4bang Cross Country Road Trip

Ground tent man, roof top tent is a huge waste of money that you're going to sell to get rid of after the trip, and the cap you have right now is not going to be any worse than a new $3000 cap. It will be the same experience with a new cap.

 

kinda of weird that its a law not to sleep in the back of a truck in the National parks, whats the diff if u sleep on the ground or in a truck bed

 

also using a hammock as opposed to a ground tent its quicker and easier to set up and to take down which would be very important if on a road trip and want to get onroad quicker, u only need 2 good trees

 

Yeah I think that’s wise, kind of bs to drop that much on a cap like that nice as it would be, really to get ~6 inches more of headroom... my setup now is great, for weekends, just imagining a rtt will feel better than my current coffin arrangement for a month+ camping and I get to use the whole bed for gear.

Would not want it mounted high btw if I went the route like on top of a cap

 

Excellent commentary haha

 

Honestly just thought of this: throw a cargo box on top of my cap, and use a truckbedz air mattress

 

plus those RTT's will catch a lot of wind and kill your MPGs sticking up like that>to the Exxon Mobil

 

Great, more taco lean lol

 

sorry to get off topic, but how are those 17" TRD Sport rims doing on the 4 banger truck was thinking of buying some for mine

 

Hence mounting it low but I hear you

 

You can sleep in the truck, but you have to be in a designated (pay) spot in a campground. They view sleeping in a truck at an undesignated location, like the parking lot at a trailhead, the same as you putting up a tent there. Again, I strongly disagree it's the same as putting up a tent, and I think 99.9% of us agree it's not the same, but...

 

No worries, rims are good they came on the truck, honestly I like the look but the finish peels and flakes like all the rest of them.

Tires 265/70/17 mpg 21.5 so not great not terrible, drives great except above 60 mph on highway if there any hills

 

Both of these options involve losing storage space or at least trying to make up for storage space somewhere else.

I sleep in my shell a lot. I have a platform with lots of storage below and a full size ikea mattress on top. The mattress can be folded in half towards the cab or even rolled so I can stack things on the rear half of the platform for transit. Park, take out 2 or 3 boxes, unfold mattress revealing a made bed, and boom.

 

thanx, im getting a little bored with the plain 16" steelies but don't want to dig into what little power I got putting on taller,wider,heavier combo, although they are for sale all over the place

 

I guess than people can just park at Walmart parking lot sleep in the bed and then head out to the park at first light

 

I get their point. If you let people sleep/camp/whatever you wanna call it, at the trailhead, then you'll end up with a bunch of people trashing the area that wasn't designed to see that kinda use. There's probably no facilities, so you'll have a bunch of people pissing and shitting just where ever they can. It's one thing to dig a hole and shit in the backcountry when everyone is spread out. The shit gets spread around so to speak. But it would all be concentrated at these particular locations. They created the designated camping spots to avoid that. And they charge a fee so they can provide the facilities and maintenance to keep the place nice.

I'm not suggesting that it's impossible to stay at a trailhead and not trash the place. And I'm not saying that you do. But in general, people suck about taking care of stuff and the place would get trashed. I'm sure they have lots of examples of people messing stuff up at all the parks.

 

Some areas have problems with individuals showing up for purposes other than camping/hiking too. It used to be pretty common to get to a trailhead after work, crash out and then go hiking Saturday and Sunday but times change. I know I asked one of the rangers on the Blue Ridge Parkway outside of Asheville about it and she told me they had a problem with gay dudes using one of the overlook parking areas as a hookup location.

 

I get that it's fun to hate on them because they're popular now, but RTT's are awesome for dispersed and winter camping. They do have advantages.

 

I’ve done ground tents, soft shell RTT, and sleeping under a canopy. My vote absolutely goes to RTT. There are pros and cons to every option but the RTT’s are easy to setup and very comfortable. The con is that they can take time to tear down, especially in rain or snow. I would highly recommend looking for a hard shell RTT if you camp during the cold, but that will probably be out of your budget.

 

Why not just pic your recreation area within an hour drive of a nice bed & breakfasts with a pool.