One of the most important benefits of a truck and camper rig is the truck itself. Where motorhome owners are stuck with a single purpose vehicle, truck campers can demount the camper and have an incredibly useful pickup truck at their disposal.
The benefit of an unloaded truck is also available to fifth wheels and travel trailer set-ups, but travel trailer and fifth wheel rigs are significantly more limited in where they can go due to their length and additional axles. Want the most versatile RV on the planet? It’s a truck and camper!
I wrote that introduction for Bob Jones in Galena, Illinois who is – right now – trying to decide whether to get a truck and camper, or another fifth wheel. For goodness sake Bob, get a truck camper! Fifth wheels are a total drag, and why would you want to be limited to truck fuel stops and pull-through campsites? That’s no fun. Besides, all the cool kids have truck campers. Seriously Bob, get a truck camper. You’ll love it.
Prior to truck camping, Angela and I never owned a pickup truck. Then we jumped into the deep end with a massive one ton, long bed, crew cab, dually beast! As small car owners, that truck was quite a shock. In all honestly, we were 100-percent comfortable driving that dually truck within a week.
We were also delighted at how useful owning a pickup truck can be. Before we even loaded our truck camper, we used it to move. Since then we have used subsequent trucks to move three more times, and help others to do the same.
We have also used our truck to take things to the local dump and pickup gardening dirt and supplies. The ability to move heavy and/or dirty items is simply fantastic!
Finally, we demount the camper and use our truck as a daily driver when we stay in locations for longer periods of time. Again, we are very comfortable driving a long bed dually truck and are accustomed to parking in the back of parking lots.
There are moments where the truck is too big, but it’s very rare that we can’t adapt and drive or park somewhere else. The only time we’re not thrilled with our dually truck as a daily driver is when we don’t see a speed bumps and the suspension nearly sends us to the dentist.
This week’s Question of the Week is, “How do you use your pickup truck when you’re not truck camping?”
If you don’t use your truck for anything but truck camping, tell us. If you use it all the time, tell us. We’re especially interested in how much you use your truck without the camper, and what you use it for.
This QOTW is now closed. Click here to read the responses, “The Double Lives of Trucks Without Campers“.
