Over the past few years, I've been fortunate enough to travel, camp, and film all around the World. Usually, I sleep inside a camper van or in a tent on the ground, but this week Roofnest offered up a Falcon Rooftop tent, and because it's fall in Michigan, I knew exactly where to go. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Northern Michigan.
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ALEXANDER MALBURG: Over the past few years, I've been fortunate enough to travel, camp, and film all around the world. Normally, I sleep inside a camper van or in a tent on the ground. But this week, Roofnest offered up a Falcon rooftop tent. And because it's fall in Michigan, I knew exactly where to go-- Sleeping Bear Dunes in National Lakeshore.
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As I arrived at my campsite, the sun was setting. I was losing light fast, and the rain was forecasted to start within the hour. Normally, I'd be stressing out setting up my campsite, but not this time. The Falcon rooftop tent is the easiest tent I've ever had to set up. All I had to do was unlock, unlatch, push up on the tent, grab the ladder, attach it, bring it down, and I had my shelter ready to go.
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All right. Now that the tent is set up, let's take a look at what's inside. Got the ladder to take you up to the tent. And yeah, this is it right here. Got my sleeping bag set up, pillows. I brought some lights with me.
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What was nice is the Falcon comes with a foam mat to sleep on, which is also thin enough so when you close the entire tent you can leave it inside and drive around. I was expecting to layer a bunch of blankets to sleep on to keep the padding up, but yeah, this was pretty comfy.
One bonus thing I like about this, too, is the interior. It is pretty dark. Just throw the mesh up there. I don't know if you can still see me here, but you can easily sleep in later in the morning than usual in this tent.
So continuing on, we have the two pouches, one right here and one right here. Got the mesh storage above.
This is a pretty small footprint on the vehicle. This weighs 140 pounds. It is made of honeycomb aluminum, and the exterior itself is a clamshell design. The exterior is 90 inches in length and 50 inches wide. The inside is a little bit smaller. It's got 88 inches in length and 48 inches in the width.
With that in mind, I did have a little trouble being able to stretch my legs out. I'm 6'4", which is about a foot shorter than the length of the tent. But because of the slanted ceiling, I wasn't able to move my feet all the way to the end.
It's almost like you are reserving a room with a better view in a hotel. Not quite full two bedroom suite, top floor, but this is pretty nice, and I like it quite a bit.
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And they say it's waterproof, but don't bring this thing through an automatic car wash. I didn't do that because I didn't trust it. I used a hand sprayer. I did my best to avoid spraying directly onto the tent itself, but when I came back to the campsite and set this thing back up, I did notice some water droplets inside the tent. I would keep that in mind whenever you need to wash your car with this thing on top.
Speaking of water inside, just like any other tent, be prepared for a lot of condensation if you don't properly ventilate at night. Because it rained the first night, I wasn't able to properly ventilate, and the ceiling was a bit damp when I woke up the next morning. Thankfully, because the ceiling is slanted, I didn't have to worry about it dripping down on top of me as I slept.
One other thing I don't like is the storage mesh. That could be a little bit tighter. I wish I could have used it to store my coat or my boots without having them roll all the way to the bottom.
One problem I've had with this tent is the backlatch, specifically the back passenger side. After only a few days, it started to seize up on me. So I would recommend bringing a set of Allen wrenches, or an adjustable wrench, maybe even some good old-fashioned WD-40. Since I didn't bring any tools with me, I had to get on top of the shell and use my body weight to push it down, and then do my best to completely latch the back.
Overall, the Roofnest Falcon rooftop tent made my camping trip a pleasant experience. At $3,395, it is more than I spent on my first car as well as more than any rooftop tent made by Thule or Yakima. Is it worth the high price tag? That depends on how much you enjoy camping. To me, the lightweight, comfortable materials, solid construction, ease of use, and slender profile make it worth the price tag.
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