during a PCS move...



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[BigRed2007]

Double post

[waldo]

My truck camping tent is a 3 person backpacking tent. Sets up fast and I just sleep in it. Low profile with a rain fly that goes down to the ground. Stable in the wind and dry in the rain.

[Vee]

We use our ARB awning room as a tent for extra room and sleep in the truck. Set up and tear down is really easy. And if I just need an awning, that works great. Of course we have a trailer that we use as our forward operating base and use the truck setup for 2-3 day trips.

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[DamageWagon]

Thanks for the replies guys, I had a few questions for you. We spent the weekend in Johnson Valley and our RTT was HORRIBLE. Worst nights sleep again for the both of us. Our annex room that was supposed to be a nice addition for changing and cooking ended up being a nightmare. We had it staked out as well as we could but it bellowed so much that you could only stand in the center 1/3 of the annex without getting knocked over. Even with ear plugs the sleep was horrible, the rain fly was so flappy in the wind.


@Coder: that is an option, but since we are looking to break down and set up almost every day we want more comfort. That would be the cheapest and use the least space though, and we could get one of the nicer, faster tents.

@fbenross: I showed your camper to the girlfriend and she is hooked now. It's hard for me to get her onboard with ideas, how did you do it!? (Probably the bathroom part ). I love that it is a home on wheels. The amenities offered would be perfect. My biggest worries are that they are very heavy and raise the center of gravity a lot. We would have to slow down quite a bit and skip a lot of the paths we were planning on taking if we had a camper, Ida urging just because I am not used to safely driving with one. How does it feel on your wagon? How crazy have you had the thing off road?

@BigRed2007: that's awesome! I was looking at the Oztent and the Malamoo. The Oztent is a lot larger when packed than I expected, but is still a small and cheaper option compared to other options. How fast and simple is your Jet Tent to set up? Can one person do it easily?

@Waldo: that is an option for us. But I find it hard to picture spending 90-120 days in a ground tent.

@Vee: that is exactly one of the options I pictured. Are you comfortable in your shell? I'm 6'1" and I spent a night on an air mattress in my truck bed and it felt very snug. How weather happy is that ARB awning setup? The pictures I have seen show a gap between the walls and the top. Is that small or closeable?


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[TwinStick]

Pretty much everyone goes through the same thing. The ONLY way i can get a good nights sleep in a tent anymore is on one of these: http://www.cabelas.com/catalog/product. ... t104280480 .....with an air mattress: http://www.cabelas.com/product/camping/ ... _104484780 ...............and/or one of these in the 38" width: ..........http://www.cabelas.com/product/camping/ ... _104484780

I sleep as good on that as i do my home bed.

The ONLY other way i sleep good in a tent is: ....


Awesome tent: http://www.cabelas.com/product/Cabelas- ... 6CQ_st%3Db ....it used to be avail with aluminum poles for more strength in very high winds.

[TwinStick]

It seems that everything is a compromise. Figure out what your comfort level is & go from there, as everyone is different.............especially if wife is with you & not comfortable.....then NO ONE is happy !

We bought the smallest thing that we are comfortable with. An 18' totally enclosed hard side camper with no slides (to jam or break or leak at the worst possible time), that will get us off the beaten path/ish, with high/er ground clearance, yet still has all the comforts of home. Queen-short bed, a/c, furnace, stove, fridge, microwave, toilet, dinette, storage, etc..
There is a lot to be said for just being able to cook, sleep well, etc, while it is storming outside.

[Vee]

We have no issues sleeping in our shell because we have a regular cab 3rd gen, so you may have issue in the shorter bed. I am 5'10" and had no issue in our 2012 1500 QC which has the same bed as a 4th gen PW. As far as awning gap, it just depends on how you mount it. It will mount flush to any surface. Mine is mounted to my canopy roof rack so there is a inch or so gap. Pool noodles solve that easily. I think ARB does well in wind, and it has many options for wind breaks, screen rooms or awning rooms.

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[Vee]

And yes there is a gap between the awning roof itself and the room that attaches to it. About 2 inches. We had no issue with wind up to around 20mph on Thursday in Death Valley.

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[DamageWagon]

Thanks for the info guys. Vee, that long bed definitely makes a difference! Thanks for the info on the ARB awning.

Since I work in Engineering and on our lasers, I think I am basically going to make a camper shell myself out of plate metal. Because I can make a stainless steel shell I can kill a few birds at once. I can make it very strong, much lighter than wood, more go-fast safe, more insulated, and cheaper than even our RTT cost us. I think this is all actually very realistic. Part of the weight savings is that I might skip putting in the lower tub and just bolt it to the bed rails.

Nothing is decided yet, but this seems like our best option. We can pop the top up during good/moderate weather, and drop it down in severe storms. Maybe I'm nuts but I feel this is totally within my scope. Well, I am nuts, but if my girlfriend won't stop me no one will...


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[TwinStick]

SSteel camper/cap shell !!!

[Bakes]

Man....that sounds like a ton of work, $$ and it will be freaking heavy with SS. Aluminum maybe. SS is just gonna be heavy. My recommendation is to just get yourself a nice ARB cap (*I have the 6" extended height one) and be done with it for a couple of thousand $$ and 2 hours of your time to get it put on. Make sure you get the windoors, carpet the ceiling and get the integrated LED lighting.

I probably log about 20 nights a year in the back of my truck. I like that I can keep the back and windows open when I want to look at the stars and then close up once I'm ready for sleep. They are essentially wind proof. We had winds, snow and rain that were blowing down fully staked out tents and awnings that I never noticed except for a gentle rocking of the truck. I am 6'3" and just barely fit in the back of mine.

Those RTT are super loud and flappy in the wind. I park as far away from them as I can. Not really a fan.

If your going fast enough to trash your cap your gonna have other problems besides your cap. You can totally camp out for a few months with a capper. We have a piece of wood at bed-rail level that acts as a shelf.

Anyways...sounds fun. No reason to be going mach 6 in a camping rig...unless you like breaking stuff.

[DamageWagon]

I'm considering aluminum but I want the rigidity of the stainless. The price is almost comparable between the two. The cost would be about 1/3 or less of our rooftop tent. This whole thing will probably be under $1000 including stove and cabinets inside. Weight would be laughable next to a 4Wheel Camper - probably around 400lbs using stainless, not including cabinetry since we're not sure what we want to do there. Obviously this could turn into a wasteful nightmare like any project, but I think this is very doable.

A cap is too small for us just to sleep in, let alone have our gear in that we have to shuffle every morning and night. We are going to be spending 3 months in this in one trip, plus future trips. We want hard shelter since we are moving to Oregon and planning many trips to Washington and Idaho. Pop up campers in our price range are usually beat to crap, heavy, structurally unsound, hard to repair, full of rats and won't hold up to the abuse we are planning. I'm obviously not trying to break things, but I don't want to take 3 hours to get from the highway to Hans Flat like we did in my buddies FJ Cruiser... Things like that are annoying. I also can't afford to break things like axles or our camper, so I have a mental barrier.


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[Limamikemike]

You could try to find an used callen camper or a used commercial cap like a spacekap and convert it. There is a pile more space in those than a run of the mill cap. Even used they might be out of your budget though.

[2011TXPowerWagon]

Look forward to seeing what you come up with. Have you got any preliminary renderings done?

[Bakes]

Hmmmm...post a picture/sketch of what you are planning on doing. There is some dude from the PNW who did something similar to this and it turned out pretty cool.

[DamageWagon]

I'm trying to not build a friggin parachute I appreciate the cap ideas there. I looked at doing one of the commercial caps. I think we need to go fully custom though. Modifying one is going to be more of a headache and more expensive.

I have a CAD drawing that is partway done. I'll put some pictures up when I get further along so you can see where I'm going.


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[TwinStick]

I absolutely LOVE our ARE MX series cap. X 2 on the carpet & LED lighting. I also got the Yakima roof rack. That extra 5-6" REALLY makes a difference (that's what she says, ). I think it was only on the truck 2 days, before I had to put something back there that made me wonder if it is going to fit. It did fit but I also am sure it would not have, if we had gotten a cab height cap. I made my own bed slide that works friggin awesome. Every single time i use it at a store, loading something, someone always asks where i bought it.

Made it off this video i found. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd1Sx_tldHs

I made mine 3- 2x4's high for the bottom compartment, instead of 2. I also have it secured to the bed, to the front 2 tie downs, with J hooks & turn buckles, so it WILL NOT tip. I also used a larger piece of 3/4" plywood for the top rollers, & used 4 on each side, instead of 1. Storage underneath & on top.

[2011TXPowerWagon]

http://www.govplanet.com/jsp/s/auction. ... 0desc&mf=1
Grab one of those!!!

[DamageWagon]

http://www.govplanet.com/jsp/s/auction. ... 0desc&mf=1
Grab one of those!!!

i already have one I'm selling it because I HATE taking trailers off road.


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