Not much of an overlander but ended in the sub because I started to look into truck campers.
Before the babies, we did a lot of car camping in our Sienna mostly for rock climbing trips in the Western US — Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, California. And that worked perfectly for both us and our two dogs. We had the occasional rough road in the desert but going “overlanding” is not a thing for us yet, however, I do like the idea of expanding our scope to include getting into backcountry places with the kiddos and do something different than just rock climbing from time to time. At first, I started looking at a bigger van (pro master, transit, sprinter, etc) but with adding the extra two seats for the babies it seemed kind of tight. Then started looking at slide in truck campers and that opened another can of worms: hard shell vs pop-up? Some folks have recommended pulling a trailer, but that’s is something I’m not too stoked about.
Would love to hear the insights of this community on the pros and cons of the options above given our situation. Out of the options, I’m leaning towards a truck campers, but I’m open to hear different suggestions. Thanks!