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- Aug 9, 2007
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I am in love. Here are my thoughts so far. I've camped 12 nights in it so far, plus 2 in my driveway which I obviously don't count. I'm about to head out for another 3 nights down in the desert. Overall it has far surpassed my expectations. Here are some observations and things I like and don't like. I hate to be that person to love something just because I own it. I'm really trying to be subjective here. I've owned and been around boats and RV's so I feel like I have some perspective. Sorry this is so long...
First off, let me just say that I'm not even usually a fan of camping in a tent. Sleeping on the ground is a-okay with me. A lot of that is because I like being open to the night sky, but I think a lot of it is because I don't like the effort of putting it all up. So this has changed things a lot for me.
It is incredible easy to pop it up and take it down. I've been driving mine to work every day and inevitably someone wants to see the inside. It takes me about 60 seconds to pop the latches and get the roof up. Maybe another minute if I want to roll down all the windows in a pretty way, open the roof vents and make the place presentable. It's really easy. That said, adding a solar panel on the roof definitely made it feel heavier to pop up. My wife has to put a good amount of effort into the actual popping up part. I have read that you can upgrade the struts to make that easier, and I will probably do that over the winter.
It's very comfortable for 2 people inside, so long as you're not trying to stand in the same place. If you're sitting down and hanging out, playing a game or something, I could easily see having 4 people in comfort. Small people could up that number. My wife and I lived out of it for 10 nights and 2600 miles in the PNW and it never felt cramped. We never even came close to using the storage space available, although we did keep most of our clothes in the back seat of the truck. We also restocked food and beverage a couple of times along the way.
The king bed is massive and great to sleep on. It's on the firm side of things and we've considered adding a topper like many have, but so far we're reluctant to add a layer of complexity to the setup and storage. I sleep very well on it.
Speaking of sleeping, it's so awesome to be able to sleep in for hours after the sun comes up when highs are in the 90's in the desert. That's what I did a the weekend before last, and it was amazing. And that was without running either of the fans. One afternoon I took a nap when it was 93 degrees out in the middle of the afternoon, with the fan over the bed running. It was a little warm in there, but not bad.
While the king size bed is amazing, sliding it out at times is kind of annoying. When it's just me and my wife, sometimes she wants to go to bed without me and I want to stay up but work on something inside. But extending the bed eliminates the use of the dinette. One night she just slept on the upper bed and I slept on the lower bed so I could wake up and dial in to a meeting early in the morning. That worked out well. Now you're probably thinking, "this is not camping!". And yeah, I kind of agree, but if I can have a tool that enables me to stay out longer, even if it means mixing some work with pleasure, then count me in. In non-campground, more remote locations and with friends, I would definitely just hang out outside and let her go to sleep.
Speaking of which, this thing makes campground camping tolerable. I still hate it, and would avoid it whenever possible, but sometimes there is no public land to just go park on. The coast is a good example. If I had to tent camp in those places, I'm not sure I would do it.
The stove inside is a piece of junk. It's good for making coffee in the morning, or soup, or small things, but it's not that powerful if you wanted to do real cooking. The burners are also really close together. That said, I never intended to cook much in it anyway. We keep a Partner stove on board and set it up outside, where we want to be. The camper has two propane tanks, one of which is a spare, so it's easy to break out and setup. One night on the last trip it was too windy to cook, so I did a full bacon/eggs thing in the camper for dinner. I peeled back the thermal pack soft layer to keep anything from splattering on it. It worked out okay but more BTU's would have made it go faster, but would have also splattered more grease around.
Doing dishes in a sink with a water heater is pretty awesome. The downside is that it uses a lot of water if you're not careful.
The grey water system, or lack thereof is not the best. The default method is that you hook a hose up to a fitting on the side of the camper and drop one end in a bucket or water jug. That catches all your grey water, then you just dump it out somewhere. It's not that bad, but I want to build an integrated system to make it easier. I have some ideas but for now it's only a minor inconvenience.
Having a water faucet outside the camper is great for filling dog bowls, brushing teeth, filling bottles, etc. Unfortunately this is also one of the cheapest plastic-y things on the camper. It doesn't match the otherwise extremely high build quality. Wish they would have put a more solid spigot in. It will need to be replaced eventually.
Showering when out in the middle of nowhere is amazing. I need a better privacy method for when people are around, but being able to clean up midway through a trip, or before going home, is really, really nice.
I'm pleased with how well the dual batteries keeps everything powered. I added a solar panel, inverter and solar charge controller and it makes it hard for me to understand how everyone doesn't have it. The wires form the alternator to the camper are small and don't allow a very fast charge, so the solar actually does more good than running the truck. This may change as the sun angle fades, but in sunny Utah, and even Oregon and Washington when we went, I can run most anything I want and the batteries won't dip very low and the sun will top them off with ease everyday. The lowest I've ever gotten is 68% and I've only had one day that I didn't get topped back up to 100% from driving and solar. I may add another panel that I can tilt in the winter. Or perhaps just a portable panel that I can position on the ground. I may also change my batteries to lithium. Definitely by the time I need to replace them in a few years, if not sooner.
RV fridges are awesome and horrible at the same time. Mine is on the large side at 130 qt (max from FWC). I can go shopping days in advance and load up my fridge and forget about it. I can make ice in the middle of nowhere. I can't however keep all the stuff in there from flying all over the place when I drive around. I'll be trying some new options to make that less of an issue on this next trip.
Camping solo out of this thing is AMAZING. I've never liked car camping solo. Backpacking solo was more pleasing because I had more to keep busy with. But car camping out of this by myself is incredibly good. I don't know what it is. Just the ease of driving around and then pick a spot and pop the top maybe. No messing with setting everything up. It's not a big event, you're just out there living. Then just park it and go do a hike or relax or whatever. There is always ample shade on one side of it most of the year, although an awning will be coming at some point.
It's not bad to drive around as a daily driver, but it's not great either. In the back of my Tundra, I can definitely feel the weight. It's no problem for the power available, but it definitely takes away some of the zippy sports car feel of the Tundra 5.7 V8. Fuel efficiency is obviously worse, although fuel efficiency in a Tundra pretty much always sucks. The way I drive and with meaty tires, I'm lucky to get 12-13 mpg without the camper. With it, I get about 11 mpg. That's a trade-off I can accept though, for what this rig grants me. I am seriously considering buying a commuter vehicle so I can leave it parked. Not just for the poor MPG, but to keep miles off of it since it is a purpose-built rig.
We haven't wanted or needed the furnace at night yet, but sometimes when it's cold in the morning, it's nice to kick it on right before hopping out of bed and while you're getting ready. It fires up fast and isn't annoying to sleep to when you're not quite ready to get out of bed.
The overall build quality of the camper itself is insanely good. I read somewhere online recently that someone was complaining that it took like 47 screws to get one panel off of their cabinetry to get access to the back end electronics (that you shouldn't need to access). That's a feature, in my opinion. You can get in if you need, but it's bomber for getting bumped around on dirt roads mile after mile.
I need to get a checklist for when it's time to close the thing down. I'm getting pretty good at remembering all of the things, but it should still exist, especially if I ever let a friend use it. It's easy to forgot to close the vents, for example. And one time in Oregon, I totally spaced latching the roof down and I ended up driving for probably 30-45 minutes with it unlatched. I had no idea until we stopped in the rainforest and went on a short hike to a waterfall. As we got back to the truck I thought someone had broken into it. But no, the wind had just popped it open in the front. I guess that's a testament to the build quality. I think a lot of campers out there would have blown apart at highway speeds.
I bet for a lot of people you're reading this thinking "I don't need all that stuff/luxury/unnecessary bullshit". And you are right. Sleeping on the ground or in tents is fine and I enjoy it. I just hate the process of doing it. Same reason I think most rooftop tents are stupid. I also hate the idea of towing anything at all, no matter how small or light. For me, this is the perfect balance. Yeah, I like sleeping outside, but with the crossflow in this thing, the only thing I lack is the view of the night sky, and I only see that for a few fleeting moments in my sleep when I rollover. This setup allows me to do everything but with so much ease. I could honestly live out of it and be pretty happy. In fact, I kind of want to lately. We'll see how I feel after another year.
Here are some pics. I've posted a bunch of these elsewhere, but some are new. Good to put them all here though.
Low quality panoramic photo from inside when we were hanging out in eastern Oregon. Night 10 of that trip.
My solar panel install (180 watts).
A bunch of campsites and things...
Taking it on a ferry across the Puget Sound to Seattle. Yeah, that guy was totally checking it out.
A busy looking (but not feeling) campground at Cape Lookout, right on the beach in Oregon. You can see my janky cell booster install in this photo. Made it so I could work for a while and still have a great day.
In the jungle at Cape Perpetua.
One of the better campground campsites at Mora Campground near Rialto Beach in ONP.
That time we forgot to latch the roof shut. There's still bugs splattered on the vinyl from that...
The first true night of camping in it on BLM land in southern Idaho.
And the second night along the South Fork Payette.
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