So you’re looking for the perfect midsize truck for your adventurous lifestyle. You try to break away from the office, the suburbs, the city—whatever your personal prison is—as much as possible. If it were up to you, you’d live off the grid, eating what you hunt, filtering your own water, and just connecting with the land. But your friends and family say you’re not quite ready for that (or they’d miss you too much). Still, when you can, it’s off into the wild for you—and you need a super rugged midsize truck to help you get there. You want a midsize because you want an agile truck with good enough fuel economy to take you as far as you want without breaking the bank at the pump. And you want to go FAR.
So it might come down to the 2023 Nissan Frontier vs 2023 Toyota Tacoma—both commendable options with easy handling, powerful engines, and great towing and hauling abilities. In fact, their maximum towing abilities are pretty head-to-head, at just under 7,000 lbs. They both have smartphone connectivity, great touchscreens, driver assistance features, and comfortable interiors. So how are you going to decide which one to go for? It might have to come down to accessories—more specifically, which one offers those special accessories that help you do more and go more places. Here’s a look at the camping accessories the Nissan Frontier and the Toyota Tacoma have to offer for your rugged outdoor life—or, at least, your rugged weekends.
Nissan Frontier
The Nissan Frontier has a slew of excellent accessories available to outdoor and DIY enthusiasts. So whether you’re into that survivalist lifestyle and need to pack your tough tools to do it, or you’re just looking for a laid-back weekend of camping, it’s got you covered.
First off, it offers either a sliding or a fixed bed extender. Each of these allows you to flip down that tailgate and make even more room for your stuff. If you need to stash extra-long items for your adventures, like kayaks or ladders (to put your tent in a tree, of course, away from the bears), you can do so with either of these. The sliding bed extender can be installed at any point along the Ulti-track channel system and locks into place above your folded-down tailgate. This fixed extender is made of tough aluminum and is compatible with the Frontier’s under-bed drop-in liner. Either option gives you more cargo space when you need it.
If you’ll need to hop in and out of your bed often—such as if that’s where you’re sleeping for the night—you’ll like the bed access package. It combines a rear bumper step and a hand grip to help you hoist yourself into the bed using just one hand. Speaking of where you’ll sleep, the Frontier has a high-quality bed available; it’s easy to install, folds down compactly for storage when not in use, and has an external rainfly to lie beneath.
One of the coolest accessories is the Nissan Tailgate Audio by KICKER. This audio system contains an IP66-rated weatherproof, portable Bluetooth speaker, along with a built-in FM tuner, AUX jack, and USB charging port. It boasts a Bluetooth range of 100 ft, and it can even connect to a second speaker!
Another of these unbelievably cool features is the sports bar. This, obviously, offers rugged looks and a place for your buddy to hang onto when riding in the back. (We won’t tell anyone. You’re in the woods, too, so I suppose nobody will!) It has LED brake and bed lights, is made of powder-coated aluminum, and features simple bolt-on installation.
Toyota Tacoma
The Toyota Tacoma has some of its own excellent outdoor accessories, the first of which is a bed extender—just like the one in the Frontier—to give you extra space for your gear; this one, however, is fixed. It doesn’t have the same sliding nature as the Frontier. This extender has been designed to leave your taillights visible when in use, so you’re sure to deter any end-of-month highway bandits from claiming you don’t have taillights. The Tacoma also boasts angle-release mounting brackets that make it just as easy to put in your bed extender as it is to take off.
You can also get a handy bed lighting kit with your Tacoma, so no matter what time of day (or rather, night) you get to your campsite and need to set up, you can easily see your stuff and do so. Or you can just use this to sit in the bed and tell ghost stories. If you want a way to organize and separate your smaller items, the Tacoma also has a cargo divider. This slides into the deck rail system and can be configured in many ways so you can make it work for you. As an added bonus, it’s resistant to corrosion!
Possibly one of the Tacoma’s most stand-out accessories has got to be the deck rail camera mount for attaching your GoPro camera to the bed. Made with anodized cast aluminum, it’s ready for anything, and it’s easy to install. Most importantly, it lets you document all the impressive and rugged stuff you’ve been swearing to your friends you do on your camping trips, but they don’t believe you—such as the sighting of the elusive sasquatch. (It also doesn’t hurt that it can capture the facts during a collision, to provide evidence to your insurance company.)
The Tacoma also has the Go Rhino XRS Overland Rack, which is good for mounting all sorts of items like tents, bikes, awnings, kayaks—you name it. And it’s easy to install! Like the Frontier, the Tacoma also has a bed tent, and it’s UV protected, fire-resistant, and water-resistant. Plus, it has handy color-coded poles that make it easy to put up.
So Which Truck Has the Best Outdoor Lifestyle Accessories?
Admittedly, it’s a tough choice. Between these two trucks and their various accessories, you can really deck out your truck and make it the ultimate wilderness adventure vehicle. But, we have to say, the Nissan Frontier takes the cake—or, should we say, it takes the s’mores made over an open flame.
The Frontier has several accessories available that the Tacoma simply does not. Let’s start with that Nissan Tailgate Audio by KICKER; nothing gets the party started like excellent tunes, and you’ll get it with this system. The Tacoma offers no such system, so you’ll just be stuck listening to the truck’s internal speakers, lest you bring a portable sound system. The Frontier also has a far superior tent thanks to that external rainfly; at those times you want a little shade or retreat from the rain, but you don’t want to lie down in the bed, you’ll be grateful for this. The Tacoma has no comparable accessory.
The Sports Bar is another advantage of the Frontier. To be honest, the Tacoma offers one but it’s not as substantial as the Frontier’s, which is why we didn’t bother to mention it. It’s smaller and does not have the awesome LED lights of the Frontier. Additionally, the Frontier has two varieties of extenders, and the Tacoma just has the one. If you want versatility, you’ll want the Frontier, and that’s why this off-road midsize truck has won our vote for the best accessories for taking your wilderness adventures to the next level.
