martin2007 wrote:
Because most of my paddling involves wooden boats, I don't like loading or portaging that will necessitate placing a canoe deck on the ground while I maneuver the boat into its next position. That goes both for loading and portaging.
With a tall camper shell it is either the slide on method, or climb a ladder while shouldering a canoe. Having twice fallen off truck-side ladders while unencumbered by a canoe I am not attempting the ladder latter.
(BTW, if you go the ladder route, buy one with big “feet”, not little tubular pegs, which will suddenly sink in the soft ground, leaving you upended and wondering what the hell happened. Twice, the second time both the ladder and I were a bent and crumpled mess)
I have some boats I am loath to set stem on ground (or, eeeshh, pavement) to slide onto the roof racks. I have an old DIY seat pad that I place on the ground behind the truck, when I put the canoe diagonally on the rear crossbar or slide it off the stem rests protected on the pad. I have forgotten to bring the pad a few times and used one of the truck floor mats.
Odyssey wrote:
I did move on and up to a full size van. Several of them in fact owing to their short longevity. They were ideal with lots of luxurious room to spare.
Ridiculously comfortable to crawl into for truck camping, but uninsulated trucks become refrigerators on cold nights. That ended my vanlife days.
I moved on to minivans, and with the standard insulation and carpeting have been mostly happy
Excellent gas mileage, but with the seats removed the floors have mounds, lumps, and bumps. We employ an inflatable air mattress for this discomfort.
I don’t know about short longevity with a full sized van. Our 19 year old E-150 is still running, though rusting out from too many snowbirding winter escapes involving salted roadways. We owned two Chrysler minivans that struggled to get much over 100,000 miles.
There are insulated truck caps and camper tops. The Leer cap I have is full carpeted, which helps. What helps more is that I glued exercise foam to the bed walls and floor. That insulation also helped with enclosed sleeping condensation issues, and with road noise if shift driving with a companion sleeping in the bed.
The E-150 van has extreme “lumps and bumps”, eight large metal brackets on the floor to which the rear seats attach. With the two rear seats out, and one left in, there is a 6 foot x 3 foot (actually 74” x 38”) rectangle left open between the wheel wells.
I built a 2x4 reinforced plywood platform that rests atop those lumps and bumps, with a headboard so pillow don’t slide under the remaining seat. That platform, sans removable headboard, is in the shop on sawhorses right now, being used as a fabric cutting table. One “bed” in the back, one bench seat and two buckets up front allowed us to do some continuous shift-driving 3 or 4 person cross-country trips.
The bigger live aboard issue with most vans is the lack of screened windows ventilation, both for sleeping overnight condensation in the morning and for summer trips. I have screened windows and a small fan in the truck bed, which helps with temp and air movement, and with white noise if parked in a campground. A rooftop vent/cover and fan would be ideal, but I’m not cutting a DIY hole in the cap roof.
martin2007 wrote:
You're feeding my imagination. I risk going off in 14 directions all at once. Actually, too late. I've just started looking at toppers, truck campers, trucks, rack options, and post-graduate engineering studies in vehicle modification. I've harboured on-and-off fantasies about sleep-in road-tripping vehicles for years.
Martin, I’m kind of envious. The advantages of having a live-aboard vehicle are too numerous to count, and figuring out must-have needs vs wants vs dreams vs cost vs MPG vs wallet size is an interesting exercise.
At least 14 different directions, but, for the plural “we”, spending winters in Colorado, spring in the desert, paddling trips and etc, provided you can tolerate the MPG (paid for by motel rooms skipped) I think you are on the right road - full sized 4WD pickup, with room to sleep two in a decently appointed camper top.
Maybe 15 different directions. I see often folks with their camper tops off the truck bed, resting on a platform in their driveway or carport, which returns the open truck bed to more utility for hauling firewood or mulch or trips to the dump. That ease of on and off and attachment might be important for a truck bed camper.