Are you thinking about getting a roof top tent for your car but not sure which one to get?
Perhaps you’re not sure whether a soft shell or a hard shell tent is your best bet?
Well, in this video, I’ll explain to you the key differences between
soft and hard shell tents to help you figure out which type is best for you!
Then, I’ll run you through the best roof top tents in Australia (both soft and hard shells),
explain to you the pros and cons of each, plus let you know which ones I recommend!
Sound good? Let’s get straight into it!
before we start talking about individual models let's first
talk about soft shell versus hard shell tents
Essentially, hard shell tents are great for those who are on the move a lot
and will be changing campsites regularly.
However, if you want to save money, or expect to be spending
a bit of time at each campsite, go with a soft shell.
With that in mind, let’s now take a look at a few of the
most popular roof top tent models in Australia!
There are 4 soft shell and 3 hard shell roof top tents that I would like to show you.
Let’s start with the soft shells.
Darche Panorama
This is one of the most popular roof top tents in Australia, and
with good reason! It’s made from thick 340 GSM canvas, is well built and can
be oriented in any direction to suit your setup. It’s backed by a 2 year warranty.
Adventure Kings Roof Top Tent
This is a very popular option for those who want a roof top tent but don’t have
the budget to afford some of the more premium models. It’s very affordable,
spacious and quite light as well. Unfortunately, the build quality isn’t so good,
although that’s to be expected when you consider the low price.
ARB Simpson III
This is a premium option from ARB that has been well designed. It sits very
well on your roof racks, with little to no swaying while you are driving.
Unfortunately, it is made from thinner canvas than the competition and is substantially heavier.
23Zero Dakota 1400
This tent takes the functionality of the other tents and adds a little comfort and
style. It comes with a large sky roof and windows to let you look up at the stars
while relaxing on the thick, included mattress.
It also has light suppression technology built into
the tent material, which means that you won’t get woken up at first light.
The downsides of this tent are the smaller sleeping area and the thinner canvas used.
So those are the soft shell tents. Next up, we have 3 hard shell tents.
Adventure Kings Kwiky Hard Shell
This is definitely one of the most popular hard shell roof top tents in Australia.
It is very affordable and super easy to set up. Unfortunately,
the sleeping area is quite small and a bit tight for 2 people. There were also quality issues with
the case in MKI of this tent, but Kings claim to have fixed this in their new MKII version.
Eezi Awn Dart
Unlike the regular rectangular shape of most hard shell roof top tents, the Eezi
Awn Dart actually has a wedge-like triangular shape. It is more spacious than the Kwiky,
comes with a very thick 80mm mattress and is made from quality materials, including YKK zippers.
It is unfortunately a fairly expensive option.
James Baroud Grand Raid Evolution
Made in Portugal, the James Baroud range are definitely premium roof top tents.
The build quality is incredibly high and they come with plenty of extra features like a solar powered
ventilation fan, removable and rechargeable LED torch, plus optional thermal insulation for
winter camping. They are covered by a 5 year warranty on the hull, fabric and mechanism.
The only real downside of these tents is that they are very, very expensive.
Anyway, now that we know a bit about each of the tents,
let’s take a look at how they compare against each other!
all right so first of all we've got up here is a comparison of the price of each of
these tents and as you can see there is a huge difference in the price of a couple of these
um so on the left over here we have the um the four uh soft shell roof top tens and then
over on the right here i've got the um three hard shell tents and you can see that the um
just generally speaking the soft shell tents are quite a bit cheaper than the hard shell tents
remind you i have chosen a couple of particularly expensive hard shelves to add to this list so um
it does skew the data a little bit but the the soft shells are generally as a rule cheaper than
the hard shell tents but even within the soft shells you can see it's a pretty big difference
the cheapest is definitely the king's rooftop tent which is down at about 900 dollars here
and then you've got the daichi panorama which is up at about two thousand dollars so there
is there's a fair old variation just in there and then the hard shells you can see the the quickie
is the budget option down here at 1400 and you know things can go all the way up to
about six grand even with the james barrood range up there i don't have an exact price for them but
that's approximately what they go for from what i understand do um keep in mind that these prices
are correct at the time of me filming this video um please check out the video description below
for the latest prices um as well as a link to my website outdoorexplorer.com.u where you can see
um the latest price comparison amongst all the retailers that stock these tents so yeah big
variation the price between these tents here but how do they stack up on the rest of the parameters
that i'm looking at here let's take a look so next up is the internal area of the tent this is
kind of how much room you have inside the tent in square meters and you can see that the soft shell
tents are generally um roomier than the hard shell tents there although if you do go towards the more
premium end of the the hard shell tense you do get still a decent footprint to work with um so yeah
i don't have any data on the arb uh simpson 310 unfortunately they don't seem to provide that data
for the internal area but i would imagine that it's probably similar to the panorama
or the dakota 1400 in that three to three and a half square meter range the king's rooftop tent
is surprisingly large entire inside considering how cheap it is at four and a half square meters
so that's kind of a good pro for that tent um the quickie the king's quickie is um the hardshell one
is quite a small tent in my opinion it's quite narrow i think the width of it is only
just over one meter wide which is really quite narrow for two people to sleep side by side
if you think about a standard double bed it's about 1.4 meters wide so the quickie
there is only one meter wide so it's fairly narrow and yeah so just keep that in mind
next up is the internal head height and this is a measure of how much space you have inside the tent
um the higher it is the better obviously there's you feel more roomy inside you don't feel like
it's quite so claustrophobic the soft shells are all sitting in that 120 to 130 ish kind of range
there which is pretty good and about what you'd expect the quickie and the james barrood are both
quite um quite squat really they're quite low ceiling tents at less than one meter high so
you know if you see it's a bit harder to fully sit up there like read a book or
something inside the tent says that the ceiling is fairly low in them so just keep that in mind
this is the packed area and this is kind of how much area in square meters the tents take
up when they are fully packed this is kind of an indication of how much space you can expect these
tents to occupy on your roof racks and you can see that the soft shell tents there are quite a
bit lower than the hard shell tents and that makes sense as they fold up quite a bit um and they end
up being quite a compact unit which frees up quite a bit of space on your on your roof racks there
to fit some other gear while you're traveling the hard shells of course take up quite a bit
more room um yeah with the quickie being fairly low at 2.7 square meters but yeah once you get up
into the the um more premium ones the james barrood they do take up um quite a bit more
space there at about three and a half 3.6 square meters of your roof next up is the packed height
and this just gives you a feel for um kind of the height when the unit is fully packed away this is
just an indication of kind of how much drag you can expect when you're driving on the highway
um kind of how much extra resistance the wind is going to meet when it hits your car there and you
can see that most of them sit in a fairly standard kind of a 30 to 35 centimeter packed height there
do keep in mind that the hard shell tents tend to have a more aerodynamic profile at the front
rather than just a square flat front they do have a nicely shaped front um which means that they're
probably um a decent bit more aerodynamic the dachi panorama is actually packs down to
quite a small height there at just 25 centimeters which is definitely a pro for that tent
now weight this will also add to the um kind of total weight of your vehicle the extra drag of
your vehicle it all means extra fuel consumption so a higher weight is not good here because yeah
you will burn through more fuel lugging it around it also means that if you do need to
take the tent if you need to lift it on or off your car it is going to be really heavy and you
can see the arb simpson 3 there weighs um 81 kilograms it's the heaviest tent we've got here
so that is a bit of a monster it's really heavy um it's tough to get on and off your car
but the other ones there and in the soft shell i tend to be quite a bit lighter yeah
so the arb is really quite heavy for a soft shell if you look at the other soft shells
there they're all in about 60 kilograms and then the hard shells are probably around 70 kilograms
uh but yeah the arb is all the way up there at 80.
next up is the mattress thickness all of these rooftop tents come with an included mattress
um but the thickness and the in the comfort of these mattresses vary greatly you can see that
there is a pretty big difference ranging from 50 millimeters all the way up to 80 millimeters
in saying that the mattress thickness doesn't tell you the whole story as the the king's rooftop tent
the soft shell one has a fairly thick mattress at 75 millimeters but a lot of people have complained
that this mattress isn't very good quality doesn't give you much padding or comfort or support
and they actually recommend a lot of people recommend replacing this with another mattress
if you are going to be using it for a while and want something that's decently comfortable
so do keep that in mind as well even though the dachi panorama only has a 50 millimeter mattress
um no one haven't really heard anyone complaining about the mattress being uncomfortable
so it may well end up being that that mattress is better than the 75 millimeter
kings one oh and you can just see there whoops before we move on that the um easy on dart and
the james brood both come with a nice thick 80 millimeter mattress and both of them seem
to be quite good quality which you would expect considering the price that you're paying for them
set up time i mean i've just basically done this little graph here to show you that the hard shells
are much faster um at setting up then the soft shells there they score much higher in that regard
you basically just open them up and let the gas struts do the work they'll just they'll open up
the tent for you automatically whereas the um soft shell ones require a fed unfolding and pegging out
um to get them done in saying that it's only about five to ten minutes of work probably depending
on the model that you're looking at but you know compare that to seconds with the hard shell tents
ventilation is another important one ventilation is important because you want to be able to
release the moist air from your tent first of all overnight otherwise you'll find
condensation building up in your tent and second of all ventilation is important to
ensure that you can get some fresh air some some cool air into your tent
um in summer and stop it from overheating and that um most of the tents are pretty good in terms
of ventilation there's not too much difference between them they're mostly all made out of canvas
um so they breathe pretty well and they all have windows the the james barrood gets a
special mention here as it comes with a solar powered ventilation fan that will automatically
um exchange the air inside your um inside your tent at quite a quite a good rate there
and it is solar powered so you don't need to worry about it draining your your 12
volt batteries or anything like that so that's a nice little added bonus you get with that tent
the warranty is another interesting one here um there's a pretty big range in the warranties there
you know dashi panorama comes in with a pretty standard two year warranty the kings ones only
come with a single one-year warranty but you can see the chains barood there comes with
a five-year warranty although be aware that this isn't on the entire unit that is just on the whole
the mechanism and the fabric i believe they only give a two-year warranty on the rest of
the tent so you might want to check the fine print on that one before you lock that one in
um so yeah just keep that in mind there is there's quite a range of warranties there basically the
more expensive tents tend to come with a better warranty as you would expect last up is the
build quality and this is just kind of a bit of a subjective measure based on my feel of how each of
these tents are built and speaking to people that have used these tents and what they think of them
the king's rooftop tent the soft shell one um has had a lot of
bad it's a lot of bad press kind of um it has a bit of a bad reputation um as a lot of people
saying that it does leak quite readily even if you do season the canvas you will get leakage in this
tent um and they also just feel that the quality in general isn't as good as the other as the as
good as the other soft shell tents out there which i think is probably fair enough and probably what
you'd expect when you consider the price is half or a third of some of the other models out there
so yes the quality is lower but it is substantially cheaper so it's up to you to
make that call whether it's worth it or not um and the james bird they just get a special a special
mention for having just outstanding build quality um they're just made really well i've never heard
anyone say anything bad about them other than the price of course they are very expensive
but they are very well built they come with a ton of extra features that other rooftop tents don't
have and yeah they're widely loved by everyone so yeah that's how each of these tents compare
To sum it all up, I think that for soft shell tents, the Darche Panorama is the best
option out there. It’s well built yet lightweight,
made from high quality canvas and is backed by a 2 year warranty.
If you are on a tight budget, the Kings soft shell roof top tent is another great option.
It’s very affordable and surprisingly spacious.
In terms of hard shell tents, the Kings is the best balance of price and quality in my opinion.
Just make sure that you get the MKII version which has the redesigned case.
Anyway, I hope that you have enjoyed this breakdown of the best roof top tents in Australia!
If you have any questions or comments, be sure to leave them
below! If you have enjoyed the video, don’t forget to like it and subscribe.