So far I have logged over 4000 km with my Teardrop trailer over the course of one full camping season last year plus an inaugural trip the year before. I find that I’m still navigating how “to be” on road trips, living in a teardrop trailer for two weeks or more. The answer methinks lies in finding that sweet spot of balance between planning and flowing through a road trip.

PLANing vs FLOWing

In concept, I love the notion of just going with the flow—you know, that iconic image of a happy hippy in one of those old VW campervans—road-tripping merrily along to my own tune, at my own pace, stopping wherever I feel called to. But that was a different era, predating the proliferation of trailers & RVs big and small. And I doubt there were “No Camping – No Overnight Parking” signs everywhere as there are now.

Unless you’re going waaay off the beaten track, you do need to think ahead to where you will pitch your Teardrop for the night. (Because I don’t want to end up in a Wal-Mart parking lot… see Down in the Boondocks.) And there’s also something to be said for keeping an eye on the forecast because another reality of Teardrop life is that weather—particularly the wet variety—does substantially affect your experience.

Camper Road Trip Strategies

My longest trip so far was 14 days poking around the east coast of Lake Superior, Algoma country and north-central Ontario. For what it’s worth, here are my insights into Teardrop trailer life on the road:

Break up a long journey into short legs.

Even though most days had a specific destination (i.e., an overnight camp spot), I still made it about the journey as much as the destination. Rather than piling on the miles to get to somewhere, most road trip days had less than 4 hours of driving and allowed lots of time for stops and detours along the way.

Have a plan but be ready to adapt or change it.

For me, having some general framework and intentions helps to cultivate an interesting and varied road trip. But I also didn’t feel bound to those plans. A bad next few days weather forecast at my current location, for example, had me decide to move along sooner than later. A hidden gem surprise of a campground had me decide to stay a night extra. On one day the journey brought too sudden a transition from several days in quiet sparseness to busy roads do I decided to make a left turn back north to a more remote campground. And I used a few poor-weather days on less-scenic routes as driving days when I did pile on the miles to relocate.

Don’t plan much beyond the next day.

It took some mental self-coaching but I (mostly!) learned not to concern myself with too much beyond the current leg of the road trip. I may have had a general direction in mind but I didn’t get down to the specifics until the day of or, at most, the day before that leg of the trip. Who knows what will arise along the path, or how conditions will evolve… thinking too far ahead is wasted energy and detracts from being present and grateful in the now.