Ideas for camping with the Ranger...

get a cap?

I just throw a fiberglass canopy on whenever I want to camp. I've got a bunch of that pink styrofoam insulation I throw on the bottom of the bed, and a foamie and I'm good to go. One sleeping bag on the bottom, one on top (my girlfriend radiates heat, doesn't retain any... score!) and I'm golden. Roll up the foamie to store stuff.

gcfishguy said:

The tents are a great design..but......they're still tents.

I see three drawbacks to them:

1 - You have to set them up and tear them down and pack them up.
2 - Once set up, all your gear either sits outside or you put it back in the tent with you.
3 - They will leak. (Say what you will, a tent will leak, eventually, and if it rains enough)

Anyway, I have a few tents already, and I'm looking to get away from the set-up, tear-down, put away wet, etc etc...

But yeah...the tents are cool.

Don't get me wrong...for the people that want to do the tent thing, those are kick-ass.

Click to expand...

GC: I camped quite a bit in this:



Here's the inside with the commercial carpet kit (about $500 but if you're mechanically inclined you can make your own)

Travel configuration:



Sleep configuration:



I had black-out curtains on the windows and used to do a lot of "stealth camping" in Wal-mart parking lots when I didn't want to pay for a motel.

I also slept in a ferocious rain/wind storm on the Northern edge of the Great Salt Lake in Utah in May of 2002. I was cozy and warm in the back of the truck as the wind and rain raked across the top of the shell. I could feel the truck rocking gently but I was snug and comfortable!

If I'd been in a tent I would have had a bad night.

Both the truck and the shell had double sliding windows, so for security, I would lock the t-handles of the shell from the outside, and then get into the shell by crawling through the back window of the cab/front window of the topper and into the bed. I'm not a small guy (6'1" and 195 lbs at that time) and it was pretty easy for me to do it.

Thanks again everyone. Yeah, I'm shopping for a capper already...

martinjmpr - very cool job on that!

I've tossed around lots of ideas and I think what I'll go with is the fibreglass capper and a simple bench to sleep on. I'm going to use 1/2" plywood, 6' long, 2 1/2' wide. Lay it on the passenger side wheelwell and a simple 2x4 frame to support the rest of it. That will be plenty wide to sleep on and will still allow me to use the other half of the bed for my big storage bins, cooler, etc.

I have 2 large aircraft grade storage bins that I want to be able to stow gear in, and they're 14" high. The top rail of the bed is 16" high, so if i build a full-width platform high enough to stow the bins underneath, I think I'll have a hard time climbing into it and closing the tailgate behind me and stuff. Plus not having enough headroom to sit up will be a pain.

With a half-width bench as a sleeping surface, I can also use it as a seat, and the bins as a table for fiddling with fishing gear, organizing my supper, whatever.

I don;t need it super fancy because i don't travel or anything, I fish a lot and the evening and morning is the best, and my fishing spot is 45 minutes away. I often stay over to fish 2 days, and that's the main reason I want to gear this up. Just so much easier than a tent.
I thought I'd need to build a platform full-width, but She Who Must Be Obeyed made it pretty clear that she wasn't sleeping in the back of a truck. Good enough...that makes my wood budget more manageable. hehe

So yeah...a chunk of plywood, a couple 2x4's, and a tent trailer mattress or something, and i'm good to go.

But, anyone who has ideas about cool stuff related to this, post up...

I realize this is an old post, but here is my setup right now.

I have a fiberglass camper, not the hightop version, and a "bedrug" setup. I also have a 4'x6' trailer I used to tow behind my Jeep.

My plan is to use the trailer for coolers, etc, and leave the back of the truck basically empty.

The bedrug does well, but I can still barely feel the ribs of the truck bed under the foam, so going to pick up another foam pad, and call it a day.

I have a large, heavy slide in truck camper on a flat bed trailer, but my one ton truck didnt like it in the bed (which is why its on a trailer)

The camper is homebuilt, but whoever built it went way overboard, from the outside I cant tell its not a factory built camper, but inside its gorgeous, stained pine, etc, full setup, shower, ac the whole enchilada, but gonna take more than a Ranger to pull it when I am done getting it set on the trailer lol!

As the previous poster did I'm reviving an old thread but I didn't see anything like mine so maybe throw it into the mix... I use a SofTopper, I haul my dirtbikes to wherever I want to ride, pull them out and put up the SofTopper, takes me literally 3 minutes to have the whole thing up:

SofTopper Link

Once I've put the top up then I take my bed out of the bag and pump it up with it's built in electric pump. Here's the bed I use, compact for storage but makes a nice place to crash at night. What makes it especally nice is it rises above the wheel wells then has padding that cover them so you get the whole area of the truck bed as a mattress, sleeps 2 people no problem!

Bed

Another thread resurrection LOL, when I started camping I just used the bed of the truck threw down an air mattress and my sleeping bag and it worked just fine having a camper shell. The only issue there was you had to take everything out of the bed of the truck to sleep, other than that it worked just fine for 2 years. I have a small camp trailer now which works out perfect as its small and light enough I can tow it behind my B2, its not even self contained but as anything it beats sleeping on the ground especially when its cold. I've camped several times in the winter in a tent on the ground as well with an air mattress its not too bad but I hate setting up tents LOL must have been the tent setting up I always did in the military that makes me hate tents.

^^^^
Field exercises ruined my desire to go camping too. But I keep 2 cruise boxes full of camping gear so I can pack clothes and then go if friends invite me to join me.

Slovo had a really cool camper trailer in his build thread that I want to duplicate. It was a 6x8 covered trailer with 33's and electric for lights, fan, phone charger, etc. That way he could hit the trails with it and sleep in it at night.

Sent from the road while ignoring traffic

^^^Definitely got tired of the "Camping" the military did that's for sure. I have some friends who's kids love to go camping and I take them once in a while, but other than that I don't camp anymore.

I've been thinking about building a small camp trailer just for sleeping and storage as well, but haven't found a cheap enough trailer.