Long story short. For winter camping, I'm going to try using my mini camper as a hangout room instead of sleeping in it. I'll sleep in my truck's Go Fast Camper roof top tent (GFC RTT) and use a portable diesel heater to stay warm.
In the mini camper, I'll have a low recliner setup for reading & relaxing, a tub and low stool for sponge showers, a drying rack for wet ski clothes, and a small table for cooking. The mini camper is insulated and it has a diesel heater, so it's plenty warm, even in subzero temps. More details below the photos
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Last Winter, Jeff and I went to Hancock campground (a national campground n New Hampshire) that stays open year round. No amenities in the Winter. NONE. you're paying to have someone plow a campsite for you when it snows. I just remember Porta Potty's filled to max, and Dumpsters overflowing. No shower/bath house. In other words, you have to bring everything you need, and take everything home. But, it's only $15/vehicle per night, and hotels nearby are all $200-300 because of the ski resort down the road. There were even hardcore young folks tent camping. Oof.
I'm trying a new idea where instead of sleeping in my mini camper, I'm going to use it as a reading, cooking and shower room. The camper is insulated, and I added a diesel heater to my mini camper last year. See my youtube video, click here. Last Winter, I tried sleeping in the minicamper, but with the Cot inside (30" wide, leaving 20" aisle space), duffel bags for clothes and all that in the mini camper, there's no room to hang out in the camper sitting up (cot is too tall), or to cook safely. And it'd be a lot of work to take down the cot, put it away, set up the chair, and move things back and forth to the truck every day. Also, I sleep directly over the heater that's in an underfloor storage metal box, and I can't get rid of the fuel pump ticking that I can just barely hear when I try to fall asleep. It doesn't help that the underfloor box is metal, and the fuel pump piston bangs on it like a drum. I've sound deadened it a lot, but it's still there. Just enough to be water torture esque when trying to fall asleep.
The other problem i had sleeping in the mini camper was I also had the joolca toilet in the mini camper, but the floor to ceiling height is only 4ft, so I couldn't sit up straight. I'm too old to be pooping while leaning forward with my chest on my knees. I'll leave that for the advanced yoga instructors to do.
So my new idea. I'll sleep in the GFC roof top tent in the truck. Also, leave my clothes in the truck. You have to bring a lot of clothes when Winter camping. I'm also going to leave the Joolca toilet in the truck bed. I still have my portable planar diesel heater, so I'll be plenty warm sleeping in the GFC, even in the Winter. If anything, I have problems getting too hot. The floor of the roof top tent has removable panels, so I can hop down to the truck bed with the roof tent overhead. TONS of headroom. So no awkward yoga pooping, and much easier to change clothes. The downstairs is chilly though. I can add antifreeze to the joolca toilet, or order their dry container, and poop into a bag of sawdust or cat litter. Might try that and butt wipes for Winter camping. Frozen poo is far less stinky; I won't need the chemical water toilet tank to prevent stinky smells.
In the mini camper, I bought a new high back chair kilosgear chair that can sit low on the floor with it's legs removed. Kilosgear designed that feature for sitting on the sand at a beach, but it also works for my low height mini camper. I already have a padded stool I can put my legs up on when I recline and relax. The sitting setup becomes like a gravity recliner.
I have a large concrete mixing tub I ordered from HomeDepot to sit in for sponge showers and a plastic stool to sit on in the tub, so i'm not sitting in dirty shower water. I'll store the mixing tub outside under the camper after my sponge shower is done. I'll get another manual siphon pump, https://a.co/d/7m68Gmi for transferring most of the dirty water into the waste water jug in the mini camper, so I don't make a mess when pulling it out of the camper. I already use one of those siphon pumps to get clean water out of my water jug, so i'll have to put a piece of tape on the dirty water one to not confuse them. They tolerate accidental freezing well.
I also bought a new kilos gear folding table, so I have an area to cook inside my nice and warmer mini camper. https://kilosgear.com/ With the bundle they offered, the chair was about $130 and table was $100.
The mini camper doesn't have an inverter. It only supplies 12 volt power off its one lithium LFP battery, but the truck has an inverter. So i can run an extension cord from the truck to the mini camper's charge plug outside to provide household AC power inside the mini camper. That will let me use my induction burner and electric kettle inside my warm, comfy mini camper. So much better than cooking by the tailgate when it's below freezing outside. With app on my phone, I'll even be able to turn the truck inverter off/on while sitting in the mini camper. Fancy!
My other weird Winter camping trick is that I prefer using a regular cooler for food storage when it's below freezing outside, even though I have a fancy electric Dometic cooler fridge, which you shouldn't run in a below freezing environment. For the igloo cooler, I use a couple 3/4 full, 1 liter soda bottles filled with water. It's easy to refreeze them putting them outside at night. When I'm inside the camper running the heater, the frozen water bottles keep things cold in the cooler. When I'm not running the heater overnight or when I'm off skiing, I'll boil water before leaving, pour it into a double walled, 1 liter, insulated stainless container, and put it in the cooler where it slowly bleeds just enough heat so Mother Nature doesn't freeze whatever food is inside the cooler. It uses less battery power reboiling water as needed vs running the electric Dometic fridge and diesel heater 24/7. Also, it saves diesel fuel not running the heater 24/7.
Someday, I may switch to a Van that can handle year round camping and all this becomes moot. But i like the versatility of my current setup. I have a mini camper if I bring Jacqui or a friend along camping. They get their own space. I won't wake Jacqui when I toss and turn sleeping, and the mini camper feels like a tank inside. You feel super safe in it. I can also still use my mini camper for errands like going to get plywood from Home Depot or taking my snowblower to the shop. And I'm still at half the cost of an equivalent pre-built van camper vs my truck and mini camper, and my truck is way more off road capable.
I also get better gas mileage with my truck even when towing the mini camper vs a high roof Ford Transit camper van. My truck gets 19-20mpg on the highway, losing 1-2 mpg when towing. Reading online, most people in a vandoit, high roof ford transit only get 14-15mpg's at most. It's way easier to put my kayak on the Truck too. Not nearly as tall as a high roof Ford van. The main downside is going into small, cozy New England towns towing the mini camper. Parking is that much harder. But maybe I just park at a grocery store and go explore by bike instead. Trade-offs
