Why we chose a teardrop. — Rings in a Pond

I will start by stating that this post is not sponsored in any way. The products I write about here are all things we decided to purchase on our own and the lessons that we have learned while using them.

We are a family of five. We are not your typical teardrop customer. However, after a year of research, a teardrop is what we settled on. Several years ago, we had a bunkhouse trailer that we purchased on craigslist. What we learned from that experience is that we wanted several things out of our next trailer purchase.

An outdoor kitchen--the best part of camping is being outside. Only having an indoor cooking space took away from our experience.
A comfortable bed--when I was 20 I could sleep on the ground and wake up in the morning feeling fine. If I do that now, my back hurts, I can't turn my head more than 2.4 inches in either direction, and I'm super pleasant to be around. Memory foam is my friend.
A bed for each kid--I love my kids but I would rather put a hot poker through my big toe than sleep with cold feet and pointy knees in my rib cage all night. Enough said.
Stores in the garage--we stored our previous trailer in a couple of different RV storage places. Super inconvenient.
Easy to set-up--We have to wrangle three kids everywhere we go. Three kids that all have big, loud, personalities and, at times, can go a little Lord of the Flies on us. We may be crazy but we aren't stupid--we're keeping it simple.
Some kind of bathroom option should it be needed--I love the outdoors, but I also appreciate bathing.
An ability to go into the backcountry--dirt roads lead to some of the best spots on the planet.

After a year of research, spreadsheets, and walking RV shows, we settled on this little beauty:

Cozy Cruiser, Willamette with Yakima Skyrise 2 rooftop tent

Cozy Cruiser Teardrop

Cozy Cruiser is a teardrop company out of Springfield, Oregon run by two brothers, John and Rich Egli. We looked at A LOT of teardrops before settling on this one. There are a number of other teardrops designed for off-road usage. They look wonderful, come with a lot of features... and sport a hefty price tag. Cozy Cruiser allowed us to completely customize our teardrop at a very reasonable price. My husband, Ryan, mainly worked with Rich. He was super nice and obviously loves building teardrops. He and Ryan had a great time talking on the phone about options and how to accomplish what we wanted. Our teardrop was the first off-road version they had built. Here are some of the options we added to make our teardrop off road worthy:

Raised chaise for off road clearance
Larger wheels
Diamond Plating across the front (which they added around the base as well for free because it looked good)
Jeep style fenders (diamond plated) so that we can stand on them

After we picked up the trailer, we waited a few weeks for our REI member dividend and annual 20% off coupon (this girl loves a deal), and purchased a Yakima Skyrise 2 rooftop tent. We thought we would need a 3-man tent but, once we saw them, we realized the 2-man option was plenty big for the kids. We did look at CVT and Tepui tents as well but found that the Yakima best met our needs. I will say, if you want a beefier tent, we have seen Tepui tents all all kinds of vehicles as we have traveled through Death Valley and other parks. Assuming their prevalence says something, they are likely worth considering.

While the rooftop tent is awesome for the girls, Henry is a little young for us to feel comfortable with him sleeping above us. Our Cozy Cruiser model, the Willamette, allows for cabinets to be built out in the cabin, however, by leaving the cabinets out, you are provided with a child-sized sleeping space. We ordered a piece of foam on Amazon, cut it it fit, covered it with a crib sheet and, just like that, a bunkbed was born. It took a full trip for Henry to get used to it, and the addition of a piece of netting to reduce his fears of falling out, but now he loves it! For which I am incredibly grateful--hot poker through the big toe, remember?

It took us a few tries to get the kitchen set-up just right but now we have it pretty dialed in. We have a large cooler that doesn't fit on the slide drawer so we use it to store a dry goods bin instead. With the addition of the two side tables, it is a perfect cooking space.

A kitchen so fun, the kids will cook for you!

Here is what we have learned...

After denting the tongue jack on a backroad in Death Valley NP, we added a lock 'n roll hitch.
Remember that bathroom "want list" item? That was the one thing that our teardrop could not provide. We remedied this by purchasing a shower tent, sun shower, and portable toilet (which doubles for multi-day whitewater rafting trip use).
We pack way too much food... but that might just be an "us problem."

Upcoming changes...

A sink is half built-out and sitting in our garage. Ryan is going to add under trailer water storage to feed the sink. This will allow us to wash dishes and other items with a little more ease.
Dust does get into the kitchen area (and a tiny bit into the cabin) when you take it off road. The next step is adding some upgraded rubber gaskets to help with this.
At some point down the road will will likely change out the standard axel for an axel-less trailer suspension system.