Hey guys. I have recently gone too far down the rabbit hole of the interwebs and have found some amazing campers with multiple foldouts with different sleeping areas and dining areas, all up off the ground. Heck, just the trailers that are build in Australia are amazing...
Why aren't these more popular in the US?
They are just starting to gain momentum. But I suspect the big reason for them not being very popular is pretty simple. Americans get very little vacation time most workers actually do not use the vacation time they do get. This lack of vacation time plays into how much American's invest into costly vacation related items like a UTE bed camper set up which primarily is strictly for camping and not something you would drive to a work meeting or use as a daily driver etc. Also this time issue impacts many different types of things for example all our sailing yacht clubs have been fighting declining membership for years and a big reason is competing areas of interest for the limited time they have like kids sports teams etc.
However!!! I would say just in the last 5-7yrs it seems like Americans are starting to value adventure. I meet more younger folks who have traveled out side of the US multiple times and plan on doing more travel than I can ever recall seeing in the past! This is GOOD!!!! I have always felt one of the biggest issues with American Voters is their LACK of exposure of the rest of the world as such we vote horrid politicians into office that create terrible US policies affecting other countries in very negative ways. I hope traveled Americans change this!!! And I hope we see the trend continue!
Most of the flat bed camper rigs you see in the US today are used by either retired folks with lots of time or younger folks who have a mobile life working on the road etc. Its not really something you see a working dad with that might make a few camping trips a year. At least not yet.
I'm your typical working DAD two kids one dog duel income house hold. And I basically gave my wife an ultimatum at Christmas this past year when she asked what I wanted for a gift. I told her camping trips! Given we got sucked into that never ending typical every weekend was booked with sports, birthdays etc etc and we never could get away! Our current camping rig is a Subaru Wagon which tows a small very compact trailer. We have already done more camping in the past three months than we have done in the past 5yrs. And we head off this weekend for a week long trip which will be our longest camping trip for the summer.
I would buy a midsized 4dr pickup and love to have a flat bed light pop up camper but only!!! If the truck had crash safety standards like my Subaru and ONLY if that truck could return similar mileage our Subaru gets otherwise it just doesn't make much sense to have that truck for the few times a year we would be using it for camping.