Matt Bettman has long been fascinated with well-designed, small spaces — he and his wife lived on boats years ago.
“I’ve always loved small, efficient spaces,” he says.
After becoming parents to two kids, the couple eventually moved into a more traditional home in Redwood City, he says, where Bettman had a garage for the first time. Naturally, that meant the industrial designer needed a tinkering project to fill it. That project became building a custom teardrop trailer, aimed at adding comfort to his family’s frequent camping outings.
After a few years, his trailer was done, essentially adding to the camping experience a queen-size indoor bed on wheels, with an outdoor kitchen attached to the back. The end result was lightweight (around 1,060 pounds) and could be towed by cars lacking abundant horsepower — in his case, a vintage VW bus. And it was sturdy, made with sustainable materials.
And sure enough, the teardrop trailer helped his family get outdoors more. They’ve camped up and down the California and Oregon coast, in the Sierra Nevadas, the Mojave Desert and plenty of nearby state and county parks, Bettman says.
“These guys have twin 14-year-olds, and they’ve been camping more in the last 10 years than my wife and I have in the last 20, and we don’t have kids,” says Matt Shivers, Bettman’s brother-in-law and business partner.
About two years ago, after Bettman sold his first trailer to some friends, he and Shivers took the plunge and went into business together to make more custom trailers under the brand All Good Equipment Co.
“It’s asinine to start a manufacturing company in the Bay Area, but, you know, that’s where we live,” Bettman says. “You have to work with what you’ve got.”
As a result of the high local rental rates, the All Good workshop is tight — there’s currently only room to work on three trailers at a time, so they are made in batches of three — and Bettman and Shivers have to sell each trio before they embark on making the next set.
Teardrop trailers are not a new concept — they have been around since the 1930s, and are generally more popular in other parts of the U.S., including in the Pacific Northwest and Colorado, according to Bettman. For some reason, the experience hasn’t caught on widely in the Bay Area — yet.
With a price tag of $22,500, test runs are not an uncommon request, so All Good Equipment Co. currently offers rentals of its demo teardrop trailer through Outdoorsy.com, a camper van and RV rental website.
Because of his family’s trailer, Bettman says, they’re able to be flexible with their travel dates and camp during shoulder seasons and the winter when it’s easier to get campsite reservations at many popular campgrounds. And they can depart on short notice.
“I’m confident that if I wanted to go camping tonight, it’s no big deal. I’d just hook up the trailer and go,” he says. “We always know we have a cozy, insulated place to sleep.”
Bettman’s a fall camping enthusiast, and says the experience is even better in a trailer like his.
“For me, fall camping in a teardrop is about those contrasts — the crisp and the cozy, the light and the dark, the rawness of the season and the comfort of having just enough shelter to not only be safe, but to be supremely comfortable,” he writes in an email.
An added benefit, he says, is that because the trailer provides more permanent storage for his camping cooking gear, his family has invested in higher-quality outdoor dining supplies. It’s a little thing, but eating off of a real plate instead of Styrofoam or paper one feels like a better aesthetic match to the grandeur of the nature you’re experiencing.
All the gear fits in the trailer, from storage beneath the kitchen counter to cubbies for plates, cups, and coffee supplies. Everything has a place. And while it’s not built for months of off-road adventuring, it’s designed to be ideal for three-day jaunts, the amount of time many working professionals can most easily take off anyway, he says.
“Adventure doesn’t have to mean discomfort, and comfort doesn’t have to dull adventure,” he adds.
Details: All Good Equipment Co. is located at 110 Glenn Way, Unit 12, San Carlos. Visits are by arrangement or during monthly open houses on the third Thursday of each month. allgoodequipment.com.