What It's Like to Travel in a Truck Camper

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A truck camper is a type of recreational house on wheels. It is usually small enough to slide into the back of your truck. I consider it my tiny house on wheels. Before purchasing it, I considered a class B van. Both are very portable and easy to park.


We already have a truck so it made sense to buy a slide in truck camper. Also, price wise, a truck camper can be much cheaper. 

My husband and I had a list of requirements that we would need to be make this work.
  • Bathroom with shower (black tank)
  • kitchen
  • bed
  • dinette
  • portable
  • must fit within our payload
    770 rsl floorplan.

We searched, well I searched and searched, far and wide. Of course I wanted the biggest baddest truck camper I could find but I didn't want the price tag. Also, weight was the highest priority. Because our engine is a diesel one, it is heavier which cuts into the amount of load you can safely carry.

We originally bought our truck to tow, not haul. So I previously, in my dog mom lifestyle blog explained why we switched from an F150 to a 250 while on our road trip to Washington from Trinity Lake in Northern California, funny little story,
Day camping at the park.

read it here.
Payload was not in our foresight unfortunately. It was all about towing.

I have this strange phobia of public restrooms. It was important to be able to go in my own private bathroom. We go to the beach and local park a few days a week to let the dogs run. These places are not known for their clean bathrooms. And there's never any soap to wash your hands.

We load up our truck and constantly "day camp" as I like to call it or tail gate at the park and beach. We love camping and being able to cook dinner at the park after a long day at work is great! Feels like camping even if only for a couple hours.
Our view from the dinette.


BENEFITS OF TRUCK CAMPING: 

  • You can sleep anywhere you can park. Almost. But you can access further back roads than all other forms of RV camping. For example, my truck fits in a regular parking spot. 

  • The ability to tow a trailer or a boat and access off-road trails.  We plan on purchasing a small enclosed trailer soon. We can also tow a golf cart to certain campgrounds that we plan on hanging around for a few days. 
  • 1/2 Ton Truck Campers. Now at days, having a smaller capability truck is no longer a barrier to truck camping. There are many options out there from truck topping tents to aluminum built light frame campers.
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  • Mini House on Wheels. Aside from having private access to a restroom, bed and dinette, I also have access to a refrigerator. It works off the 12 volt battery, propane and also when plugged into shore power. A lot of people worry the fridge takes too long to work, I clocked it at about 2 hours before it was noticeably cooler. I also have a 12 volt cooler I keep in the camper and it cools down in 15 minutes. Since the freezer in my tiny fridge is like 1 foot wide, I use the cooler as an additional freezer. 
    View of the inside.


  • The ease of setup and breakdown of truck campers compared to other RVs. This is a good one. And really, it depends on where we are. But day camping, we can set up and tear down in 15 minutes. Camping at an established campground, with hookups and everything, maybe 20 minutes.        

  • The limitations of truck camper camping, such as weight, space, fuel efficiency, and maneuverability.  It's not all peaches and cream. Before we put the camper on the truck, our mileage was between 17-19 mpg. Now it's 13 average mpg (we did have a winner of a range the other week though got it up to 19 mpg, in the city). We also have to be careful of overhead clearance. No more parking garages. We also have to consider low hanging branches as well. I might have accidentally, backed into a tree branch!

  • Living Space. How much do you love your husband or wife? The space is very limited. There is NO PRIVACY. NONE. But if you get along 100% of the time, you should be fiiine. Our bed is a small full. My husband, two dogs and I sleep on it. Opposite ends so that the dogs can have some space too.  There are bigger truck campers with slide outs if you do find you need more space.
Like any other camping vessel, you must weigh the good against the bad. Going from a travel trailer to a truck camper is down-sizing, but we were willing to lose most all of our space for something more portable and maneuverable and just like more of a grab-n-go feeling. 

Not gonna lie, I wish I had the travel trailer for certain trip but truck camping is just as fun.



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