If you haven’t already figured out how to set-up your rooftop tent, check out our comprehensive guide on using your rooftop tent. Once you have gotten that down, check out some of our tips and tricks to making your RTT life smarter and better.

1. Keep all your bedding in your tent – The wonderful thing about a rooftop tent is never having to make your bed. Simply leave it in your tent when you close it.
2. Get a heated blanket for winter – Camping in a tent at subzero temperatures sounds crazy but with a heated blanket you will be so warm and toasty that you will never want to get out of bed.

   

3. Use desiccants to reduce moisture and condensation – Let’s face it, waking up to your condensed breath dripping back on your face just isn’t any fun. Apart from keeping your tent well-ventilated, hanging desiccants in your tent reduces moisture considerably. Leave the desiccants in your tent when you close it to absorb any residual moisture and prevent your bedding from becoming damp.

   

4. Get fairy lights, lamp and a torch – Fairy lights are perfect to keep your tent lighted while keeping a cozy ambience. Keep a small torch in the little side pockets of your tent for toilet runs in the middle of the night. A phone torch will not suffice. I repeat, a phone torch will NOT suffice.

   

5. Get a brush for your camping equipment – Regardless of where you camp, some element of nature is gonna stick on your camping stuff and having a brush prevents the build up of dirt and grime. We mainly use this to brush leaves and dust off the base of our Annex before keeping it but have used it to get rid of ice and frost from our tent as well.

   

6. Use ratchet straps – BIG TIP that we had to learn the hard way. Truth is, velcro straps don’t hold the way ratchet straps do. While the 4 straps that hold your RTT close should hold in calm weather, we had our tent fly right open in the middle of the freeway when we were driving in windy conditions. Just imagine how horrific it was trying to work against the rain and wind on the shoulder of the freeway trying to shut our tent. Our canopy bar was lost and our cover ripped during this incident but we were lucky to have it covered under warranty. From then on we always double ratchet strap our RTT (talk about traumatised much) and find that it is not only much more secure but much easier to compress the tent when packing up.

   

7. Use the provided bungee cords to keep your tent easily – If you’re like us, you might experience a lot of trouble trying to close your tent as the canvas keeps ballooning out, making it EXTRA troublesome to stuff all the canvas back in. The bungee cords are a good way to minimize that problem! Just hook them on the rings by the side of the windows and you’re good to go!
8. Hang your laundry close to you – Remember the bungee cords we mentioned earlier? Turns out there might be an extra use to that! Strap the cords on the hoops under the base of the tent (near the ladder) for you to hang your clothes.

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