New-generation car camping and roof tents for luxury-loving adventurers (2024)

Car camping has never quite had the same aura of adventure as other forms of getting out and about and eschewing conventional beds. Once seen as more of a necessity than a novelty, it’s now becoming a readily available option for urban dwellers who want a short, sharp and simple way of camping away from home without completely retreating into nature.

Hyundai is clearly thinking along similar lines. The South Korean car maker recently flagged up the national pastime of ‘Chabak’ (alternatively Cha-bak, or Cha bak, the name coming from the Korean word for a night in a car), and how it’s making inroads into European markets, particularly the UK. It was a shorthand way of saying that Hyundai has a number of suitable vehicles for the pastime, starting with its new plug-in hybrid variant of the Santa Fe SUV.

Aside from marketing-driven surveys, we dug into what else is new in the world of car camping, and how roof-top tents and extensions – as well as ultra-practical transformable interiors – are offering fresh alternatives to the conventional camper van or travel trailer for short stays off the beaten track.

Car camping in comfort: perfectly pitched solutions

Hyundai Santa Fe

Hyundai is suggesting that amenity-loving adventurers are better off with a more Chabak-inspired approach. This minimises set-up and maximises flexibility, presumably allowing you to make the most of your warm, well-upholstered and -equipped automobile on your escapes into nature, with the option to break camp in an instant and head for home (or a hotel).

The Sante Fe is particularly well suited to this featherweight approach, with a seven-seater interior, and a tailgate area that can be treated as a ‘terrace-like living space’. Add a roof-tent, and you’re good to go. According to Eduardo Ramírez, chief designer at Hyundai Design Centre Europe, ‘the inspiration for the Santa Fe was to create a vehicle that's not just transport but a gateway to adventure – a private retreat on wheels that combines home comforts with the great outdoors’.

Hyundai Santa Fe Plug-in Hybrid, from £51,885, Hyundai.com
You can also explore the concept of Chabak at Hyundai.com

Porsche Canopy Tent

Porsche already offers a bespoke roof tent that’ll fit not just its SUV models but also the 911. Now the company has launched its new Canopy Tent, a more enveloping and spacious experience that’s designed to add additional floor area to your stopover point. Designed by Studio FA Porsche in Zell am See, the Canopy Tent is a square, freestanding structure that dovetails with the sober (and very Porsche) black and grey colour scheme of the roof tent.

Inside, there’s a total floor area of 5.2 sq m (around 57 sq ft), with an inflatable structure giving solidity. As well as a standalone pavilion with fully openable side windows, the Canopy Tent comes with a vehicle-connecting tunnel which’ll connect the tent directly to the tailgate of your Porsche (ruling out the 911, because this of course doesn’t have a tailgate). Privacy screens and insect meshes allow for all sorts of practical combinations.

Porsche Canopy Tent, coming soon, Porsche Roof Tent, €5,552, Shop.Porsche.com

Good Vibes from Camp Werk

The award-winning Good Vibes roof tent from Camp Werk is an ultra-weather-resistant two-person sleeping capsule designed to fasten securely atop a small SUV. With space enough to sleep two, the roof tent comes with gas dampers to automatically raise it up once the clamps are undone. A comfortable 20cm-thick mattress is supplied (measuring 133 x 200cm) and there’s also space aplenty to keep bedding and bags within the hard shell, even when it’s closed. A removeable ladder is supplied for easier access and the opening process takes a matter of seconds, while zippable sides can be paired with rain canopies for through-ventilation regardless of the weather.

Good Vibes, available from Camp Werk, CampWerk.com

Vista XL from Hapro

The Vista XL is a folding roof tent from the Netherlands. While the Good Vibes opens vertically, making it exceptionally self-contained, the Vista XL expands out from the footprint of your car roof to create a larger space from a smaller original footprint. The XL includes an integrated ladder with large opening windows, canvas walls and a sizeable mattress, alongside travel storage for bedding and more.

Vista XL, available from Hapro, VDLHapro.com

Nissan Caravan MyRoom

While it isn’t exactly a tent, nor is it explicitly pitched at campers, we have to admire the Japanese-market-only Nissan Caravan MyRoom’s attention to interior detail. The Caravan is a mid-sized minivan, usually aimed at large families or small companies who need to cart plenty of people around.

In MyRoom trim, it becomes an office or retreat on wheels, with a Muji-esque interior with blonde wood benches and a table, alongside wood trim, wooden window blinds and shelves and storage aplenty. The bench turns into a bed and Nissan offers a special battery (recycled from its Leaf EV) to act as a power supply when you’re on the road.

Nissan Caravan Myroom, information at Nissan.co.jp