I love roadtripping and have explored in several different vehicles, from a minivan to a Class C motorhome to a travel trailer. In early 2023, I purchased a Toyota Tacoma to help me explore roads and campsites that require a highclearance, 4WD vehicle.

The challenge with camping out of a Toyota Tacoma is that you have to be really conscious of how much weight you are adding to your vehicle. My Tacoma's payload is only 1135 pounds. By the time you consider gas (which was about 6 pounds per gallon), your own weight, and any passenger's weight, you're likely going to be in a similar position as I was and only have 700800 pounds of payload capacity left for the camper, food, water, clothes, etc.

Due to this tight weight requirement, my goal was to find a truck camper that weighed less than 400 pounds with a low profile. As a result, I started looking at popup truck campers and ultimately decided to build my own.

Enjoy this tour of my first attempt at building a popup truck topper camper. This build made it all the way to Alaska and back to Minnesota!

You can follow my adventures on Instagram   / pawsitivelyintrepid