Here's a challenge.

I have a fairly small family of 4. We love to go into the back country and camp. Preferrably with the toys.
Now, the wife and I are getting too old for primative camping. We have decided to build, assemble, or buy a solution. Now accepting suggestions....

First thought: get a decent 4x4 truck and a popup slide in. Any expereince with this? As we really just need room to sleep with heat, a simple kitchen, and a bathroom if possible... this looks like the way to go. A nice diesel 4x4 with a slight lift, aggressive tires, lockers, and optimized approach/departure clearance ought to work out pretty well.

The places we go can be reached with a stock Pathfinder right now.

Alternately, one of the pickup/van frame based small motorhomes with the transfer case and axles of a 4x4 pickup dropped under it. Preferrably a popup model, to gain a lower profile and center of gravity.

We want to have our cake and eat it too.... [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

Edited to add: we want to tow in a hi-rise trailer with toys on it, too. The Jeep, with strong tires and a rear locker, can do this right now. Not too heavy, 2 bikes most of the time, rarely 2 bikes and a quad.

 

I know there are companies that make RVs based on 4x4 truck chassis. I'm trying to remember his name, he's on here, he's got a Ram chassis based conversion. It was small. He towed an enclosed trailer with his bikes in there. 700quadman is his name. You can ask him about his rig.

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The slide-in pop-up camper would work good, depending on the trailer, some trailers don't like off-road travel. There is also a van called a sportmobile? I think, on a ford 1-ton van chassis, and customized into a camper, the roof cranks up. Best of all they sell it with a diesel, all the comforts of home, pull good sized loads and get decent fuel milage!

 

I would vote for the 4x4 pickup with a slide in camper. If you are not camping, you still can use the pickup for towing or other uses around the house. I camp with a guy who has a slide in pop-up on a 4x4 pickup, he takes that thing all over the place. I would think it would offer you more versatility than a dedicated 4x4 motorhome.

 

This may be a decent alternative. I have a ford 4X4 that I put 2 dirtbikes and 1 quad in and I tow a tent trailer behind it. It has served us well for many year's.

 

We have actually looked into a solution like this. Also looked in to the possibility of reinforcing the roof of a popup to hold the toys.... looks too ungainly to be a real possibility though.

 

Year's ago when we had a smaller truck and smaller tent trailer and trying to get everything to fit. I considered reinforcing the roof of our popup to haul a xr75 and a minitrail 50. I came to the same conclusion you did. Plus you would have to unload before camping and some times we get where ever we are going late at night and just want to sleep, not unpack.

 

There's a company that makes a very primitive pop up. Nothing really in it, that has a deck to hold a couple of qauds. Doubt that's what you would be looking for. The only way I would put anything on top of a pop-up is if it was distributed around. Had a friend who tied pallets on top of his and it was ok. Light loud with a good distribution. Or you in some way built a collapsable frame that slotted, pinned into the trailer's frame. Like a ladder rack on a pick-up. Would have to be an engineering marvel to do it though.

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the truck camper with the 4x4 is the way to go

I would not recommend a pop-up for what you want

very inconvienient to access the inside of the camper without cranking it up (for packing/unpacking, shopping on the way to the Mts,,,so on)

the mechanical for the pop up is actually heavier than the walls in an upright (more stuff to break also)

storage space is almost non existant on a pop up compared to an upright (upper cabinet space too)

If you load all the heavy stuff to the bottom front, you will have no worries for top heavyness

Now,,,if you go to high on the lift kit,,,,that may be something to worry about.

 

Its nice pulling into camp,,,,turning off the truck key,,,,,and knowing you dont have to "set up"