Teardrop trailers

Teardrop trailers are the smallest hard-sided campers: a sleeping cabin with a bed that fills most of the floor, and often a kitchen under a rear hatch that opens to the outside. They tow on an ordinary ball hitch like any travel trailer, and their light weight brings them within reach of many crossovers and small SUVs. The tongue still has to carry about 10 to 15 percent of the loaded weight, so check the vehicle's tongue-weight rating as well as its towing capacity.

The trade-off is living space. In most teardrops you can sit up but not stand, cooking happens outdoors, and a bathroom is either absent or a cassette toilet; in exchange the trailer fits a narrow driveway or storage bay, is easy to back, and adds little to fuel use.

The category here also takes in bigger, stand-up teardrop-style trailers. The catalog runs from Happier Camper's 13.4-foot fiberglass HC1 at about 1,100 lb dry to nuCamp's 18-foot TAB 400 Boondock at about 2,885 lb, with inTech's aluminum-framed Luna, the Vistabule and the Bean Trailer Black Bean between, priced from about $25,000 to $45,000.