Looking to downsize

Go look at a Lance 825 its a great camper for two people. With a few suspension up grades you can carry a 825. Just look at my profile.

You will need some serious upgrades to improve the weight carrying capacity. At a minimum you will need upgraded rear suspension including shocks. You might need a wheel and tire upgrade. You will be pushing it if you want a hardsided camper and also want to tow a Jeep.

You should stick with a smaller unit without slides to keep the weight down. I suggest you look at Northstar. They have a lot of choices for smaller truck campers.

They also feature cassette toilets. I like mine. It will need to be emptied frequently...like every 2-3 days for 2 campers. It can be dumped in an outhouse, household toilet or of course at a dump station.

Personally I would not give up having a shower. With many smaller units the entire restroom is the shower. That works better than you might imagine. I use a squeegee to wipe down the walls afterwards and it dries quickly.

You should do better than 2000 lb camper, but this is thin line.
I bought my 4200 lb (dry) camper while driving F250 shortbed.
It was scary but I made it home.
Bad news is >> you can't have it all. Don't know what size comes with shower and wet toilet, but I imagine somebody makes 8' camper with them and that should be less than 3000 lb with COG up front, so rear axle would not be overloaded.
Would I have camper with no shower and no toilet, I would rather drive SUV where you can fold the seat for sleeping, add a tent and use hotels more often.

kohldad wrote:

Reason folks like a cassette toilet is though it has smaller capacity, it is easier to dump. You can grab the cassette and dump in a regular toilet, pit toilet (check regs), or at the regular dump station.

If you plan on off-road, try to stay with a non-basement style camper to keep the cog as low as possible.

Yes, a cassette is MUCH easier to dump. I wouldn't have anything else.

I don't agree about the non-basement though -- my 44 gallons of fresh water and 3 of 4 90+ lb batteries are in my basement. CG couldn't be much lower.

A pop-up doesn't necessary mean lighter weight. And when looking, remember the advertised weight is for a unit without options.

Reason folks like a cassette toilet is though it has smaller capacity, it is easier to dump. You can grab the cassette and dump in a regular toilet, pit toilet (check regs), or at the regular dump station.

If you plan on off-road, try to stay with a non-basement style camper to keep the cog as low as possible.

I have a Lance 815 which is a bit tight in the shower but a nice hardside for off-road because most of it's weight is down low, it is about the shortest hard side, and only 83" wide which is a foot narrower than a lot of TCs. The 815 works on long and by adding two rear skirts short bed trucks. Loaded for a long trip, we are only at 2,400# which should be a good match. Even the older units are in good shape and can be found relatively easy.

Now that the kids no longer camp with us, we really love just running around with it. Because it is narrow and doesn't hang over the back of my long bed truck, we can park in a standard parking space. In some national parks, we are even allowed to use tent sites because as they see it we use the same parking spot. This opens up a lot more site options.