I’ll start by saying RTTs suck for base camping. If you’re gonna stay in the same place every night, they’re a pain in the ass.
But Lisa and I do only one trip a year that’s basecamping, and for that one trip a year we use the ARB awning and room. Attach it to something to leave all our shit in, and just pop the RTT when it’s bedtime. Close it in the morning to go wheel. Ours opens and closes in less than a minute.
We do about 40 nights per year in the rtt and we usually stay in a different spot every night. A 5 night trip means five different campsites. That’s when the RTT (especially one that’s easy to setup and take down) makes sense. And every trip is both of us plus our two dogs, if I was solo if hammock like when I backpacked.
Crawl(ish) with an RTT
And haul ass
I wish we got overland points for ours. LoL. Half the time people ask if it’s a fuckin boat.
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If you mount low, there’s not much negative impact on performance. And no whacking it into stuff on the trail.
Our two dogs sleep in ours with us. One 75lb and one 55lb. I’d like to put grip tape on the ladder and teach them to climb it. But for now I just lift them in.
How do you like yours overall? Ours is fast to open and cose also, but not powered.
Yep
We run the James Baroud Grand Raid XXL and it fits my wife, myself (6’3” 270) and our two dogs (75 and 55lbs). It’s cozy, but weee just in there to sleep. We’ve slept in 9 degrees without a heater because the space is small enough and the 4 of us heat it.
Basically it came down to planning. We camped with friends who had the Tepui style fold outs and those still take time to setup. And they’re pretty heavy. And people had them mounted at roof height. We wanted to keep the truck nimble so we went light and low.
Hard to mount a RTT low on a 4runner. That's another reason I don't have one. If I ever SAS or 4wd swap the Tacoma then I'll probably get one because I can keep it low enough to not affect my center of gravity. I've been tippy enough on the trails and I have no doubt in my mind if I had an extra 150 lbs on top I would have flopped both times.
