Roof top tent advantages?

Rooftop Tents Are Suddenly Cool. You Still Shouldn’t Buy One.
https://www.insidehook.com/article/gear/should-buy-rooftop-tent

The article above is admittedly a bit simplistic. Discuss...

 

Says the fellow from...............New York City

I'd say he has an opinion. Will it influence many? Not likely.

 

Agreed. Some of these types of articles read like "My editor needs 1500 words in 90 minutes on something. Anything."

 

I agree with the points of new comers jumping on the band wagon and needing a RTT. However, after about 20 years of camping with my wife and 18 and 16 year old kids, I want to pull into a site and be able to go to sleep with out breaking my back setting up camp. We sleep great at camp, cots for the win, except they are dam heavy. My wife and I plan to travel the country and it will provide us with the ability to camp quickly at place to place. Any other camping we get out of it will be a bonus.

 

There are always 4 of us when we go camping, so we need a tent. At some point I will probably get a small trailer, but I don't see us using a RTT.

 

Cool if you don’t have a big family., gotta tear it down to move and explore. Crazy stupid pricing for an item that takes up ur whole rack and limits the rest of your cargo. Mainly for the ig I think.. bugs fly bears climb and an rtt gets your likes.

 

I figure a night in a hotel/motel is a hundred bucks, so my goal is to get 30 nights in the first 2 years and then I’ll consider it worth it.

 

I really don't like camping anymore.

Lots of folks invite me to camp in the National Forest where I off road almost weekly. It's 20 minutes from my house. I'd rather hang out till 10pm around the bonfire and then go back to my house.

Camping in the woods was more enjoyable when I lived in an apartment or townhouse in the city.
Now that I live in the sticks and having some land, I'd rather sleep in my own bed.


All that being said, friends of mine invited me to camp out in late September. I agreed and went with them. Sweated my ass off setting up my ground tent. Sweated some more pounding stakes into the rocky Ozarks ground. Sweated again filling up my air mattress.

Ate dinner and hung out around the bonfire drinking beer. Called it a night and sweated all over again laying on top of my sleeping bag. It never got cool that night.

In the morning, I sweated all over again, tearing down camp.


So yeah - a quick setup rooftop tent, makes sense to me. Pull into camp. Pop up the RTT in a couple seconds - that is a hell of a lot easier than messing with ground tents.

 

I sweat a ton as well, even on cooler days packing up camp, I need to leave a change of clothes at a minimum, depending on the site, a swim or shower is warranted before climbing in for the drive home. Even when packing at home to go, I plan for a shower before the drive.

 

Despite being a skinny dude, I warm up considerably when moving around, and can sweat heavily depending upon weather conditions. That's why I ditched all my cotton clothing and bought nice wool and synthetic layers. Its makes a hell of a difference. But then again I've never been to Missouri, nor Louisiana nor Mississippi. I can't imagine living in those conditions, and can understand that not even proper clothing can make certain experiences enjoyable.

Having said that, if my options are hiking 5+ miles in the rain and setting up my camp on a wet site vs staying home, I'm heading out into the wilderness almost every time.

 

Amen Bro..

 

You guys need one of these. Worth every penny. No more sweating all night. It moves a lot more air than the battery powered ones. It will run all night on about 25% power, which is a decent breeze. It will reach full charge on a garbage Harbor Freight inverter while blowing all day on high. I ran it 24/7 all summer for three summers already. I will buy another one when this one dies. I have no connection with the company, it is just a solid product. https://www.vminnovations.com/Produ...3s0pah_u-wZxnM_MI9m-om-Tgr8Otq6QaArDJEALw_wcB

As for RTT, not me. It would just be a matter of time before I busted my ass down the ladder. No more tents for sleeping, only for day use. I had an encounter with a BIG aggressive wild hog while tent sleeping…ain’t doing that again. Truck sleeping is the dealio. Hehe

 

A great idea. The 16 inch fan fits OK in your 4Runner? I see there’s also a 12 inch and 10 inch model.

 

My long-term goal is to get a drawer setup and a platform to set up a cushion on top for sleeping inside the rig.

That offers the best protection from critters, bears, and or course the most dangerous species, Putin sympathizers.

 

Mine is actually the 10” oops. Good eye.

 

Dang, where was this?

 

Yep, and if it is pouring rain youndon’t have to get out!

Texas. I had 3 dogs in the tent sleeping with me when it showed up. The scariest part was all the chaos.

 

I am in Texas so can you be more specific? LOL.... I am assuming East Texas? There is a trail out in Gilmer I want to hit up, but it also happens to have a ton of Feral Hog hunting trails out there lol. (extra incentive to prepare with things other than "beat spray"

 

Haha It was on a property I used to hunt and trap near Helotes. I had set a bunch of traps and was just camping out because the weather was nice and I had not been out in a while. About 0300 a couple of my dogs woke me up growling and I heard it outside. I flipped on a light as it was pushing its snout against the side of the tent and that was all my dogs needed to go full berserk. The tent came down and I think the hog most likely hauled ass right away, but I couldn’t tell with the mayhem. It was a very vulnerable feeling. A couple pf months later I got this monster on my trail cam and decided to give up tent sleeping. The pics of the cow and my Tundra are for size reference.

 

Dude that is the steps to the hill country! that thing must have been 500 lbs, that is SCARY

 

Hehe yeah bro crazy. Lots of people have given their estimates. All have been over 500; a couple said 700+. I guessed him at around 600. I have killed a bunch of big hogs, including a 350 lb boar at the same property and it was not even close to that big. I never hunted sitting next to a tree out there again after that.

 

I got some friends in KC that go to Oklahoma for hog hunting and I keep telling them Texas is where its at. Feral hog meat mighty gamey for me, but they make good sausage

 

I just found the 10 inch fan at Walmart, I just ordered, cheapest I’ve found. $70.56

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Geek-Air...ancid=null&athposb=0&athena=true&athbdg=L1400