Post here your gear and suggestions, tips and recommendations for one of the hottest things on YouTube, overland camping, what used to be called sleeping in your car.

 

My Overland Pros Anza 2000 roof top tent and Overland Pros Wraptor 4K fully freestanding 270 degree awning are pretty awesome. Been thorough the Mojave Road and 2300 miles in Baja.

General Grabber X3s 265/70r18s on black steelies
Front Runner full length rack
Front LR aluminum skid plate

Being tight on space, I installed the FR Maxtrax mounts and chef pro table that slides under the rack.

I put a WaterPort 4 gallon tank in the tow hitch for Baja. We weren't doing any hard-core offroading and I didn't want to run out of water.

 

I'm a minimalist, installed a rooftop tent and a privacy tent for the toilet or change cloth. Stopped carrying the ladder comes with the rooftop tent (Defender's ladder is perfect for the job)

 

That's s pretty awesome awning!

 

@David Liu which Roofnest is that - the Falcon or Falcon XL?

 

Falcon XL, and I removed those ugly roof nest logo plates

 

:rofl: I guess we have different definitions of the word!

As a backpacker I find “having enough water to get by and not having to hump it through the desert on my back” to be extravagantly luxurious. Your setup seems nicer than King Solomon would have traveled with.

 

Great pictures and your rig looks awesome! Just a question about rooftop tents in general... what is the advantage of having the tent on the roof other than it looking cool? I've done a lot of car camping in my day and just setup a traditional tent. Is it just speed of setup and take down?

 

I'll get pilloried on here for this answer, but it's a case of "Because Overlander." That's a subset of the much older "Because Racecar" that we see a lot in the Porsche community. It's a way to further destabilize an already top-heavy vehicle, at substantial cost and complexity, and it is driven by the desire to have cool gear, and have that gear be seen. The tents are, in fact, quicker to set up than most "tent-in-a-bag" solutions, mostly because they aren't being disassembled as thoroughly. But it's not like people are careening into camp at midnight, grabbing four hours of sleep, then away at 4:30 am and need to minimize set-up time.

I know, I know, it's an Overlander thread and everybody's going to defend the practice of RTTs. I'm cool with that. I just find it completely unnecessary and detrimental to the vehicle's handling, at least theoretically; I've not driven a Defender with a RTT, only a Wrangler Unlimited, and you could feel that rack and tent up there on every curve in the road. The Defender probably masks it more than the Wrangler (I would hope so!) but it still diminishes the truck's safe handling limits.

Personally, I'd rather throw my bag out on a mattress on the ground (I don't even carry a tent backpacking -- just a pancho and a bivy sack in case it rains) and sleep in back of the truck if it rains. But if I used a tent, I'd choose to bag it every morning and unfurl it at night.

For me, minimalism is the point of traveling across the land, whether by foot, bicycle, or truck. Others no doubt hold different opinions!

 

Here is my setup. On top, Gazelle T8 hub tent (two parents, a toddler, and two 50 pound dogs), an 11pound Propane tank, and a 95L Roam box. Inside, I have an artic cooler with 4 Durabox(collapsible when not in use). We carry clothes in a canvas duffle bag but just upgraded to the NorthFace Duffle. Its my daily driver and I have to park in parking garages so I need set up that I can easily take apart and load up when its go time.