If you’ve been reading our blog, you know that we’ve put a ton of time, effort, and thought into selecting a truck and a camper to act as our nomadic home in 2025. With full-time travel approaching quickly, we’ve finally landed on the type of camper that we’ll call home in the coming year(s).
While we can’t give you a grand reveal quite yet–the camper isn’t actually in our possession–we do want to give you a preview of the style of camper we chose and some of the key features it will have. We hope you’re as excited as we are because we are HYPED.
The camper we chose for full-time travel
Our list of blogs we wrote to follow our decision-making process includes a lot of “Why we didn’t buy X.” While this process of elimination worked well for us, it did leave some of our friends and readers wondering what type of camper could possibly be left.
The answer? A flatbed camper.
What is a flatbed camper?
The bed on our Ram 3500 will soon go missing.
The concept of a flatbed camper echoes that of a slide-in truck camper. Both are intended to be mounted to the rear of the truck on a temporary or semi-permanent basis, allowing you to tote your home around with you wherever you go.
The primary difference is (you guessed it) that a flatbed camper requires a flatbed truck rather than your standard pickup bed. Flatbed campers are designed with a flat footprint that encompasses the entire surface area of the flatbed rather than being built to accommodate wheel wells and bedsides.
The benefits of flatbed campers
Flatbed campers are not as plentiful as slide-in campers, and there’s an obvious reason for that–consumer trucks come from the factory with boxed beds, making them by far the most common type of truck bed on the road. The demand for slide-in campers is simply much higher.
So, why go through the hassle of swapping to a flatbed and seeking out a flatbed camper manufacturer? The answer is simple–flatbed campers provide some notable advantages over their slide-in brethren, and those benefits appeal to us.
More floor space. Because a flatbed camper uses the entirety of the flatbed footprint (rather than the space between the wheel wells), you have far more floor space to work with. This means a roomier interior that better facilitates moving around and navigating around your camping partners–a must for full-time living out of a truck camper.
A more permanent solution than slide-in campers. While flatbed campers can technically be removed (just like slide-in options), they are typically designed to be semi-permanent. This makes them more of a cross between a removable camper and a true RV, and there are advantages to that, including plumbing into your vehicle’s electrical/fuel systems, using more secure mounting systems, and so on.
Why not buy a chassis-mounted camper?
If you choose to go the flatbed truck camper route, there is one primary alternative–a chassis-mounted camper that permanently mates to the frame of your truck. There are advantages of this style of camper, including one that is particularly compelling to us–a pass-through to the cab.
The option to use our truck for truck things is important to us.
In an ideal world, this is the route we would have gone. In many ways, it is preferable to us, but there were two key considerations that held us back from fully committing to a chassis-mounted camper–permanence and versatility.
Permanence. We have plenty of experience with long-term travel, but we are still viewing this shift to full-time RVing as an experiment. It will last a minimum of a year, with the opportunity to stretch without limits. Because we aren’t committing to a longer period (3+ years), we wanted something semi-permanent that could be removed and sold separately from the truck, if necessary. This also gives us the option to change our camping setup should we desire.
Versatility. A chassis-mounted camper is a camper through and through. By opting for a flatbed camper that can be removed, we can use the truck as a truck when needed. This grants us flexibility if we purchase a home or want to set up our camper as a home base for a prolonged period of time.
Our flatbed truck camper
Because flatbed campers are relatively rare, most options that are currently on the market fall into the custom or semi-custom categories. As a result, our search ended in choosing a pretty custom camper, and we’ve been working with the builder to achieve our end goal since making our decision.
We want to save the big reveal for when we actually pick up our camper (the excitement is building), but we’re happy to share a few of the main features with you here. Consider it a little preview of what’s to come!
Open floor plan. We are prioritizing floor space and freedom of movement.
Off-grid sustainability. We opted for plenty of power, water, and so on to stay off-grid for extended periods.
Quality. We were willing to spend more for quality rather than opt for quantity and/or a lower price.
With our camper under construction and our 2025 travel itinerary in development, it’s safe to say that the coming months hold some significant changes and excitement for us. We can’t wait to share our adventure with you–from picking up our camper to visiting The Last Frontier. We hope you’ll follow along by reading our blog, checking us out on social media, and watching our YouTube videos!
Please feel free to drop a comment below. We love engaging with and learning from you!
- Riley + Hanna