Travelling across Canada in a Jeep Rubicon and living in a rooftop tent for a year sounds like a good idea – if you are young and energetic and don’t mind setting up camp for the night, and then breaking it down again the next morning.
Climbing a stepladder multiple times a night to pee would sooner or later result in a tumble down the ladder, to land heavily on the rocky unforgiving ground. To solve this dilemma, we thought of using a bucket in the tent – which would eventually result in an unpleasant experience when it’s accidentally knocked over, drenching everything. I shudder at the thought.
We love the Jeep and backcountry camping for a few days, however, for longer trips, we needed a better solution. At one point, our research resulted in a solution that moves the tent of the rooftop onto a rugged overland trailer.
This solves the daily occurrence of setting up and breaking down the tent to move the Jeep. Instead, we could park it off in one spot while exploring the countryside. To resolve the accidental bucket spills inside a tent, we thought of fabricating a zip on privacy screen around the base of the tent, and using the space for a portable toilet. One would still have to navigate the stepladder in the dead of night.
Needless to say, we continued our research looking for a better solution.