Over the years, we’ve seen a number of RV innovators develop lightweight, small-packing camping trailers with inflatable living areas, from the roomy Air Opus to the pinchably adorable Booba trailer. The new ToW trailer starts from the other direction, coming from a tent manufacturer instead of an RV brand. Dutch inflatable pioneer Karsten ports one of its popular air-beamed domes over to a trailer, creating a Tent on Wheels (ToW) that rides lightly, offers loads of payload, and quickly sets up into a ground tent with elevated bed. Enjoy the basic dome or build it out into a multi-unit mega-tent with Karsten’s modular ecosystem.
Inflatable tents have become a dime a dozen in the current global marketplace, spanning innumerable sizes, uses and styles. I’m loath to admit that I’m old enough to recall a time when inflatable tents were much rarer, so rare they seemed like a novel, cutting-edge innovation.
It was my first Outdoor Retailer trade show back in the summer of 2008, and a small startup called Nemo, now much better known across the industry for a wide range of tents, sleeping kit, camping furniture and other gear, caught my attention with a tent that used inflatable arches in place of poles. I was on assignment for a now-defunct publication and no longer remember the exact model name(s), but a quick web search reveals it was likely the original GoGo and/or the Morpho AR.
Inflatable tents really took off in the 2010s, wowing gear fanatics with unique twists like geodesic domes, amphibious camping capabilities, modular camp compounds, and even death-defying high-altitude sleeping platforms. That evolution has only picked up pace throughout the 2020s, now encompassing everything from free-swaying hammock shelters, to Cybertruck camper canopies, to Outback-ready solo swags, developed by a diverse market of established brands, Kickstarter crews and indecipherable Amazon vowel vomit.
All that while, we remained aware that inflatable tent design undoubtedly had a longer, deeper history but weren’t sure just how far the origins went back. But now we find that Karsten, a major tent manufacturer that emerged from a family surplus store, lays claim to having launched the world’s first inflatable camping tent way back in 1981. There is evidence of inflatable tent designs predating that launch by a few decades, but Karsten does appear to be the first to have successfully commercialized the idea and built a long-running business around it.
Karsten Tents
Today, Karsten offers a full lineup of inflatable tents that can be developed into broader campsites via modular construction. Campers can attach multiple tents together and secure on various awnings to create shaded entries, auxiliary rooms and tunnels. Starting about a decade ago, it also expanded into hard-poled tent design with a lineup of large canvas tunnel tents.
Karsten dipped its tows in the trailer side of the camping market in 2019 when it teamed up with Easy Caravanning to develop the sleek, smart TakeOff pop-up camping trailer. The two Dutch brands have since solidified their working relationship and now expand their collaborative efforts with Karsten’s new Tent on Wheels (ToW).
Karsten Tents
While “tent on wheels” could be used to describe virtually any pop-up, fold-out or inflatable tent trailer with fabric walls, it’s a bit more literal in the case of the ToW. Rather than creating a tent that pitches directly on top of the trailer footprint, using the trailer as the floor or bed occupying all or most of the main tent, Karsten creates a tent that expands outward, engulfing nearly the whole trailer in the process. The trailer then takes up just a fraction of the tent’s floor area.
Karsten Tents
The tent itself is crafted from durable Tencate weatherproof-breathable cotton canvas, and has a heavy-duty PVC tub floor for sleeping on. The trailer then serves as a raised sleeping platform with a super-queen memory foam mattress measuring a spacious 83 x 65 in (210 x 163 cm). That bed allows at least two campers (e.g. parents) to get up off the cold, bumpy ground for a more comfortable night of sleep while still leaving plenty of tent floor space for additional campers. The square perimeter of the floor measures 11.5 x 11.5 feet (3.5 x 3.5 m) and the peak of the tent stands 7.4 feet (2.3 m) high.
Karsten’s ToW layout is meant to offer the natural, rustic experience of tent camping but with a more comfortable night’s sleep atop a proper RV-like bed. It seems a perfect solution for introducing kids to tent camping while older, achier parents still enjoy a good night of sleep on a mattress. The trailer also serves as a hefty anchoring system, providing stability with less need for stretching guy lines and knocking in stakes.
Karsten Tents
For travel, the tent fabric folds and packs away inside the trailer, which closes to a height under 3.3 feet (1 m), well below the height of a typical tow vehicle. The ToW measures 12.1 feet (370 cm) long and has a base weight of just 660 lb (300 kg). With an axle rating of 1,650 lb (750 kg), you’re likely to run out of space long before eating up that near-1,000-lb (454-kg) payload. The ToW offers cargo space within the empty tub below the hinged slatted bed platform and also comes standard with a dual-bike rack up on the tongue.
The trailer’s low gross weight rating also ensures it can be towed with a standard Class B driver’s license.
When it’s time to set up camp, the ToW tent unfolds and inflates into form in a matter of minutes using a 230-V air compressor. Unlike the many tent trailers that incorporate cabin or A-frame designs, Karsten goes with a classic dome supported by the arched, air-filled crossbeams it’s been using since its very first inflatable tent. This eliminates broad, flat sidewalls to deliver the wind-shedding performance for which dome tents are known.
“It’s a true Karsten quality tent, but on wheels,” said Karsten owner and director Marc Takken in announcing the ToW this month. “Camping with a tent is often combined with a small luggage trailer so we thought: Why not bring the two together? An added benefit is that you sleep off the ground on a highly comfortable bed that is ready to use straight away.”
Karsten Tents
Karsten hasn’t exactly invented an all-new RV category, but does offer a distinctive, convenient style of inflatable tent trailer. We like the ToW’s combination of fast, simple setup, above-ground bed and loads of tent floor for the kids. We’re not so sure we’d spend €12,995 (approx. US$15,200) on it, however, and that’s a launch discount – the planned retail is €13,995 ($16,375).
Then again, we’re not shopping for a camping tent trailer to tow around the Netherlands, where caravans reign as the most popular style of RV, roughly doubling motorhomes. So our opinion doesn’t count for much. Plus, Karsten’s standalone 350 family-size tent that serves as the basis for the ToW design costs a hefty €5,350 ($6,250) on its own.
Karsten will hand-build the ToW tents at its Zwaag headquarters before sending them along to Emmen, where Easy Caravanning will assemble them into trailer form. Deliveries are set to begin in June.
Source: Karsten Tents