How did you discover teardrop campers?

[oth47]

I was camping one night,watching the clouds roll in,thinking I'd have to sleep in the truck if it rained.I got to thinking about a plywood box on a trailer just big enough to sleep in,a galley didn't cross my mind.A few days later I was searching for plans for something on ebay and stumbled onto plans for a teardrop trailer.I didn't know there was such a thing.

[robfisher]

I was totally taken by the retro look of the PT Cruiser and ordered one immediatly. Then I got to thinking about how to camp with it. Didn't know what they were called but I remembered camping next to a little tiny trailer in the Tetons back when I was a kid, maybe 66 or 67. Asked my friend, the lifelong RV tech, and he told me they were called teardrops. That was all in 2000 when I think there were maybe 3 teardrop sites on the web. But I was hooked.

I never did take the PT Cruiser. By the time it arrived, 8 weeks later, I didn't even go take it for a test drive. I just let the dealer sell it which he did inabout 20 minutes and I got my deposit back. By then I already owned 2 teardrops, on my way to many more.

[GPW]

Google search ... small camping trailers .. serendipity...

[SarahMcDermott]

We saw a T@b at a gas station about four or five years ago. The owner said that it was called a tear drop and bid a hasty retreat. He was on his way somewhere, I couldn't really blame him. Within the last two months, and further discussion amongst ourselves, we have allowed ourselves to be hooked. We still haven't gotten ours.

[Verna]

I saw two at a Camping World. I don't know where I had seen one before, but I knew they were "Tear Drops". One had inside water damage and the other one was in fantastic shape. I put a deposit on the "good" one, but got it back the next day. One big drawback was that it was black, and I figured it would be very hot inside. It took me another 10 months before I finally found and bought my Escaped2 TD.

[OuttaHand]

Very first time I heard of them: My dad had told me about one they had when he was a kid in the 40's but I really had not thought too much of it.

A few years ago, my wife was searching the internet looking for info on little camping trailers and she stumbled upon a web site of someone (can't remember who) that had built one and had photographed EVERYTHING. He had basically made a "How-To" web site on how to build a teardrop.

I immediately saw that there was really no specialty talent or tools needed -- just good woorking skills. I printed out every page of his site and was on my way!

[Phooey]

Rob and I had a long running fight about RV's. He wanted a Winnabago and I didn't.

We got soaked in Oregon at a friend's outdoor destination wedding and started the fight all over again. Later, we were at his parents house in Walnut Creek and went to the Eddie Bauer store and there was the answer to the war of wills...................they were using a teardrop trailer to display some of their camping goods. Rob started searching the internet for information and found this site and the rest is history.

[Mukilteo]

When my dad's step father in Haney, BC Canada gave him a Cabin car.
Me and the Cabin Car in the driveway in Haney.

[oth47]

The plans I found on ebay were for the 1947 trailer in the design resources at the top of the page.I bought'em,but when I started reading about 12 foot panels of masonite or piecing together 8 foot panels and piling sand on top to glue them together I knew I'd bought the wrong plans.The trailer I recently traded for is actually the only one I've seen,other than pictures.

[emiller]

Saw Bud and Mike at a car show in Pinetop, AZ in 2000 and built my first in 2001. 2002 I attended Southern California Touring Tears gathering at Sweeetwater county park in Bonita, CA and was hooked, The folling year started AZRoundUp.net with Bud as my partner, Asked Bud why a teardrop and he said when he was a boy his dads teardrop was his beadroom for two years, Bud is now 77 years old.

[jonw]

I saw a picture or a mention of a teardrop trailer on the miata.net forum in a discussion about towing behind Miatas.

I googled teardrop trailers, ended up here, and was captivated by Mike's Benroy plans and build. I was hooked...

[Oldragbaggers]

Lance and I had been looking at campers for over a year and had decided we wanted one for our bike excursions and road trips. However, we knew of a lot of people with oversized and underused trailers sitting in their driveway, oxidizing and depreciating, so we only wanted exactly what we needed, nothing more and nothing less. Something that would fit in the garage was preferable to minimize maintenance, and so was no payments so we wouldn't feel guilty if we didn't have time to use it frequently. Also we had 3 perfectly good, paid for vehicles in our driveway but the max towing capacity of each is 2000# or less. The idea of taking on a truck payment for a rig that would also sit unused in the yard most of the time, next to the oxidizing depreciating trailer, because of it's gas guzzling ways, didn't seem practical or smart. So it had to be towable with the vehicles we already had. We weren't interested in a pop-up because the whole wrestling with canvas set-up and take-down thing didn't appeal to us at all.

I was googling all combinations of words like "tiny, compact, miniature, small, lightweight...etc. etc." and "camper/trailer" trying (but not expecting) to find something that fit all this criteria. I hit on teardrops. I think the first site I explored was the outbackteardrop. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen and seemed to be exactly what we were looking for. A whole new world opened up, right there on my computer screen. The fascinating history of teardrops, the old magazine articles and plans. One thing led to the next, the RV Crazy episode on YouTube and the forums (I found Grant Whipp's first.) Then I found the coffee-table book "Teardrops and Tiny Trailers" and ordered it immediately.

I was hooked right from the get go. I had absolutely no idea that there was this whole community of people out there building their own tiny trailers, but once I discovered it I knew I had to be a part of it. Lance was a little skeptical about the size and lack of headroom/toilet facilities at first but because I was so enthusiastic, and he is always so supportive of everything I want to do, he gave the green light for me to build it. That was in April of 2011 and I have never doubted the decision for a second. I acquired my old trailer frame off of Craigslist a couple of months later and started making sawdust last September.

I expect my camper to be done within the next 2 months and we have our first Tearjerkers gathering booked in September, 1 year from the time I started building. Lance has really gotten on board as he has seen the camper take shape and helped me figure out solutions to all our needs, and now he is as anxious to go camping in it as I am.

So we will have EXACTLY the camper we wanted and needed and we gained a whole new group of friends in the process.

Yay teardrops!!



(I really admire people who are able to give a succinct one sentence answer to a question. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.....)

[mechmagcn]

When i got my 53 f100 on the road, I needed a small camper to pull behind it. An internet search lead me to teardrops and the rest is history my tear has almost 26k miles so far and I expect to put many more on it. All of these have been behind the 53 ford.

[Gage]

I grew up camping with a teardrop. Although I never got to sleep in it camping. They are only made for two, you know. I had my own tent.

[LDK]

I wanted a camper for a long time but I didn't have the room for a big one so I googled small campers and stumbled across teardrops. I ended up buying the kuffle creek cubby manual and shortly after I got it I found out about the T&TTT forum. I then used information from both sources to build my camper.