Car Camping is different. We never thought about it before but Covid forced us to take other measures. It’s a spontaneous experience I must say.
Car Set Up
I drive a BMW 1 series, so many asked how did Antonio fit as he is 6’ft. He actually had more that enough room to sleep. Here’s how we turned our car into a cosy bedroom for the night.
We bought some fairy lights for a more cosy feel, for the windows we bought some cheap Pleated blinds from Ikea and cut out the shape of the window. These were Polypropylene plastic so its easy to bend and they are stuck on with Velcro. No drill needed and a super cheap option.
- 1 windscreen cover for the front window
- 1 mattress topper
- 2 pillows and a duvet cover
- 1 freezer box to keep our drinks cool
- 1 portable gas cooker that we did not use.
How it all fits
Well this was not easy at first. As it was our first time trying to arrange a car with all our stuff, it was a challenge. We moved the front seat all the way forward leaving us tons of head space. I stuffed the cooler box in the gap on one side and our bag with our clothes on the other side then our pillows on top. The gas cooker is really small so we ended up putting that on the front seat with the 6 x 1 litre bottles of water. Don’t ask why we brought that many but we did.
The Next Question we get asked, what about the toilet?
Most of the car parks in Portland you can find public toilets but these close at a certain time, some later than others depending on witch one you are at. Luckily for us there was a 24hour Tesco around the corner with working toilets. So no issues there! As we only stayed 2 night we obviously did not shower. Ill be honest with you I don’t think I can stay more than two nights without a shower.
Food
Day 1 – I had prepared a cheese bored and some sandwiches at home. We did bring some other food to cook but unfortunately we were unable to do this as it was raining.
Day 2 – We got breakfast at Tesco’s hot deli, creamy chicken pastry and a jumbo sausage roll. A few coffee stops at Starbucks during the day whilst we explored. For dinner we got an Indian takeaway as restaurants were still open for takeaways only.
Location
We had found the perfect location in Portland over looking the English Channels. There was only one camper van parked 3 spaces down that stayed for 1 night. This spot was so beautiful that we decided to stay here for a second night, and we had the whole car park to ourselves. Early the next morning there where a few people parked up, getting ready to go hiking but everybody was really quiet and polite.
Cost
With Covid around not everyone has a job and most people are looking for cheap alternatives on how to travel. For us we can’t afford to drop everything and travel full time, so this was a great idea. The blinds and fairy lights cost around £20, everything else was stuff we already had at home and all that was left was petrol £50 and food £20 for the both of us. If you want to cut the cost down even more you can cook your own food if the weather is nice.
Summary
We would definitely do it again, but we would like to rent out a camper van or maybe one day buy our own a campervan. If Covid is still around and our travel plans can’t go ahead in summer 2021, then there will deffo be another car camping trip!
