Question for the truck camper owners

[M303871]

I am a new poster but a long time lurker so here goes. My wife and I are looking to replace our TT (27' trail vision) with a truck camper and we are looking for any input that we can gather. We have been researching on the topic for about 6 mo and have looked at several models and manufacturers, but we would greatly appreciate any real world info that we can get.

Thanks in advance M303871.

 

[MissChris]

We have a truck camper that rides on our 1980 GMC 1-ton, we love it. We bought it about 3 years ago when our daughter was about 1 1/2 and it has served us well. It has a queen size bed in the over cab area, stove, oven, fridge, dinette/sleeper area and bathroom with toilet, sink and shower head mounted on the wall that turns the entire bathroom into a shower. In my ideal world I would actually prefer more storage space over the bathroom, we actually use the bathroom as a kind of locker for big items and use the bathrooms at the campgrounds, a personal preference for us. Our camper has only a single grey/black water tank that I don't relish the idea of emptying should we be using the bathroom facilities to their full, although when the daughter was potty training it did avert a couple of disasters.

However, now that we have a new baby the camper's days might be numbered. It is very compact traveling and it might be hard to sleep two kids in it. You didn't really say anything about your family or what exactly you wanted to know about truck campers so I'm just sort of giving impressions.

I would say the pros are:

Easy to drive.
Easy to find camp sites because we can go with or without hook-ups due to internal water tank and battery that is capable of running all the lights for a couple of days.
Practically no set up unless we pull out the awning.


cons are:

Somewhat tight quarters.
You need a high load capacity on your truck, ours has leaf springs to hold the extra weight

The most inconvenient thing about it though is when we camp we can't just drop off the camper and then use the vehicle to sight see or run errands, every time we need to go to the grocery store or anything at all we have to fold up the awning and disconnect and drive the whole shebang over.


We're actually considering trading up to a trailer to accomodate our enlarged family and our desire to take side trips while camping.

Maybe we should trade

 

[M303871]

Miss Chris
Thank you very much for the info, as for more info I was looking to gather peoples pros and cons about truck campers. As for additional info from me it is just my wife, me and our puppy Keegan (16 week old beagle) I am 28, and my wife is 29 we currently are not planning on having children but that is only for right now. The TT is our second camper the first was a pop up, which we realy enjoied more than the current one, we realy like the freedom to camp almost any were with the pop up we just got tired of setting it up and then taking it back down every time. I have a 97 dodge 2500 with firestone 5k airbags on it so weight is not a major issue but still a concern. We like the idea that we will be able to camp most any were, I also plan on towing our jeep wrangler or my wife's nissan Cube to drive around when we get there.

M303871

 

[grumpythis]

We had a truck camper and we would drop it at campsite and drive to food
store and where ever ealse we wanted go
we also have a 1999 GMC Crewcab 1 ton duelly

 

[Lil' Lisa]

We are on our second TC and we love it. The first one just wasn't right for us, but we consider it a learning experience. These are the things that we learned were "must haves" for our second camper (YMMV):

1. A shower (even though we use the showers at the campground, they don't generally put hot water heaters in TCs that don't have a shower)
2. North South bed (extended cabover). Crawling over your significant other in the middle of the night to use the facilities is no fun for the crawler or crawlee.
3. Electric jacks (we take the camper off of the truck at the campground and these make it a snap - first floor... ladies lingere, housewares and children's clothing!)
4. As much storage as humanly possible in a TC.
5. Air Conditioner

As with any other type of camper, the most important thing is to do your homework. Also make sure you are totally comfortable backing the truck up because you will be doing so while fitting something into your truck bed with about 1 inch of clearance on either side. Each time I see my DH do it, I am totally amazed! A good resource for (potential and current) TC owners is NATCOA.com They will be able to answer any questions that you may have about becoming a TC owner.

BTW - We wouldn't trade our TC for the world (unless it was for another TC)!

 

[M303871]

Thank you all for the info, we have currently sorted through most TC and so far we like the arctic fox 990.
Lil' Lisa I was looking forward to hearing from you I have looked at the photos of your camper, very nice.

M303871

 

[Lil' Lisa]

Thank you all for the info, we have currently sorted through most TC and so far we like the arctic fox 990.
Lil' Lisa I was looking forward to hearing from you I have looked at the photos of your camper, very nice.

M303871

The Arctic Fox campers are sweet! We looked at Arctic Fox, but they were out of our price range. That slide will give you so much extra room too. We want one of those on our third camper, but that will be far off in the future. One other option that we love is our satellite dish. Of course that is only cost effective if you already have satellite TV at home or if you are one of those lucky folks who use their camper year round.

Thanks for the kudos on the pictures! We had a lot of fun customizing our little home on legs.