When I was 13 years, I forced my father to go camping with me, not knowing anything about the outdoors. Boy, I had no idea what was to come.
He played it cool though and had me sleep in a makeshift tent in the backyard, this was not a great experience, I was cold, and alone and heard all kinds of noises during the night.
Throughout my teenage years, I joined the boy scouts and went on many more camping trips, first with them, and later even alone. This was an awesome experience and I was hooked!
From then on, during my ’20s, and ’30s camping was my passion and I continued to go on many more camping trips.
Later on, when a wife and kids became part of my life things complicated a little bit, they also wanted to sleep well. If they didn’t sleep well, I didn’t sleep well.
So, we started to experiment with sleeping in a minivan, less cold, and less strange noises, but not ideal for camping. Remember that rooftop tents didn’t exist at that time.
We tried those ‘bungalow’ tents which are awesome because they’re spacious. The disadvantage is that they took quite some time to set up and even more to take down and pack up.
So, I was on the lookout for a solution that didn’t involve a caravan or motorhome, because that was beyond my budget. It had to be compact, comfortable, easy to bring along, and not break the bank.
The idea of something foldable on the roof was born. And it’s called a rooftop tent. Eureka!
This is, in my opinion, the perfect solution for camping, it packs neat and compact on the roof of your car, and you sleep high from the ground, so less cold, and less water intrusion from that dry riverbed that looked such a good flat spot the day before when there was no rain, no critters around which keep the wife and kids happy.
That is why this site is dedicated to rooftop tents, normal tents have certainly a place here as well because not everybody that wants to start camping is prepared to shell out a few thousand bucks to try out camping.
And let’s face it buying that normal tent is not a waste of money it will come in handy later on when the kids are old enough to sleep on their own not far from where the parent sleep in the rooftop tent.