Freedom must be limitless
02/22/2026
In the fall, at the age of 22, I went on my first ever "road trip". As I don't own a camper van and can't afford one, I was looking for a different, cheaper solution. Without further ado, I bought a second-hand (perhaps somewhat worn-out) roof tent. I can't say how old it is - the Autocamp brand no longer exists. The tent is probably about three times as old as my parents' ten-year-old car, which I was kind enough to borrow for a week. Incidentally, attaching the old tent to a modern car was not that easy; the old metal racks were definitely not designed for modern roof rails.
At the end of October, the time had come: we set off early in the morning. I had tried out the tent before, but I had never been on the highway with it. So I drive carefully onto the main road and accelerate to 50 km/h. The gray, heavy plastic tarpaulin flutters. Instead of joining the highway, I follow the main road out of town and step on the gas. It sounds like the whole tent is about to fly off. So I stop in the industrial area and tighten the tarpaulin. Will I even make it to Lyon like this?
I take the 80-mile route back, this time the wind noise is quieter. So off onto the highway! At a speed of 120, I look at the fuel consumption and see something in double figures. Even though I'm only going straight ahead and driving at a constant speed. Great, I think, that will be an expensive 450 kilometers to Lyon.
From Lyon, there are two of us on the road, my girlfriend and me. We've stowed our luggage in the trunk, which swallows it effortlessly thanks to the folded down rear seat. We arrive at the first campsite in the evening. There we unfold the tent, extend the ladder and throw up our pillows and sleeping bags. In contrast to the surrounding motorhomes, we never need help maneuvering, and unlike the campers, we don't have to move all our stuff around to have room to sleep. The mouse-grey car is also exotic among all the white campers and motorhomes. We don't meet any other roof tent nomads.
During the day, we repeatedly make excursions off our route from Lyon to Genoa. We crawl up steep coastal roads in the VW and always quickly find a place where we can leave the vehicle while we explore the surroundings. We are never looked at the wrong way - not even when we park the car next to a chapel or in a cemetery parking lot at lunchtime. It doesn't look like a camper, but like a normal car with a thick mattress on the roof. After five stops, we reach Genoa.
From Genoa onwards, I'm alone in the car again and follow the autostrada towards Switzerland. In the meantime, I have perfected my economical driving by slipstreaming and optimizing my speed to such an extent that I only consume an average of 5.7 liters of petrol by the time I reach Zurich. With one refueling stop, I make it home without any problems. At least almost: shortly before the finish, I spend an hour fighting my way through the city of Zurich in a traffic jam.
The very next day, I head to the zwischengas stand at Auto Zürich (fortunately by train). Two manufacturers in particular catch my eye there: Opel and the Chinese car manufacturer Leapmotor. Both exhibited a car with a roof tent - much to the delight of the children, who climbed up the ladder and lay down in the tent. A surprising number of adults also stopped in front of the C10 4x4 to take a closer look at the estate SUV with roof tent.
Yes, the roof tent seems to have shaken off its dusty reputation as the "Pension Sachsenruh" from the GDR. I just wonder: are the people who buy a new car really the same as those who shiver as they walk from the lukewarm shower back to their pitch on campsites? Probably not - this luxury is reserved for those who are happy to swap comfort for freedom.
