The Cabover (Truck Camper)

[TamaraSavannah]

One thing that is probably on the table which will drive the complexity and cost up is the issue about pets. If it is serving as an emergency home, three cats (now) and probably dog or two (eventually) will be going with me. That at the very least probably means the need for constant temperature control when the cats, at least, are left alone in the camper. Mind you, I don't have the answers here, just visualizing and speculating.

[StealthRabbit]

I was surprised to see one of my favorite PNW slide-in campers for sale in my small Texas town. It was pristine, as owners were upsizing to a class C. 'Lazy-daze' (?) the custom ones built in FL. About $120k

I have kept my eye on these for 50 yrs... Alaskan hard side pop-up / leave down.

Camper, The Alaskan pickup truck camper RV sold by Alaskan Campers

They can be found 'used' for a reasonable price, but they sell fast if priced right.. They will last a lifetime or two... Your F-250 would wear it proudly.

[WyoNewk]

I've had a couple cab-over pickup campers. The first one was years ago, back in the late 60s/early 70s. It was an 8-foot model without many conveniences but, as it was the best camper I'd had up to that point, I loved it. My pickup at the time was a 1/2-ton '68 Chevy, so even stripped down, the camper was a little heavy for the truck -- no A.C., no bathroom, no water heater, no holding tanks, not even a refrigerator (instead an icebox). But it was always on the truck, so I always had a warm, dry place to go when the rains came while fishing, a place where I could sit down, make some coffee and look out the window at the rain or snow coming down. The furnace worked great. We even "camped" in temps down to -30F with our 6-month-old son, and while it wasn't warm, we were able to stay warm in our sleeping bags zipped together with the baby between us. I bought it used and sold it a couple years later for my cost.

My last one was a 10-footer. I bought an older one, again without many luxuries. It had no A.C. nor water heater, but I did install hot water and a shower. My late wife and I spent a month in it once during a trip from Wyoming through Canada to Maine, NYC and back. It had a roof rack, and with a couple big containers up top, we were able to haul a LOT of stuff with us -- including a "darkroom" for processing film, a sewing machine, clothes for camping and for two weddings, etc. We still had ample room for the two of us. I carried it on 3/4-ton trucks, first a Chevy, then a Ford. I installed overload springs on both. Again, I bought it used (10 years old?), made some improvements to it, used it a bunch, and sold it 6-7 years later for about what I'd paid for it.

Your F250 will be a little small for some of the larger pickup campers, as some of the big, well-equipped ones get crazy heavy. I've seen some that weighed 4K pounds! Keep that in mind. It'll handle smaller ones, and with attention to tires/wheels and springs, you can beef up your truck to what an F350 would be. The biggest ones, however, NEED a dually.

I never removed the first camper from my truck, but the second one was on and off the truck regularly -- always off in the winter, and in the summer it came off whenever I needed to haul something in the truck. I think I usually figured about 20 minutes to install or remove it, mostly because my jacks were manually operated and I had to move each one a few inches at a time before moving to the next one. If you get a camper, be sure it has electric or hydraulic jacks installed.

At my wife's insistence, we sold the last one after buying a 5th wheel. She didn't like climbing into/out of or making the bed, plus (real reason) she wanted something that was "ours" and not mine and my late wife's. Of course, she also liked the bigger kitchen and bathroom in our 5er, and the fact that we could more easily make room for overnight visitors.

[sourdough]

OP, sounds like you need a good camper forum. I found wander the west very helpful during my Four Wheel Camper days.