Pop-up Camper

[EvilCreature]

I am pretty committed to getting a camper of some sort this spring to maximize my son's age 5-13 or so camping years. Currently we have a 6 person Coleman tent and air mattresses for the two of us and my wife to sleep comfortably but the setup time is significant and amount of space the gear takes up in my Explorer makes packing a little tricky. I could pack more efficiently but know that packing too efficiently at the start of the trip makes packing it all up at the end, especially if it is raining (has happened more than once), very difficult.

Anyway, I am looking at a pop up camper as an option to allow quicker setup and tear down, along with a more weather proof environment, while still kinda feeling like sleeping outdoors/in a tent. I don't care too much about a toilet or shower, just decent beds, storage for camping stuff, and ease of use. My son really, really wants a camper of some sort, and has been all about one for the last 2 years, and I thought a pop up is a cheap way to get into one. My wife really only cares about a comfortable place to sleep, she doesn't mind walking to a toilet or shower (grew up camping a lot)

Has anyone here owned a pop up before? I have read guides saying how handy they are compared to tenting with a lot of bedding, etc, but what are things you either didn't like about the camper or would do differently? I live in Minnesota and have heard a hard sided camper is better due to the weather extremes we can get but also feel that takes the remaining charm out of the camping, or maybe glamping, experience. Also, at the weight I am looking at it is hard to find a decent two-large bed hard side that isn't out of our budget or would be hard to tow. We would like to keep it under $8,000, and clean looking, older pop ups run between $2-4,000 around here. How foolish is buying a 20 year old pop up as long as the screens/roof/frame are in good shape and there is no mold?

Slide outs are also something that interests me but also seems like another thing to break. I would like a table to sit at when the weather is poor or to eat at if needed and sometimes that comes in the form of a slide out for easier maneuverability within the unit.

An awning and mountable outdoor grill are also part of my list of wants, and seem like pretty common features. Any thoughts on a type of large mat to put outside the door? I see those a lot and imagine they help keep dirt out of the camper.

[Chuck E Ducky]

I’m curious myself about this as my new ride is diesel and has a much better towing capacity and a hitch to pull it.

[Blackmagic71]

My family had a Starcraft Pop-up camper when I was a kid growing up in Minnesota. We ended up staying at almost every State Park in the lower two thirds of the state plus most of the state parks on the North shore.

It had a built in heater and we used it several times when I remember snow on the ground, but it was still pretty cold, so it was more mainly a 3-season type of thing thing for us.

Something like this would be the “modern” equivalent.

https://www.pleasurelandrv.com/product/used-2021-viking-ls-series-2308ls-1404870-7

[EvilCreature]

The heater might convince my wife to up our budget or take on payments to get it. This unit is practically new compared to some of the ones I have looked at on FB marketplace. I think queens would be just fine, we use d to have one and when camping it is usually my son and wife on the queen air mattress and me in the single. Son likes sleeping by momma (when we camp in the yard it is by me), she likes that he isn't huge, I like being left alone while sleeping.

[Law]

I always liked the A frame shape of the Aliner ones, but the family got too big to try one.

[EvilCreature]

If it was just the wife and me and A frame would be very appealing.

[Chuck E Ducky]

I was looking at those. Then I went down this rabbit hole of shipping container cabins.

[Blackmagic71]

Slide outs to me seem like just another something to break, and I would personally avoid them, but I’m sure others have had good luck.

The pop up that my family had as a kid had a screened in awning that was maybe 12’x12’ - for a mat we used a large piece of indoor outdoor carpet from Menards.

While I remember the camper from my childhood very fondly, my wife and I turned it down when it was offered to us. Partially because our vehicles aren’t capable of towing (Subaru BRZ and VW GTI), but also a 30+ year old camper starts to have alot of issues, like leaking or broken components and spares are probably challenging to locate.

[EvilCreature]

I hadn't thought about it, but the ability to add a screen would make it much more bearable during those mosquito infested summer evenings up north

[Riot]

BlackMagic seems like the most knowledgeable for your exact scenario.

It sounds like given your parameters, a pop-up is your only real option anyways, so I wouldn’t over think it. Personally, I think a pop-up is just an expensive tent, but if that’s what you’re looking for anyways… it’s a moot point.

Im one season into travel trailer ownership and it’s a lot of work. It’s like boat ownership, I’m constantly fixing something or need to. Is it worth it? …I’m not sure yet.

[EvilCreature]

The "like a boat" comment is what I was worried about and/or trying to avoid by having fewer features. My family have owned boats and they are a lot.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Yeah I’m not looking for another project. Im just looking for something I can bring to Paintball events. I been car camping and it works. I thought maybe a pop up would be a lil nicer then climbing in the trunk of my SUV.

[Riot]

EvilCreature - I’m still too new to really know, but in about five trips, I’ve lost panels and poop snakes on the highway, my microwave dislodged, I snagged a leveler, and sprung a leak where the seal wore out around the fan. It’s a 2023.. Lol. & it’s a fiberglass camper, which is arguably, the route you’d go for longevity.
Now, obviously these aren’t just things that happen to everyone, but they were just from things jostling lose on the highway and in the case of the seal… I guess just maintenance?

You’d have the added treacherous canvas…

[latches109]

when I read pop-up camper under $8k I was thinking wtf that is super cheap, those things are $150k ++ I was imagining something along the lines of a winnebago solis. We rented one last summer locally and it was a ton of fun. Nice to have AC on the 100* summer nights. The economics of owning one just don't make sense, unless you are using it every weekend. I would count how many times you actually go, and check if renting is a better option, no maintenance or storage. Look on those camper rental sites.

[Trbo323]

I didn't see this thread earlier, I have many things to say but not enough time to type then right now. We just did a front yard campout last weekend to basically field test ours for the season

Had my wife's sister and her family join us trying out their new tent

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[Trbo323]

TL;DR version: check out the Colman e1 or an A frame


Ok. Let's see. Not even sure where to start.

Differences from tent camping how about that

I wouldn't count too much on a pop up saving a ton of time, between leveling it, stabilizing , pulling the beds out, getting the canvas up and anything that you want to do beyond it's a rough wash. One of the differences though is once you have the trainer level and what not a lot of that remaining setup is inside so if it's bad weather out it can save you that.

The beds. Don't hold your breath. Obviously only speaking from my own experience but the stock mattresses are 2" we slept on them exactly once before modifying. We bought 2 king size 3" mattress toppers, had to cut them down a bit and put those on top then the fitted sheet and i also like to unzip my big wool sleeping bag, lay that on top and sleep with a blanket. Unless your camper /mattress is way different than ours a 3 inch mattress topper is the absolute maximum you can put on top of the mattress and still close the lid. Typically we have to have someone climb on top of our roof to compress the mattress enough to get the latches started. The nice part there is ours is a single piece all aluminum roof so I am not worried about damage at all. After the latches are all on it's usually easier to adjust them down.

The awning, this one is up and down (dun dun tss). The problem with them on a pop up is they can't design them like they do on a hard side so the way they are designed you have to pull it out while the camper is DOWN and then raise the roof up. The problem is, if the winds kick up, getting the awning rolled up and back in it's bag means either having two tall stools and 2 people or lowing the roof at least enough to get the awning back in it's bag. We always bring a pop up canopy and put it right out front of the camper.

Which is where we do our cooking! Honestly the kitchen setup in the camper is fine if you have one or two people eating soup but if you want to actually cook anything it's probably best to set up a kitchen outside much more room to work that way. I assume you already have the gear for this though so you might be all set there

Currently we bring separate water for cooking. That's mainly because I haven't done enough work on our water system for me to feel safe about my kids drinking from it. The water system in the camper is basically used for showers and washing dishes right now which it is fine at. With the water system comes winterizing though. There's a few different ways to do it but the way I've found that works for us is to make sure the system is drained of water, close the valves to the hot water tank (don't want the antifreeze in there) then add 2 gallons of antifreeze to the tank turn the pump on and make sure it comes out of all of the outlets. In the spring flush it all out.

Heat: this is probably the nicest thing from moving from tents. There are some caviots though. We have 2 things on our camper that really, really help the heat stay in and because of that it stays more even through the camper. First one is the reflextix panels, these go in all the windows between the fabric inner layer and the outer screen



And the second is called pop up gizmos. These go over the top of the bed sections, they have a reflective side and a black side, reflective down black up if it's cold weather so it can absorb heat, black down reflective up so you can keep the camper cooler.

https://www.popupgizmos.com/

In cold weather this is easily the best thing. Last year Oregon supergame had a ton of rain. It was so nice to have a space that was not squishy under foot, was dry and just the 15 degrees or so it was warmer that outside overnight was really really nice. So a little mixed here because with the panels in and gizmos on it becomes very dark in the camper and it doesn't feel like a tent any longer. You can still open the windows and pull the panels out during the day though so there's that

Electrical system, we have 2 batteries on ours, I kind of lucked out and scored a really good deal on the batteries. I'm honestly not sure how long they would last because we also have a solar setup on ours. It's just a 100watt system and the few times we have run it we actually produced more electricity than we used. So if you ever do a solar setup, you don't need to go crazy.

Axel and tires one thing I do recommend is because these are single axle trailers take the axle and tire maintenance seriously. I can tell you from experience, losing a tire at 70mph is not fun. Not like flat, like no longer attached to the trailer. A lot of these campers use Dexter axels, crawl under it and find the code on the axel, look it up and if you are unsure of how it was taken care of, just replace the bearings. I found a full kit for $25 .

Tires, replace the tires by age not wear. You'll never put enough miles on trailer tires to replace them by the tread depth. Look up how to find the age of the tire if you don't know how and aim for 5-7 years.

You can pretty much lube everything with bearing grease and silicon spray lube

Cargo! This is a huge one and I didn't realize it when we got our camper. Ours is a Colman e3. It's built to be a toy hauler pop up so it has a 5ish foot long cargo deck on the front. That cargo deck has been a HUGE advantage. Since it's a pop up I never thought about the fact that you really can't put almost anything inside of it when it's folded down. We put anything on the deck that we don't mind getting wet and everything in my truck bed (with canopy) that we want to make sure stays dry. We also organized all of our camping stuff in large totes. So even stuff like our lanterns, cookware and pillows that are in the totes can still go on the cargo deck and stay dry. I highly recommend you look for a pop up that at a minimum has a cargo compartment on the front.

Ok. For what you described you might want to find a colman evolution 1 (e1) it's a smaller version of my camper, It does not have a toilet and shower like ours does but does still have a small cargo deck. I know Fleetwood also made basically the same camper as the Coleman e3 and I think e1 I just don't know the names they used.

You may also want to look at an A frame if you are worried about cold weather. I feel like they may do better in the cold. Some friends of mine have a pretty striped down one that basically has a heater, a bench and 2 beds inside and that's about all. They tow it with a Subaru.

For age, try to stick to newer than 10 years. Ours is a 2011 and stuff like the seams are showing some age it's just wear and tear. We know ours was well taken care of so it's basically a best case scenario.


Hope that helps. I don't claim to be an expert just have some experience with what you are going through

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