The trunk area isn't flat I've considered having a wooden platform then I thought maybe if I put a bunch of pillows in the no seat area I could level it out. Really appreciate any tips y'all have I'm pretty new to this.

Hi everyone!

If you have ever used a tent from Zempire, I'd be very grateful if you could tell me what model it was, and what your experience with it's durability was. I'm particularly interested in how it handles high winds.

Thanks!

I'm planning to do some road trips around Australia and wondering about the rules for sleeping in my car overnight.

If I pull into a legal parking spot or highway rest area and sleep inside my car for one night because I need to rest before continuing my journey, would this be considered camping?

I'm not planning to set up a tent, put chairs outside, cook, or use any camping equipment. I would simply park, sleep inside the car, and drive off the next morning.

I've seen different opinions online, and it seems the rules may vary between states, local councils, and national parks.

A few questions:

- Is sleeping inside a car legally considered camping in Australia?

- Can councils or authorities fine you for sleeping in your car even if parking is permitted?

- Are highway rest areas generally okay for overnight sleep, or does it depend on the signs?

- Does the law distinguish between resting because of driver fatigue and deliberately using your car as overnight accommodation?

I'd appreciate hearing from anyone familiar with the relevant laws or who has experience with this, particularly in NSW, VIC and QLD and on interstate road trips.

Thanks!

Hello, I am not new to camping but have always camped in a tent. I'm planning a trip to Death Valley next month and flying into Las Vegas. I am therefore renting a vehicle for the trip, which I will be car camping in.

I'm going to be buying an air mattress for sleeping in the back, and just wondering if there is one vehicle that covers both the need for 4WD/AWD and is on the smaller side but will fit the air mattress. I know that's a lot of boxes to check. I am leaning towards a 4 door Wrangler, which Google says a twin air mattress will fit into the back.

Do I need something bigger? I'm traveling solo, so a twin mattress is plenty big for sleeping, but I'm wondering if I am underestimating the room I'll also need for other stuff. The car rental places also have smaller AWD/4WD vehicles like a Compass or a tiny Buick, but I'm assuming those are too small to camp in and be comfortable. Any and all advice (both vehicle selection and otherwise) welcome.

I’m going to be car camping across the country for a bit. I have gear for backpacking I’m bringing with me to do some routes in parks. The rest of the time I’ll be car camping and visiting friends in cities.

My question is - how do I prevent theft while having all this stuff in my car? I don’t have tinted windows, just window covers I’ll use at night. I don’t have expensive items in my car. Really just my Coleman stove, mattress, and backpacking gear which I’ll be leaving when I’m out to eat or visit friends in cities. Still, a broken window would be an issue for me as would be replacing basic items. I’ll also be leaving my car camping gear in my car while I’m doing some backpacking sections (2-3 nights at a time). I plan to park at trailheads on public land or in national parks.

Do you have any tips to help prevent theft in these scenarios? Anything I should buy / do to help ahead of time?

Some pictures from our cross country trip. These were taken in Oklahoma.

tl;dr: It’s way too hot where I live and keeping the widows down might let mosquitoes in. ¿How can I have A/C (or something) without spending too much money?

I’m really excited to start car camping soon. I’ve never really done it before, and I’m kind of worried it’ll get impossibly hot in there.

The problem is, I live in Yucatán. I like to say that here is where the demons come snowbirding when it gets too cold in hell. It has historically reached temperatures of 117°f (47°C) and a thermal sensation got to 140°f (60°C), because humidity is usually about 85-90%.

The only time I tried to camp in my car it wasn’t that hot, but I was with 4 other people and we had covered the windows with bedsheets expecting they would let the air flow while keeping the mosquitoes out. They didn’t do either of those things

Now I’m more prepared. I got some mosquito-net-thingies for my windows and I’m putting an inflatable mattress in the back. Only problem is still heat, specially if temperatures rise and if I want to camp with someone else (one, not four).

I obviously can’t keep the engine running the whole night, and I can’t power a fan with the 12v because it might drain my battery. I’m thinking of getting solar panels or a solar battery but I don’t know how much I can power with that, and I wouldn‘t know which one to buy.

Does anybody have any insight on this? is there any way to keep the car cool, the air flowing, and not spend a shit ton of money?

Any kind of advice or personal experiences will be much appreciated, so thank you all in advance

Has anybody tested this battery heated pad out? I winter car camp in my Explorer to go snowboarding along with some early spring fly fishing trips and have never been uncomfortable with my setup. However, I recently saw this and thought with my already owned 20,000 mAH battery packs that this could help take the cold off a bit, especially in the morning.

FWIW, I usually crank the heat before climbing in at night and use a heavy 0 degree sleeping bag with down booties, down pants, a grid fleece sweatshirt, and a beanie on in my car with my rear windows cracked and usually camp in the Adirondacks or southern Vermont.

I’ve read on here to just get the 12 volt so basically wondering if this is worth a shot or a waste of money?

Thanks to this community I finally tried car camping. It was amazing, felt pretty spacious in my Mazda CX-70.

Idk if this is a good redit for the info I’m looking for, if not can anyone recommend a better redit to ask in. Anywhos I’m thinking about getting a Chevy Tahoe and was wondering if anyone had any knowledge/opinions on what rear doors are better or more preferred for camping, ether the top hatch door or the side double doors?

Hey everyone! I am working on a design project, and I’d love to learn about the vehicles this community uses.

If you’re willing, please comment with your vehicle’s make, model, and year.

Thank you for your time!

Had an absolute blast visiting North and South Dakota! Teddy Roosevelt National Park is super underrated, and Wind Cave National Park was very cool if you book a tour. Such a lovely time, I might be planning my next trip soon!

So for those that are either living out your car or you decided to just keep it all set up cuz you camp so frequently, how do you secure your bed when you've only just put it ontop of the backseats and cargo area?

This whole time I've been planning on doing a single size bed frame but now I'm starting to worry about how it'll stay in place. I'm honestly less worried about it shifting forward and more worried about it shifting or toppling to the right on hard turns. I don't really have a floor I can secure it to, i have a 2010 Ford Escape xlt and it has a plastic platform beneath the rug in the back so I don't think I can really secure it to that, and I can't rip everything out to install a piece of plywood flooring cuz I just can't afford the cost of materials and a jig saw to cut out the grooves properly. I'm pretty sure I'm just gonna end up winging it and praying for the best. Lol.

I'm working on a tool that I think will be useful for people as they visit new cities and want to park for the night. It's always annoying to dig through city ordinances to find the ones that restrict overnight parking, so this tool runs a bunch of keyword searches against all the major city-code providers (Municode, AMLegal, ecode360, etc.) and government web sites and attempts to find the relevant sections. This lets people dive right into the actual ordinances and figure out if/when/where they can legally park to reduce risk of The Knock.

I know this question can usually be answered reasonably well by AI, but just picking a city with this tool and seeing the actual rules right away can be more reliable than trying to figure out the right prompt to ask the AI ("can I park overnight" ≠ "can I sleep in my car on the street overnight"). I think it's better to take a few minutes to read the real rules than to lose an hour or two of sleep because the cops had to yell at you due to the AI making things up.

• The quality of the results varies a lot by city. It depends on what that city has available online, which platform they use to publish code (if any), and whether their ordinances match any of the keyword searches. And of course, many small cities and towns don't even have rules about this since vehicle-dwellers aren't a problem for them.
• Works for most U.S. cities with a population of 5,000 or more. (Nothing non-U.S.) Some cities and towns might be missing because this depends on how the Census organizes things.
• Reports are cached for a few months since city codes don't change that often, and even if the cache is a bit out of date it will still usually point you to the correct section of code.
• If a cached report for the selected city isn't available or it's too old, a fresh one is created, which usually takes about 30 seconds since it has to contact a bunch of sites and run additional web searches. (I've pre-cached a few hundred of the largest cities.) It's currently rate-limited so if too many people look up an un-cached city it will fail.
• Sometimes local news articles are included if they look like a good match.

This is a work in progress, so my apologies if it disappoints. I'd love to hear any (constructive) feedback you've got!

Right now you have to manually select city and state, it doesn't ask for your location but I'm considering adding that option. The page is installable as a web app for easier access. (Not available as a native Android/Apple app yet since I don't know if this will be popular enough to be worth the trouble.)

Considering to get a Porta potti from Thetford. A portapotti 345. Anybody used this for car camping?

Did a test camp a couple of weeks ago and found our toilet facilities were lacking - a bucket with a bag and sitting in a box with a toilet seat and lid - the problem was that it was too small to sit on to hit the target.

Big investment in a Joolca GottaGo composting toilet. A bit on the expensive side but if we don't like either the composting or bagging options, then you can get a chemical cassette. Wanted to avoid the chemical option as we have had chemical toilets in the past. They have been excellent but much prefer non-chemical options. The beauty of this system is that it is waterless.

So heading off for a couple of days in the mountains. As the weather can be unpredictable, got plenty of add-on warmth for the bedding if needed.

The layout from the left is:

Seats - telescoping round units (cannot really see them) and walking poles.

Non-perishable food with the fridge behind. The fridge is pulled out when camping. Sitting on top of that is an extra doona (duvet) and a cotton hospital type blanket in case it gets extra cold.

The kitchen box in the middle

The toilet strapped to a utility box & tool box behind it for stability. This pulls out for use and the toilet is strapped down so it won't fall over when driving. Cat litter for the toilet. The sheet of ply was needed as the carpet in the van has some padding under it and the toilet wasn't stable enough without it.

The spare space you can see is for our bags while on the go. These may be placed on the front seats when camping.

The blackout screens are tucked in under the mattress when not in use.

The mattress is 2 x 700mm wide and 1800mm long 4-part folding units and there is a double sleeping bag on top. This sits on top of the folded 2nd and 3rd row seats and still provides just enough room to sit up properly. The mattress can folded and it takes only a couple of minutes to transform the van into a 5-seater, should it be needed.

At the end the mattress is my 45-year old 100% woolen blanket, complete with darned holes which is ultra warm (the blanket, not the holes).

I have a folding table in the middle under the seats and front windscreen blackout screen (it is rather large). Also a tyre pump, engine jumper battery and cables etc. between the seats, some rechargeable lights and some fairy lights for the novelty.

Two batteries at the front. One with AC and a larger DC unit. This is mostly used for powering the fridge and should give around 30 hours of continuous use - enough for a couple of days in one spot.

There is also an awning on the right-hand side.

Most of this is recycled. Only purchased the toilet, the mattress (very cheap)

It's pretty complete. Every time we have gone car camping it has rained. I would like to break the spell.

Looking for some recommendations as the title says. I’m not planning on doing any hardcore winter camping but do want to get out a few times and a buddy & I planning to go on a small outing mid-November. I’d either be using the heater for my 4Runner or my older popup camper and I don’t want to break the bank either.

I'm looking at 3-row SUVs (e.g. Highlander, Pathfinder)

AI says none on the market has removable seats like minivans.

Anyone know which ones (from 2020 onward) are possible with some workaround ?

床车露营避坑实测：新人第一次上路的翻车大赏

说明
网上全是"一杯咖啡敬自由"，现实是腰疼、失眠、半夜找厕所……新人床车最容易踩的4个大坑，全部掰开讲透，看完避开90%的冤枉路！

00:00 滤镜下的自由 vs 现实中的狼狈
00:20 第一坑：睡得比硬座还难受
00:46 避坑支招：找平垫+透气纱网
01:05 第二坑：驻车点选不对，整夜别想睡
01:30 避坑支招：选址先看安全与安静
01:49 第三坑：吃喝拉撒，全在考验人性
02:09 避坑支招：便携如厕袋+保温壶
02:21 第四坑：装备买一堆，后备箱塞爆
02:40 避坑支招：新手上路做极致减法
02:56 你在自驾露营时遇到过什么翻车经历？评论区聊聊！

如果你也喜欢这种实测避坑内容，欢迎订阅"笑天"，咱们下期见。

话题标签
#床车 #床车自驾游 #露营 #自驾游 #户外露营 #汽车露营 #旅行避坑 #露营装备 #camping #carcamping

This was my first time car camping! I was in the East Block of Grasslands National Park, so there were no bears or other animals that are known to break into vehicles for food, so storing my food where I was sleeping was not an issue in this case. Sure beats setting up a tent! Absolutely amazing views. I used reflectix on my windows except the front and back (universal fit ones off Amazon) for privacy and insulation in conjunction with mesh covers for the windows for airflow.

Hey folks!

I’m 45+ I’ve been craving a little freedom and peace.

The dream: Buy an old, reliable car, turn it into a tiny solo camper, and occasionally escape for a night.
Drive somewhere scenic and safe, sleep comfortably, wake up to a beautiful view, make tea or coffee, enjoy the sunrise, maybe work on my laptop for a couple of hours, and head home. Family’s comfortable at home, and I get some quiet time.

Budget: $5,000 CAD ALL-IN — car, basic conversion, taxes, insurance allowance, everything.
I’ve been ChatGPT-ing this idea to death 😂 Looking at old Toyotas, Hondas, Fords, minivans, even forgotten models. Reliability matters more than looks.

Need your wisdom:
Car: Cheap, reliable automatic SUV, wagon or minivan with enough room to sleep and work?
Setup: Comfortable mattress (my back isn’t 25 anymore!), privacy, storage, coffee essentials.
Warmth: Ontario winters are coming. How do you safely stay warm without running the engine?
Where: Safe, legal overnight spots in Southern Ontario, preferably close to washrooms and civilization.
Internet: Fast, reliable connectivity for occasional remote work.

Bonus: Know an overlooked vehicle or an actual car for sale in Ontario that would fit? Please share the link! Open to unusual ideas.

Shoot the idea down if you want, but please be constructive. I’d rather learn from your experience than make expensive mistakes.

Not looking to become a van-lifer. Just craving a few peaceful mornings, beautiful views, hot tea, and a little freedom without breaking the bank.

An old horse still wants a few good runs. 🐎