Vehicle-mounted tents have been around since pioneer times, but rode a wave of popularity in COVID as #vanlife glamorized 4×4 adventures and Instagram popularized the idea of overlanding. Overlanding has since been interpreted by the masses as “car camping requires Nigel Thornberry cosplay.” To a point, I get it; looking cool is an important part of most of my hobbies. But this week I got an email about the Thule Outset, and the price of this thing begs the question: What are we doing here, guys?
Rooftop tents (RTTs for short) are almost always expensive. Granted, the good ones are made with great craftsmanship, high-end materials, and trick functionality like gas shocks to ease their deployment. But they all come with the same downsides: A big, high-mounted weight and a huge aero penalty for the vehicle they’re riding on. Plus, parking in garages becomes a problem, and getting into them from the ground is pretty annoying.
The Thule Outset addresses those RTT shortcomings by using a trailer hitch mount. Instead of a huge box mounted on your SUV’s roof, it’s a huge box hanging off the hitch. It folds out in seconds and can be easily detached if you want to drive away from your campsite without breaking down your domicile. Just, you know, make sure you don’t idle your car while somebody’s sleeping in there, or they might not wake up.
It looks pretty cool standing proud at camp in these promotional pictures. I’ve had great luck with Thule products (which I’ve always bought secondhand with years of use on them), and I don’t doubt that the Outset’s build quality is top-tier.
But I can not, for the life of me, figure out how there’s a market for this at $4,699.95.
In fact, seeing that price tag (about double what a good RTT costs) got me wondering why the vehicle-mounted tent trend is still a thing at all. None of the pitched benefits make sense. Being high up to get away from bugs? Guess what, they can crawl up your car. Some can even fly! Afraid of creatures? They’re more afraid of you. And the ones that aren’t can easily climb to your roof if they want to.
The only real practical benefit—almost instant deployment—is definitely not a thousand-dollar convenience. As you probably guessed, I’m a ground-tent peasant myself. Still, it takes me about the length of three songs to go from parked-at-campsite to having my own little living room that’s tall enough to stand in and a cot bed at a normal bed height, with a rug on the ground for hominess. My family sized ground tent packs down to about the size of a carry-on duffel bag and weighs as much as a couple of jackets.
Thule Outset Easy To Set Up
When overland hype was going crazy a couple of years ago and people started buying $300 shovels, I thought, OK, this is a clout fad that’s going to evaporate soon. Now, in 2025, people are still trying to sell me tents that cost more than some of my cars. Am I just a broke hater who’d be happier if my tent were attached to my truck, or is this the silliest corner of the off-road aftermarket?
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