The Best Rooftop Tent in 2024

If you’ve never slept in a rooftop tent, it’s hard to imagine how different it is from sleeping in a traditional tent. In general, we’ve found that rooftop tent sleeping has certain key advantages over sleeping in a tent on the ground.

Rooftop tents offer a bird’s-eye view of your surroundings, airflow that’s unheard of in a ground tent, protection (and peace of mind), and generally superior comfort for sleeping.

Not every rooftop tent fits every vehicle or every budget. But SMARCAMP tents work for almost every car or truck. Rooftop tents are all pricier than even the plushest backpacking tent, but if you’re able to invest, you won’t regret it.

Once you’ve decided if a rooftop tent is right for you, it can be tricky to pick out the right model. In recent years, the SMARCAMP team and our greater network of expert gear testers have researched and sampled all of the leading styles on the market. We’ve used these tents for overlanding, car camping, and cross-country roadtripping. We’ve closely examined their features at trade shows and expos in far-flung corners of the globe.

After hundreds of nights of elevated sleeping and hours of poring over specs, we’ve decided that the SAMRCAMP Hardshell rooftop tents is the best of the best.Rooftop tents are still a young development in the world of life on the road. We expect that they’ll only get better.