Van or tent?

[jacqueg]

There is another way to go and that is with a Harbor Freight 3/4 ton trailer kit with the 5 lug 12 inch wheels. These wheels are taller and allow for faster towing speeds. The kit weighs around 275 pounds. You add 3/4 plywood to that and you are at around 425lbs. I built one with all kinds of plywood once to clear out a storage unit and later use it as a storage container in my driveway. I towed it with a Toyota Yaris. Now that's just about as minimal as you can go for a tow vehicle. You can get those trailers on sale at a percentage off sometimes.

Anyway my first attempt went way overboard from my original idea. You build the trailer to work as the floor of your tent. It has two foot sides all around the edges and they all fold down and are supported as wings of the tent. So you end up with a flat surface of 8ft by 8ft with a 2ft by 4ft extended alcove on front and back when they are all extended. You just come up with a way to support these fold down sides. All your camping gear goes inside. You fold the sides up and the tent that is already inside covers all your camping gear and is already permanently attached to the floor. So it goes down the road as a 4ft by 8ft trailer. You always have a water proof flat floor about 14 inches above the ground and you can level it perfect with your adjusters. I found junk yard scissor jacks for light cars for $10 each and used them to level the main trailer. They are bolted to the bottom of the 4ft by 8ft HF frame.

You can see by the picture that I did not build the original idea. The side walls are suspended by an elaborate 2 by 6 floor joist system that was way overkill. I then made rounded rafters that fit on to the raised walls when it was set up. This was a very time consuming effort each time I set up or tore down. Anyway. You can hall all your stuff, or more stuff, with a trailer and a flat platform that folds down into a perfectly flat floor for each campsite. It all comes down to your idea to support the fold down wings. You don't even need to build your own tent. You can set up any commercially constructed tent that will fit on your fold down platform. I know how to work with vinyl coated polyester so I went that way. There is a way to make this a perfect square too. It would be 8ft by 12ft if you can figure out the fold out supporting system. That's huge. If someone figured out a pole system and roof rafters then it would be awesome. There is no reason this could not be a single high pole in the middle. It would always be staked down to the fold down wings. You could just open one of the doors and go inside with the single fixed height pole.

Here is a picture of the first build. I lived in this for 2.5 years and put it up and down every three weeks.

View attachment 30904

I like this idea. Someone camped near me at Qsite had a similar set up. They also put up a canopy for their kitchen area, which was pretty elaborate, they had about 3 kitchen boxes and a couple of tables. I really do like a kitchen area outside of my van.

Came the winds, as they always do in Qsite. The trailer mounted tent did just fine. The canopy, not so much. When they left, the tent of course came down and was folded up into the trailer. Kitchen stuff packed in on top of the tent. Pulled it with a mini-van.

If I could stand to tow, I would seriously look into a similar set-up. But I'd use a much sturdier canopy!

 

[aytee]

Have you tried an Instant Tent? I am considering a Coleman Instant tent, because I want one tall enough to stand up in, yet easy to set up. I guess if you don't need to stand up there is no need for an instant tent.

Pretty amazing you have been tent camping for 12 years and loving it. We are same age, so I feel hopeful

I have seen those in campgrounds and definitely thought about them. The Coleman ones are the wrong shape for me when folded down - after all these years my car is like a jigsaw puzzle, lol. But not seriously overcome-able. I have seen other products and done some looking on the internet.

Maybe next time! They really look handy to have.

 

[LargeMarge]

Why live in a van if you can have a tent in the trunk of your car? I read all the pros/cons charts e.g. https://www.advnture.com/features/camper-vans-vs-tents but most people have a car and a tent, after minimal setup the tent is very spacious, you can have the same portable stove and toilet u have in the van. If you're not moving very often and prefer nature to the city a tent is probably good enough.
Is the real benefit here living in colder places and big city centers? I'm just trying to understand the much talked about van-linving concept/trend.

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We operate a small organic teaching farm near the outskirts of Eugene, Oregon.
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The acreage is surrounded by acreage with individuals and groups in warehouse-pallet hovels covered with blue plastic tarps.
To get to their 'homes', they walk across piles of their trash.
.
But...
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One enterprising fellow acquired a drive-in portable garage, heavy white plastic tarp sides over a tube frame, enclosed on four sides... with a sturdy roof-tarp.
Rain and wind resistant.
Inside, he has a dandy BBQ fit for any suburban back-yard...
He has a shower tent like the over-landers...
He has a sleeping tent..
All of it inside his portable car-port, similar to this:
www.harborfreight.com/10-ft-x-17-ft-portable-garage-62860.html
The area surrounding his turf is immaculate.
.
I must admit, I am impressed.

 

[scaredycat72]

1-2 people per year die from grizzly attacks in North America on average. <1 from black bears. In the 48 states, grizzlies only exist in Montana and around Yellowstone, but black bears are everywhere.

I've encountered dozens of black bears in the back country, and they always run away. Although they are fully capable of hurting you, it's extremely rare that they will... and even more rare that they'd intend to kill. It's simply not something worth worrying about.

Only 1 or 2 people die but numerous people are attacked. Grizzly attacks are always something I worry about.

 

[Carla618]

From Wiki:

Only around 1,500 grizzlies remain in the lower 48 United States.[31] Of these, around 1,000 are found in the Northern Continental Divide in northwestern Montana.[32] About 600 more live in Wyoming, in the Yellowstone-Teton area.[33] There are an estimated 70–100 grizzly bears living in northern and eastern Idaho. Its original range included much of the Great Plains and the southwestern states, but it has been extirpated in most of those areas. Combining Canada and the United States, grizzly bears inhabit approximately half the area of their historical range.[11]

~~~
Further on it says there are an estimated 20 in the state of Washington. I looked it up when my son moved to northern Washington a year ago.

So it sounds like grizzlies are mostly in Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and less than 20 in northeastern Washington state. I won't be tent camping in those states.

 

[kristinakar1na]

Nobody makes a great tent that fits in the trunk. There are really fine walled tents that are used as hunter cabins up in Alaska. But they take a while to put up. Bob Wells had a video last week about a $2200 Teepee styled tent that goes up with one strong pole in the center and is staked out nicely at the base corner points. I built my first mountaineering tent back in the early 70's. It was a simple A-Frame design. It stood up in the snow to 90mph winds. Now lately this past decade I have been working with 10oz and 14oz vinyl coated polyester fabrics that are sun resistant, wind proof, and basically bomb proof. Even though I do carpentry I'm convinced that I need to do a demonstration on how to design and build your own bomb proof Teepee styled tent, with a floor in it, bug proof, and for well under $500. It won't be light, but it will be amazing in the wind, rain or snow storms.

Most people can't do this thing without a template. They need to learn how to weld the seams together and to add zippers & grommets if you need them, and strong points that won't wear out. I can see this as a class at an RTR and if someone would film it, this would make for a nice how to do it video. I can see this as a Nomad Tent coming out of this. So I will get the fabric and other materials for making one in front of everyone at next year's (2023) RTR. All it takes is a single panel template for each of the six or eight sides of the Teepee. It's all done with HH-66 glue that is designed to weld this fabric together. No sowing required and the seams are way stronger. The pole being used is the standard very sturdy painters extension pole found at most Home Depots. It even has the same ventilation system found in the $2,200 tent. It can even have flaps for windows with screens if you want to keep customizing it. There is no need to spend thousands and just about any person with basic skills can build one. You need to know how to draw a line on the fabric and cut it with scissors. You need to do a nice clean job of gluing the panels together.

This would help a lot of people I think.

Just brainstorming right now. I can teach anyone to make the basic template from something like cotton painter's drop cloth. It looks like it will take about 18 yards at $7 per yard.

18 yards 10oz vinyl coated polyester ( many colors available )-- $150 shipped.
2qts HH-66 glue $60 shipped.
Tent zippers for the door $40 shipped
Center pole $40 Home depot
Stainless Grommets and punch installer kit $40 shipped.
Dacron Sailing rope (sun resistant) used for top ventilation. $20 shipped

Looks like $350 with no extras like screen doors, clear vinyl windows with screens or wood burning stove pipes through tent wall mountings. You could have a really nice custom Teepee if you go for it.

 

[kristinakar1na]

Lately, a lot of contraptions for car-camping come from gagety websites out of Japan. They basically do what I used to do before they invented the sleeky-smooth conversions. And, because of bugs and security issues, I used to put all my stuff into my tent, and sleep in the folded down back seat of my car. But I am short. And so was my kid. We could more easily keep the insulated enclosure of the car comfortable with fans that trying to ventilate a tent in the 115* summer heat of Texas.

Also, for those of the Renaissance Faire ilk, Panther Primatives and other makers produce perfectly comfortable set-ups. But they are bulky. Depends upon where you are choosing to camp out, and how long you're going to be there.

Tensile Tree Tents

^ These are a little pricey, but suit my sensibilities...
~KK

 

[user 16179]

I spent one winter in Quartzite... I saw a few people with tents. One of them had their tent severely damaged from a windstorm. One thing I noticed was that tents seemed to not last the elements longer than people would think they should last...

I couldn't imagine sleeping in a tent on the ground with all the bugs and everything so close by. My minivan has a nice air barrier from the ground, plus a hard shell for the rain, hail, wind, and dust storms to block out. Even with my minivan I got soooooo exhausted from setting up and taking down my "camp" which was just moving things around inside the minivan to get it into driving safe mode.

Next time I get back on the road I want to be able to create "an addition" to where I can have a tent space to have a home office I can work during the day. There are going to be times when your traveling you don't have time to set up a tent, or times when your to tired to set up for the night, then you have to just sleep in your car.. Unless your able to successfully plan your movements to always be able to set up your tent site each time, then your by far very talented at planning.

I have seen all the "so called" tents around Quartzite and surrounding BLM land. Almost all of them are tent shaped objects from Walmart like a $99 8 person dome tent and it is no wonder they don't survive. My wife was quite upset after I spent $600 on a 4 season Sierra Design 3-person tent to use on out of town trips as construction workers. The third night in North Georgia, weather came through the state park campground we were in. We commented on stormy conditions as we fell asleep. In the morning the biggest obstacle we had getting to the job site was the trailers, grills and chairs strewn between the downed trees. We had no idea, all we heard in our far end of the campground was winds, and breaking limbs. We were under the edge of a shelter but still worried about big branches. She actually admitted to no longer being upset about my tent purchase.