Subaru Outback Wilderness Camper Build: EcoFlow Power, Roof Tent & Slide-Out Kitchen

New Jersey Outdoor Adventures

An ordinary Subaru Outback becomes a cross-country camper in this clever, HOA-friendly build that can return to stock in about an hour. Patrick from New Jersey Outdoor Adventures meets Tim after his 8,000-mile, seven-week road trip from the East Coast to Washington state, and Tim walks through every part of the setup he built for daily driving and long-distance travel.  The tour covers a modular Baltic birch trunk platform, an EcoFlow 800W alternator charger, dual EcoFlow power with a Delta 1500 and River 3 Plus backup, an Iceco slide-out fridge, Starlink Mini, a pressurized 5-gallon LifeSaver water system, and a pull-out camp kitchen built to stay light. Up top, a Yakima rooftop cargo box holds an instant pop-up cabin tent and queen mattress, while the rear cargo area stays organized for clothes, tools, and off-grid gear. The build is designed for stealth camping, overland travel, and everyday use without permanent modifications.  It’s also a practical look at how to turn a daily driver into a budget-conscious micro-camper for road trips, weekend camping, and hotel-friendly travel. Tim explains the weight tradeoffs, the removable design, and the small engineering choices that made the Subaru work well on highways, rough roads, and in bad weather.  SEO: Subaru Outback camper build, overland camping setup, micro-camper tour, DIY car camping, stealth camper, modular camping platform, EcoFlow alternator charger, rooftop tent build, off-grid travel rig, and budget camper conversion. Ideal for viewers searching for camper van alternatives, Subaru Wilderness builds, and practical road trip camping ideas.

Transcript

00:01it's all based around the daily that we can just convert in an hour or so back

00:05to normal use and not a big investment leaves us money for other hobbies other

00:10trips other places welcome back to the show this is Patrick with New Jersey's

00:14Outdoor Adventures YouTube channel today we're gonna take a look at a SUV camper

00:20this is a Subaru Outback Wilderness in a two-person camper Tim he built this

00:27thing and is pretty amazing he just got done with a seven-week trip around the

00:32country 8,000 miles he's gonna give us a full tour of his setup and I promise you

00:37this thing is pretty cool so join us for the tour hi Patrick nice to finally meet

00:43you after watching your channel for quite some time and lots other YouTube videos

00:47I wanted to build something unique for my wife and I to go camping I just retired

00:52and she's a schoolteacher so she's got the summers off so that opened up a big

00:57window of time for us to do a big trip and we needed something that was going

01:01to be a daily driver this is my wife's car she wouldn't want to drive around an

01:06f-150 with a camper on the back maybe that's in our future later but for now

01:11we set this up essentially went with the Subaru because it's got some good features

01:17on it it's got a pretty decent ground clearance about nine and a half inches with

01:22the wilderness it's got an enhanced alternator which I use to power up the

01:27battery that runs the fridge that you'll see later and it's great for soft

01:32roading and it's easy to park in our small driveway area easy to use as a

01:38daily so it was really the right vehicle for us at this point in our lives and

01:43basically the system chunked out is kitchen setups in the back up top is sort of

01:50the the tent and all the sleeping gear so that that comes out with a hub tent

01:54we'll show you later probably and then our clothing and everything else gets

02:00stored in the middle in the back seat area along with things like a toilet and

02:04a micro shower so first I want to show you the power system which runs mostly the

02:09the 12-volt fridge but one of the nice things about the the Subaru is it's got a

02:14beefed-up alternator so I bought an eco flow 800 watt alternator charger which

02:19actually taps off of the battery and so that then runs a couple of things which

02:28are an eco flow Delta 1500 battery here which you see there and actually a

02:34secondary battery a River three plus for backup and for running Starlink and

02:42things if there's anybody out there who's running a Subaru and an eco flow

02:48system a couple of quick tricks obviously with the Subaru you got the

02:53auto start stop on the Outback turn that off because that'll just screw up your

02:57whole electric charging scheme and then the eco flow alternator charger wants to

03:03see a certain voltage the alternator on the Subaru is a little finicky it wants to

03:09charge the battery when it really needs to so if you just try and do it normally

03:14you'll get a low battery indication quick trick is turn your lights to on not

03:19auto just put the headlights on that's enough of a draw all of a sudden the

03:23eco flow is good to go one of the things I did with the eco flow is while you

03:27could run it at 800 watts you're much better off running at it you know

03:31probably half of that just because electronics don't heat up they've last

03:35forever and I'm not stressing the alternator out to the same level so

03:41that's another thing I did to just make it work cool thing is it's got a

03:47wireless app you can adjust what's turned on and off on the batteries you can

03:52adjust the charge and you can do a couple of those features also through

03:56Apple CarPlay before we jump into the setup in the back let me show you a couple

04:01things in the front pretty straightforward I got my multi-tool Leatherman here

04:05fire extinguisher bear for when we're out in Grizzly and black bear country

04:09little sleeves to stop the sunburn from getting worse on those one-direction

04:13drives I also added a secondary phone holder here so I can run two apps at the

04:18same time so if I'm running onyx and Google I can do both my wife has a

04:26similar setup up front and then back here I've got a pack that I'll use on

04:32longer trips where we may be up in more unpredictable higher altitude that's got

04:38my weather gear in it this has usually my clothes in it and this is just a

04:43regular old suitcase which carries my toiletries some extra clothes laundry

04:49art supplies and then back around here there's a little piece of pex that I use

04:55very lightweight but strong enough to prevent things from shifting and that

05:00gives me a little deck to charge up my other batteries oh and another thing is

05:07you can see in the center there's a couple of bins I just used a very

05:10lightweight Home Depot broomstick here wired to this and that provides me with

05:15some anti-intrusion in a light impact hopefully not and these bins are pretty

05:21much you know steady enough they can't really go very far and then down below

05:26we've got day packs things like that I carry a little bit of camera gear but also

05:31we may be doing a walk around the town or something that's a different setup than

05:35if you're going backpacking or I'm sorry day day hiking for a longer distance in

05:40bad weather so it's just a good storage area my wife's side over here pretty much

05:45parallel system she's got a couple of rollers with again clothing art supplies more clothing we tend

05:55to put our shoes and hats sort of down there our rain gear is usually stored in the seat backs

06:00with

06:00some flashlights got headlamps in a few different places and this build again it's a daily so we just

06:09left the seats in there just folded flat pretty straightforward and then around back we have the

06:17build that I sort of designed on SketchUp and my my philosophy was a I needed to get a fridge

06:25in here

06:25because we like fresh fruit fresh vegetables we always when we were backpacking and stuff the

06:31the coolers filled with ice are just disaster so that gives us the ability to do that and and get

06:38leftovers when we go out to take out stuff and so this is an iceco fridge and that should stay

06:48open

06:48it's got a nice basket in here so you can know exactly how much you can pack at your fridge

06:53when

06:53you're leaving and this is not a freezer but it's a cold area so it's great for drinks and fruit

06:59and

06:59vegetables and stuff but it worked out really well threw a little piece of rope on here for paper towels

07:07and uh here you can see the back end of the um the power system so this is that delta

07:143 1500 and

07:16that's hooked up i don't know if you can quite see it but in here is the um the alternator

07:21charger

07:21that's that thick cable going in there and then below that you see that river uh three plus which is

07:28a

07:28backup and that's set up with a simple mount that I made you can pop that out again put it

07:32in the tent

07:33run things oh and this is uh actually one of those fishing men's net retractors so that keeps this

07:42uh cord from getting munched up inside the um the slider for the the fridge which is just the normal

07:48buy from iceco uh slider uh what I did do on a lot of the build is all of these

07:55bolts that you see in

07:56there are going into threaded inserts into the baltic ply uh base build uh over here this other piece is

08:03put together with pocket screws and this support for the five gallon water jug is also put in with

08:10um threaded inserts so I can take this apart if I need to reconfigure it if I want to return

08:16it to

08:16my wife's daily I'd probably just have to take that shelf off that's supporting the iceco

08:22I'm sorry the uh the ecoflow 1500 um that sticks out a little bit but if I take that out

08:28and then I

08:29could or could just leave it uh the back seats will fold up and uh one of the reasons I

08:36chose to do

08:37this build this way uh was uh to keep it light uh reasonably because it's pretty heavy amount of

08:44equipment anyway but I went with some standard available bins and uh like this one up here that

08:51serves as the pantry it's actually robust enough you can sit on it and stuff but holds a great

08:56amount of food it's actually got a little welt in it um so it does have a little bit of

09:00um sealing

09:01so it's not going to smell as much as something else might in uh bear country uh this is just

09:07a

09:07first aid kit and then uh another thing on the build here I'll slide this guy back into place

09:12this is a lifesaver five gallon jerry can and what this has is you can pressurize the water here

09:22and then you got a tap I keep this in here just for dribble convenience and stuff but essentially you

09:29can uh take that little safety clamp off of there and then you got fresh filtered water and you can

09:37take

09:37this to a river a stream a pond and this will filter out it's like almost a military grade filter

09:42it'll

09:43filter out almost anything so if you want to do some boondocking and it's in a an area where you

09:48don't you might want to stay longer than the five gallons or longer than an additional two and a half

09:54might take you you can refill on the way um and down below here again another fire extinguisher another

10:01bear thing essentially this is the kitchen um so then down below here we've got some leftover carpet

10:09which I turned into an envelope essentially and then has the cabling and a starlink mini because we

10:17need to stay in touch with folks at home and uh also keep doing trip planning and sometimes we're in

10:22remote areas no cell no nothing this thing works great so that was just a simple way of doing that

10:28with material on hand nicely padded down below that I got traction boards the light version of the max

10:37tracks so if we get into a little bit of trouble when we're soft roading a little more than we

10:42should

10:43we got that I got some trekking poles here extra oil um then this is the kitchen setup actually why

10:54don't

10:54I do the table first because then I can pull the table out and show you that real quick so

11:01again I

11:01tried to keep things simple so I came up with my own strap system here of velcro and this is

11:09a table

11:10just walmart sort of standard old table folding table that um easy to pop up not the lightest thing in

11:20the

11:20world I'll admit but um but good and easy to use

11:31and let's get this set up real quick

11:36you can always put a rock under it if it's not quite the level you want it at

11:40if I if I'm at a primitive or not developed sort of boondocking site I can just put this here

11:47I can undo my velcro straps here with most of our kitchen gear

11:54and I just put that there and I missed by an inch so that's real life

12:00and then we got that and then got a two burner propane stove in here kitchen uh set up with

12:09uh

12:10you know our cutting board knives spices uh cups my wife's coffee set up a couple of um non-stick

12:18pans

12:18and a little grill pan and then one of the things we do is to try and conserve water again

12:24um what we'll do is wipe everything out of the dirty dishes or use paper plates

12:29but wipe everything out with some paper towels spray that with some diluted soapy water

12:35wipe that out again and then a final rinse with some diluted vinegar this way we avoid using a lot

12:41of

12:41extra water and it's a nice quick setup more tips from youtube so lots of good info out there

12:47on Patrick's channel and everywhere else um but anyway that uh means we don't really need a sink

12:53basin per se although we do have a collapsible one and we use that uh for a reservoir if we

12:58want to

12:59take a little mini shower um so that works out pretty well um up here is our our dry goods

13:06this is a first aid kit I mentioned that this I can reach my wife can't quite reach these but

13:12a nice

13:12thing about this particular um bin is that you can of course it's not going to behave now of course

13:20right

13:26I can just slide that out and then I can pull most of our kitchen supplies out here you know

13:32it's all

13:32all dry things um bars rice canned uh chicken tuna things like that and of course we can get fresh

13:42meat

13:42and put that in here another uh trick we we did on our trip which was great was get a

13:46rotisserie chicken

13:47from like walmart or whatever and just immediately uh debone it put it into a ziploc bag and put that

13:54into the fridge it's a nice conformable shape you got two or three meals for two people out of that

14:00another thing back here is on this and on the rear most side windows I have uh sort of uh

14:05black

14:06window covers just standard ones from amazon and um that keeps prying eyes away it also keeps the heat

14:14load low and the rest of the set which actually has both side windows and the front are just tucked

14:21in there so occasionally you find yourself parking someplace with direct sun and I don't really want

14:27to overheat the battery and the fridge and just it's more more strain on things I usually leave the um

14:33the sunroof popped open a little bit so you get some vent um so then move this out of the

14:40way

14:40this is something I put in which was sort of belt and suspenders option didn't end up using it so

14:45I'm

14:45not gonna do it next time we go but this is a 220 watt solar panel in case something went

14:51wrong with

14:52the inverter but it worked really great so this is a lot of weight that and the big copper cables

14:57um so this whole build there's a couple of details this is a five-eighths inch um deck of baltic

15:07birch ply this is reduced down to half inch and these are doubled up five-eighths runners essentially

15:14these are fully fixed in place and this one you can actually take out this nut and there's a whole

15:23bunch of little mounting in there with a little wedge lifter right here I could pop this out it's

15:30sort of a triangular wedge that sits into a uh a groove made with this aluminum uh bar stock and

15:37that would allow me once all this stuff is out to actually open the uh the trap door to the

15:43spare

15:43not enough to get the spare out but enough that you could put some bags of tools or a couple

15:48little

15:48things that may be this high or so and then the whole system is set up with four turnbuckles

15:54to the stock um tie down points and uh you know 7 000 miles all sorts of off-road it

16:02uh stayed in

16:03place didn't have to adjust it I did do um combination of some electrical tape on a couple of

16:10them and just bread ties and cable ties to stop the uh the vibration from loosening up the turnbuckles

16:18and then uh if we want to look at the uh the top um got a yakima I think it's

16:30the nx xl size which

16:33just fits on this car you can see there's enough clearance for the tailgate which is an issue

16:37you could probably move it forward and get a little less weight on the back

16:40but up here is uh all of our sleeping gear oh works better with a key um and uh it's

16:50a nice system

16:53very waterproof we went through a number of rainstorms etc didn't get any water in there

16:58it's got some ceiling along the bottom so generally whoops hello

17:04so generally I just uh stand on the door sill and then I step on the uh the safety latch

17:10over here

17:11and then uh I hand things down to my wife so up here we've got a a hub tent which

17:18is fairly bulky

17:19uh I for years we backpacked we did the whole uh pinky thick uh foam mattress thing and uh you

17:27know

17:28we're getting close to 60 or thereabouts and uh sleeping on uneven rooty surfaces on that is just

17:35not not in our cards right now so up here's that hub tent which I'll show you in a minute

17:39a couple of folding chairs from um harbor freight which are great uh a big cushy uh queen-sized mattress

17:47uh that's sort of air and foam combined uh blankets sheets uh pillows sleeping bags if we need them

17:56although we usually just use a couple of blankets much more comfortable than old sleeping bag setup

18:00where nobody's quite happy I actually had a couple cots I'd probably leave those this time

18:07used them once or twice on the ground was perfect unless setup time um and a folding folding lightweight

18:15plastic straw mat for just keeping the dirt at bay and etc um so I might you want me to

18:21take out the uh

18:22the tent pull that out has a tendency to get stuck on this one catch and then usually I hand

18:30it to my wife

18:33but uh it's as I said it's bulky and large but it's uh I think it's 50 pounds or thereabouts

18:43and then uh I guess I'll go here and not in the sun the nice thing about this is although

18:51we rented a truck

18:52camper a few years ago went around Utah it was fantastic but we weren't ready to make that size

18:58and money commitment and we needed our daily to really do the heavy lifting but the nice thing about

19:05this is as opposed to most of the backpacking tents and stuff where you have to put the frame together

19:16and do all sorts of gesticulations and some of them aren't self-supporting

19:20this you just literally pop this guy open it's a phantic out

19:29it's a phantic outdoor instant cabin so

19:43just find a door go inside here

19:48and uh you pop up the top and you got room for maybe it's not a queen it's like a

19:56extended full-size mattress but when it's in here there's enough

20:00room to easily walk around either one of us around the sides or the head

20:04plenty of gear storage I don't need a separate alcove like some of the other tents

20:09great ventilation because like virtually everything you see here

20:15opens up for air

20:23so I could do all of them but you get the picture you can see the night sky through here

20:28of course there's a rain fly that that'll take you another minute to throw it over and then it

20:35essentially just hooks onto these hubs so it's a big triangle here didn't have any rain intrusion

20:42and the rain and wind we got on the inhale that we got during the trip and then uh one

20:47tip is

20:49don't just stake the four corners that's great and the nice thing too is it's semi self-supporting

20:55you can move it around find that nice flat spot but you got to put these out because if a

21:00wind comes

21:01and this isn't secure that's that's uh some complaints on youtube by people who didn't

21:08set it up as per directions that's a great tip reading the directions is pretty important in

21:13anything right so some people don't they have a problem they think it's defective but you know

21:19understanding how it works properly that makes sense that's the kingpin right so if you push that

21:24in you could collapse the whole thing yeah totally and that's why it's so easy to put up and take

21:28down

21:28or move around if you need to so a lot of people are going to have questions about this build

21:34right

21:34you did a seven week trip yeah 90 95 of the time you were in this or did you do

21:41hotels we did we did

21:42hotels we also started at a a cabin that the family has up in new hampshire okay so ironically we

21:48went

21:48from new jersey to go farther east to then go all the way to orcas island in washington wow so

21:53we went

21:53a lot of places uh through the bighorn mountains the badlands uh uh the uintas mountains in utah

22:02uh yellowstone a little bit we've been there a few times so and people are going to know want to

22:06know why why this right you rented so off camera you spoke yeah and you had rented a truck camper

22:12before the big truck and that was a great trip and it was a lot of fun it was fantastic

22:15like

22:16the reason why is you didn't want a big vehicle you wanted to have your everyday vehicle also

22:21repurposed as a camper and you know when you're done camping you could break this whole system down

22:26take it out of the vehicle put it in your garage or basement yep and then you have your regular

22:30car

22:30yeah or if you have a car accident or decide to trade in the vehicle i'm sure this kit will

22:35just

22:36pop right out and go and ride another vehicle no modifications other than the heavy duty electric

22:40cable that runs to the inverter and more and more now people live in hoa communities where they can't

22:46have an rv or camper van in their driveway yeah this you can oh yeah this thing is also not

22:52super

22:52stealth but stealth i mean i see some of the overlanding folks who have all sorts of uh totemic

22:59insignias on their thing an axe the the uh the recovery boards on the outside this and that

23:04another question that people are going to have is about weight like you added a lot of weight to this

23:10vehicle what's it been like after 8 000 miles loaded down it's definitely a lot heavier than it is

23:16empty i'll say that uh for sure um i did do some things to minimize the weight of the build

23:22there's no bottom deck i did that reinforcement in the trunk to just use the existing lightweight

23:29deck that the runners then sit on so that shaved some weight also i didn't build independent drawers

23:36i've seen lots of awesome videos people with these very beautiful builds with the full side

23:41size extenders people are like stepping on their kitchen system when it's out but you know the glides

23:47for those weigh probably 12 pounds each and uh take up some space this way i stayed with just

23:54lightweight plastic bins that are resilient enough for what i'm doing with them and uh you know uh it's

24:01definitely heavier but we we drove thousands of miles through all sorts of conditions we did some

24:05uh some good soft roading with deep ruts mud holes uh you know rocks this big and we were fine

24:14i would say probably handled a little bit better when uh some of the camping gear was left behind

24:19and we did the uh the off-roading as a day trip but highway was great and to build out

24:25something like

24:26this you could go probably go anywhere on the low end maybe like 3 000 if you have a battery

24:30system

24:31and fridge to like what 10 000 yeah i mean uh in my situation i i built the deck myself

24:37and did all the

24:38measurements and design and like i said stayed with fairly uh low cost things but you got the fridge

24:44you got the two batteries you might not need two batteries but uh you know we've got starlink got

24:50the um the large cargo box was new but it again it's all based around the daily that we can

24:56just

24:57convert in an hour or so back to normal use and uh you know not a not a big investment

25:03leaves us money

25:04for other hobbies other trips uh other places i like it i like the fact that it you can get

25:09into this

25:09lifestyle very inexpensive and you could use an existing vehicle yeah it's win-win and i think uh

25:17you mentioned something just to pick it up is we use this sort of hybrid we certainly camped uh

25:23probably the majority of the time but we stayed in hotels we had a lot of miles to cover to

25:28get out

25:29west where we were interested in sorry folks in the midwest but i wanted to go to the rockies

25:33and to the west coast uh to visit my daughter um but uh so it was easy to park in

25:40a hotel if you

25:41were doing a quick stop overnight uh or if you just wanted to take a more uh leisurely stop and

25:47have a nice shower walk around town for a day or two and not camp so it's a great hybrid

25:53i think

25:53well i appreciate you giving us the opportunity to showcase your build and share some of your ideas

25:58with the audience well this is patrick for new jersey's outdoor adventures youtube channel i'll see

26:04you next time thanks

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