19 Best Truck Camper Trends 2023

The lightweight pop-top truck camper is the hottest trend in car camping and overland. It has a rooftop tent and a truck shell.

These truck campers are ready for anything! The pop-top truck camper has a large locked storage area, a comfortable bed, and a standing room.

All of your big adventure sports toys, like kayaks and bicycles, can be mounted on the roof with a solid platform.

There is a void between a traditional truck camper and a full-featured, RV-style, slide-in truck camper.

The idea of an integrated tent in a truck bed is nothing new. There is a new crop of this camper type popping up.

Most of them use wedge-shaped rooftop tents. Take a look at the current offerings in the pop-up truck camper space.

I have personally been hands-on with every one of these products, so my thoughts are based on actual experiences, with additional information gathered from speaking with camper owners and company owners.

AT Overland Habitat

The company started with off-road capable adventure trailers and has since made quality products for the overland community in North America.

AT has been living in rooftop and truckbed living systems over the past few years. The Habitat is the first style that will be offered by the brand.

Over 100 Habitat flip-open trucks were sold in the first two years on the market, with campers continuing to grow.

The AT Habitat is unique to the current market with its flip-over design, just like many rooftop tents.

There is a large amount of sleeping room in the tent for up to four people.

While still having the entire truck bed area as a standing-height living space, it also offers a dedicated sleeping area for two.

The tent on the Habitat was developed with the help of NEMO Equipment. The tent system creates a covered area over the back of the truck, which is a great feature of this design.

This is a great place to cook outside when the weather is nice.

It helps to keep wet and muddy gear out of your living space by giving you a covered area to get rid of shoes and soggy clothes before entering the inside living area.

There are two drawbacks to the AT Habitat design over the other pop-up camper designs. The gear on the roof needs to be removed before the tent can be deployed.

The Habitat tent can be a bit louder in windy conditions, as there is more tent to catch the wind and a less rigid structure to the tent.

The Habitat is built to take whatever you throw at it, even if the design looks more fragile than the pop-up designs out there.

The roof of the truck can support up to 350 pounds when it’s closed. The Habitat has a huge loading capacity of 600 pounds, which is the biggest trick.

All AT Overland truck campers are made of one-inch lightweight honeycomb panels that are skinned with fiberglass and then bonded to 5052 aluminum.

This construction allows for high strength, low weight, and quality insulation, which distinguishes it from the competition.

AT Overland is the only builder of this style of camper that has a full dealer network across the globe.

This will allow you to buy an AT Overland truck camper and get product support closer to home or wherever you might go.

AT Overland Atlas

The Atlas is one of the newest additions to the AT Overland truck lineup. The AT Atlas is built on the same basic architecture as the Habitat and Summit but has a full pop-top design.

The AT Atlas can hold 50 pounds of gear on the roof when it pops, while still being able to open and close easily.

The tent on the Atlas and Summit is made of fire-resistant materials. This is an all-weather material that is used in commercial awning applications.

The bed in the Atlas is the same size as the Summit, 48 x 80 inches, but it is made up of two panels instead of one big one.

The two-panel design makes it easy to pop the tent from the middle and allows for stacking of the mattress in the cab-over area to maximize truck bed living space.

The big win for the Atlas is the huge amount of sleeping area you get compared to the Summit while getting way more insulation in the roof over the Habitat.

You can sleep easily with your head in either direction, versus the Summit where you will always want to have your head at the wider end of the wedge, because of the Atlas design.

An insulated tent liner is a great option for both the Summit and Atlas. 3M Thinsulate insulation is quilted into the fire-resistant fabric.

Adding insulation to the walls and roof is already built-in. All-season camping was not as comfortable as it could have been.

Go Fast Campers (GFC) Platform/Platform XL

The easiest access to gear in the truck bed is provided by the GFC platform Camper if you want a little bling.

Go-fast camping adventures in remote off-road environments are possible with this extremely lightweight camping system.

The Platform is designed for medium-sized trucks while the Platform is designed for full-size trucks. The ideas behind the platform are low-weight and powerful.

The platform frame is made out of steel tubing and is similar to a roll cage. This allows the camper to be very rigid, and for all of the sides to open, as they aren’t part of the structure.

The aluminum used to make the roof latches and hinge mechanisms are very strong.

The downsides to the GFC designs are that the tent is made of welded vinyl fabric and snapped into place.

The setup is easy to clean and maintain, as well as durable. It is also susceptible to condensation issues.

The 2-inch mattress isn’t comfortable enough for many people. The owners of GFC campers have been known to replace the mattress with memory foam or self-inflating camp pads.

Vagabond Outdoors: The Drifter/The Nomad

Over 12 years, the owners of Vagabond Outdoors have owned pop-top camper brands from a variety of manufacturers.

They have used their experience and knowledge to create a better product. The Drifter pop-up wedge-style truck camper went into production in the spring of last year.

There is a camper that is for full-size trucks and a camper that is for medium-sized trucks. A standard cab window is a killer feature that isn’t currently being offered by competitors.

If the truck is fitted with a rear window with a large enough opening to crawl through, this will allow for a crawl-through to the cab of the truck from the truck bed.

The bed in The Drifter/Nomad is a full 3 inches thick and has a high-density mattress with a waterproof cover.

The design of the lid/bed keeps the bedding in place when the camper collapses.

To become the premier overland outfitter in the San Francisco Bay Area, Vagabond Outdoors is trying to focus on production of these camper toppers.

It is a dealer for some of the top brands such as Frontrunner, Blueridge, Dometic, Total Chaos, and Baja Designs.