Pop Up Campers

[hammersley]

Does anybody have experience with the pop-up campers?

 

[wyosteve]

Which type-- pull behind or slide in truck camper?

 

[BK]

I was gonna assume you ment pull behind. .

but wyosteve had the right question...

there are slide in popups.



If your question is about a towable popup, I owned and camped in a small one for 10 years.

 

[Dane]

Lower center of gravity makes for easier driving, especially off road.



Not as fancy inside, kind of a cross between a tent and a hardwall cabover.



They don't keep out that superfine Baja dust if you try and sit out a blow south of the border.

 

[VicR]

Our pop-up camer

We have a 2000 Sunlite Eable SB pop-up slide in camper that we love. It works great for us. What we like about it: very easy to drive the truck when its on, it only weights 1000 lbs dry, so even full of gear and water it hardly brings the back end down at all. (I am probably one of the few guys that actually travels UNDER the ultra conservative payload rating Dodge gives these trucks!). It also very low when travelling around - we parked in the parking garage at Hoover dam 2 years ago and also were able to go through the 'tunnel' at Zion without an escort due to the campers small size. What I am trying to say is its very convenient. Takes all of 30 seconds to raise or lower the top. It was also pretty cheap. I paid six for it brand new end of season closeout. Ours has the furnace and 3 way refer, which make it very livable. Also, our home owners association is really strick with RV's, and I can store this one easily in the garage and don't have to pay $45 a month to store it elsewhere. Also, the canvas part has 6 huge windows so we get great ventilation.



On the down side, ours isn't as luxurious as a lot of the hard-sides. Also, you lose some storage because there are only 2 small cabinets attached to the roof. I don't think you could put A/C on the roof either, if thats a factor. And, as a quasi tent, you have some of the tent issues such as insulation and sound proofing. But, we camped at Grand Canyon Thanksgiving, 2000 and were mighty comfortable when it got into the teens at night. The furnace did just fine.



Some of the manufacturers of pop-ups we looked were four wheel campers, palamino, northstar. Alaskan also makes a hardside pop-up, but its in the price range of high end lances and bigfoots.



Most of our trips are shorter (7 days or less) and we usually only stay in one place a night or two, so it was a good choice for us. And there are only 2 of us. What type of traveling do you do, and how many people?



-Vic

 

[Dieselnerd]

Our first slide in was a pop up. We bought it right after I retired just for a 4 month Alaska trip. My wife and I, a Black Lab and a small Poodle lived in it for 4 months and had the time of our lives. It was ideal for Alaska in the summer. The only drawback was when it was raining, if your sleeping bag was against the canvas it would wick moisture into the bag just like a tent. We kept that camper for another 4 years for hunting and fishing. We have a Lance now but I still look back to that pop up with nostalgia. It was a Texan camper which is now called a Northstar.

 

[Ray Torresdal]

pop up

I was told that many of the various pop-ups - pull type at least, come from the same mfg. , with different name plates. They all use much the same equipment, at least. I have a Palomino, no furnace, no fridge, tent on wheels. I love it for hunting, overnight shooting events, etc. My daughter is plagued by a sinus condition, so we had to give up on sleeping in it when going to tournaments - she couldn't shoot well with a blazing sinus headache! We've slept in it down to 15 degrees F. , with an electric space heater, it makes a good story now, but it wasn't all that much fun. You don't know you are pulling one, especially with our trucks. I always hope people don't think I bought a Cummins just to pull the trailer around!



Ray

 

[pwr2tow]

In my younger days when we couldn't afford too much We had one of the first pop-up pull behinds, pulled that unit with a little nissan sentra manual trans . It's all we had and it worked fine, in fact those days where some of the best days my wife and I enjoyed. We use to like a challenge when it came to the outdoors, time has taken some of the fun of the challenge out of us.



Ron