Purchasing a Roof Top Tent. What ARE We Thinking?
It might sound crazy for 50 somethings to do but we're determined to make it work.
We have always lived unconventional lives. Sometimes so much that I question if we truly have any ounce of sanity in our brains at all.
Like promising our eternal love for each other at the ages of 18 and 16 and making plans for marriage before high school ended or homeschooling our children when it wasn’t so widely accepted or even thought of as being anywhere near normal. LOL!
Donetta and I approach life differently.
So when we recently purchased a 23 Zero Armadillo Roof Top Tent (RTT) to experience adventure in a new and exciting way while trying to keep the asinine costs of traveling down, it made perfect sense.
But the first night we actually stayed in our new “home,” I wondered what the hell we were thinking??? 🤔
Why We Bought a Roof Top Tent
Over the last four years, I’ve watched interest in RTTs grow. Everywhere we go, we see plenty of Tacomas, Jeeps, Chevys, and Fords equipped with all the amazing tacticool gear I could ever dream of, especially in all our favorite places located in Colorado or Arizona.
Like a moth drawn to a flame, I too wanted to experience that rugged lifestyle and be off the grid in the wilderness. On endless drives across the country, I would often fantasize about it.
One year later, after doing tons of research, it’s now a reality!
In my mind, it was a no-brainer and easy decision because owning an RTT would benefit us in the following ways:
Providing more opportunities and options for exploring new places.
Reducing our travel expenses and the challenges we’ve experienced.
Creating new friendships in the off-road or adventure communities.
Being able to stay in National Parks, State Parks, and on BLM land allows us to be fully present in nature and gives us a fresh perspective on life.
Sounds romantic and exciting, right?
Of course, we considered a tear-drop trailer and some other options, but I still don’t want to pull something behind me, creating more stress for either of us or increasing potential maintenance issues.
Plus, the Armadillo X2 and Billie Bars setup was more cost-effective, too. I’ll write a review about each of those next.
How has it been so far?
I think doing a video would sum it up better than writing about it and be a hell of a lot more entertaining, but overall, it’s been mixed feelings.
We left Oklahoma on March 10th for our new maiden voyage and so far our route has taken us through the following:
Lubbock, Texas
White Sands, New Mexico
Tucson, Arizona
Parker, Arizona
Summerline, Nevada
Death Valley, California
Lake Tahoe, California
In these ten days of travel, we’ve only been able to camp a total of two nights — White Sands, NM, and Beatty, NV.
The RV park we chose in White Sands was a decent place, other than being next to a highway and having to listen to trucks all night long, AND the resident maintenance guy being a complete asshole to us — but that’s an entire post itself.
While we survived, the experience was not good for our first night out.
Next, we wanted to stay in Quartzite, Arizona, so I booked a recommended RV park with electrical hookups. Unfortunately, it was super windy, and two places turned us away because of our RTT.
We could’ve stayed on BLM land for free, but since we’re new to the rooftop tent lifestyle, we weren’t sure if we’d be blown off the back of the truck while trying to get our happy on. 😘
So we overpaid for a Quality Inn located in Parker, AZ instead.
After an epic day of driving through Death Valley National Park, we stopped at an RV park called The Space Station in Beatty, Nevada. While this RV park is no-frills, the owner is super awesome and very peaceful. The colder mountain air was not as fun, but our sleeping bags kept us warm. It was a way better experience.
Gas mileage hasn’t been bad either.
We’ve been getting between 19–21 mpg without the high winds and roller coaster roads, while averaging 17–19 mpg in the mountains.
All that being said, we’re still learning the setup of our gear, adjusting to weather patterns, and trying not to fall down the ladder to pee at night, which is the most-asked question so far!
As we make our way back from Lake Tahoe, the goal is to spend more time camping and exploring, so we’ll have to write a follow-up about this new experience.
But I will wrap up by saying this …
Watching all those young people getting in and out of expensive Class A Motorhomes or Mercedes travel vans does make us a wee bit jealous. I can’t lie about that.
However, I do think we, as slightly broken 50-somethings, provide some real entertainment value to others as we crawl into our RTT for the night. Plus, I’m proud we’ve chosen to take a road less traveled by, being the old people living like the youngsters.
Our backs might not love it, but pain is temporary, and pride is forever!