RV review: Four Wheel Campers CampOut - it's brilliant
Honest RV review: Four Wheel Campers revolutionary CampOut
Today’s RV review is of the 2025 Four Wheel Campers CampOut series camper. This is a new series from Four Wheel Campers that, in my opinion, is one of the smartest things I’ve seen an RV company do. Ever.
What you have is one of the company’s existing pop-up series pickup campers but then with interior modules that you can buy either with the camper or after the fact and install yourself or have your dealership install.
We actually have a pretty great history with Four Wheel Campers in Woodland, California. A few years ago they lent us one of the Four Wheel campers which we took on an extended adventure - here’s that story. The fact that they have models available for media to borrow shows their confidence in their build - which they should have.
What is a Four Wheel pop-up camper
At the core the CampOut model is a typical product of Four Wheel Campers in that it is built with their aluminum frame and interior-exterior walls. There are sizes for most types of pickup truck including mid-size trucks like the Toyota Tacoma and Chevy Colorado as well as full-sized trucks with either standard or long beds.
If you’d like, Four Wheel campers can even outfit a flatbed truck with one of their camper models. They’re pretty flexible.
The company has been building these slide-in truck campers since 1972 and doing a good job of it. There is enough repeat business but primarily because someone bought a different truck. These aren’t campers that tend to have a lot of failures.
For the slide-in campers Four Wheel Campers makes a number of options including one we considered, the Project M, which is basically an empty shell. There are also fully outfitted offerings with all the usual camping bits which is what we borrowed when we borrowed their Hawk model.
Almost all the Four Wheel campers have a portion that extends above the roof of the pickup truck where the bed is. That’s the sleeping bed, not the bed of the truck.
Four Wheel Campers has a piece that slides under that upper platform that is the floor of this extension on the inside that can significantly extend the size of the bed. In some of their full-sized truck campers this turns the bed over the cab into a king-sized bed. Nice.
Of course the size of the that sleeping bed is based on the size of the truck bed but none of the sleeping beds are really small when you factor in this extension. That’s a lot of bed talk.
Another thing that’s a signature feature of these campers is that the roof extends upward with a flexible filler portion. Lifting the roof on these campers is really easy - you unlatch six exterior latches and go inside and push the roof up, essentially. Putting it back down is also an easy task.
The standard filler piece is a vinyl product with zip-open windows that feature a Velcro window shade cover. You can also get an additional insulated panel in here if you feel you’re going to be camping in more extreme climates.
There are four windows on this insert - two on either side. And, yes, they have bug screens too so you can open the plastic windows and get a nice cross breeze.
But today’s model is something I’ve not seen before in the RV space - a truly customizable flexible product.
The CampOut
What Four Wheel Campers has done is taken their basic camper body and made it able to be custom outfitted with various components. Know that a visit to their showroom in Woodland, California can be fun as they already had been offering a lot of variety in what you could order and how you could tailor one of their campers.
But this is that to the extreme.
Basically the CampOut model uses installable modules that let you tailor the interior to the current use you’ll have for it. The modules are also really easy to install or take out so, one weekend, you could have a camper with seating for four. The next weekend you could have one fully outfitted with a fridge and sink.
The modules utilize an aluminum frame and honeycomb walls and doors along with bamboo tops. There are a variety of modules available including a sink, seating benches, storage boxes, dinette and others.
The interesting thing is that you could buy the modules you want as part of the original build and have them installed or you could buy modules later and assemble and install them yourself.
No matter which optional modules you choose there are two cabinets that are standard - a power cabinet and a storage cabinet.
Power to the people
The power cabinet comes with at least one lithium battery along with all the necessary items to charge that battery from the truck’s alternator or from an external power source like a generator or shore/park power via a 30 amp plug.
There is an optional second battery as well as an inverter and solar options as well. Something Four Wheel Campers did that I like is make a provision for roof-mounted solar panels with a connector on the roof that’s built in. The company will gladly install panels for you or you could do it yourself later and the roof-mounted plug really makes that easy.
You can also opt for an inverter to operate the 120vac plugs in this rig when you’re off the grid.
Something I haven’t seen before, again, is a power outlet specifically for a Starlink Mini system as well. I love RVs built by people who actually use RVs in the real world.
More options
One of the optional modules is a water cabinet that has a sink cut into the bamboo top of the cabinet and a provision for a Dometic GO Hydration Jug faucet. This one comes with four of the jugs and one faucet with three of those jugs intended to be used for fresh water and the fourth for gray water.
This kind of water system makes winterizing this camper about the easiest thing possible.
In the storage cabinet you can get an optional propane system that has a small propane bottle that can feed another option, a Truma furnace system. That bottle can also operate another option - a portable propane cook top.
That cook top can be left on top of the cabinet or taken outside where there’s a second propane fitting for this or whatever else you want to tap off the propane system.
But you could also get a two-burner induction cooktop instead which, like its propane counterpart, can also serve you out of doors or in.
Since you’ll have the ability to cook food, there is also a module that is essentially a seat-height module but comes with a provision to hold a 12 volt cooler. Oh, and it comes with a 12 volt cooler. Handy. That cooler itself as well as the module are removable.
Other modules include seating modules and storage modules. Apparently there are some 40+ ways to configure the interior of this rig. The seating module also includes a Lagun-style table which is a really flexible thing that can move around like a planchette on a Ouija board, except it’s also height-adjustable. Pretty cool.
Other details
On the outside of the rig there are L-track rails in several places on the outside to hang things either in transit or once you’e gotten to where you want to go. There is also a moly panel on the road and camp side of this rig, again, so you can attach things to the outside.
What things? Surfboard mounts, lights, utensil organizers. The possibilities are almost endless as these standard mounts have all sorts of gadgets that work with them.
Hey, that’s my idea…sorta
Perhaps the reason I liked this rig so much is that I’ve been thinking about doing this for some time. I mentioned that I had considered building a camper using Four Wheel Campers’ Project M, which is essentially a blank canvas with the bed provision up front.
I already have the Dometic Go Hydration jug system, I have a portable induction cook top, I have several portable power stations and more.
I had also considered building a custom RV trailer starting with a cargo trailer. Funny thing, the aluminum framing and build system that Four Wheel Campers is using for their modules is the same system I was planning to use for the cargo trailer conversion. And, did I mention that I have most of the rest of the build?
We also took our pickup with the Flated Air Topper camping using all these gadgets we have. So you can see why I like this camper so much - the measuring and figuring out parts are all done for you, now you have only to choose modules and put them together like a camping Erector Set.
What’s not here
There are a few things you might have caught are not part of this build - a toilet and a shower. These are easy to remedy.
Like with our situation a portable toilet can perform that lovely task. For privacy and all of that we use our Privy Bivy toilet tent so it’s like a portable outhouse.
One thing this doesn’t have is hot water but there’s a solution to that, too. You could bring one of the Geyser Shower Systems that can utilize water you’ve heated on the stove or there’s even one that will perform that task as well. Depending on where you camp this could be in the Privy Bivy and now youv’e got a complete portable restroom with hot water. But the local Cracker Barrel parking lot likely isn’t the place to be doing these outdoor showers - perhaps a truck stop shower might be a wiser choice.
Conclusions
It’s pretty obvious how much I like this rig. I almost feel like it’s what I would have built with enough time. And a lot of patience from Peggy. And fulfilling the fantasy of me finally learning the equation of measure twice and cut once.
I hope this thing is massively successful for them enough that some enterprising person sees it and puts the idea in place in the world of towable RVs. Finally making something using a box or cargo trailer that you can buy and create something like this is a bit of a fantasy.
Another nice thing about pickup campers, back to reality, is that you can bring whatever truck fits your situation. Want some monster off-road beast? Fine. Need a more fuel efficient truck? There are those as well.
Overall a really well implemented and very flexible idea.
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