Roof Top Tent - Excellent for Us

We got a roof top tent earlier this spring for camping this year. One of the challenges we've had camping with smaller children is that setup and teardown takes a long time - getting a site figured out, getting the tent up, getting sleeping mats and bags in, inflated, and rolled out isn't terribly hard, but we usually end up with one parent doing most of the work. It's certainly not impossible, but I'd rather spend that time relaxing at camp or doing things with the kids. Roof top tents are supposed to have much faster setup and teardown times, so we looked into it.

And after a short camping trip last weekend, I'm very glad we got one. It's a big step up in terms of our ability to camp, with a reduced effort. There are some tradeoffs, but overall I'm very happy we did this. We mounted it on our 4Runner, which is our normal go-somewhere vehicle. I should note that we are 'car-camping' - sleeping on pads, big tent, bringing lots of stuff with. It's a lot more fun for the kids this way, but if you're used to carrying all the gear, food, and fuel you need into a remote site, then my experience isn't going to resonate for you.

I'll get into the why, but first some pictures:

Which Tent?

After quite a bit of research, we ended up getting an iKamper X-Cover. This tent had a couple of advantages over other options we looked at:

It's big enough to sleep 2 adults and 2 kids. And it's not just marketed that way, it's actually plenty big.
It is relativly light weight (about 125 lbs), which means that it doesn't cut into the GVWR as much. I also don't have 200 lbs on top of my vehicle, so slightly better center of gravity than some other RTT options would be. Finally, the lighter weight means it's easier to get up on top of the vehicle and take down.
The top is a hard alumnium sheet - so it should provide some protection in the event of adverse weather. We get a lot of hail in the Hills, and since the vehicle will be parked outside all summer, this was a concern with a soft shell tent.
The tent is very fast to set up - I think iKamper claims 3 minutes. In reality, on my vehicle, it's more like 6-7 (I timed myself), but that's faster than any tent I've set up on the ground by far. Even a pop-up tent (which is itself very cool!) requires you to find flat enough ground, put down a tarp, and stake it once it's deployed.
I can put the sleeping bags inside the stowed tent for transport. There's a foam pad for comfort, which compressed nicely to also carry 4 sleeping bags. This freed up a non-trivial amount of space inside the vehicle - 9 bags I would otherwise need to carry (4 sleeping bags, 4 sleeping pads, 1 tent).

Mounting

The tent does take up most of the (aftermarket) roof rack on my 4Runner, but that hasn't been a huge issue. The biggest challenge is getting it up and down without damaging anything. My wife isn't tall enough for us to just lift the tent, so I ended up rigging a wooden platform and a pulley to raise the tent up and slide it onto the vehicle. With this setup I was able to install the tent myself - it took about an hour once I had the platform built.

I would have preferred an overhead lift of some kind, but I don't have access to one, and my garage door is too low to get the vehicle in and out with the tent mounted.

If the 4Runner was a daily driver for us, I'm not sure I would have mounted the tent. The extra weight and wind resistance are impacting fuel economy on an already ineffecient vehicle. But we've been using the 4Runner as a second vehicle when only needed, so this isn't really a concern. Our use case is not for it to be effecient daily transport, we wanted something that would be able to take us into the hills without concerns, haul the bikes, tow small loads, etc.

First Outing

We went out last weekend on a short camping trip. It was just at the end of shoulder season (first half of May), when many of the first-come first-serve sites are open for use, but don't charge fees. The weather was also very good for camping.

The tent was as fast to set up at a campsite as it was in my driveway. It was cooler than tents I've used in the past - good ventiliation on all 4 sides and being 7 feet in the air meant that it caught a nice breeze. The kids also really liked playing in it, which is great, especially when tents I've used previosuly tended to get hot quickly in the sun.

The RTT has a couple of skylights in the top, which are nice for letting in light. Once they were closed up, the tent got quite dark - the material of the walls blocks light very well. It turns out not waking up at first light is quite nice - where my other tents get bright very quickly as soon as day breaks (at 5:30), the light wasn't a problem in the morning and we were able to sleep in a bit.

The kids took to the ladder pretty quickly - no issues there. We also got a shoe-holder bag that gives you a place to put shoes, hanging in the air off the tent. While this was nice, I imagine it would be much nicer if you were camping in a place where you needed to worry about things crawling into your shoes overnight.

While I have seen pictures of dogs inside RTTs, I don't think our dog would have handled the ladder well. I cleared space and had him sleep in the back of the vehicle - no problem there.

The only negative thing we noticed was that our feet were slightly raised compared to our heads. It looks like that was half where I parked the 4Runner (at a slight angle), and half the design of the tent. This wasn't a huge issue, but it's the only downside I could think of. There was less slope than I often find when putting down a tent on the ground, so I consider this a very minor thing, but I should note it.

I think it took us a little under 45 minutes to break camp in the morning, which is a big improvement over past outings. And I didn't have to roll up 4 sleeping matts and 4 sleeping bags in a hot tent! I'm really looking forward to more trips this summer with the family.

The Good

Fast setup and teardown at camp.
Additional cargo capacity.
Kids love it.
Good ventiliation and black-out qualities.
Sleeping up high is pretty cool.

The Bad

RTTs are not cheap.
It is heavy enough that I'm not planning on taking the tent off again until the Fall.
On a multi-day trip, if you want to drive somewhere during the day you need to pack up the tent first.
Mileage reduction if the mounted vehcile is a daily driver.
No ability to carry other items on top of the vehicle (ie, canoe).

Final Thoughts

This thing is sweet!