I Bought my (Very Rare) Dream Truck Camper

You guys would not believe the adventure that I went on to go get this camper. But then again, y'all know me, so you probably realistically would expect nothing less from me. Let's just say that it was quite the journey to go check this camper out. Before I get into the details and talk a little bit about the camper, I'm going to go ahead and play some of the footage from the voyage of me going to get the camper because it ended up being a lot more than even I was anticipating. Here we are guys. One week later and I'm headed back to Canada. Yep. I have officially lost my mind. Canada, here we come baby round two. All right y'all, here we go. Border crossing into Canada. Take two. Hopefully it goes as smoothly as it did last time. Howdy. Good. How are you? I live in Portland, Oregon. I'm actually buying a camper. Yeah. Uh, it's, I do have cash. Oh, it's just the person on Facebook marketplace is selling it. They live in Gibson. Yeah, it's a specific one. It's a fiberglass shell as opposed to all the wooden and aluminum ones that are down in the States. Yeah. Only, they only get manufactured here in British Columbia. So I found that they're up here a lot more often. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Here that guys, when you're traveling with a lot of currency, you have to fill out forms to declare it. So hopefully this doesn't take too long. All right. Well that didn't take too long. I was in there for about 20 minutes or so just had to fill out some paperwork and basically declare the cash that I was bringing over the border. Now I already know that there's going to be some people who are like, why are you traveling with cash? Especially that much cash. And uh, the answer is, well, I knew, I knew ahead of time it was going to be kind of a hassle to bring cash over the border. And I tried to talk to the, uh, the sellers and see if there was some other way that they would take payment. And you know, in this day and age, there's so many types of scams, whether that's fake checks or fake money wires or whatever that they didn't want to, they didn't want to deal with anything other than cash. So I understand their point of view. Me personally, when I sell stuff, I just want cash too. I don't want to take any type of chance that there's going to be some kind of scam payment. So that's why I had to bring cash. I know it's not ideal. And I'm definitely, definitely going to, uh, be vigilant and make sure that I'm using my intuition and I'm not putting myself in like a sketchy position. Uh, cause it is a lot of cash to have right now. I'm parked here waiting to get onto the ferry and it's going to be about 30 minutes, but I'm really excited because I've always enjoyed taking ferries. I haven't done that many in my life and I know it's going to be super, super pretty over here. Hopefully I get on with enough daylight out so I could see stuff on the ferry, but either way, even nighttime ferry rides are pretty cool. Uh, you might be wondering why I'm going there so late to get the camper. Like it's going to be nighttime by the time I get there. And I just had a lot of stuff to do today before leaving. So I didn't get, uh, I didn't leave Portland till pretty late in the day. And so the plan is I'm actually going to spend the night in the back of my truck once again, but this time I'm going to be in their driveway. They offered me a room. They said they have a spare bedroom. It's like this nice retired, older Canadian couple. But by the time I get there, I don't want to like disturb them and get there all late. So I just said I'll just sleep in my truck in the driveway. And in the morning we're going to load up the camper and then I'll be on my way. But it's all adding to the adventure guys. This is all part of the story that's going to be this camper, which is pretty exciting. All the hoops that I'm jumping through to go get it. Finally about to get on the boat. I've been sitting here waiting for the last like hour or so. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And when is, when am I able to like come back? Okay. Oh, sounds good. Thank you. Sheesh. That was way more expensive than I was expecting. 65 Canadian dollars. 65. I got out at 20 thinking that the 20 would be enough. Spent a grand total of three hours waiting to get on this ferry. It's a lot longer than I was expecting. This is turning into quite the mission to get this camper. Okay. I'm going to go upstairs. Scope it out. Okay. That was pretty cool. The best part, there was a little cafeteria on the ferry, which is a huge, huge blessing because I was starting to worry that I'd get to the other side and nothing would be open for dinner and I haven't eaten in quite a while. So I was really hungry. So I scarfed down a little bit of poutine because when in Canada you must indulge in some poutine. And now we are cruising up to the next dock. So I'll be getting off the ferry and driving over to my end destination where I'll be sleeping in the bed of my truck. It's been a journey y'all. It has been a journey. So I was getting my truck set up to sleep in the back of the bed and uh, I was parked in the, the people who are selling the camper's driveway. And they came out and said, Oh, it's going to rain tonight. Why don't you just come upstairs? And they're so nice. They offered me one of the spare rooms. So they're very sweet. Good people. Okay. As you guys could see, had I slept in the back of the truck last night, I would have woken up in a pool. It seems like it rained quite a bit. This is it guys. I know right now there's a really big space. It's lifted pretty high up, but eventually I'll make some, some custom level to lift it up only a little bit. All right, y'all. I just got the camper. It's all mounted. We're good to go. I'm super stoked. I mean, look at it. It looks, it looks really, really good. I'm super excited. But right now I got to make it over to the ferry cause I don't want to miss it and get stuck for another few hours. So I'll give you guys more of a tour later on, but for now, let's just head to the ferry going 15 15. Okay. Thank you. See ya. So I totally forgot, but since I was technically importing the camper from Canada, I had to get some kind of like import papers. This is mainly just so I can get title and a title and registration for the camper. Cause in Oregon, it's one of the few States that you actually, you actually have to have a title, a license plate registration on your truck campers, even though it's just cargo sitting in the bed of your truck. Oregon's one of the few States where you need that. So that took not too long, actually about 15, 20 minutes. And now we're on our way back to Portland. So unless anything eventful happens for the drive back, I'm going to pass the video over back to me in the future. Thanks for joining in. Like I said, it was, it was an adventure that's for sure. But even though I ended up being a lot more effort and a lot of hoops that I had to jump through to get this camper, I think that it just adds to the story of the camper and it just makes it that much more special and amazing that I ended up getting it. So now that you guys have seen exactly what lengths I went through to get this camper, I want to quickly talk about why this camper is so special, why it's my dream truck camper and why I put in the effort that I did to go and get it now to a lot of you guys at home, you might be thinking to yourselves what's so special about it. I don't get it. It's just an old outdated camper. And in a way you're not wrong. It is an old camper and it is pretty outdated. I mean the inside definitely screams mid nineties. There's no bells or whistles. There's no fancy equipment. There's no nice, beautiful interior. So what's so special about it? Why did I do what I did to go get it? And the answer lies in the design and the construction of the camper. So big foot is one of a few companies that constructs their campers out of fiberglass. All of the other campers, or most of them at least, I should say have some kind of wood frame with aluminum sheeting or aluminum frame or you know, et cetera. Um, these companies construct them out of fiberglass fiberglass molds. There's two pieces, a top and a bottom, and they basically meet together in one seam. Now all of the other campers that I've seen at least have many different seams all over where different aluminum sheets meet or where the wood frame meets the aluminum sheeting on the outside. There's basically just a lot of seams and there's a lot of potential spots for leaks and wood rot and so on and so forth. Whereas these fiberglass campers, since they're created out of fiberglass molds, there are absolutely no seams anywhere on the camper other than where the two pieces meet. So that eliminates, I would say at least 90% of the spots that your camper can potentially leak, which is huge. I mean up here in the Pacific Northwest, my biggest problem was finding a camper that didn't have any type of leak or wood rot because it just rains so much here and the fact that these fiberglass ones don't really ever leak makes it pretty much the only viable option for me. Okay, now you guys know exactly how it's constructed. What makes this specific camper so rare and so hard to find a Bigfoot and Northern light both make these fiberglass campers, which you could probably go out and find. They're not that hard to find, but here's the catch. They only made models that fit smaller trucks like Tundras, Tacomas, Rangers, those types of trucks. They only made campers to fit those trucks for like two years in the middle of the nineties and then they never made them again. Like all of the other, the vast majority of Bigfoot and Northern light campers that you would find are made specifically for three quarter ton or full ton trucks. They're great big, huge campers. So these ones, the smaller ones are very hard to find and since they have such an ideal design, they're highly, highly coveted and it's quite a hard search if you're looking for one because I have been looking for a long time and in fact I, I pretty much never truly believed that I would actually have the opportunity to one day own one. I mean they're just that hard to come by. And so when I saw this one up for sale, I knew, I knew I had to go get it or I had to at least attempt to go get it even though it was in Canada. Even though one week ago I literally drove up to Canada and came back empty handed. I just, they're so rare and they're so desirable that when I saw it I was like, okay, it's, it's worth it. I'm going to drive up there and I'm going to at least check it out and I have to, I have to at least give it a shot, right? I mean, this is like the unicorn of truck campers, at least if you have a smaller truck. This is literally like a unicorn and they're not cheap. They're not cheap. I had to, I had to dish out a good amount of money and there was also, there was also no wiggle room. I couldn't bargain because they're like, I said like, Oh, is a price firm. And they said, well, we have all of these other people who want to come check it out. So right now the price is firm. So I had to pay the full asking price. Otherwise they'd, you know, show it to other people. So with all that being said, that is why, that is why this camper is my dream camper. That's why it's so highly sought after and that is why I put in all the effort that I did to go get it. Realistically, like the interior, the interior is outdated. The interior is not, not fancy and it's not nice, but the structure and the bones, the camper itself is just, it's just designed in a genius way that allows you to plan for keeping the camper for a long, long time. I'm sure you guys are a little bit curious to see. I'll get, I'll show you guys around, but let me just say this. Don't, don't expect much. It's from 1995 and I haven't really had a chance to clean up much in here. So it's a little bit dirty, but like I said, the most important part is it has good bones and it's going to hold up in the winter. So that's, that was my primary concern. Yeah. I'll just stop talking now and show you guys around a little bit. So this is what you see when you step into the camper over here. We've got a pretty standard couch. I also have a table that goes in right there. So it'll be nice to have a table to work on up above here. Pretty standard cabinets and a fire extinguisher. Nice sized window. Over on this side, there's some storage down there, a propane heater, more storage up here. There's the table that goes by the couch where I was talking about. Got a sink, another window, some more storage down here, three burner propane stove, more storage. This is the original electrical converter that came with the camper up above here. More cabinets, more storage over here. Lots of lots of storage in here. Got a three, three-way refrigerator, AC, DC, and propane more storage up there behind these beautiful floral pattern curtains. There's a window. I think, yeah, there's a window right there and then pretty standard bedroom area. This bedroom area is actually much larger than the slumber queen. I believe I could fit a little bit over a full size mattress here, which I'll definitely be getting a new mattress, even though I really do love this artistic floral pattern, iconic of the nineties and a vent. Now, one of my favorite parts is that like my slumber queen, this completely opens and I can get up outside onto the roof. And that concludes the tour of the interior. Now, it was a very brief tour because like I said, there's nothing really exciting or unique about the interior as is. And in fact, it's, it's kind of lack luster given the fact that I was really, really hyping up this being my dream truck camper. But this leads to a rather obvious question. Do I have plans to renovate it? And you best believe I do. I will be renovating the heck out of this camper. I'm going to, I have plans to completely tear it apart and redesign it and really just reimagine the space and make it my own. And I don't exactly know what I'm going to do yet, but I definitely do know that I will be changing it up quite a bit in here. Definitely very excited about that. Definitely super, super stoked that I was able to get this camper. I hope you guys are stoked to see some adventures. This video is probably getting pretty long now, so I think I'm just going to end it here. Thank you guys. Like always for watching you guys go out there, go on some adventures of your own, live life, beat the status quo, yawn on the drill, enjoy the rest of your day, and I'll see you in the next one. Peace. Oh, I want to show you guys one thing real quick before I let you go here. So the people that I bought it from put on these extension brackets because they had it on a wider truck. So in order for the brackets to clear the bed rails, they just had to push them out a little bit further. I'm going to remove these since I don't need them. And then once I remove them, I don't have to worry as much about this hitting my bed rails. So as you could see, and as I briefly pointed out a little earlier in the video, I currently have it on this platform to lift it up high enough so the brackets aren't sitting on the bed rails. But once I remove those, I'll be able to take the platform out altogether. And the end result is the camper will just sit much more flush with the bed rails. And this part will be much closer to the cab of the truck because right now it's sitting up, I don't know if you can tell, but it's sitting up much higher than it needs to be right now. So once I do that, it's going to look that much better. Okay. I just wanted to quickly point that out because I already know there's going to be people in the comments saying, why is it sitting so high? It doesn't need to be sitting up that high and that's why. All right. See ya.