Ditching the RTT for a soft cap

One of the things that I love about driving an access cab Tacoma is the rear visibility, so I was very against a cap when we bought the truck. I really thought the RTT would make our trips super awesome, but we've only managed to spend 8 nights in our RTT this year and I'm starting to rethink that decision.

Pros:
Comfortable
Has proven to be dry and comfortable when camping in heavy rain.
Relatively quick setup
Comfortable
Looks cool
Easier to setup in moderate wind than the ground tent
Takes up less space in the garage than a hard cap would.....

Cons:
I have to get my brother to come over before trips to help me mount the tent.
Spends most of it's time sitting in my garage.
Doesn't really lend itself to "stealth camping" in Walmart parking lots.
I have to ask my brother to come over after every trop to help me unload the tent.

I'm kinda/sorta leaning towards switching to a Softtopper or Supertop, but was curious if anyone could chime in with the pros/cons of that option.

 

Why a soft top and not a hard top? If you got a mid rise one, and had a platform in the rear, sleeping in the bed isn't too bad. It'd be stealthy, dry, and locking storage is amazing. Downside is any gear up top needs to be removed.

I did this and moved to an RTT due to not liking, but different things work for different people.

 

Softopper sounds like the way to go for what you're wanting. Obviously not as big/luxurious as an RTT, but Softoppers are really simple to 'operate' on your own, and look really good too imo. You get the best of both worlds. (top & no top)

 

I have slept in my bed under my Softopper several times and have no complaints. Having the panels up allows for a lot of air flow and when they are down they keep the wind out and heat in. My topper was completly watertight from the factory, but this is not always the case. Softopper does include a little bottle of seam sealer incase you have some small leaks along any of the seams. Just give it a good soaking with a hose when you install it and you can find them pretty fast.

Mine does have some minor seepage from under the rails, where it mounts to the bed. I attribute this to my bed liner not allowing for for the seal to do it’s job 100%. It’s pretty minor and I can still stay completly dry with a little platform I made to pick me up off the bed, just in case.

The downside for the Softopper is that you cannot mount anything to the top, like a rack or anything. But if it really bothered me that much I would just buy a hardshell

Only spent one night in a friends RTT and I loved everything about it. Eventually I am going to get some lo pro bed bars and squeeze one under my Softopper. Plus, my GF was testing one out at REI and has decided that is how we’re camping from now on so I don’t really have a choice lol.

 

I strongly prefer my trifold tonneau, so ability to put the soft top on a shelf in my basement would be the primary reason......After watching some SoftTopper install videos, it looks like that may be more time consuming than dropping the RTT on my relentless bars and tightening a few bolts.

 

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of soft toppers for a few reasons.

 

Softopper couldn't be easier to install/uninstall, if you want to take the entire thing off at all since it folds down... Pull 2 pins and basically the whole thing is off, and can be handled by 1 person. If you want to take the actual rails off, thats just loosening the 4 clamps that hold the rails to the bed.

 

Still kicking this around.....I was finally able to successfully load the RTT (without help) by pushing the furniture dolly up the tailgate and sliding the tent up a piece of carpet, onto the top of RTIC my cooler, and then onto the bed bars.

I really only got the RTT for cheap lodging when we take the sailboat to regattas, so I'm going to look into mounting it on the boat trailer and resorting to a ground tent when we go on dedicated camping trips. One of the guys that we race with built a double stack trailer to haul both of his boats, so I can probably adapt a similar setup for the RTT.