Car Camping – Convert Your Car Inexpensively to a Camper Car by Steve Burman
Car camping allows you to combine the freedom of the road trip with the budget friendliness and minimalism of camping. This article is basically a rough guide for what you might want to do to convert your car (in a relatively inexpensive manner) so that you won’t need anything else to have a comfortable and enjoyable travelling and “camping” experience.
The first and most affecting element is what type of car you have or choose to buy. If this will be a lifestyle choice, then a cargo-van is worth considering for the space you will have to work with. Following a van, the next best choice would be a mini-van (a.k.a. people mover, a.k.a. soccer mom car), then a station wagon. At a push, even a hatch-back can still work. It starts to become difficult and uncomfortable when dealing with sedans, so just stick with roomy vehicles.
When you are car camping, your bedroom is now the car and your lounge and kitchen are now the outside. With this in mind, we will attempt to transform the car to a compact sleeping and storage area.
If it will only be you and one other travelling (i.e. just two people sitting in the front seats) then removing the back seats can be advantageous. Review your car and if the seats fold down flat then maybe that is enough, otherwise the best result will be achieved by removing the seats. In some cases the absent seats may create a much lower shelf which will have to be filled in. In this case you can make the most of this and fill this area with sturdy and uniform storage containers. Sturdy because you will be sleeping on them! Uniform because you will be sleeping on them! (The idea is to create a sleeping area that is as flat as possible.)
Once you have established the main sleeping area, you have to make it flat. Cargo vans have it easy, station wagons (where you may be sleeping over the front seats) require you to get creative. Pillows and anything else can work for a short term (though less comfortable) solution. The optimal thing to do would be to build a flat slat style area that your foam mattress would sit upon.
- The slat area can be created quite simply by using two wood beams laid the length of the sleeping area and then lay many but less bulky pieces of wood, width wise, along the length. To fix them, either cut slots in the length for the cross beams to sit in, or drill holes in both the length and the width beams to fit with dowel. The result of either method will look something like a railroad track and will have the effect of a slat bed (to cover with a foam mattress). The product will be able to be disassembled, the drawback however, in smaller cars, will be when the bed needs to be moved, the length beams will be cumbersome and awkward. Finally to mitigate any see-saw effect, attach chocks of wood at both ends to prop the length beams up.
User friendliness in your layout is terribly important to get the most out of your car-camping experience. Packing and effective use of space should be well considered. Your bed will be the last thing you need at the end of each day, so this can be packed away, and under things you will need before you sleep.
If you plan to cook you will need access to your cooking stuff – keeps this stored together. Keep a mat, food and other stuff in one box; keep your pots, cooker, and utensils in another. The first box can be kept on top of the second, and the idea is that you won’t need the second box till you have the first box out.
In a van you will have more space to work with, but in any vehicle, selecting the storage box to fit in a space snugly will stop things sliding around while driving and will make use of limited space. Keeping bedding packed away and things stored well will keep your car tidy. A tidy and easy to use environment will help keep the occupants calm and peaceful (think feng shui) for a better car camping experience.
Car camping trips are not often city excursions, so after dark there is little to do. Bring a DVD player or even a laptop for a little movie time (that is if you can be bothered after a long day of vacation activity). To keep this going and anything else, you can buy car DC-AC converters. Use this to charge your batteries or maybe even to power a hairdryer (a great car-camping selling point for a hard to convince girl). Whatever you do, have fun and enjoy the freedom of your car camping experience!
About the Author
Steve Burman, a lover of life, loves vacations. Car-camping is one of many college oriented vacation ideas from his site: SemesterBreakIdeas
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