DIY Camper Awning
The lack of a vertically opening tailgate meant we were a little sparse on shelter from the sun and rain. To fix this, we wanted an awning. Except everything you can buy is extortionately expensive and very few cover the area above the tailgate, instead giving shade to one side of the vehicle. We do all our cooking, food prep, washing up etc at the rear so we needed something to cover this area. In order for us to actually use it, it must be very quick to deploy and retract.
After a fair amount of trial and error we settled on this design. It essentially consists of two telescopic decorating poles holding up a section of waterproof tablecloth. It sounds rather rough and ready but it genuinely only takes about 20 seconds to put up, and does the job perfectly.
The poles are jubillee clipped onto a roof bar at the front and held to the roof rack at the back by some heavy duty zip ties. The cloth is wrapped around a piece of wood at each end and secured using roofing tacks. One end is zip tied to the rear roofrack step and the other has two holes drilled in it to receive the telescopic poles. To store it, we simply roll the awning up and secure it with a strap so it doesn't go anywhere.
It's simple, and we do use it all the time. It does the job really nicely, shading the back of the car or keeping rain off while we wash up or whatever it is we are doing. As a bonus it is extremely easy to fit and remove from the car, so if we don't need it, we take it off and leave it behind. The downsides, it's not a huge amount of shade, it doesn't really have much structural integrity to withstand strong winds and it would go mouldy if left on the roof wet for an extended period. But for £40, it's hard to go wrong. It would be easy enough to modify it to fit almost any vehicle with a roofrack. If you wanted to make a quick awning for a summer trip then this might be for you. If you want to go on a months long expedition then probably not so great...
