POPUPs are not for everyone...
We are avid tent campers for the 60's and hardly ever sleep on the ground per say... Our tents was three room tents and we always used the fold-out camp bed that is up off the floor and has a slot for a air mattress to slid into it. Very comfortable sleeping...
We went to the OFF-RoAD POPUP camping in 2008 with this STARCRAFT 14RT which has 15-inch wheels and well known to be a OFF-ROAD type camper. Our camping love remains getting off the power grids and setup near a creek somewhere off to ourselves...
When you get the larger trailer with all of the 120VAC and 12VDC appliances you will want to use them. This takes alot of planning if you still want to do most of your camping OFF-ROAD. We changed to smart mode converter/charger, more batteries, LED lights, and do just fine camping off the power grid with out 255AHs battery bank. Our Idea is to run all the things we want to run in an one day/night run off the batteries and then be able to recharge our battery bank the next morning is a short three hour generator run time.
There is just the two of us and we have all the room we need. In a POPUP everything will have its assigned place for storage. We mainly use our POPUP for sleeping and some inside use of HDTV and other home entertainment items before going to bed. Most of our camping is outside around the camp site. Our POPUP includes a shower and cassette potty combo...
The beauty of the low profile POPUP during travel mode is GREAT GAS mileage. Our truck does not know the POPUP trailer is behind us as we get almsot the same gas mileage (19-21MPG) whether we are are pulling the POPUP or not...
We can also go anywhere the truck will go at the camping spots. One of favorite places to go somewhat local here is up on the Virginia/West Virginia wooded state line behind Harrisonbrug VA. We are all to ourselves with a few occasional JEEP guys coming thru. This is only accessible by the forest service roads and one we have to cross a rock bed creek.
We thought about getting hard sides one time but never did. There are many choices out there in the 20-26 foot size hard wall trailers. We have all the same appliances they have just maybe a bit short on the moving around room inside the trailer. We like sitting around the PATIO area anyway when camping...
When our kids come with us we always have a tent for them to use if they like. Kids would rather sleep outside anyway... Our second POPUP tent bed is normally our catch all area during the day...
Roy Ken
