Full Tour of Our Overlanding Rooftop Tent Setup
Living out of your car for 3 weeks may seem crazy to some, but to us it’s a feeling of freedom and adventure. We desired to take a longer trip while working remote for an extended time. It took a lot of research and planning, but we finally got to experience and test out road-life this past June.
We started planning for our 3-week trip out west 6 months before we left. This consisted of researching higher quality gear for camping/working, where to work remotely, and where to set up camp. We learned A LOT from our favorite YouTubers and hours of research, which is why we wanted to walk through what our overlanding setup looks like. We hope this can be a helpful resource to make it quicker and easier to get out there and explore in your own setup!
Note: keep in mind you don’t need everything we list below to get out and explore! This is just what works for us.
2002 Chevy Tahoe
This had been in Cody’s family for years. It spent a lot of it’s time in a garage and was in great condition. The Tahoe was both affordable and a capable machine, so it made sense to make this our adventure mobile.
We recommend if you’re doing even a little bit of off-roading, to invest in a good set of tires. We learned the hard way and destroyed a tire coming out of one of our campsites. You can see above that we upgraded to Falken WILDPEAK A/T tires to help us get around on the back roads.
Rooftop Tent
We’ve loved experimenting with traveling in our rooftop tent. It has been a great way to spend more time outdoors and explore. We decided on the Roofnest Sparrow because of the ease of popping up and we wanted a hardshell top.
We talk more about living in our rooftop tent in one of our previous blog posts.
Tote Life
On our first camping trip down to Texas, we’ll be honest and say we were VERY unorganized. We used random bags, small laundry baskets, or just tossed things in the Tahoe. Things didn’t stack, we had to crawl over everything, and we had to take things out just to get to what we needed.
But here comes.. tote life!
We have 1 larger tote and 3 smaller stackable totes that we use to store all of our cooking supplies, food, and most of everything else we need. We’ve found that these fit perfectly inside the Tahoe and make everything easier to access.
Plastic Drawers
After our first big road trip, we knew we needed a better solution for our clothes. We originally had our clothes in a laundry basket, which felt unorganized because if you wanted something from the bottom, you’d have to dig around all your other clothes just to find it.
Another game-changing add was.. plastic drawers!
Kate had these plastic drawers from college so we decided to reuse them since they were about the right size. With it being 3 drawers high, we still had room to set random items on top. What made it even more convenient was that we could open the drawers without moving anything around. All in all, this was one of our favorite ideas!
Water
We knew that to be fully off-grid we would need a way to store water to clean our dishes, wash our hands, and drink from. We decided on two 5-gallon water jugs. We also always bring a couple water bottles to refill from.
It works perfectly to set the jug on the side of a picnic table, set our collapsable sinks on the ground underneath, and wash dishes. With the water bottles and two jugs, this lasts us a little under a week if we’re consistently cooking.
Bathroom Setup
Our bathroom setup is pretty simple:
If we’re staying in a campground, we use the public bathrooms. If we’re in a dispersed camping spot, we bring toilet paper and go outside.
To keep clean we utilize campground showers, rivers, or shower using our shower-head and bucket. We talk about showering while on the road in more detail in one of our previous blog posts.
We use the front seats and visor mirrors to get ready for bed and in the morning. We both get ready pretty quick, so we don’t need much space.
Kitchen Setup
Now that we have our handy electric cooler to store all of our fresh veggies, we wanted some extra space to prepare our meals (we talk about our favorite quick and tasty recipes in more detail in one of our previous blog posts!). We decided on purchasing a portable table, which also has hooks and a spot to store utensils.
It has allowed us to spread out and enjoy cooking even more. One note on this table is that we do wish it was sturdier. If nothing is sitting on it, it feels light enough to fall over.
We also utilize a two burner camping stove. This size works for us as we can have a kettle for coffee going on one burner while starting to cook breakfast on the other.
We’re happy with this setup as it has allowed us to cook at the campsite vs. eating out.
Power
We love our solar setup because it has allowed us to truly be off-grid and eat healthier.
The base of it all: our Jackery 1000W Battery - the Explorer 1000.
To power the battery, we have one 100W solar panel.
Our Dometic electric cooler keeps our food cool without having to worry about ice.
We also utilize rechargeable flashlights when walking around at night, a fan to keep us cool while sleeping, and a shower-head to keep clean. These all can be charged via the Jackery battery.
Check out our previous blog post if you want to learn more about how we lived off the sun for 3 weeks.
Bike Rack + Bikes
A big thing we learned from our first road trip was that we needed a way to get around other than the Tahoe. We didn’t want to always have to collapse down the tent to get to work or to explore town. So we decided to bring our own bikes!
Cody already had a Trek hybrid bike while Kate recently bought a Trek mountain bike. What we didn’t have was a way to transport. We did our research and decided to buy a Kuat bike rack for a couple of reasons:
Because of how easy it is to pack up the bikes. Just set the wheels in their tray, lock the cross-arm in place, and strap the back wheel down.
It has built-in bike locks!
The rack tilts down which allows us to access the tailgate with our bikes still on.
It mounts to the hitch with makes it very sturdy.
After our 3-week trip, we were thankful to have brought our bikes along! It gave us the opportunity to explore Tahoe City, bike into work, and get some additional exercise throughout our trip.
Workspace
We’ve had the opportunity to work remote on several of our trips and have enjoyed it every time! We always feel a sense of freedom and happiness when opening our laptop for the day after biking into work with pretty views.
Here’s a list of our recommended work setup while traveling (check out our gear page for more detailed reviews):
Also to read more about our remote work experience, check out one of our previous blog posts.
We’ve loved the experiences we’ve had traveling in our adventure rig. We hope our virtual tour helped answer some questions and sparked ideas!
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