I thought some folks might be interested to know about the trip my wife and I are taking in my F250. We are nearing the end of the first of five months of travel with a truck camper. We had our camper custom built by Coyote RV in Denver, CO. We drove out from Massachusetts starting on May 6th, and picked up the camper on the 10th.

Since then we have been to Rocky Mountain National Park, Arches NP, Bryce Canyon, Escalante State Park in Utah, Capitol Reef NP, Death Valley Sequoia NP, Kings Canyon, NP and many other points of interest.

The SD is performing well. The camper only weighs about 1800 pounds with full tanks, and our gear is minimal being mostly for hiking. The only performance modifications I have done to the truck are Firestone air bags with Air lift wireless controlled compressor, and Bilstien HD shocks. The other important mod is the addition of a backup camera with 7 inch monitor.

With lots of mountain driving and wind were getting about 11.5 mpg. This is only about 1 mpg less than I get driving around town unloaded. I haven't had a chance to do any extended highway driving with the camper yet. I'm at 6000 miles now so I hope mpg might still improve a little.

I just have to say that the SD with 6.2 is a great truck. It handles well with a load, and has more than enough power to make driving it a real pleasure. Te ride is much improved with the camper loaded too.

Here's a link to a post on the camper manufacturers site. It shows our rig in still and video. F-250 Custom Pop Up Just Completed! | Phoenix Pop Up - Custom Built Truck Campers - Powered by Clvr.Tv

I'm including a couple of pics here as well. One from Kings Canyon and one from Sequoia.

 

Very cool! Sounds like an awesome trip. Nice way to travel if you're the adventuresome type! Nice to hear the truck is doing so well for you. Keep us posted on further travels and truck reports.

 

What's your mpg with camper and what does it weigh?

 

The camper weighs 1800 pounds wet. In addition to that, we have very minimal gear. The two of us weigh about 300 pounds combined.

I'm getting about 11.8 mpg according to the lie-o-meter. When we do the math, it comes out to 11.4 mpg. This is pretty much all mountain driving. I think it would be better on flatter roads. This truck only gets 12 mpg or so around town with an empty bed. I'm happy with what it gets for mileage.

 

That's so cool... I've always wanted to see all those places. Thanks for sharing !

 

Glad things are working out well for you. That is a nice rig too.