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Tent Toppers

S

Soapy1

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Idaho
Looking around at some top mount tents for overlanding. Smittybuilt makes some around $1000 and price goes up from there. Anyone had experience with top tents?
 
A little bit. They've heavy and like lugging another person ontop of your Jeep. Extra weight in the worsts spot to put a bunch of extra weight. I tried one for a little while and didn't like how top heavy it made the Jeep feel, not to mention you can't setup camp then go wheeling, since camp is literally attached to your vehicle. Leveling can also be kind of a pain but then again I use the inside of the Jeep as a tent haha.
 
Have friends who've used them. Sucks to wheel with, not very big inside, and holy f-ing hell they're pricey. Happy with my $100 @ Costco 6 person that takes up a fraction of the space, allows me to use my roof rack for something, and doesn't weight a ton.

Only real advantage I see is it's slightly quicker to set up, and you don't have to blow up air mattresses or anything.
 
done lots of camping. for my style, being able to leave camp set up, and wheel to return the next night is the good thing about regular ground tents. also reduced weight, reduce top heavy weight at that. If your camping style permits it, and your ok with the high up weight, then they maybe for you, not for me however, and I do a lot of offroad camping. If only the jeep was a foot or so longer inside, that would be making sleeping inside ok for me. as it is now, with rear seat flat, bottom cushion removed, I can just about fit with out going diagonal. My old VW van was superior for sleeping, queen size mattress plus room to spare! , but it was not near the off road vehicle as the jeep, although lifted, with bigger tires it took me to some pretty rugged places that surprised people, not bad for 2 wd
 
I have a Yakima Skyrise 2 on top of my XJ and I like it. It depends on what type of camping/off roading you do. I'm more of an Overlander type so it works well for me. It is super fast to setup, you just take the cover off and unfold it, so unfolding/folding it at the end of the day is really not an issue. I don't have a lot of lift so I don't notice the top heaviness really. The Skyrise 2 is also one of the lighter roof top tents out there so that helps, its only about 100lbs total.

What I like the most about it is I can just about camp anywhere I want. I could camp on a pile of rocks if I wanted to as long as there is something to support the ladder. I like to be able to wing it and not have to worry about campsite reservations and all that jazz. It's nice being able to explore around knowing that worst case scenario if it gets late I could just pull off the road and unfold the tent.

I got mine on sale from REI around Christmas for $700 so it wasn't too expensive. I did run into some problems installing it. The holes for the mounting brackets were not drilled correctly. Instead of dealing with the hassle of returning this huge thing I called Yakima and yelled at them and made them send me about $100 worth of accessories I was planning on buying anyway and then just drilled new holes myself. So in the end it worked out. The thing is too heavy to put on/take off by yourself unless your Schwarzenegger or something so you will need help or have to fashion a crane of some type (what I did).

I don't think an off roading tent trailer makes a lot of sense except for very specific situations. Its going to cost a lot more, be a lot more complicated, and limit you a lot more than just a rooftop tent
 
Yeah, that looks like the "HD" version. Mine is just the regular red one, I don't see it on REI anymore maybe that's why it was on sale, but it is available from other sellers. I'm guessing the "HD" is Heavy Duty, I don't really see that big of a difference but IDK.
 
This concern doesn't apply to everyone but we old guys have to pee several times at night. Those roof top tents dont look amenable to getting up and whizzing at 3 am.
 
Rod Knee said:
This concern doesn't apply to everyone but we old guys have to pee several times at night. Those roof top tents dont look amenable to getting up and whizzing at 3 am.
Click to expand...

Peeing out the side of it is the only plus I can see on one!
 
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