Tent in bed of truck or on an 8' x 8' platform on a 5' x 8' trailer?

My wife and I have a nice lake with camping spots close by and since Covid they are free of charge with great amenities. Showers with hot water, bathrooms, playground, swimming area, covered picnic tables, and good fishing.

This spring and summer I want to actually camp out overnight instead of picnicking and swimming and coming home at night.

I have a 2025 Tacoma SR (we love it) and have been looking at these type of tents:

Amazon.com : pick-up bed tents for 2025 tacoma

which would be great as we could carry most things we need and just take the truck, or we could put a platform on the trailer and put an even larger tent up.

We just want to be off the ground but are both disabled (We would be fine with either of these options but a top rack mounted tent with ladder would be difficult for us).

If we go the platform on the trailer option we will simply carry 2 full sheets of plywood and 6- 2x4s 8' long.

When we get to the lake take everything out of the trailer, lay the boards on their sides across the trailer rails and then lay the plywood on top of it and screw it down and have an 8' x 8' platform off the ground.

As before we'd set up the tent and face the door toward the back so that the ramp would lead us right to the tent door.

In the tent/trailer pic the old tent and platform were smaller but what we had at the time.

Anyway, which method would you prefer?

Thank you.

Note, the truck box is no longer on the trailer which gives us the full length of the trailer.

In case the image does not embed I will also provide a link to imgur, it is safe, I am getting older and cannot figure out how to upload an image if we can.



https://imgur.com/mzbJOIL

 

I guess I'm confused why a standard camper isn't an option.

I would also recommend against screwing boards together every time, as the holes will soon strip out after repeated uses, making for a far more dangerous platform

I don't know which bed you have, but I would be hard pressed to use the 5' bed for sleeping, given I'm 6' tall.

My one camping buddy used to have one of those bed tents. He always said it worked ok, but the biggest issue was needing to clear the entire bed out to make the sleeping area. Which can quickly become tiresome in itself.

 

Do you need the whole tent off the ground or could you just find a taller tent with standing room, then get couple of nice cots to get your sleeping off the ground?

Climbing through an opening into/out of the back of a pickup truck isn’t the always most graceful thing, especially when groggy at night and needing to pee. Speaking from experience

 

You can be off the ground on a nice cot in a quality tent. Just get a nice easy up tent and some comfortable cots and mattresses. Since you are disabled a ground tent with cots would make more sense than climbing up and out of a truck or trailer bed. Or if for some reason you don’t like that get a nice little teardrop trailer. A tent trailer would also work.

 

I agree with comments #3 and #4. An easy to set up tent with cots would likely be the easiest and least expensive option to pursue unless you just want the tent to be off the ground, which has a certain appeal. Gazelle makes a tent with a 78" height and easy set up per the videos I've watched. I was at Overland Expo East in 2023 and Gazelle tents were everywhere, so I suggest them as a place to start your research.