Selecting a truck camper-help please

pirlbeck wrote:
My wife and I are long time campers and have owned a number of travel trailers and 5th wheels, so we are not new to the camping experience, but have never been around any truck campers. Most all of our outings are within 125 miles from home, so we don't have a lot of experience with longer distance travel with any type of RV. As we get older ( I just turned 62) we would like to do some longer trips, one of which is driving to Alaska. I have been looking for a truck camper to use with our 2006 Dodge 2500 Quad Cab Diesel short box (6.5ft) but am starting to wonder if it is going to be possible to find a truck camper equipped like we would want it without way exceeding the GVWR of our truck. The GVWR of the truck is 9000lb and I drove it across the local scale to today and with only me in it and full of fuel it weights 7600. It did have the BW companion hitch in it and a few other things that would come out, but I was very surprised at how much it weighed. I bought this truck new and it has less then 50,000 miles and I really don't want to replace it with a heavier truck. I am not opposed to beefing the suspension up with air bags, sway bar, better shocks and tires, but I wonder if that will be enough.

We would like this truck camper to have a kitchen with range and fridge, AC, toilet, shower and possibly a generator.

We really don't want a pop-up style truck camper either..........we wonder about the safety on them in bear country when you are cooking and storing food inside, but maybe this is not a valid concern.

Anyway, are there any truck campers out there that would have the features we want and not grossly exceed our weight limits. We would like to stay in the $10,000 range if possible, so we are talking used.

Make and model recommendations would be a big help.

Thanks!!

I will let others address your lack of load capacity but the highlighted statement is ridiculous. The soft wall of a pop-up TC is usually 6 or more feet in the air when loaded on your truck and consists of an approximately 2 foot tall strip of material, not the entire wall like a pop-up TT has. On a pop-up TC the solid part of the wall also has WINDOWS in it that are lower then the upper softwall portion.

If a bear wants into your camper he isn't going to try to climb in through the softwall he is going to do it the same manner they do for other RVs and vehicles. Which is to rip a door off or claw their way through a window or wall.