Glamping, the more glamorous cousin of camping, is about to get even more fancy. Jupe, a company that makes glamping units that claim to revolutionize the industry, is out to improve the experience of glamping as a whole.
After all, if you sleep and relax in a unit as gorgeous as Jupe, you simply can’t go number one and two in the woods like a savage. This is the Jupe Portal, a porta-potty unlike any other both in design and functionality, and marketed as a “work of art.”
You have to give it to a company with enough big cojones to declare that “S**t’s about to get real. In a big way!” in the introduction to their new product. And the scatological humor doesn’t stop here, as Jupe invites you to “lay claim to the throne” – not the Iron Throne, thank the powers that be! – with the “highest-tech portable toilet on the market.”
The Portal is a fully portable unit offered in three variants, Base, Full, and Earth, but the third one will only be made available sometime next year. As its name implies, it’s a fully-composting unit developed in partnership with wasted.earth.
Photo: Jupe
The Portal can be bought or rented and is designed to be the perfect companion to the Jupe glamping unit introduced in December 2020 and detailed at this link. As we noted on that occasion, the Jupe is designed as a one-of-a-kind retreat that is easily assembled and packed up for removal, has minimal impact on the environment but offers all the creature comforts of a hotel stay. It is glam, spacious and off-grid capable (in the higher-specced version), and it promises an outdoor experience that will not sacrifice comfort over bonding with nature.
Now, the Jupe has a toilet to match. The Portal is also completely off-grid if you’re willing to splurge on the Full Portal version. It comes with a 200W solar panel array, a 200-Ah battery and an inverter to power “stadium-like lighting” and an always-on fan to rid the space of the usual odors. The toilet tank needs clearing and cleaning every week, and there’s no running water.
The Portal is a striking-looking shed, with the two side walls covered in a reflective wrap so that it blends with the surrounding environment almost entirely. The entrance, which is angled forward to create a larger space inside, is actually a two-way mirror, but it can be covered with a blind for privacy. Over the door is a large skylight that allows natural light in and will make sitting on the throne a more… nature-immersive experience.
Speaking of “experience,” the Portal comes with Starlink compatibility – at an extra cost, of course. These days, not even glamping is imaginable without quality WiFi and taking a bathroom break, least of all. So this unit will allow you to do “doo your stuff,” as Jupe says, and still scroll on whatever social media platform you prefer these days.
Photo: Jupe
The interior matches the Jupe unit in style in that it’s clad in wood and is minimalist. The toilet sits higher up, as befits a proper throne, but it’s a standard porta-potty unit. Both the Base and the Full Portal toilets come without separate holding tanks and no flushing, so as the New Atlas points out, whatever issues there are with regular, plastic portable toilets will still be present here, Internet connectivity or not.
The Portal costs $4,995 for the Base model and $8,995 for the Full version, which includes WiFi, extra LED lights, and the two-way mirror entry door. The Earth, which has not yet been unveiled, will cost $10,995. That’s a lot of money even for a “work of art” portable toilet, but Jupe says that the first batch of production units has already been sold out, so you will have to hold it in until next year if you want one too.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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