How to Live in Your Car: Our Best Tips

We had a bit of a rough start when we gave up our apartment and started living in our car. Within the first month, both of us had gotten sick multiple times, our car broke down and had to be towed, and we even got snowed on in April! Five months later, we’re in much better shape. This article is a summary of what we learned during those five months and our best tips for how to live in your car.

How to Sleep in Your Car

1. Blend in with the crowd. When parking overnight in a commercial parking lot, it can be better to park near other cars rather than tucking yourself away in the other side of the lot, even if it would be quieter.
2. Park overnight at 24 hour businesses. Many Planet Fitness locations, Anytime Fitness, and even grocery stores are open 24 hours. Make sure to look out for “no overnight parking” signs.
3. Stick to the suburbs of large cities rather than the city itself.
4. Cover up the windows at night. We use WeatherTech window covers and a hand sewn curtain to partition the front and back of the car. This way, we just look like an empty car at night.
5. If you can, rent a hotel room or Airbnb every once in a while to give yourself a break.
6. Sleeping at rest areas on highways can be very loud. Many semi-trucks run their engines all night. Try to park as far away from them as you can.
7. Nights can be very hot or very cold depending on the season. Use a fan to circulate air no matter the temperature. This helps prevent condensation that can cause mold.
8. Sleeping somewhere you’re not supposed to can be stressful. We avoid it as much as possible.
9. Don’t park in the same spot every night. We do tend to stay at a single location for a few days at a time, but never the same exact parking spot.
10. Street sweepers are loud and really seem to like coming around at 2 in the morning. There’s not much you can do about it.
11. A bed platform can make sleeping in your car more comfortable. Check out our build here.

Best Places to Relax

There are few places people can go anymore without any expectation of spending money. Here are a few of them.

1. Public parks
2. Libraries
3. Malls

How to Cook

1. Have a method of cooking your own meals. We use a two-burner propane grill. This saves us money, since we don’t always have to eat out.
2. Choose meals that don’t require a lot of clean up. For us, breakfast and lunch are easy, no-cook meals like sandwiches. This saves us a lot of stress and time.
3. If you can afford it, eat at restaurants every once in a while. It’s a nice break from cooking our own meals.
4. An easy way to clean dirty dishes is to use a spray bottle with soapy water and paper towels.
5. Get a small fridge or cooler. This allows us to save leftovers we can reheat later. It’s a great time saver.

For a list of easy meals we like to make, check out this article.

Hygiene

1. Get a gym membership. Having a hot shower every day is a game changer. We like Planet Fitness.
2. If you have a Planet Fitness membership, know that you can only enter a facility that’s not your home branch up to 10 times a month.
3. Know where you can find a bathroom. Grocery stores, some public parks, rest areas, and libraries can be good options.
4. Keep your dirty laundry separate from your clean laundry. I use a super thin fabric bag to hold my dirty laundry.
5. It can be awkward brushing your teeth in a Walmart bathroom, but know that for the most part, people don’t care.
6. Keep your car clean, both exterior and interior.

Most Helpful Apps

1. iOverlander: We use this app all the time to find a safe spot to park the car overnight.
2. Google Maps
3. Google Keep: We use this app to create To-Do lists, grocery lists, and plan out our travel.
4. Google Photos: We automatically back up our photos to the cloud, so we don’t have to worry about losing anything.
5. Credit Card and bank apps
6. Airbnb

How to Stay Safe

1. Get AAA or similar roadside assistance. This saved us money when we had to tow the Prius after the emergency brakes seized.
2. Get a carbon monoxide and smoke detector for the car.

Travel Tips

1. Visiting national parks can be very stressful, whether you plan it in advance or not. Camping reservations at popular national parks can be extremely competitive.
2. Use Google Maps to plan out routes in advance. We like the feature that allows us to add multiple stops. We use that to create the most efficient route.
3. Use the satellite view in Google Maps to check out areas you plan on sleeping at in advance.
4. Use Google Maps or the app GasBuddy to find the cheapest gas stations.

Time Saving Tips

1. Try to plan things out in advance, whether it’s your plans for the next few days or your grocery list. It’s not fun trying to figure out the best place to park or the best things to do in a city when you’re already there.
2. Keep your car organized. Know where everything is and where it goes. You’ll be able to find things much faster if you know where they are.

General Tips and Things to Know About Living in Your Car

1. Know that this life can be lonely. You may be away from family for long periods of time, depending on your lifestyle. We also tend to keep to ourselves and don’t interact with many people.
2. Doing anything takes longer. Preparing meals can take hours longer than it would if you weren’t living in a car.
3. If you’re traveling with someone, you will learn a lot about each other that you didn’t know before.
4. The first month, or even longer, can be rough as you get used to living in a car. It will get better and easier over time.
5. Keep track of spending. It’s easy to overspend when you don’t know what you’re spending.

For tips on how to save money while living in your car, take a look at our article about how much we spent the first four months of living in our car.

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