Comment: Rooftop Tents – The Good, the Bad, and what do you really think

My story is as follows.

I was actually looking for a fridge, not a rooftop tent but stumbled across 4WDSupacentre selling Waeco CFX50 Fridge with Rooftop Tent for $1450 so I bought it.

As I was doing Cape York last year with a friend I decided to give it a go.

Easy to set up if there are two of you (We are both in our 50's). Bit more work to pack up. Main issue being you are clambering around trying to push everything together at car roof height so can be a bit awkward (Nissan Patrol with 2 inch lift). You also notice the extra weight on the roof. I normally go in swags with gear in bag on roofrack.

Also I normally put things like chairs, tables, toilet tent, clothes bags etc up there but the rooftop tent takes up that space. You then need to find other places to store the gear you would normally have up there. A bit of a pain.

Getting in and out was suprisingly easy. No real bother there at all.

Great to sleep in, loads of room and heaps of windows for those warm nights. The built in awning over the top also kept it nice and dry. You can also sit up or kneel in it to get dressed. Is 2.8 long and 1.4 wide. We also had a couple of really windy nights where we thought everything would blow away but it coped easily.

Also you don't need to worry about the type of ground you are on. You just need to be reasonably level.

Based on the fact that I am fully set up with Swag and all gear, Would i buy one? Probably not.

Will i use it again, definately yes under the right circumstances. Which would probably be weekends away where the car could sit there. shorter trips where you don't need to carry as much other gear etc.

For longer trips (we spent 4 weeks on Cape) I would probably stick with swags or a Southern Cross style tent that would allow you room to put other gear on the roofrack..

The above is obviously based on travelling with out towing anything.

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Reply By: The Landy - Wednesday, Mar 04, 2015 at 01:26

Wednesday, Mar 04, 2015 at 01:26
Thanks for the feedback Grizzle, and that is Mrs Landy's thinking, the Southern Cross pole tent, or the TVan!

Cheers Baz
AnswerID: 549366

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