In Canada, summer is a time to savour the great outdoors amid warmer temperatures during that precious window while we can. And for many of us, this means the summer season is camping season. When it’s time to pack up and head out on road trips to our favourite campgrounds, we ask a lot of our vehicles. We hope to have enough space that the kids won’t fight and all our camping gear will fit. We need them to handle rough roads and rugged terrain. We might even ask them to tow a tent trailer or our favourite toys. And as if that weren’t enough, we want peak comfort and the latest technologies, too.
If dreams of summer camping getaways are fueling your next vehicle purchase, we’ve got your back. Below, you’ll find our picks for the best cars for camping trips in Canada in 2025. We’ve offered up options from a variety of classes here, from SUVs to trucks and even a minivan, to help you choose the right vehicle for your budget and lifestyle. From Toronto to Vancouver, from Calgary and Alberta’s national parks to the many beautiful points east of Montreal and Quebec City or anywhere in between, you’ll be ready for your next great Canadian outdoor adventure.
Best Camping Vehicles in Canada 2025
- What Makes a Good Camping Car?
- Why Payload Matters
- Rooftop Mounting for Tents, Storage Boxes, and Outdoor Equipment
- Chevrolet Colorado ZR2
- Ford Bronco
- Ford Bronco Sport
- Ford F-150
- Jeep Wrangler
- Kia Telluride
- Mazda CX-50
- Honda Passport
- Subaru Outback Wilderness
- Toyota Sienna
What Makes a Good Camping Car?
Most campers seek out a vehicle equipped with all-wheel drive (AWD) or four-wheel drive (4WD) to ensure they’ll have enough traction when they venture off the beaten path. Decent fuel economy can be an important factor as well since less-than-smooth conditions tend to burn more gasoline. It’s also important to consider whether a vehicle has enough cargo space and payload capacity to meet your needs. Towing capacity obviously matters if you’ll be bringing a trailer along. If you think you’ll need more space than an SUV’s interior can provide and will want to install a roof box, you’ll need roof rails and will want to skip the panoramic sunroof. In this case, knowing how much weight your vehicle can handle on the roof is critical.
If you’re looking to sleep inside your vehicle rather than use a tent or trailer, a three-row SUV is your best bet for two people and can be surprisingly comfortable. A tent that fits into a truck bed is also an option, though you’ll need to tear this down every time you change locations. Plus, there’s just as much risk of having to put it away wet as with any other tent system.
Why Payload Matters
Payload is a common term in the world of pickup trucks, but it’s an important statistic for any owner to consider who’s packing a vehicle to the rafters.
What is payload capacity? Payload is the total amount of weight a vehicle can safely handle having added to it. This includes not only cargo but also the weight of all passengers on board. When towing, the weight that the trailer is applying to the tow hitch—a figure known as tongue weight—must be factored into payload as well.
If you can’t find a payload capacity figure in the manufacturer’s specifications for your vehicle, you can calculate it by finding the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) and subtracting the vehicle’s curb weight.
Rooftop Mounting for Tents, Storage Boxes, and Outdoor Equipment
A great camping car will give you a place on the roof to mount gear such as bikes, canoes, or kayaks. You could also mount a roof box, and you may even have the option to mount a folding tent.
To determine how much you can carry on a vehicle’s roof, you need to know two figures. A vehicle’s static load capacity is the amount of weight it can bear on its roof while it’s parked. A dynamic load capacity indicates how much roof-mounted weight a vehicle can handle while it’s in motion.
In most cases, you’ll work with the dynamic load rating when calculating how much gear you can bring along. Where static loads come into play is with gear such as rooftop tents where you would add weight to the roof only when the vehicle is stopped. In other words, you need to know the weight of the tent setup itself to determine whether your SUV can handle it under dynamic load. Once you’re parked for the night, you’ll need to add together the weight of the tent, the occupants, and anything you’ll store inside when calculating whether the vehicle can handle the total static load.
Chevrolet Colorado ZR2
We’ve enjoyed many great camping adventures in Chevy’s midsize off-road warrior, the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. The magic sauce is in the Multimatic DSSV dampers, which can smooth out all sorts of rough terrain while still providing a comfortable and stable ride on pavement. Past model years were fitted with a naturally aspirated V6, but as of the new generation that began in 2023 it includes a 2.7-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine producing 310 horsepower and 430 lb-ft of torque. The 2024 Colorado also comes with 17-inch wheels with 33-inch mud terrain tires, a 7.6 cm (3 in) lift kit and high-performance suspension, five drive modes, and digital screens for the instrument cluster and infotainment system. You can also tow up to 2,720 kilograms (6,000 pounds) and carry a payload of 581 kg (1280 lb). The 2024 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 has a Canadian starting price of $61,633. (2025 pricing was not yet available at time of publication.)
Ford Bronco
The Ford Bronco is such an obvious choice that no list of the best vehicles for camping would be complete without it. With nine trim levels to choose from, two- and four-door body styles, standard 4WD, and a variety of engines and off-road features direct from the factory, you can build a Bronco to go just about anywhere. A two-door Ford Bronco comes with 635 litres of cargo space behind the second row and 1,480 litres behind the first row, while the four-door version offers 1,008 and 2,196 litres respectively (and even more if you opt for the soft top). Towing maxes out at 2,040 kilograms (4,500 pounds). However, the Bronco’s dynamic weight limit for the roof is 50 kilograms (110 pounds), so you won’t be able to store much up top. Canadian pricing on the 2024 Ford Bronco started at $52,060 for the two-door Big Bend trim and $54,010 for the four-door. A refresh is on the way for 2025 that delivers interior upgrades and makes the 12-inch infotainment screen standard, among other features. A base trim is expected to come with the revamped Bronco, so while 2025 pricing had not been announced as of this writing, we expect it will start slightly lower.
Ford Bronco Sport
If you don’t need a vehicle as capable as the Ford Bronco most of the time, consider a Ford Bronco Sport instead. It’s important to understand that the Bronco Sport is largely unrelated to the Bronco and doesn’t share much in common with its namesake. However, it’s still a more rugged and capable compact crossover than average. The lower four grades come with a 1.5-litre three-cylinder EcoBoost engine producing 181 horsepower and 190 pound-feet of torque, while the top-tier Badlands trim receives a 2.0-litre EcoBoost four-cylinder making 250 hp and 275 lb-ft of torque along with a twin-clutch rear-drive unit. According to Natural Resources Canada, the smaller engine consumes 8.7 L/100 km combined, and the larger one averages 10.1 L/100 km. For 2025, the Ford Bronco Sport gets a refresh that brings its styling closer to its Bronco big brother and adds a new Sasquatch package, among other enhancements. The 2025 Ford Bronco Sport has a starting price of $40,790 for the Big Bend trim.
Ford F-150
When it’s time to tow a trailer out to the campsite, many Canadians choose a pickup truck by default. And of those who do, the majority pick a Ford F-150 for the job: F-Series trucks have been the best-selling nameplate in Canada for the last 14 years. For camping, we’ve especially enjoyed the Ford F-150 Hybrid. When equipped with the available 7.2 kW Pro Power Onboard system, it can run power for a small trailer for brief periods on its own, which is a great alternative to other power sources such as solar panels. (This comes with the caveat, though, that the F-150 Hybrid has been panned for poor reliability.) With up to 6,120 kilograms (13,500 pounds) of towing capacity and a wide variety of engines, cab styles, and trim levels from basic to deluxe to choose from, the F-150 is versatile and ready for your backwoods adventuring. You could even consider adding a truck camper to the bed, which is a nice alternative to a large Class C camper for couples or small families. In Canada, the 2024 Ford F-150 starts from $42,700. (2025 pricing is not available as of this writing.)
Jeep Wrangler
Camping enthusiasts across North America don’t need to be told that the Jeep Wrangler is designed with their needs in mind. Not only does it come from the factory with all the off-road fixings—including, to this day, a manual transmission—but the vast array of aftermarket parts available from Mopar and other brands mean you can create Wrangler configurations precisely to your liking, from on-road versatility to true backcountry comfort. Four-door models can hold up to 897 litres of gear behind the rear seats and 2,050 litres with the rear seats folded, and maximum towing capacity measures up at 1,587 kilograms (3,500 pounds), which is enough for a pop-up camper. Pricing in Canada for the two-door 2025 Jeep Wrangler starts at $39,995, while the 2025 Jeep Wrangler 4-door Sport is priced from $54,290 Canadian. And if fuel efficiency is a big factor for you, consider the Jeep Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybrid, priced from $62,290.
Kia Telluride
Here’s a prime example of a three-row SUV that could just as easily function as your tent for car camping. With up to 2,455 litres of storage space behind the first row, you’ll have plenty of room for your camping gear. Once you unload, drop the second and third-row seats in a Kia Telluride and throw down an air mattress and a couple of sleeping bags, and you’ll have a cozy and dry sleeping space for two people that’s much more affordable than a motorhome. If you expect to camp with your Telluride, we recommend the X-Pro trim. It has 18-inch alloy wheels with all-terrain tires, 21.3 centimetres of ground clearance (1 cm more than the lower grades), and an extra 225 kg (500 pounds) of towing capacity for a total of 2,495 kg (5,500 pounds). In Canada, a 2025 Kia Telluride starts at $53,480, and the 2025 Kia Telluride X-Pro carries a starting price of $66,556. A new generation of the Kia Telluride is expected for the 2026 model year.
Mazda CX-50
The Mazda CX-50 compact SUV was designed for outdoor adventure from the start. With a lower and wider profile than the Mazda CX-5, it’s easier to secure things onto the CX-50s roof like kayaks or a roof box. We’ve seen the rooftop tent accessory in person and think it would make a fantastic home base for a camping excursion. In the Meridian Edition, off-road specific features are added such as matte hood overlays, 18-inch alloy wheels with all-terrain tires, and available roof-mounted crossbars and platform in the Apex Package. Two of Mazda’s 2.5-litre four-cylinder engines are available, one naturally aspirated and one turbo. For 2025, a new CX-50 Hybrid joins the line-up sporting a powertrain straight out of the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid and averaging fuel economy of 6.2 L/100 km combined. The 2025 Mazda CX-50 starts in Canada at $43,137, while the 2025 Mazda CX-50 Meridian Edition starts at $53,787 and the 2025 Mazda CX-50 Hybrid starts at $45,837.
Honda Passport
The Honda Passport mid-size SUV flies under the radar with outdoor enthusiasts, but it’s got a few thoughtful inclusions that make it worth considering. The interior is lined with easy-clean material, and its reinforced roof rails can handle up to 75 kilograms (165 pounds) of static load with accessory crossbars in place. The 3.5-litre naturally aspirated V6 that comes in every Passport produces 280 hp and 262 lb-ft of torque, matched with a nine-speed automatic transmission and standard i-VTM4 all-wheel drive with torque vectoring. Items exclusive to the Trailsport trim include 18-inch wheels with all-terrain tires and an off-road tuned suspension. The 2025 Honda Passport starts in Canada at a price of $52,616.
Subaru Outback Wilderness
Subaru has a well-established reputation as the go-to brand for the outdoor set. We’ll double down on that and say the Subaru Outback Wilderness in particular is one of the best choices on the market as a camping car out of the box. In addition to coming with the Outback’s higher-powered engine, a 2.5-litre turbo boxer four-cylinder producing power specs of 260 hp and 277 lb-ft of torque, the Wilderness trim also adds 2.1 centimetres of ground clearance for a total of 24.1 cm. Subaru’s dual-function X-Mode is equipped with additional functions for deep mud and snow, plus it integrates a front skid plate, tow hooks, and up to 100 kg (220 pounds) of dynamic roof load capacity and 315 kg (700 pounds) of static load for tons of practicality. The Canadian starting price for the 2025 Subaru Outback Wilderness is $47,974.
Toyota Sienna
This is an untraditional suggestion, but hear us out. If we needed to move a family of five to seven to a tent campsite, we’d head straight to the Toyota Sienna. Why? There’s plenty of roomy and comfortable seating, and available AWD. Plus, the standard hybrid powertrain not only keeps fuel consumption low at 6.6 L/100 km combined on average, but some trims integrate a household plug that’s powered by the hybrid battery, which means you can bring small appliances along, even when you can’t book a campsite with electrical. Sadly, the second-row seats can’t be removed to create a flat sleeping surface. If you’d rather stop short of a full #vanlife Sprinter Class B camper van conversion then you may prefer to give up the hybrid functionality and opt for a gas-powered Chrysler Pacifica since the second-row seats are static in the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, too. But as an all-around vehicle for camping with a crowd, the Sienna is a great bet. The 2025 Toyota Sienna carries a Canadian starting price of $50,715, and it’s sporting an all-new Platinum grade with premium features like a head-up display, a built-in vacuum, and a cool box.
Note: Prices shown for new vehicles include destination charges and fees but not taxes. While they were current at the time of publication, note prices are subject to change. We’ve left the Toyota 4Runner off this list for 2025 as it’s between generations as of this writing, but we’re confident the new generation will emerge as another solid option once we’ve tested it ourselves.
