I’ve been in love with the Napier truck tent series ever since I first saw one of the tents on the internet. It’s such a unique and handy looking design. I knew I had to take it on a big trip across the United States.
Fast forward to 2021, and I’ve now had the pleasure of doing three major road trips with the Napier tents — a total of more than 30,000 miles traveled across the USA. This is a quick rundown of our adventures with Napier truck tents, and why you should own one yourself!
What Is It?
For decades, Napier Outdoors has been pioneering the idea of vehicle tents. Their tents are directly attached to your vehicle for extra comfort and convenience with your gear. Their Backroadz Truck Tent fits the open bed of most pickups, and is especially popular. It’s the model I’ve chosen to use over the years.
It’s a handy design that can be ordered to fit a wide variety of vehicles. With just a bit of experience you can set it up easily in less than 10 minutes.
Our Experience: 2021
Our latest experience with Napier was a 2-month road trip through Colorado and Utah. We recently upgraded from the 13 series to the 19 series Backroadz. The 19 Series tent has newly added window flaps, improved zippers, a color redesign, and another small mesh vent at the top if you need more air.
During this trip, we did lots of hiking in the Colorado mountains, knocked out a bunch of U.S. National Parks, explored more than a dozen slot canyons in Utah, and completed the infamous Angels Landing hike in Zion. It was a wonderful trip. The tent held up well, and it was a joy to use.
Throwback: 2017
I first wrote about the Napier Backroadz truck tent in 2017, when I used it on a massive 20,000-mile road trip that covered a bunch of U.S. states and lasted almost 6 months. Most of this time was spent exploring the National Parks and other scenic places in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.
The Napier Backroadz truck tent performed great from the start. I got caught in a huge thunderstorm in Kansas on the very first night of that road trip (go figure!), and the ground around my truck had deep puddles of water. When I woke up it almost looked like I was camping in a pond or something. Any other tent probably would have been submerged and soaked, but the Napier tent kept me high and dry. Some of our favorite places we explored on that trip were the Sawtooth mountains in Idaho, Glacier National Park in Montana, the Tetons in Wyoming, and the coastline of Oregon.
Final Thoughts
I like the improvements Napier has made on the latest 19 Series Backroadz tent, and our Napier truck tent has already survived a lot of abuse.
One of the things I love about vehicle tents in general is how they don’t take up any extra space on the ground, so it makes finding that perfect camping spot even easier — just roll up to a level spot and put your vehicle in park! Sometimes when I visit new countries, I miss my Napier truck tent and wish I could bring it with me for overseas camping! It really is that comfy. Napier has a winner on their hands!
Click here to read more of David’s stories about beautiful destinations, new experiences, and hidden places around the world.
