Camp-Let: The Itsy-Bitsy Lightweight Trailer That Explodes Into a Family Home at Camp

This is Camp-Let, a towable first introduced by the Danish company of the same name in the late '60s, which became a fixture at campgrounds – and an icon – in the '80s. Today, it's available throughout the Old Continent and also in the United States, thanks to a partnership with camping specialist Isabella, for which reason it also goes by the Isabella Camp-Let name.

Camp-Let literally means "easy camp" in Danish, a most apt name for a solution that places this much emphasis on ease of transportation, easy storage, and maximum comfort in the most compact package. At first sight, Camp-Let is a pint-sized towable, a single-axle enclosed trailer that could be anything.

What you probably wouldn't expect it to be is a full-size family home, and surprise!, that's what Camp-Let is. At camp, this itsy-bitsy lightweight trailer expands into a tent with two bedrooms off the ground, accommodation for as many as six people, and an integrated kitchen – of your choice. Add accessories from an impressive list, and you can further expand and customize the space until you get a fully-fledged vacation home, though at an extra cost.

If all this sounds surprising, it also explains the enduring popularity of this unique camping solution that boasts of being able to offer the comfort of an RV with "the freedom of a camping holiday."

In road mode, Camp-Let is a tiny towable measuring 3.23 meters (10.6 feet) in length and 1.6 meters (5.2 feet) in width. Once you arrive at camp, you slide out the tailgate to reveal the compact kitchen and then open the hard roof to form the basis of the two bedrooms. Inside the hard sides is the attached tent with all the poles and anchors needed and additional room for storage for extensions and accessories.

Once you open it up, the Camp-Let extends to 5.26 meters (17.2 feet) in length and 4 meters (13.2 feet) in width, but the integrated tent is much bigger, offering a living interior surface of 18 square meters (193.7 square feet). You can add even more to it if you opt for the side extensions or the awnings.

The Camp-Let is offered in two models with slightly different layouts, different exterior styling and compatibility with accessories. Both the Passion and the North models are 18 square meters (193.7 square feet) with sleeping for a maximum of six people, but one is described as ideal for outdoor adventure lovers, while the other as family-perfect.

To either of these, you can add from a range of add-ons and accessories until you get your desired basecamp: a different kitchen layout, the deluxe kitchen version, different screens, windows, or room partitions, or different awnings for the living room area. Optionals include even racks for bikes or luggage that go on top of the trailer or a universal storage locker on the trailer tongue.

With careful planning or an extended consultation with your local retailer and a generous enough budget, you can get a complete family vacation home inside that compact trailer. Speaking of compactness, the Camp-Let is even suitable for EV towing.

Camp-Let tips the scales at just 270 kg (595 lbs) by itself and has a maximum payload of 500 kg (1,102 lbs). Its weight and low profile mean that you can tow it with an EV with minimal impact on range, as tested by Isabella a short while ago.

Using a Volkswagen ID.4 with an 82 kWh battery, the test concluded that the impact of towing a Camp-Let on the estimated 517 km (321 miles) range was 9.52% at a driving speed of 80 kph (50 mph) and 15.86% at 130 kph (81 mph). For whatever reason, both tests were conducted on just 30 km (18.6 miles) of road, but the findings clearly indicate that towing a Camp-Let is preferable to a larger towable in terms of the way it diminishes the EV's range.

There is a downside to a vacation solution so compact, and it's related to deployment time. As you can see in the second video below, installation is complex and time-consuming. You're setting up a large tent, and that takes time and effort, even when you know your way around things. The makers strive to make installation intuitive with each upgrade to the base models, but the process is most definitely a learning curve.

Pricing for the Camp-Let is available on request regardless of the country of inquiry. The reason for this is not a conspiracy of secrecy but the many personalization options possible and the fact that the units are shipped through local retailers. As a reference point, though, the most basic, 4-person spec for either the Passion or the North model is usually priced above $8,000.