How does one overland, exactly? There’s an infinite number of ways to travel across this great country of ours (and beyond), but how you do it, and what you do it in, matters a great deal. From half-million-dollar EarthRoamers and decked-out Mercedes Sprinter vans that cost as much as a house, all the way down to your great uncle’s rusted out truck camper or a blow-up mattress in the back of your beloved Subaru, it all works. That’s the real joy in this travel game, it’s infinitely scalable, and now there are hundreds of companies making products for every budget. Whether you need a camper trailer, a full-blown doomsday machine, or just an easy-to-pack tent, overlanding is an inclusive pastime for the modern age.
Washington-based company SCOUT has long loved the outdoors and how we have to access and explore the territory. However, driving a large RV into the great outdoors can be cumbersome, slow, and may ultimately cause you to spend too much time inside. Instead, they have introduced a line of campers that fit on the back of your truck that offers all of the amenities you want from an RV without a huge footprint. Their new Kenai truck camper model is the biggest they’ve brought to market yet; let’s take a look at the features and see if it fits your exploration needs.
Bring It
SCOUT’s design principle is fairly simple: build high-quality amenities you’d expect in a luxury camper trailer in an affordable and agile package. While Kenai is the biggest in the company’s truck camper lineup, it remains a nimble and non-burdensome addition to any full-sized truck. Unloaded, the camper itself weighs around 1000 pounds, which is well below the payload of any full-sized truck.
Inside the Kenai, there’s room for the whole family. A small dinette sits in the middle of the floorplan and can easily be removed from the vehicle and plopped down into the campsite, a design ethic that SCOUT touts throughout this truck camper. Flanking the dining room table is space for a two-burner propane stove, a large cooler, and plenty of storage for all of your goods.
Each Kenai is highly customizable. The “floor model” shown on the website features an optional Newport Heater, Dometic cooler, and many other features you may not want to leave behind. Beyond these basics, the Kenai can build a mudroom in the rear entrance that doubles as a shower. In the fore of the camper, there’s a space to integrate a modern cassette toilet in case nature calls, and it’s just too darned cold to go outside.
Like many modern overlanding options on the market, the sky is the limit when it comes to upgrades. Even if you’ve got a big family, they can install a pop-up tent on top, giving the Kenai truck camper enough room to sleep up to six people. What more could you need?
Build It
The base model of the SCOUT Kenai is jam-packed with features. The starting price for this package is $23,625. It comes equipped with power, jerry cans for water, Pendleton interior fabrics, three beds (a full-size cabin bed and two smaller fold-outs), both interior and exterior lighting, and much more. Standard upgrades, which you can price into your bid right on their website, include awnings, rooftop tents, coolers, a heater, and many other amenities that you could live without but might love to have.
Build time on the Kenai and the rest of the SCOUT lineup is somewhere in the range of 3 to 4 months, but time can vary depending on availability. So if you’re going to get set up for the next camping season, you better move quickly!
