The past couple years have seen a swarm of low-price rooftop tents hitting the interwebz, and a few bring surprisingly good feature sets.
One of the most popular is the Topoak Overland Galaxy 1.0, a full-featured roof top that’s extremely affordable. It’s also really comfortable, has held up to numerous off-road trips atop my Jeep, and has features rivaling tents that are 3x the cost.
At a glance, it looks almost identical to the RoofNest Falcon Pro rooftop tent. But the Topoak Galaxy 1.0 retails for only $1,598 (with free shipping), not $3,995. With occasional discounts, it can be as little as 1/3 the cost of competing products.
Sure, there are some small quality differences in some of the material used on the Topoak tent, but in my opinion, probably not $2,000+ worth of differences.
So, do you need to drop a ton of money to have a quality rooftop tent? Let’s get into it…
To Fold Out or Wedge?
I’m no stranger to roof top tents, I’ve been camping with one type or another since 2018. The last two I’ve used were both fold-out type tents. You’ve seen the type. They open up by folding off of itself and creating an overhang that’s supported by the ladder.
I used the Tuffstuff Overland Ranger for about five years on our ’95 Jeep Cherokee (Ol’ Blue). I liked it, and it was very comfortable, but closing it down and getting it covered was a major headache.
The second one I had was the Yakima SkyRise HD Medium. It was the same fold-out type as the Tuffstuff, but with a slightly baggier cover. This made it a little less of a hassle to close.
We used this tent for a little over a year. We had it mounted on our ’21 Jeep Rubicon. With the Rubicon, the tent sat a lot higher than the tent on Ol’ Blue. So, even though the cover was easier to close, it was still a major pain in the arse because of the height of the vehicle.
That “packing it up struggle” is common with fold-out, soft-cover rooftop tents. The upside is that they can have a much larger footprint and ceiling height than wedge-style tents, are generally lighter, and they take up a lot less roof space when closed. But they sit much higher – both the Tuffstuff and the Yakima had a closed height of around 17″.
So, switching to the Topoak was a completely new experience for me, and I’ve gotta say…
Wedge for the Win!
Most wedge tents are a hardshell, and usually much slimmer. The Galaxy 1.0 is only 8″ tall when closed, so it sits much lower. This not only equates to less wind noise at highway speeds but also helps keep your MPG decent.
This one also allows you to mount cross bars on top, so you can stack gear on top of it, too, saving room inside if total vehicle height isn’t a concern.
It’s roomier than I thought
Wedge-type roof top tents always looked cramped to me. So, when I saw the Topoak Galaxy 1.0’s “kick-out” feature, I thought, “that’s a great idea”!
The “U Bar” is a continuous bar that runs around the kick out main door, giving it structure. It’s also really easy to fold in and out, speeding up setup and break down.
The hardshell cover itself opens very wide, and, despite being an inch shorter than the Thule Basin that Tyler reviewed, those combined features make it much roomier inside.
That “kick-out” section creates so much headroom that you can easily sit two people inside, play cards, and hang out if the weather’s bad. A removable rainfly keeps you covered, or slide it off and use the built-in skylight to stargaze on clear nights.
Inside is an adjustable built-in LED light and a boatload of inside storage pockets, plus a shoe bag that hangs outside the tent. Because shoes stink.
I like the storage that is on the inside of the roof. It has six suspended pockets that you can use individually, and you can pull the whole thing away from the ceiling and store clothes or something behind it.
It has a hard aluminum shell. It opens using externally mounted, self-opening struts. Mounting the struts on the outside, might leave them vulnerable to big tree branches, but they free up valuable space inside.
There are three different mounting spots for the included telescoping ladder, making it easy to set up your own configuration and enter from either side or the back. All doors have separate solid and no-see-um mesh panels.
There are a couple of things that leave me wanting:
- The two locking clamps at the opening. The locks are a little bit wonky and don’t seem super secure, and it comes with weird, large proprietary keys. It’s not the highest security, but they do OK.
- It’s also quite a bit heavier than my old softshell tents, more on that below.
- Tent fabric is not “black out”, so it does get light when the sun comes up
Shipping the Galaxy 1.0
Shipping the tent anywhere in the contiguous US is free, estimated to arrive within 7 days. Topoak has a warehouse in Los Angeles, allowing for pick-up if you are local. I opted to get mine shipped, and it arrived in two days through a freight company.
It’s big enough that it needs to ship by freight, not standard delivery, and it weighs roughly 220lbs all packed up. So, you’ll need to be able to handle that upon arrival.
After inspecting the box, it didn’t have any sign of being handled roughly, and there wasn’t a scratch on it inside. TopOak says that every tent is insured and to feel free to contact them if your tent shows up damaged. That was nice to know.
Installation
It will probably take two people to install the tent onto your vehicle. The tent, by itself, with nothing in it, weighs 172lbs. By comparison, my old Yakima SkyRise HD Medium rooftop tent weighed just 114lbs.
Important: Make sure that the load bar/roof rack system on your vehicle has a dynamic weight capacity of at least 172 lbs before you install this tent on your vehicle. The Yakima Rib Cage Rack System for the Jeep JL has a dynamic weight rating of 330 pounds, so that is plenty.
Once the tent was on the load bars, I easily slid it around to find the right spot to start installing it with the provided hardware.
Speaking of, the tent only comes with metal straps and some rather large knobs to fasten them around your cross bars. It’s a very easy install, but IMO, these knobs run the risk of loosening, and also make it pretty easy to steal, so I opted to go to the hardware store and swap them for some good Nylock nuts.
Also, the steel straps seem a little thin for my liking, so I will be swapping those at a later date for a thicker stainless steel version. That said, I’ve been driving it with them for thousands of miles and it’s still there, so. FYI, the instructions warn to keep highway speeds under 75mph.
In Use for Over a Year
We’ve used been using the tent now for over a year. Opening and closing It is incredibly easy. Opening the tent to set up camp takes less than a minute, which is really nice when it’s late, dark, and you just want to get to sleep.
I store some sleeping bags (laid out flat), the included shoe bag and ladder, as well as some small pillows up in the tent when not in use. So once it’s open and the ladder is deployed, it’s ready for us.
With my bedding stored in it, the tent was a little bit harder to close, but still closed up just fine. This convenience is another win for wedge style tents…it’s unlikely you can leave anything in a soft shell, fold-out RTT.
We’ve done thousands and thousands of miles with the Galaxy 1.0 on the roof of our Jeep, both on and off-road. So far it’s felt solid and has been relatively quiet up there.
Despite being almost 60 pounds heavier than my prior rooftop tents, I didn’t notice the added weight on the roof when things got rough or “tippy” out on the trail.
That was a pleasant surprise, actually, I thought it would be noticeable. Maybe the lower profile of the tent keeps my center of gravity lower. Maybe.
In Conclusion
I’ve got a lot more trips planned that are on the horizon. A bunch of desert trips planned in the next few months, plus travel for work, including a trip up to Flagstaff for Overland Expo West. I planned a big multi-day Death Valley run and a huge run through Northeast Nevada and Virginia City last year that was never done, so we’re going to try to do that this year as well.
With most of my trips in the desert and surrounding areas, the only thing I haven’t put it through is rain and snow, but I’ll update when I do. Other than that, so far, it’s passed all of my tests with flying colors.
And that’s the real selling point for the Topoak Galaxy 1.0 – it’s tough enough for heavy use, is comfortable and roomy, super easy to use, and it’s a freakin’ steal.
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