Rrt and suspension upgrade- please confirm what I think I know

I am taking a cross country trip w a 2020 Sport 4x4 dclb, with a sky camper 2.0, rack, and am looking to reduce rear sag, while allowing for moderate 4x4 while out West. I will be right at 1100# or so added weight. I have read a lot of posts here and concluded:
I don’t have 2k for a full lift
Air bags are cheap but won’t work for any off-roading
AAL is affordable but if I take off the 160 pound tent, the rear will lift and increase the rake

So it seems like I need to do an AAL a just deal with the rake until I can do a full lift ( looking at one of the OME or Bilstein options down the road).
Is that about right?

 

Airbags are just fine offroading, best with Daystar cradles. They are not the fragile balloons some internet engineers make them out to be.

 

Thanks- I had been planning on air bags until I read they cannot be used off-road.

 

I'm running Firestone bags with Daystar cradles in conjunction with AAL in the back, it's really nice to be able to adjust the rear to the load. If you do bags now you can still run them down the road after a spring upgrade.

Here's a thread on the cradles https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/firestone-airbags-and-daystar-cradles-installed.599433/

 

Looks like you are in the East like me. Did you do the install yourself?

 

I'm in the Ozarks. I did the install myself, not terribly difficult to do.

 

For the install w Daystar cradles, do you just mount the air bag using the top mount and then line up the cradle down low? Looks like this could be done w minimal effort, maybe not even needing to jack up the truck since you don’t have to secure the air bag top and bottom .