I think more money doesn’t necessarily mean better
You need to decide on what your wants and desires are. I don’t say needs because nobody needs a camper.
How will you use it? Do you want to use it like a motorhome or head into the backcountry? Do you want to fourwheel? Do you want to leave it on your truck full time?
What kind of Truck do you have or will you get? Half ton or larger?
How much time will you use it?
Once you figure out how you will use it. You can decide on a pop-up type.
FWCs and ATCs are the lightest (actually flippac and wildernest toppers are lighter).
They are strong and simple. They may be better suited for a ½ ton truck and for rougher roads.
The rest of the campers are more suited to a ¾ ton or larger truck. Pretty much all other brands of pop-up campers max out a ½ ton trucks payload capacity at their dry weight. The Alaskan camper are the other end of the spectrum, they weigh a ton.
Phoenix and Litecraft campers might be the next step up in weight. And you go up from there. If you are going to go really big then you might as well not get a pop-up and just go with a hardside.
I drive a Toyota Tundra and it’s my daily driver. I don’t really want a larger truck. To me the difference between a Toyota truck and full sized trucks is like the difference between driving a sports car and driving a 1970 Cadillac. Actually, I liked my 1989 Toyota Truck better than the Tundra. I’m just weird that way.
Don’t get me wrong, we have a Z71 Suburban as well, which we towed our trailer with. I guess for me, it comes down to how big a rig you want to be tied to. I’ve had three trailers from a popup to a 23 foot hybrid and don’t really like having such a large rig to go camping.
What I used when I was convincing my wife that we should try a pop-up truck camper was to buy a used FWC because we would have no problem reselling it. It would work on my existing truck. We could try it out and see if this type of setup works for us.
That being said, if I was buying new I would probably talk to Marty and Ben at ATC.
If bigger is better, I would take a look at the Outfitter campers. I’m in Denver and have seen several of these around and they look really nice.
Keep in mind that I just got my FWC Ranger and it’s been buried in snow since I picked it up. But these are some of the things that I considered when I was trying to decide what to purchase.
Just my 2 cents. Good luck with the decision.
Here we were loaded down in California last summer - sold the trailer as soon as we got home...
