One thing that we have in common is a love of gear–we are both gear junkies!

 

Traveling in a Teardrop trailer is amazing because you can pack your gear and leave the trailer pretty much ready to go. This makes getting on the road easier, it makes it easier to set up when you get to camp, it makes it simpler to find the gear you need when you need it and it makes it harder to forget essentials. Gone are the days of schlepping plastic bins up from the basement to go through and check everything or setting up the tent a day early in the yard to make sure it is ok. And let’s just say that I don’t miss the times when we got to camp only to realize that the attachment thingee for the air pump was missing and we had no mattress to sleep on or the fights that would ensue when we realized that we were miles from anywhere that might sell what we needed to make a week on the road bearable because one thing was still sitting at home in the basement somewhere.

 

But Teardrops are tiny and though they have great storage, it isn’t copious. So you have to be very mindful of the gear you have and packing it in efficiently while making sure that it is both sized right and easy to get in and out.  We’ve spent the last 9 years trying out different types of gear and buying one thing and another to find just the right items that are small, efficient, versatile, easy to use and clean, will last a long time and are aesthetically pleasing. Because we aren’t just “campers”–we’re “Teardrop campers” which upped our game on being stylish while we do it.

 

We’ll share with you some of our favorite items and why we love them so much. And we’ll write up some of the things that made items along the way get the old heave-ho when we find something better (remember that electric cooler from the early days? Oh yes, that seemed awesome but it really wasn’t great at all when you compare it to the Yeti).  We do a lot of research when we are looking for new gear–both in stores and online.

 

Admittedly, some of the choices we’ve made won’t work for everyone. We have a decidedly simple way to cook on a one burner stove or over the fire that most people would much rather carry a lot of gear than adopt. But the combination of: the ease of using this stove, the ease of packing it, the mix of the pans we carry and the recipes we’ve developed make it work for us and might be useful for others.

 

We buy gear from lots of places. And it’s always fun to buy gear along the way because you’ll always remember that first trip where you used it. “Remember when we stopped at LL Bean on the way up to Maine and we had totally forgotten to restock the matches in the camper and we found the cool new ones?”  But getting gear delivered right to your door is sometimes an easier way to spend more time exploring and less time out looking for that just right item to add to your gear mix. And there are lots of sources for online shopping.

 

When the things we are recommending are easy to find and available at REI, we are including links in our write-ups.