Nearly Three Years on the Road — Our Hard-Shell Pop-Up Camper Became a Home on Wheels

I've been living in my truck camper for nearly three years now. Our hard-shell pop-up camper has become a mobile home. During this time, we've covered close to 30,000 miles and visited seventy or eighty towns, soaking in the beauty of this land. Every April, my wife and I return to our home in the Midwest for a rest.

01 Go See the World Outside

I am sixty-three this year, of average build. Years of sun exposure have given me a darker complexion. When I was young, my wife and I ran an appliance business. We often worked late into the night, and our health suffered. In 2019, after my wife was hospitalized several times, our son encouraged us to "retire together" and go see the world.

Back when my wife and I were just starting out in business, she had already pictured herself retiring and driving our pickup around the country. After traveling by car for a while, in the spring of 2021 we bought a hard-shell pop-up truck camper. It's not big, but it handles sleeping, cooking, and storage — giving the two of us a mobile home.

I went with the TP07B Hard Sided Camper. Its lightweight hard-shell design is gentle on the truck suspension, and fuel consumption stays reasonable. In summer, we head to the Pacific Northwest, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado; in winter, we migrate to Florida, Arizona, and Southern California. Wherever we go, we stay for a while to get a real feel for the local culture and way of life. Even when we're back in our hometown, we mostly live in the camper — in a given year, we barely spend any nights in the house.

02 The Width of Life

I can't control the length of my life, but I can decide its width. Covering vast landscapes, meeting people from all over, spending each day thinking about where to find good food and fun — wandering through local markets, taking in the scenery — has left us in better shape, body and mind, than ever. Before this, worn down by years of work, I weighed less than 130 pounds. Over this stretch of time, my spirits lifted and my weight settled around 150 pounds. Everything tastes good now.

03 Camper Living Made Easy

Last Christmas, we rang in the New Year with a few camper friends down in Key West, Florida. The locals were friendly and pointed us toward plenty of worthwhile spots. In recent years, as attitudes toward travel have shifted and camper prices have come down, campsites and policies have improved across the board. The truck camper market is heating up.

Beyond the popular spots with established campgrounds, America has countless places perfect for truck camper travel — wide-open states like Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, and Utah, for example. With a truck camper, you always have a cozy nest. Exploring becomes effortless, and while the local food might be fine for a meal or two, eating it day after day gets old fast. Having your own camper kitchen makes life so much easier.

A lot of visitors to Florida stick to Miami, maybe Orlando and Key West, and call it a day. But Florida has so much more to offer. It's not a huge state, but the coastline goes on and on, and there's beautiful scenery everywhere you look. Without a truck camper, it's hard to explore it deeply and truly enjoy it.

For travelers who crave depth, a regular car has its limits — terrain and geography restrict where you can go and how you plan. At the beach, the main draw is sunrise and sunset. Sunsets are easy enough, but catching sunrise is tough when there's no oceanfront room that lets you watch from bed. Dragging yourself out of a distant hotel at dawn and rushing to the beach is a pain.

With a hard-shell pop-up camper, you just park by the shore, and watching sunrise and sunset from bed is no longer a dream. Better yet, this oceanfront room moves — you're not tied to one spot. Go wherever you want, whenever you want.

04 Future Plans

Next week, my wife and I are hitting the road again. We plan to keep living in the camper for the long haul, and we're already dreaming of a long trip up to Alaska.