RV - Learn me about pop up truck campers

I have been messing around with my new Dodge 3/4 ton pickup and have been thinking about adding a small camper to the back . The truck is going to be my tow pig, hauling the Miata race car, the boat, dirt bikes and other toys. I will also be taking my border collie to dog competitions. Mrs. Snowdoggie doesn't like camping so it is going to be just me and the dog at most. I won't be living out of the thing long term or taking any long trips. It will be mostly weekends or three days. Camping out at the lake or the track or out in the country at herding dog events and such. I would like it to be somewhat self contained with the a/c, stove and fridge. I even saw some pop ups that had a tiny bathroom with shower. I already have a 3,000 watt generator to bring with me that could fit on my car trailer. I was thinking a pop up would be more aerodynamic, lighter and easier to handle. With camper jacks I can also take the camper off and turn it back into a pickup. I may even put snow tires on it and take it skiing or snowmobiling in New Mexico without the trailer. I am currently looking at Alaskans and Palominos. This could actually replace my motorhome that doesn't get used enough.

Any recommendations?

Personal opinion, so take it with whatever grains of salt you wish.

I never found the aero/weight benefits to outweigh the drawbacks of a canvas-side RV.  I've had a couple slide in (hardside) campers and they have been great.  The added benefit is that setup is non-existent.  If you're on the road and need to make lunch, or need a bathroom without a truck stop in sight, you just open the door and step in.  The pop up requires that you raise the roof to get in.

Pop ups are also going to leak, going to be difficult to heat and cool, and did I mention leak?  They'll leak.

Again, personal opinion.  You have a 3/4 ton which should be great with a 12' slide in.

^ what he said. I went through the same math and ended up with a hardside truck camper. It is way easier to keep it comfortable In extreme cool or warm weather, doesn't leak, is more soundproof, and is easy to duck in and out of as needed. IMO the only good reason for a softside is if you're managing low payload requirements on a 1/2 ton truck. The Cirrus 620 I got wasn't cheap but it has been worth every penny.

Back when I was doing a lot of racing / camping I looked at pop up campers. The name that popped up a lot when it came to quality was Alaskan. Back then they looked very good but my wallet spun a bearing.

http://alaskancampers.com/ 

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

My main reason for thinking of a pop up was weight and possibly aerodynamics. Having the camper fold down might actually be worth a few MPG. I am going to be hauling the camper, a trailer with the Miata and maybe a pit bike and 3,000 generator as well. At most I might want to put the Cherokee on the trailer and drag it to the RV park. I just want to make sure I don't go over on weight. I am not firm on the pop up idea by any means. 

My pop up is under 1000lbs, and doesn't leak.

My pickup has the 8 foot bed as well if that makes a difference. It's the big dog. I used to have a '70 F 100 with a full sized camper and that thing was a handful.

After years of full timing in a Class A, my parents wanted to tour in something that could get into more places. Since there weren't 4x4 Sprinters yet, which they later ended up with too, they went for a slide in truck camper. They initially purchased a traditional hard sided one, that looked like an elephant riding a donkey even on their camper package 3/4 to truck. As soon as they got it home and parked it next to the Class A, they realized they had made a mistake. While shorter in length, it punched almost as big of a hole in the wind (and trees) as the Class A. Within a month it was gone and a Four Wheel Campers pop-up was in it's place. In addition to the improved travel size, even with the 'overkill' truck they also noticed the improved road manners and fuel economy.

Over the next few years they traveled all over North America (from the Mexico border to the Arctic circle, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic) in it for weeks at a time without issue. All weather. No leaks. No problems. Popping the top wasn't a big deal for them either. I think a bit of condensation is part of any pop-up life though. Admittedly, they were also still generally chasing the milder temps.

Like every other type of camper, it's nothing but a series of compromises. None are inherently more or less compromised than any other, just differently compromised. For them, the pop-up compromises were better than the hard side compromises on a slide in truck camper. For others it's flipped. All you can do is pick the compromises you think will work best for you. Unfortunately, you might not know which is which for you until after you experience each. 

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

My main reason for thinking of a pop up was weight and possibly aerodynamics. Having the camper fold down might actually be worth a few MPG. I am going to be hauling the camper, a trailer with the Miata and maybe a pit bike and 3,000 generator as well. At most I might want to put the Cherokee on the trailer and drag it to the RV park. I just want to make sure I don't go over on weight. I am not firm on the pop up idea by any means. 

I don't think you'll be overweight if you're careful with the size of camper you get.  For my first 20 years of life, we did it with a Dreamer 10-foot slide-in towing a boat, using either a 69 C10 or later a 78 C20 crew cab.  Dad now has a whopper 12' with two slides, but he has it on a dually.

I am not trying to convince you by any means, just an opinion.  I just like things simple.  Give me an aluminum box that I can enter any time without a crank-up system that could fail, canvas that could leak, or anything extra.  I don't mind a little bit of engineering complexity, but IMO, they went to great lengths to engineer one extra MPG while adding fabric to make walls, the requirement to set it up before you go in it, and an invitation to leaks, tears, and heat transfer.

It sounds like all the drawbacks of a tent in an effort to save 1 mpg.  I want to stop and make lunch, and most of all, I want to pull into a campsite in the evening and camp... not spend an hour setting up camp.  Having said that, I do tent plenty, but if I'm buying an RV, I want it to be as little effort as possible.

YMMV.

Four Wheel Campers

Alakskan

Lance

Geez.... I just followed the link to the Alaskan site. At those prices I'd be looking at a used motorhome.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

My main reason for thinking of a pop up was weight and possibly aerodynamics. Having the camper fold down might actually be worth a few MPG. I am going to be hauling the camper, a trailer with the Miata and maybe a pit bike and 3,000 generator as well. At most I might want to put the Cherokee on the trailer and drag it to the RV park. I just want to make sure I don't go over on weight. I am not firm on the pop up idea by any means. 

I won't comment on hard side versus soft but I will say do the math on fuel. It is really important to honestly asses your use case, if you are taking weekend trips of a few hours 2-3 mpg aren't going to make a big difference. If you are putting on tens of thousands of miles it will. I'd ask myself hard "what is my use case" and make a spreadsheet on fuel costs if I wanted to know how heavily to weight that consideration. 

We traveled in a camper for ~7 years with a hard side slide-in on a full ton dually.   Camped with just the camper, towed the racecar in a 24' enclosed trailer, or pulled our Bronco and then Jeep behind it.

When I first started looking, I looked at pop-ups, specifically Four Wheel campers.  They make nice stuff, but one look at the cassette toilet, and how the dinette turned into the shower and my wife 'noped' the pop-ups.  If you really like tent camping, you can probably live with the compromises, but it wasn't for us.

As noted above, the advantages of a hard side are zero-setup.  Rest stop, gas station, or even a wide spot in the road can be a leisurely lunch, or overnight stop without any setup.  I never owned a pop-up, so I can't speak directly to the durability, but I have seen some in pretty sad condition.  Our Lance was 10 years old when we bought it and looked like new.  Still looked great when we sold it this year.

If you see a slide in on a pickup going down the road, it's probably overloaded.  Do your research on your axle and payload limits, and dig up the REAL loaded weight of the campers you're looking at, not the 'brochure' weights.   Our Lance was 4500lbs loaded and wet.  Older leaf spring 3/4 tons do better than the newer coil sprung trucks... they're specc'd for ride quality over payload.   Here's a useful site for calculating balance and axle weights:  Truck camper weight calculator

Everything with a truck camper is a compromise, but they can be a great solution if you need to tow.

I had an Alaskan for several years. I bought it for about $700, spent a couple of months rebuilding parts of it, and then drove it all over the US and parts of Canada. Build thread is HERE. 
 

It was pretty good though a little small for what I wanted and didn't have a shower. 

If I were to do it again, I'd probably look for another Alaskan. I have not been very impressed with the canvas popups I've seen and the hard side is much more weather resistant. 

A very good friend of mine drove across country during the covid with his wife in a Ford Super Duty equipped with a poptop slide in camper. After a couple months they ended up in Arizona where they bought a tow behind camper. They were tired of only one of them being able to stand up at a time.

There were other complaints/observations but that was the deal killer.

In reply to Toyman! :

Your Alaskan is just plain cool. If I could find one for $700, or even a couple thousand I would be all over that. I just haven't seen many used Alaskans at all. 

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Toyman! :

Your Alaskan is just plain cool. If I could find one for $700, or even a couple thousand I would be all over that. I just haven't seen many used Alaskans at all. 

When I was looking used ones were hard to find. I believe that is because they are well made so people keep them.

In reply to preach :

That won't be an issue here. When I travel with Mrs. Snowdoggie she won't even go to a Motel 6, much less sleep in a camper. When I take the truck out, It's just going to be me and the dog. I am used to tent camping and the dog will sleep anywhere as long as the A/C works.

I just looked on E-bay and the cheapest pop up camper I see is $18,000 and the hard sided ones go up to $58,000. The RV dealers here in Dallas are priced about the same. Are these people on crack? You can get a decent motorhome for that kind of money. 

I could see paying $4,000 to $10,000 for a nice used one, but not for these prices. It's going on a $500 pickup truck. Maybe truck campers are just out of my price range.

$1200 in NY 

$4500 in the next town over from me.

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

I sold my 2006 Lance in May for $16k.  The equivalent camper new today is over $70k.  It's nuts, but it's also a different customer than a motorhome...  

preach said:

$1200 in NY 

$4500 in the next town over from me.

Plus $1,000 in gas to get there and back. Might actually be worth it. At least there would be no motel bills on the way back.

The van-dwelling crowd has driven the price of truck campers through the roof. The cheapest one near me is $5k and all it is a place to sleep. 

Have you priced a class B camper van lately? At 15+ year old camper van will bring $40k. New ones are well over $130k. 

Class A and Class C prices are just now starting to come down to something reasonable as long as you are willing to spend some time shopping. 

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Stay in my driveway for the night before you head back and we can go over your truck before the trip if you go to Berwick, ME. I bet there are many more GRM stops along the way as well.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

Are these people on crack? You can get a decent motorhome for that kind of money.

Everyone's scenario is different, but from where I sit, a slide-in camper has a lot more appeal than a motorhome, and suspect that there are others in the same boat as me. I'm not saying one or the other is right or wrong, just pointing out a potential explanation for the seeming pricing disparity you are noticing. 
 

The footprint of the truck camper isn't much bigger than just a truck, making it much easier to store at home, and park/manouver when out and about. Another plus is that if I didn't use it much as anticipated, I could sell the camper and still have a truck. A motorhome isn't good for much other than being a motorhome, and for me would need to be stored off-site when not in use. Especially when towing, a motorhome is an awfully long setup to navigate through anyplace other than interstate highways and truck-stop style gas stations, which doesn't sound fun to me. YMMV.