Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Hey all, I haven't seen very many folding camper designs floating around, thought I'd throw my hat into the ring since it's been raining so much here. The idea is to start with a 4x8 trailer, and build a 2 foot high box on it. From there use a few pieces of metal or plastic corrugated roofing material and 2x4's to build a roof. A hinge is on both ends of this roof piece, one fastened to the front of the box, the other attached to the top of the rear wall. When stored, the rear wall's outer edge is left facing down. The base of the rear wall is on 2 tracks on either side of the box, slides from the middle to the back of the box, which raises the roof section as it is drawn backward.

As for the triangular side walls, I haven't found anything I'm super happy with yet, but Ideally I would like them to be stored inside the roof section so that they simply fold out as the roof is raised, or can be lowered after the roof has finished raising. Have a few different ideas that I might test out but I'm also open to suggestions. Realistically they could be stored on top of the bed area and be pushed into a slot on either side, but that's not nearly as fun.

There is storage underneath the sitting area. This can have extendable slats built into it to make for an expanding bed frame, although there are different designs that are out there that have become popular in the vanlife groups that would work just as well. The hole in the front will actually be 2 separate compartments that open like drawers, one for battery storage and one for a kitchen area.

The reason this design might be appealing (to me at least) is having the option of rooftop storage without having significant weight increase. One could also forgo the bed design entirely and just have a mattress on the floor for a simple solution. Apologies for the use of tinkercad, I'm not very skilled with 3d design and it's what I'm familiar with.

If anyone has any improvements or suggestions, I'm open to hearing them. I'm considering this design over my other design simply to have a way to transport my kayak a little more easily.

I have a pop up that's a bit like what you're thinking of. It's taller and allows us to stand up in most of it. One of the reasons for buying it was that we wanted to transport kayaks on the top. I built a rack for it that is easy to load and works well. Neither it or the kayaks touch the pop up lid so there's no weight bearing on it at all. It has soft sides though so it might be a no go for you.

Look at the A Liner campers, sort of the same concept, you will probably get some good ideas.

dogcatcher wrote:Look at the A Liner campers, sort of the same concept, you will probably get some good ideas.

PCO6 wrote:I have a pop up that's a bit like what you're thinking of. It's taller and allows us to stand up in most of it. One of the reasons for buying it was that we wanted to transport kayaks on the top. I built a rack for it that is easy to load and works well. Neither it or the kayaks touch the pop up lid so there's no weight bearing on it at all. It has soft sides though so it might be a no go for you.

Took inspiration from both of these designs! I really like that the A liner gives you solid walls and I like the form factor and appearance of the clipper models, much nicer than my building blocks. Might be a way to incorporate both designs, back to the drawing board.

I really like this folding camper design ideas: https://camper.hemax.com/Reviews/1459/DIY_TRAY_BACK_CAMPER_TRAILER

OP827 wrote:I really like this folding camper design ideas: https://camper.hemax.com/Reviews/1459/DIY_TRAY_BACK_CAMPER_TRAILER

There are some good ideas in that example. Thanks for posting that link.

Another one to eyeball... https://www.facebook.com/DIYCraftsTV/vi ... 4050892136