Quick, Easy and Cheap Guide To Car Camping

With four months under my belt, I think I’ve got this figured out. Here’s a short no-nonsense guide of what I’ve learned that can get you from one coast to the other in Canada. No winter / extreme heat tips.

What is this guide good for?

Summer road trips through cities. Okay for camper vans, best for cars / suv. My goal with this is for you to have nothing else to read / watch and be ready to go as fast as possible.
Not a guide for living full-time in your car/van. Not a guide for being out in the wild for extended periods of time.

This is the base of the base. With this you’re good to just go and pretty much live out of your car for weeks/months. I found it okay to sleep between 20°F to 75°F ( -7°C to 23°C ) with just regular bed sheets. Put on more clothes if you need. Hot weather is a tougher problem so you will need more of the “advanced” things if you want to do that. It gets hot in a car, even at night.

Info on your to make the magnetic window covers: https://www.thepoxbox.com/posts/car-camping-conversion-part-1
You can make these however you want but they are invaluable in making it look like nobody’s in your car at all, especially if you have tinted windows.

These will make your life more comfortable. Get a power station that’s the size you will need based on whatever activities you want to do. Mine was very useful to recharge all my cycling related stuff and to keep the fans going in the summer. Really helps to sleep when it gets warm.

I included some minimal camping stuff too. Costs you almost no money and space to bring along and this is enough to do basic cooking over a campfire ( burgers, sausages, steaks etc. ) You need a rack because campground’s fire rings tend not to have any or they tend to be too wide/dirty.

WHERE TO PARK FOR FREE:

ioverlander is free app that shows you all sorts of info, but more importantly: Where you can park/camp overnight for free without problems. Users give reviews of each location and keep it up to date. You can make it across Canada ( and likely the USA ) using only this app.

Call/ask. This works pretty well but it is time consuming. However you might be able to find places in cities where no iOverlander spots exist.

Crown land seems like an option for wild camping or staying in a place for several days or even weeks. These spots are often out in the sticks but if you can navigate the confusing maps and permits / exceptions, you can do camping for free for a long time. I haven’t tried it personally.

Just guess. I don’t recommend this option if you’re just starting out, but if you’re sleeping in your car/SUV there’s lots of free overnight parking in cities or towns.

As long as you just stay a night or two it’s very unlikely anyone will make you move. Each area should be evaluated on a case by case basis. But you can do it when all else fails.

ALMOST FREE:

Boondockers Welcome. 50$/year. This service lets you book short term stays on member’s properties.

Pros: Get to meet people and chat. Hosts can offer water / electrical.
Cons: Must be booked 1+ week in advance, locations can be remote, hosts can leave you pending for several days and cancellation is frowned upon. Can be hard to find any spots at all during peak season.

This makes Boondockers somewhat inflexible and inconvenient if you plan to have a tight fast-paced schedule, but if you’re more the chatty relaxed type, this is a great way to visit new places and meet new ( likely age 60+) people, Combines very well with iOverlander.

SHOWER / BATHROOM

Bathroom is the easy part: If you’re in a city, there’s going to be free bathrooms. Tim Hortons, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wal-Mart etc. Never been an issue.

You do need a pee jug in your car for overnight bathroom needs. Make sure it’s over 2L capacity. Empty it in the forests or take it inside with you and dump it in bathrooms. Just get any opaque plastic container, it’ll work fine and won’t smell. Women: I can’t help you here. If you need to go number 2 a lot in emergencies or at night, this lifestyle is not for you.

Shower is harder. iOverlander will show you Truck Stops where you can pay to shower. Never tried them myself but they’re probably great in a pinch.

You can also get an Anytime Fitness membership. It costs almost 100$ upfront just to sign up and then it’ll be 40-50$ per month to keep being a member. You also must be a member for one full month before your key unlocks the door at any location, otherwise you must use the one you signed up at. This makes their service quite expensive and inconvenient for car camping / traveling. The gyms are rarely staffed and even when they are, the staff rarely answers and doesn’t answer the phone a whole lot. Notoriously hard to cancel or pause your membership. There’s also none east of Montreal.

Despite all this, they have top notch shower facilities. If your trip is long enough ( multiple months) you’ll be paying around 3$ per shower with them, vs the 5-7$ from truck stops. So up to you to figure out how often you’ll need an actual solid “real” shower and if you’ll use the actual gym equipment. Shop around for better options ( gym-wise) in your target area/country.

The free option is just bathroom showers. Stores do have warm water. Go in there with your shower stuff and just clean yourself in a bathroom stall. It’s not fun, it’s not glamorous but it works and it’s free. I did this for a month and no one every bothered me. Just wipe yourself down with baby wipes, change your clothes more often and just do more laundry.

INTERNET

Canada is known for its expensive data plans and crap cell coverage. Luckily tons of businesses now have free wifi, just take your pick: McDonald’s, Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Wal-Mart.

Just sit in the parking lot and mooch if you want to be cheap, or buy a coffee and do internet stuff.

You can even download youtube videos and watch them later: https://www.4kdownload.com/-qab5p/video-downloader

FOOD

Just a sampling of the kind of staples I lived on for months. This is really up to your preference and diet. You don’t need to be living off fast food and restaurant meals the whole time and you don’t need elaborate cookware and constant time wasted cooking on some park bench.

Get coffee at McDonald’s / Tim Hortons and that’s all you need to buy for food at restaurants. Keep all your food stored in a cooler of some kind to keep the smells contained, and clean it out periodically.

Food lasts a few days in a non-electric cooler. That’s plenty long.

LAUNDRY

Just go to laundromats. The more clothes you brought and can fit into your car, the longer you can spend in-between. Laundromats are cheap ( <10$ for big load ), fast ( 2 hours for a load ) and everywhere. Overnight Drop-off service was 40$ for me and not worth it to save 2 hours.
Be sure to check their operating hours because many are closed on weird days or close relatively early in the day.

WATER

Bring along a tank with just a few gallons capacity, no need for more. Also great to have a smaller refillable bottle. Use that to fill the big jug if all you can find is a source where the tap is too low to get the jug underneath.

Even during very warm weather and working out daily, a few gallons last a week and it’s not ever been a problem to find a place to refill it.

ELECTRICITY

Tim Hortons / McDonald’s / Starbucks often ( but not always ) have plugs you can use to recharge all your electronics, including portable power packs, which can also be recharged with your car’s alternator while you’re driving. I found that between driving + chilling at coffee shops, I’d never totally drain my 716w/h Bluetti. I’ve sat at Tim Hortons sometimes for an entire day while charging my gear and nobody ever complained.

Thanks for reading, hope this helps someone! I sure know I’m lazy and have zero attention span and wish this existed so I could just not waste hours watching youtube videos.