Our TearDrop Camper

This past fall, during this never ending pandemic, we decided to drive across cross country drive to West Virginia to visit family and started researching RVs to rent for our trip. Unfortunately, with traveling that far, we were looking at spending thousands of dollars in mileage fees, so a motorized RV was clearly out. We then decided to see what kinds of towables were available. Even though we didn’t have to pay for mileage, we were looking at at least two grand to rent a pull behind camper, and I just couldn’t simply see the logic in spending that much to rent something when we could spend a bit more and purchase our own.

Thus, my quest began and I luckily stumbled upon a Craiglist posting for a Little Guy tow behind and emailed the owner asap. Despite responding within an hour of his post, the owner told me he had received a number of inquiries and that he was selling to the first person who could come get it. Although I had a photoshoot planned that evening, I told my husband that we had to make a special trip down to the Springs to pick up our new camper.

Call it an impulse purchase, but I saw this as business opportunity disguised as a solution for our problem. We could simply rent out the camper on Outdoorsy (use this link to get $50 off your trip you book on Outdoorsy) when we weren’t using it to pay me back and begin our travel fund (learned from Ramit Sethi- check out his ideas for how to create separate accounts for different planned expenses in your life). We also used our Tepui tent on top of the car for my husband to sleep (and freeze) in during our trip East and back (note: most campgrounds close up around November- when we were traveling- so it’s best to do a little research before making any late fall trips). Luckily, he had a juvenile Goldendoodle in the tent with him to combat the cold and despite having to sneak into a few KOAs after hours to catch a few hours of sleep before continuing on our way, the trip was a success.

After our trip, we realized that it would be a lot more convenient to put the Tepui tent on top of the camper and rent it out to families who need more than one bed for their trips around Colorado. After making the switch (and greatly improving our car’s gas mileage without the drag of a tent on top), we got to work setting up our Outdoorsy account and compiling the items we knew were an important part of camping, like plastic wine glasses and a French press. I also decided to outfit our little camper with some glamping accessories, like the cute Pendleton blanket and World Market pillows I used to decorate the queen bed.

All in, I think we’ve spent close to $10,000 on our camping setup, but I hope to recoup the costs over the next two years and then start putting any money we make renting it out into our dedicated travel fund account. New Zealand, here we come (in about 5 years-haha)!

Fun Stuff

What I’m reading: The New Wilderness by Diane Cook, about a community of people who choose to escape the overpopulated “city” and carve out a life in a rugged wilderness. So far, so good.

What I’m listening to: this is a trick because I’m listening to an audio book called The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein, and I just listened to an interview with Oprah where she legit mentioned everything covered in this book as her guide to life. If it works for Oprah, it sure as hell works for me.

What I’m watching: Mare of Easttown- starring Kate Winslet- is a very gritty but touching HBO series about loss and trauma set in Pennsylvania. The actors NAILED the accents and colloquialisms of the area too, which is interesting because the majority of them are not American and somehow were able to speak the very specific dialect of the region.