James Baroud roof top tents

[Cuppa]

Being the owner of a rooftop tent I’ll make some comments.

Firstly although this style of rooftop tent has some pitfalls, if buying one now I would consider it.
The pitfall in the design is that in wet weather there is no covering over the entry. Getting in & out in driving rain would be like living in a swag in similar conditions.

Our rooftop tent ( Shippshape) has two features which sold me on it. The entrance is well protected, in fact it can be left open in even the worst rain. Excellent for giving good airflow.
It also, unlike many, does not rely on the ladder to support it when erected. So no need to have the ladder in the middle of your ‘downstairs’ living space (which is under cover & enclose able).
As far as rooftop tents go, I reckon it’s one of the best designs. However where the design you are looking at shines brighter is in putting it up & down - it wil be quicker & easier, not by heaps, but when doing it on a regular basis less is more. The other aspect is it’s solid roof. In the wet, although the walls would still be wet, packing up would have to be less drama.

All that said, I am currently re-thinking whether I really want a rooftop tent. Unike some folk I don’t mind the climbing up & down, (flat steps are way more comfy on bare feet copared to rungs) & I enjoy the extra ‘airiness’ that you don’t get in in a ground based tent. The two things however, which I can envisage becoming a real pain when living in the vehicle for extended periods is 1) the whole packing up wet scenario but more 2) when we have camped in places where there are other folk around & it is not appropriate to climb down the ladder starkers to get dressed outside, I find it bloody hard going having to get dressed sitting down with no ‘wall’ I can lean against to assist the process. Might not sound like much, but believe me, it would drive me nuts. Starting the day grumpy is not what I want.

What I am now considering is to remove the rooftopper & to permanently mount the solar panels I currently have ‘loose’ in it’s place. Instead of ‘up top’ I am thinking of building a small ‘towable bedroom’ - essentially a bed sized off road teardrop, as light as possible, but with solid walls & roof & sitting up room. ONLY the bed, no need for anything else because it’s already all there in the pod. Oh,& a door on each side so I don’t have to climb over the top of MrsTea when getting up for a middle of the night leak. Although there is the downside of having to tow, it would give us the flexibility of far less packing when just heading out from ‘base’ for the day, or heading to town to get supplies. Because we would also still carry our ground based ‘Oztent’ we could leave the towable bedroom behind & ‘rough it’ when particular routes make towing less desirable or impractical. Removal of the solar panels from inside the pod would free up space to carry a couple of foam mattresses for those occasions.

Still all just in the consideration stage, because as yet we haven’t used the rooftopper where we have needed to put it up & down on a daily basis, nor in really foul weather. If I do decide to build a ‘teardrop’ it’ll have to wait until we’ve sold here & moved, so I wont be rushing into it.

I expect Macca might also comment as he has a tent of the same design as you are considering.

Cuppa