Sleeping tips for car camping

Car Camping 101: The Complete Guide To Sleeping In Your Car

Planning a vacation or picnic for the weekend and long-haul self-discovery travel have proved to be more economical and time-saving when it comes to car camping. It should also be exciting for the the couple or whole family to spend a comfortable night in the open air and under the stars. As a fact, sleeping in your car is indeed enjoying popularity in certain tourist attractions over the world. These tips to sleep in car are intended for your enlivened, cozy and convenient mobile campsite bedtime. While car camping, do respect the nature and put safety rules always though.

8 Useful Tips For Your Sound Sleep When Car Camping

However, cars are not made for sleeping in any ways so be sure to content with the fact that nothing from your car can compare to a home bed for providing you with the best sleeping comfort. Our 8 tips on how to sleep in your car aim to make campers feel easy as much as possible.

1. Right Place, Right Leeway

The first thing comes to any car camping plan should be the campsites. To clarify, on your route, where to stop and set up camp? The place should have a breathtaking view, safe from wild animals, secluded from residential areas and traffic, and on top of all, be legal to be occupied overnight and not blocking any path. It’s best to leave the surrounding scenery intact before you leave, for example, collect all garbage and litter and leave no trace of your camp. With online helps from camping groups on social networks, travel websites and blogs, you can find pretty many decent locations for camping and notes about those places. Do not make noise or disturb other nearby campers if any.

>> READ MORE: 15 Car Camping Essentials That Will Take Your Trip To The Next Level <<

tips to sleep in car
Sleeping location is important for best experience.

2. Arranging Car Bed

When sleeping in your car, it is vital to have a tight sleep with comfortable bed and sleeping room.

First, no one would like to carry his/her solid, bulky home bed around so other beds suitable for camping are the best options. For example, if it is summer, a car camping bed and thin blanket are often preferable and in colder climate, a sleeping bag or a combo of inflatable air mattress and insulated blanket is a must-have.

Second, do not waste fuel and close all windows all night just for air conditioning and keeping mosquitoes and other insects away. The recommendation for ventilation should be to turn the car off, open the sunroof or any window enough to hamper entry from any animal or person then put on the opened window some cheap mesh to ward off mosquitoes and dusts and leaves carried by night breezes. Finally, it’s crucial to keep your car clean and smell pleasantly with some perfume spray.

3. Pre-bedtime Fun

Refreshing your mind and entertaining yourself right before bedtime like you are at home could do wonders after a drive for hours, for instance with a drive-in movie on your smart device’s screen. You should remember to download all content of choice for because not all places are facilitated with Wifi connection and if any, the signal may not be strong enough to your expectation. Moreover, a favorite novel should do the job well. However, do not overdo the bedtime ritual until late night since you need a full sleep to fuel your consciousness for dynamic outing next day.

4. Car Camping Hygiene

No access to clean water resources or sinks or showers is a common thing for car campers. Remember to stock up your car with plenty of washcloth, toilet paper, no-rinse shampoo and hand sanitizer in the interests of your hygiene whenever nature calls at midnight or there are needs to stay clean after working on tasks like cooking, fixing the car, changing a wheel, setting up camp.

Read more: The 10 Best RV Mattresses Short Queen to Buy in 2019

5. Charging Batteries

Do not let your electronics run out of battery. You may charge your camera, phone, iPad, laptop and electric lamp anytime on the road when your car is turned on but at campsite and bedtime you would have no choice. Instead, consider investing in a portable solar charger or charging your spare battery in advance. You would know the real trouble when there is no electricity left in the middle of the night in the wild.

portable solar charger
A portable solar charger can help you charge anytime anywhere.

6. Food And Beverage

Satisfaction of your appetite is essential to re-energize after a long day of driving, and to ready for a new day after a night in your car. You can reduce dependence on canned food and snacks with a car cooler, a portable stove and several sealed containers. These utensils would help you store cool beers and drinks, yummy home-prepared dishes and perishables such as meat, eggs, milk and fruit for a long time in car. With them, you ready stored food for eating conveniently. By this way, you can enjoy much more nutrient and tastier food like in your own home kitchen.

However, it is important to avoid heavy meals late in the evening as you would find extreme irritation to lie down and fall asleep with a stuffed stomach. When getting peckish before bed, a small snack of nuts or cherries would get your appetite done and promote your deep sleep. Secondly, while you’re camping, keep away from alcohol and caffeine after the late afternoon, too. Your favorite adult beverage in a trusty flask need to be saved for daytime sipping only. Besides initially making you drowsy, alcohol mess up your sleep during the latter half of the night. Coffee may have you to be highly alerted on the road but could render you to lay tired and sleepless until dawn.

car cooler
A car cooler brings you more fun on the roads

>> READ MORE: The Seven Things You Need To Start Car Camping

7. Water Essentials

Water could be used for an array of use, from cooking, drinking to cleaning or even showering. You have to brush your teeth and wash your face after a night in car with water anyway. Therefore, be sure to bring plenty water bottles and refill them whenever you can stop off on your route. Besides, a water tank of 20 litres would not take up much room in your car trunk.

A collapsible sink that can be folded would be of great help for morning routine. You would need it to wash your breakfast dishes, lather your face and shave, and do some light laundry for your towel and washcloth.

collapsible sink
A collapsible sink is easy to use and save space

8. Bringing a pair of earplugs

You may find yourself suffer from insomnia in the wild. Some people will have difficulty sleeping with a noisy sound of open nature. For example, there may be the sound of gusty wind blow through dense green foliage, a loud choir of frogs and crickets at night. Therefore, a pair of earplugs or earmuffs to block out the unwanted noise should solve this problem. As another option, a background white noise from your music player and earphones should help you feel sleepy with ease.

In Summary

That is all! There may be more to cover but I am sure with the aforementioned fundamentals, you could experience such a memorable night whilst camping in your car.

Last Updated on December 22, 2018

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