This Light Micro-Camper Is Perfect for One Person, Has Entertainment Center and Kitchen

If you found yourself nodding in approval at the above, here's something that might inspire you: a seemingly perfect, one-person teardrop trailer that combines all the advantages of this type of towable, thus presenting itself as the ideal weekend getaway micro-camper you can tow with your daily driver. Even if that daily is a busted-up Toyota.

President Chay, aka Chay Denne, from South Carolina, U.S., and his small team, made up of family members, have been building stuff for a very long time. Over the years, he's done everything from the Krabby Patty car from SpongeBob to a 1991 Ford bus conversion, a two-person trailer slash tiny house, and a 40 mph (64.3 kph) homemade electric skateboard.

Chay believes – and aims to show – that you can get your dream towable if you apply yourself, do your research, and put in some elbow grease. His latest project, the micro-camper, is meant as proof of that.

This micro-camper is essentially a teardrop trailer designed to be lightweight and affordable before anything else. It's meant to be a single-person towable that can provide the basics in terms of comfort for a weekend getaway, so it has a bedroom, an entertainment center, and a fold-out kitchen that allows minimal cooking. Because of its size, it's meant to be used at camping sites only, so it requires hooking up to the grid and additional bathroom facilities.

It's not difficult to find fault with the build, starting from the lack of bathroom facilities to the more important aspect of featuring waterproofing everywhere but on the underside, where it's exposed to moisture and debris. In fact, the basis of the teardrop trailer is perhaps the weakest part of the build, featuring only 1-inch (2.5-cm) thick foam insulation, a foam barrier, and a 0.5-inch (1.2-cm) piece of plywood.

That said, we have a feeling this micro-camper is only a showcase for what could be done, which is just a more delicate way of saying that you can always improve on "the recipe" where you see fit.

The basis of the micro-camper is a Haul-Master 1,090-lb (494-kg) capacity utility trailer that sells for just $400. The entire shell of the trailer is built of thin plywood to keep overall weight under 300 lbs (136 kg) and is thus legal to be towed with a small passenger car. Dimensions are up to par with that: 80 inches in length and 40 inches in width (203 x 101 cm).

Spray foam is used for insulation between the two sheets of plywood on the roof, and black truck bedliner for waterproofing throughout. The thin walls get no insulation whatsoever; in fact, they're so thin that all the electrics have to be mounted on the roof. On the plus side, they do get screens for the door and the small side window.

Inside the trailer, there's an entertainment center at the foot of the bed, which also takes up most of the space inside. The small side window allows fresh air in, but there's no vent in the roof that would create a cross-breeze and help with keeping temperatures down. You also get LED lights and outlets and a few small shelves for storage.

Because the interior is so cramped, the kitchen is located outside, on the side of the trailer with no windows. It's a fold-out galley, essentially a box you can unlatch so that it drops into position, offering access to a rudimentary integrated sink and a cooktop you can plug into the nearest outlet.

When not in use, the kitchen latches back on, taking up less space in travel mode. It offers basic functionality, but if you're only out for a couple of nights, it might just do.

These past few years have seen an incredible proliferation in mobile homes, mostly for long-term or permanent residency, DIY builds, and alternative housing solutions for land and water use. This micro-camper, while far from a perfect build, aims to show that you can go against the grain and not buy new, especially when "new" almost always means overpriced due to heightened demand.

It shows that you can have more with less, in the sense that you could still be a weekend warrior with smaller expenses, on the condition that you be willing to do the work yourself.

At the same time, it shows that downsizing can be whatever you feel best suits you. So, if your idea of going off the grid is staying at a campsite in what some commenters have (somewhat rudely) described as a rolling coffin, this build is here to serve as your daily dose of motivation. Or, you know, it could be only fun escapism.