My son is Two and half and were fnally comfortable with taking him camping for extended trips so my wife wanted to look into campers. Originally she was thinking we’d get a pop up camper as she’s not all that comfortable with the thought of ground sleeping in a tent in the natural habitat of many very large predators. We start looking into it an they are big. If we get one were either paying a monthly to store it somewhere or filling the garage and parking both vehicles outside. We also found out that a lot of soft sided pop ups are restricted in bear country in Colorado. A hard sided pop up adds even more weight that we’d have to be pulling though the mountains at high elevation where the power is already reduced. The cost isn’t terrible but its pricy for something decent and if you opt for something with shower and bathroom inside your cost goes up quite a bit. If you don’t go for the plumbing what’s the point of spending all that money for a glorified tent while taking up storage space, dragging it all over the mountains, and not being able to access some of the dispersed camping because its to rough of a trail to get a pop up in and out. Campgrounds in Colorado see to tonfill their reservations pretty far out as well. It just didn’t seem like a good option for short notice spur of the meant getaways.

So, we decided to revisit the idea of a roof top tent. It’s relatively light weight, its quick and easy to use, you can set it up anywhere – pavement, dirt, on rocks, in flooded area, whatever. Where ever you can get your vehicle, you can setup the tent. There no huge camper to store, there minimal weight, being up high puts my wife’s mind at ease, were not restricted in where we can take it, and above all else its convenient and easy, and let’s be honest, if it’s a chore to use something you’re less likely to use it.

So I’m picky, I’m very critical, that’s no secret. I work in quality testing and development of preproduction and prototype vehicles and technology for the high end lines of a very large automotive group. It’s literally my job to scrutinize, nitpick details, and find flaws in things and analyze them. When it comes to buying stuff, especially aftermarket upgrades and parts for my vehicles, I’m almost always at least somewhat disappointed because things rarely live up to my expectations. On paper I really liked the iKamper Skycamp (https://www.ikamper.com/pages/skycamp) but it comes with a pretty hefty price tag. I really wanted to check it out in person before spending that amount of money on it. iKamper gave me the name of the only authorized retailer in the region and he’s just a short drive from Boulder. I called him and we planned for me to come out and check out the tent in person. It’s a very small one man show of a business, little shop, very personal, and he was an awesome guy. I spent over 2 hours there with him going over everything I can say in all honesty it exceeded my expectations. The build quality fantastic, the thought that went into the design is fantastic, the attention to detail was above what I was expecting, and it’s even roomier than I anticipating. Lots of simple things add up, like the entire fabric portion is replaceable so if something happens you can replace the fabric instead of the entire tent, there’s a little lip spoiler at the front edge so wind doesn’t catch and try to create a gap for dust to get in while driving, the shape of the hinged lid area when opened is perfect to fit a pillow and provide a few more inches of extra room that you don’t expect to be there. The sky light design, the high thread count 2 layer fabric that has a small air gap that works like insulation, the available “Rocky Black” finish which is a Rhinoliner bedliner type of coating on the hardshell from extra UV protection, protection for rock hits on the highway and branches while off roading. Even the mattress seems to be just enough that you don’t need anything else, and the floor structure is made of a aluminum honeycomb which is very light weight and extremely strong. its literally a minute to go from fully stowed to setup ready to use. Lots of cool little stuff that doesn’t translate into pictures you see in reviews and stuff like that (or the reviewers just honestly overlooked).

I’ve checked out a bunch of the common tents Cascadia, Tepui, ARB, and the build quality doesn’t compare. Most of the soft shell tents come out of the same factory in China slightly tweaked and rebadged for whatever company. I even looked at a very high end Roost hard shell, that one was great but hugely expensive and only sleeps 2. The iKamper one is the first 4 person hardshell roof top tent I’ve ever seen and they nailed it. iKamper actually started on Kickstarter with the mentality the current roof top tent offerings are not good enough and they got a massive response from people wanting bigger and better. After seeing it in person, messing with it, scrutinizing it, taking it apart, putting it together I was sold on it.