Car camping has become a big deal in the last few years. Post-lockdown, lots of people have been striving to reconnect with nature by going and sleeping in it, but campervans are expensive, tents are miserable, and caravans are expensive and miserable.
The ability to turn your car into a mobile studio apartment offers a nice middle ground, which is why, in certain parts of the country, you’ll see tents strapped to the roofs of everything from family hatchbacks to kitted-out VW Transporters with those staggeringly unfunny ‘on an adventure before dementia’ stickers on them.
Dacia, though, reckons it’s come up with an alternative. As a factory option for the Duster, as well as the Bigster and Jogger, you can get a ‘Sleep Pack’, which, it’s claimed, quickly and easily transforms the rear part of your car into a mini-camper. As a self-proclaimed camping hater, I was keen to give this a go, which is why I temporarily swapped from our long-term Duster 4×4 into a Hybrid model, complete with the Sleep Pack already installed.
Skoda Octavia vRS camping kitchen
I was all geared up for a cosy solo night away, and then we got an email from the nice people at Skoda UK. We’ve kitted out an Octavia vRS with a roof tent and a pull-out kitchen setup in the boot, it said. Would you like to borrow it? Looks like we’ve got ourselves a good old-fashioned car camping showdown.
Of course, I can’t drive two cars at once. Nobody can. It’s simply not possible. So step one involved dragging CT’s new content producer, Lucas Cochrane, from the comforting urban sprawl of London to the wilds of North Yorkshire, where I live.
Step two was finding somewhere to camp. I didn’t really want to stay at a campsite, but wild camping – the sort of thing these in-car sleeping setups are mostly targeted at – is illegal in most parts of England without the permission of the landowner. A solution presented itself in the form of some very generous family friends who live out in the stunning North York Moors, and own a small orchard that we could park both cars in. Sorry about all the apples we ran over, Kate.
Skoda Octavia and Dacia Duster car camping setups
En route, both setups have their pros and cons. The big disadvantage of sticking a massive tent on your roof is obviously that it knackers your fuel economy and can make a bit of a racket at speed, although the TentBox Lite 2.0 sitting atop the Octavia was quieter than I imagined – certainly, its noise was less noticeable than the one kicked up by the official Porsche tent on the Cayenne I tested last year.
Still, sounds like a point to the Dacia, but the Sleep Pack brings its own issue – namely that it takes up your entire boot (granted, the Octavia didn’t have much of a usable boot either on account of it being full of a kitchen, but that won’t be an issue for most people). Then again, you’re not likely to have more than two people in the car if you’re kipping in the Dacia, so all your stuff can just go on the back seats for the journey there, and then be stowed beneath the sleeping surface when you’ve arrived.
The next test was getting both cars ready for a night’s kip, and in the Octavia, this was a bit of a revelation. I realise this won’t be a huge surprise to the thousands of people you see driving around with these TentBox arrangements strapped to their roofs, but a camping noob like me was amazed at how simple it was to set up.
Skoda Octavia vRS with roof tent
I was prepared for an hour of swearing and trapped fingers only to wind up with a crumpled mess of fabric on the roof, but no: simply unzip the whole shebang, undo a couple of straps, and use the ladder as a handle to unfold the tent, and your bedroom is ready.
The Duster’s Sleep Pack is equally easy to assemble. It involves sliding the front seats as far forward as they’ll go, folding down the rears, and then assembling the various bits of plywood stashed in the boot, providing a flat surface onto which you unfold the mattress. The final step is clipping fitted blackout blinds to all the windows, a thoughtful solution to what’s arguably the biggest problem with sleeping in a car.
Before long, though, both our little homes from home were ready. Cue the closest thing to a pub crawl you can get in a village of around 300 people, and then bedtime. Up in the TentBox, I was spoiled for space – it’s easily double bed-sized, with plenty of little storage pockets for any bits and bobs you want to take to bed with you. My only barrier to a really good night’s sleep was the reasonably firm, thin sleeping surface – were I to do it again, I’d have taken an air mattress for a bit of extra cushioning.
Skoda Octavia and Dacia Duster car camping setups
It’s also worth pointing out that we camped out on a calm, clear late summer night. The following night, when I was back in the happy confines of an actual building, a big autumnal storm swept through these parts – I’d probably have been a lot less cosy in the roof tent that evening.
Next door in the Duster, Dacia claims that the Sleep Pack offers a double bed, but the reality is that anyone sharing it would have to be very comfortable with one another, and also have the physique of a marathon runner combined with the height of a jockey. Really, it’s best for solo trips.
Lucas also reported waking up in the middle of the night feeling like he was in a sauna. Turns out sleeping in a small, enclosed, unventilated space can have this effect. You’ll want a crack a window, then, although this can dislodge the blinds. Nevertheless, the overall impression from Lucas was of a good night’s sleep, nicely shielded from the elements and noise of the outside world.
Dacia Duster Sleep Pack
Bright and early the next morning, we found both cars to be just as easy to return to driveable form, and debriefed over a coffee. The Duster Sleep Pack, we decided, is a neatly integrated solution, and one that you’ll barely notice when it’s not in use, providing you don’t have to chuck anything in the boot. Its limitations mainly stem from the Duster’s comparatively small size – the larger Bigster and Jogger might go some way to solving this.
These setups are obviously all Dacia-specific, too, and we’re not aware of any other cars, in the UK at least, offering anything similar as a factory accessory. The Tentbox, meanwhile, can be strapped to the roof of pretty much anything you can fit roof bars to, and offers a marginally better sleeping arrangement, at the cost of having to haul a massive, heavy box onto your roof, then lug it around while it gives aerodynamicists nightmares.
Remarkably, both these setups cost almost exactly the same – the Sleep Pack is a £1300 accessory for the Duster, while the TentBox Lite 2.0 fitted to the Octavia costs £1295, although bigger and smaller versions are available. For longer camping expeditions, we’d go for a proper roof tent, but the Sleep Pack makes impromptu breaks for Dacia owners a highly tempting opportunity, and I’m surprised it’s something other lifestyle-ish carmakers haven’t scrambled to replicate, given the post-Covid appetite for getaways like this.
Dacia Duster Sleep Pack – stored
One thing’s for certain, though – providing you have the budget and a suitable car, you need never suffer the misery of a regular tent again. That, we can surely agree, means both these solutions win.
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