Napier truck bed tent review (10 nights in)

If anyone is on the fence with purchasing a truck bed tent, I say go for it.

I’ve got about 10 nights in mine (all setting up/taking down each time), and can confidently say it’s worth every penny of the $300 I paid for it.

First few times setting it up was a bit of a learning curve. But as time went on we got it down to under 10 minutes from unzipping the bag to blowing up the air mattress inside.

I grew up tent camping on the snowy ground in the winter. And I gotta say, it’s REALLY nice being up off the ground and having a nice flat spot to sleep. Woke up toasty warm in ~15°F temps. No worries about snow melt, water, mud, etc.

I highly recommend the AirBedz mattress too, since it contours over the wheel wells and gives us the full width of the box for plenty of sleeping room. The first few nights before getting the mattress were pretty rough with just the ribbed bed floor, even with sleeping pads. And being between the wheel wells was pretty cramped for 2 people. But now it’s great and the tent is tall enough for a surprising amount of head room even with the air mattress.

One thing I will recommend is buying a can or two of waterproofing spray. We noticed some pretty good seepage the first heavy rainfall, particularly the front where the fly doesn’t come all the way down. So i treated it and no problems since.

Im also working on a way to push the fly out a little more on the sides. It’s got great big windows but gets very little airflow with the fly on as it fits pretty snugly. Not a problem for winter but it gets pretty stuffy in the summer. Our solution was just unbuckling part of it and folding it back to expose the windows until it looked like rain, so it was easy to just pull it into place in a hurry. Then we used a battery powered fan to pump air through. Works well enough.

Would a RTT be really nice? Yeah, so I wouldn’t have to empty the bed to set it up. But the upside is when I’m not using it, it weighs 20ish pounds and sits on a shelf in my garage. Instead of spending WAY more for a used RTT and having it take up a ton of room (because most ads I see include “works great, used once and can’t park/store it in my garage”)

A hard shell would also be really nice, and I want one, but weight, $$$(if you can find a decent one), and would be sacrificing headroom and length, as the tent makes use of the tailgate as well.

All in all I rate it 9/10. Would be a perfect 10 with better ventilation or ability to zip open the rain fly on the side windows.

 

Thanks for the review.

 

Post pics of said tent and mattress.

 

Top pic is my tent, bottom pic is pulled from Google when I realized I don’t have any pics of the inside with the mattress. Looks like a different model (mine is dark green) but same concept, with cutouts and padding over the wheel wells leaving a full-width sleeping surface. NOTE: the airbedz mattress is not from Napier. Nice sturdy mattress and comes with a 12v air pump.

with the mattress inflated it comes to just about the tailgate in my 6’ bed, leaving plenty of space for your shoes, clothes, etc.

My tent is the “sportz” variety, which IIRC is the the same as the “backroadz” model but with the nice little awning attached.

 

one thing I've done with these tents, have spent sometime camping with them. if I know I'm going to be back in the tent the next night but needed to use the truck I've rolled it up against the cab in the bed and thrown a strap around each side. and traveled that way. but they serve purpose and will say in the 5ft tacoma beds think a single person would be fine. spent a week with my wife in one of these in my F350 with an 8ft box and wasnt to bad but think a tacoma 5/6ft bed might be kind of tight for some of us.

 

Not a bad idea. We basically do the same thing on multi-day trips when we're sleeping in different spots each night. Either that or fold it up into a corner.

Yeah, i can see it still being a little cramped for the taller folk, but at a modest 5'9" I found it to be abundantly spacious vertically, especially when compared to an average ground tent. Though the mattress was admittedly just adequate length-wise.

But IMHO still a very good/practical/comfortable option for us taco campers who also DD their truck, as opposed to a $1000+, 300lb+ RTT (tent plus bed bars, etc)jacking the center of gravity way up high. Much less prep work necessary for a camping trip, just pull it off the shelf and toss it in the bed.

Don't get me wrong, I think RTTs are cool as hell and I'd love to have one. It's just not practical for me unless/until my truck becomes a full time toy instead of a daily driver lol.

 

oh same. ive been thinking about a swag tent, I've done some overnighters in the truck topper. and usually keep a ground tent with me when im out by myself. but my wife also doesn't like being out in the dust and sand for multiple days with a lack for real sleep

 

I hear ya. My girlfriend is still relatively new to "real" camping (as in not in a cabin with beds and running water lol). She's done really well adapting so far, and we've done a night here and there in ground tents. I've been sleeping on the ground in backpacking tents in all seasons since I was a cub scout, so it took some effort to swallow my pride and get a truck tent w/ air mattress for our first multi-day trip. But man is it nice having them now lol. We both slept like babies on the airbed.

Everyone else on that big trip had RTTs, a couple on trailers with fold-out annexes, etc. , and I'll admit it made me really wanna get one. But the price and practicality of being able to roll this one up and put it away when I'm done is a perfectly happy medium.

Still on the hunt for a decently priced hard shell, that also comes with the sacrifice of headroom, weight, and length since the tailgate would be closed instead of open. Kinda don't wanna lose the perfect little space between the mattress and tent door lol.

 

my wife and i are both in our 40's ive been outside in tents since i was a kid too. and my wife as well, but I've gone way harder in the ground camping.

 

Have been using something similar for the last couple years. Definitely fills a need and does so relatively cheap. Had a lot of good trips and nights with that set up. I also just slept many nights open air in the bed of my truck with just the air mattress.

If I wanted to go explore but return to camp I would leave the tent up but just slide it out if the bed. When return to camp just put it back in. (Having 2 people helped here)

Pros
Cheap
Surprisingly comfortable
Easy to get started
Opens up camping opportunities not always needing to find a suitable ground tent site.
About same set up and take down at a traditional RTT set up
Still have the full bed of your truck when not in use unlike rack/rtt set up.

Cons
Multi day/destination overlanding trips having to tear down then re set up every day.
Air mattress has basically R value of -5 so when it got cold needed to bring extra mattress topper for warmth.
Dealing with rain fly for weather or extra privacy on group trips etc.

With that said I pick up my GFC in 6.5 months. Just a way better solution for needs and justified by how many nights I get out each year. The bed tent served its purpose as I knew the bed rack rtt was not a solution I wanted.