Columbus Ohio

Trails West provides essential equipment for the overland community. This includes standard overlanding accessories, tents for your vehicles’ roof top, off-road tires, suspension lift kits, roof racks, awnings, top tents, roof rack mounting accessories, and more to support you on your overlanding adventures. Not only does Trails West provide high quality accessories and equipment, we also provide in-house installations and maintenance services. We install everything we sell!

When considering purchasing a roof top tent one has to take into account some different key factors. There are different price points for roof top tents, and with each price point comes different features. The size of the tent and size of your vehicle must be compatible, and knowing how many people you want to accommodate in your roof top tent can determine the style of tent you purchase. Selecting a tent comes down to your overall budget, required durability, scalability needs, set up time, and the weight capacity you’re able to carry.

When it comes to hard shell rooftop tents there are a handful of things to consider. At minimum a rooftop tent needs to provide shelter, but it’s important to take into consideration how you will be using your tent. Hard shell roof top tents have the added bonus of doubling as rooftop storage for your vehicle; the protective shell acts as a great place to store bedding, cargo, and other equipment. With hard shell tents there is less concern for encountering bad weather. The hard shell protects the tent more effectively keeping heavy rain, hail, heavy snow, and potential flying debris from easily damaging the tent. Hard shell tents are intuitively designed to open very easily and can be set up in a matter of seconds. This is especially nice in environments where you may be encountering intense weather events and want to reduce setup time. Hard shell tents dry faster because there is less fabric to retain water. Whether you’re choosing a wedge or pop-up style tent, it’s clear that hard shell tents have some great benefits that anyone in the overland community should consider.

With a soft shell tent they can be more easily installed and uninstalled from the rooftop of your vehicle because of their lightweight materials and less rigid structure. This is great for someone who enjoys overland camping, but needs to utilize the top of their vehicle for other purposes regularly. Soft shell tents are overall more affordable making it more accessible for people just getting into overland camping. A soft shell tent can also come in different sizes, and because of these options can fit more people. These top tents also have superior venting and features to make stargazing from the tent easy. Soft shell tents don’t open as quickly or easily as most hard shell tents, but they are still easier to open up and set up than ground tents. Because they are so low profile they can be compacted and stored without taking up a lot of room and allow you to add other pieces of camping equipment to the roof racks.

When deciding on a top tent for overlanding, one thing to consider is the versatility of your tent. Roof top tent annexes can scale a standard tent into something larger, which is great for bringing family members, kids, or friends with you on your off-road camping adventures. These annex extensions are compatible with both soft shell top tents, as well as many hybrid top tents. Beyond just a place for additional storage, annex extensions can act as storage, a place for pets to sleep, a privacy room, a kitchen area, or a place to keep tools and equipment that you need to access easily.

Another important factor when narrowing down what tent you want to buy for your vehicle’s roof is the size. By determining how you’ll be using your tent you will get a better idea of what best suits your needs. The size of the tent will also be impacted by the size of the roof top and what you can attach to your crossbars or roof racks.