Full initial search term: using tarps to enclose pickup bed
Simple DIY Truck Tarp Setup – Overlanding and Truck Camping
The first one I watched. Ended up not-too-interested in the tarp or the setup, but very interested in Green Elephant Telescoping Tarp Poles and DANCHEL OUTDOOR Forged Steel Inflexible Heavy Duty 16inch Tent Stakes. See also: Nite Ize NCJ-01-4R3 CamJam Tie Down Rope Carabiner Clip, Cord Tightener 4-Pack, 4 Count.
Spoiler alert: This is the $399 tarp at the center of the plan that emerged:
WHITEDUCK 20’x24′ Canvas Tarp 18 oz/37 Mil Heavy Duty Waterproof UV Resistant, Rustproof Grommets, Industrial & Commercial Use Cloth Tarp (Finished Size: 19’6″x23’6″, Olive)
Same tarp, same price, direct from the manufacturer. (See also: Whiteduck, why choose us )
Video on Whiteduck Tarps
Basically: The 24-foot side of the tarp, lifted in the middle, makes two 12-foot sidewalls along the pickup doors.
Nose to tail, the truck is 20 feet long, and there’s no reason to cover the front-most six feet of it … so those six feet hang off the back. It’s an almost-garage that can even put an extra layer of tarp over the top of rooftop tent, over the whole eight feet of the truck bed, and then some–covering the tailgate in the down position and at least four feet more after that at the back end.
The poles keep the thing raised up. The stakes keep guy lines well embedded in the ground. Optionally, the camjams easily tighten the rope. The whole system is maybe a little more than five hundred dollars. And it all folds up and stows away nicely when it’s time to break camp.
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My second choice (probably first, if money were no object) would be a wall tent. You can get a Walmart knock-off version of one for the same $500 cost, but the build quality is not there, and it turns out that they’re not even real canvas–a dealbreaker. The real canvas wall tent runs about five times as much (and up), or six times if you add the ‘porch’ to it.
If I obtain a piece of zoning-free land someday (plenty available between five and ten thousand), I would be quite tempted to build a deck and put up three thousand dollars worth of wall tent on it semi-permanently. But hauling one around is probably overkill, and if I want to haul ‘spaciousness’ around I think I’d upgrade my cargo trailer first.
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Supercheap options with some useful bits
$50 DIY Truck bed Tonneau … and … A less cheap more pro tonneau
DIY Truck Canopy using $7 extendable painters poles
$7 Harbor Freight Overland, SUV, Mini Van, Camper Awning
DIY Bed Cover/’Topper’ on the cheap
Tarps/Tents even more expensive than what I’m getting
(and not many available in really big sizes either)
Bushcraft Spain
Tentsmiths (and Tentsmiths Official … and … video)
I found these last two via Shawn Kelly’s pages at Self Reliance outfitters, and they feature a number of other interesting items, especially things built out of oilskin.
Very High End Ellis Tents and a video on same.
Seriously Possible Futures
What’s the Best Canvas Tent? I Tried 4 to Find Out!
This isn’t about classic canvas wall tents, but about a sub-set of them–kind of ‘popup canvas tents with awnings’ (or ‘springbars’) that are quite a lot cheaper ($700-1200), not as sturdy, and damned interesting for the price (One of them is a Whiteduck product that lists for $850 on Amazon, plus more for available panels to enclose the awning.) If I found myself, post-tarp project, still craving a completely enclosed separate room besides, I would seriously consider one of these. A note: The most expensive of these four, the original Springbar, is the only one with a hot stove chimney port, to be used with something like a Winnerwell wood stove, which stove is currently $360 on Amazon.
One Bloke’s favorite tarps for Bushcraft (which is not exactly what I’m up to)
No-Weld/No-Sew DIY POP-UP Camper Walkthrough | KIT Campers V2
The very most perfect camper solution for a pickup is a popup.
Except that they tend to run, at minimum, about 30 grand, and you might have to wait a year to even get one.
This guy claims that his home-built version cost him less than four thousand.
It’s worth considering …