I have a rooftop tent on my Discovery, it's fantastic for our application. I have spent 100's of nights in a ground tent over the years, and when I travel by motorcycle i'll return to the ground. What nails it for me is really that you are traveling with a real bed. Our 23zero has an excellent mattress and I sleep like I'm at home.I understand the rooftop tent does not fit into some people's travel style. We generally only spend one or two nights at a location, when we're traveling with only one car. The times we spend two nights is because we literally want to be stationary for more than 12 hours and we are there to enjoy that specific spot. We have taken the car when visiting friend or relatives and in that case we park up for days at a time sometimes and there are other ways to get around.For travelers who want to setup a basecamp and day trip then a rooftop can be cumbersome. You need to be willing to budget (if we're honest) 20 minutes at each end of the day for tent take down and setup, if your day tripping. In a hurry I can get the tent up in under five minutes and be inside, and the reverse is the same for take down but that's hustling. I like to pack it up neatly, it and who wants to hustle when they're travelling?The bottom line is you need to be brutally honest with yourself and decide what your willing to put up with and what your travel style really is and make your own decision.
If you want to learn more, please visit our website Sunday Campers.
price & weight
You can get pretty good quality standard tents like Smittybilt and Yakima for less then $1k, they are light, will last a while and work well in most weather conditions, but the material is thin so a heater buddy may be needed on chilly nights that maybe the better brands wouldnt need with the heavier material. The whole structure is definitely cheaper than most as well
Great quality standard RTTs like CVT or Gold Dog are still at reasonable prices and they only weigh about 150lbs, have heavier material that will keep you warmer at night and have less chance for leaks and tears. They only take about 1.5 minutes to setup and close down, and having the annex is awesome for storage and having a place to change clothes privately. Also the mattress in the Gold Dog specifically is x better than 90% of all the other tents hard or soft shell.
Hard shell tents are faster to set up usually and you can utilize the hard shell side as a wind blocker. Most clam-shell style hardtops dont have an annex option, but the fold out style tents do and often times the annex is larger than the annex on a standard RTT. The weight of the hardshells is noticeably heavier compared to standard RTTs, often reaching over 200lbs especially the aluminum tops, and most retail over $If you want to learn more, please visit our website hard shell tents.
Click to expand...
If you are looking for more details, kindly visit awnings buyers guide.