Sleeping in your car...safe? Yay or nay?

[Lifemagician]

Thank you for your responses, I appreciate your advice. I used the fuel cost calculator on the website to figure out my cost on a 2500 mile trip with a small car getting about 40 miles a gallon and came up with a $300 result. With a car that gets less miles to a gallon, like a van, that would give us more room to sleep (with a rack on top for our stuff), it would cost about $187 more. Figuring about 7 nights, that could be a pretty penny in hotel costs, even with the cheapest rates. If we could manage to sleep in our car, at least a few nights, it would help with the cost.

You might find that your estimate is a little optimistic. I doubt you would get 20 mpg out of a conversion van. I have been advised by many, during my search for a vehicle, to think more like 12 - 15 mpg. And if you then plan to put luggage on top - altering the aerodynamics of the vehicle - you would need to drop that even further.

The only other question I have is, if you do not have the necessary funds to pay for even a cheap motel for the two of you, how are you going to fund an unexpected breakdown? No matter how well the vehicle has been maintained and checked over, it can happen. It happened to me, in Alaska. Three days and $800 for the repairs, before I was on the road again. Meanwhile I had to pay for taxis, accommodation, etc. That was in a well maintained vehicle, completely checked over before departure and only 55000 on the clock.

From your first post....

I've been wanting to travel the road for a few years now and I'm finally getting my chance, only problem is, I won't really be working except for the occasional job along the way ...

What sort of work, and where? From what we are hearing down here, work is not exactly plentiful at the moment, in your country. It may not be something on which you want to rely.

As for finally getting the chance.... you might like to note that I was a senior citizen before I ever hit the road in the US. Now, a decade and almost 100000 miles later, I am planning my fifth trip. Why not work and save till you can do it without financial concerns. You may still choose to sleep in your vehicle - as do I - but it will at least be worry free, knowing there is a fund to cover any and all emergencies.

Lifey

[Mark Sedenquist]

If we have waited until we had sufficient money to create a business, RoadTrip America would never have been created. The original co-founder and I decided to launch RTA and all that comes from it with no discernible financial support. The same is true with a number of road trips I've personally embarked upon. For me, the risk of running completely out of money, was part of the appeal... I'm less comfortable with the concept these days, but my basic approach to business decisions hasn't changed all that much. Now, here's a book review about by Jeff Blumenfeld's book "You Want To Go Where?: How to Get Someone to Pay for the Trip of Your Dreams," that you might find interesting. It's not entirely a perfect match for your plans, -- but if you read it -- I think you'll know why I recommended it to you.

The RoadTrip Advisors and Enthusiasts who have responded to your questions have all raised valid and important issues -- and I hope you're able to use their hard-earned advice and expertise -- But there is also something to say for just doing it anyway and see what happens....

Mark

[DuckInTheLake]

BTW, thanks for welcoming me to RTA.

I was thinking more of a minivan than a conversion van, and the ones I've looked at were listed as 28 mpg highway, and the middle and back seats fold down below the floor,providing an area comparable to a full-sized bed, fine for two people to sleep comfortably. My daughter and I are fairly petite, so we would fit just fine. We certainly aren't strangers to sleeping in a car, and have had our share of fairly comfortable beauty sleep in reclining seats. I just have to decide what I should do, buy a used minivan that won't do as well on gas but will offer a more comfortable place to sleep (and more private, too), or buy a new or nearly new car that does much better on gas, giving us maybe a few more dollars to spend on hotel rooms along the way. It's hard to figure out which would be better. We looked at a car yesterday that does up to 50 mpg on the highway, and boy was that tempting.

I am in the very beginning stages of planning this trip, and I don't even know which way to head first, east or west, but I know I have to do the northern states pretty soon before the snow comes. We can leave Alaska to next summer. I would like to get on the road by the end of October.

Over the years, since I was in my 20's to the present, I've driven to Cali probably 6 times and Florida 3 times, and if I add in my weekly trips somewhere for two or three days just because I love to go, I guess I have a bit more miles experience under my belt than I put on my profile. I remember one trip my daughter and I took to Dallas one time, when she was about 5. I was driving an old 1982 Chevy pickup that swallowed gas and wasn't very reliable. Haha, what a risk I took, but we did fine, and being totally short of funds, we slept in the truck with makeshift curtains to give us privacy. We didn't have the luxury of reclining seats, and I woke up with swollen ankles one morning, but other than that, we did fine. I always chose well-lit truck stops and 24 hour gas stations to park at. No one ever came pounding on the window to ask us to leave. I still had the same truck in 2008, and used it on a trip to Albuquerque, and hit a horrible snow storm on the way back, where I could only drive about 30 mph. Haha, at least it saved on gas! I remember times when we were sleeping in the car that I turned on the motor because it was freezing cold in the middle of the night, falling back asleep and waking later roasting because the heater was on high. Luckily, carbon monoxide didn't do us a job. Oh, does anyone have any advice about safe heating while sleeping in a car? And, how to do this without killing the car battery and being stranded in the morning?

We live in CO, but want to move somewhere warmer, want the ocean an hour or two away. We've thought about moving to CA, FL, or GA, but so many other places could fit the bill, too, we just don't want to settle in and find we live where the humidity is totally unbearable like some places tend to have. Our adventure is to visit the parts of the US that my daughter hasn't seen, and many that neither of us have seen, and we're always in search of the fastest roller coaster ride. We also want to visit the areas we "think" we'd like to live in, spend some time there to see how we truly like it.

I've been a professional for 30 years, and can stop and work along the path, if I absolutely need to. And, now that I really think about it, I guess we have a little something in monthly income to depend on, but not a whole lot. My house will also be up for sale, which means we may have to fly back if I get a buyer, and I'm clear across the country.

Now, about my budget, I have the funds to buy a new or decent small car or a used minivan, and the rest, about $10,000, is for my trip and to also get settled somewhere else. I do want to travel for awhile, plan to be touring the deep South during the winter months, but we want to see the Redwoods in northern Cali and Niagara Falls, the Dakotas, Minnesota and DC and Virginia, and sometime during our adventure see the caverns in NM and the Grand Canyon. I'd like to check ship records to find some ancestors, too. We aren't on a time frame, we're just going to wander, but I need to watch my budget because I won't have a job right away when we settle down. We've slept in our car at Walmart or at truck stops, and have done it a couple nights in a row, just reclining our front seats. It helps to have a small bench that is padded with a folded blanket to put on the floor so our feet don't hang down while we sleep, and push the steering wheel all the way up. I'm thinking if we can spend every other night in the car and spend one night in a hotel room that we bid on, like on Priceline or another like Expedia (we've gotten some really good deals that way, like $29 per night at some nice 3-4 star hotels) or two nights sleeping in the car to every one night in a hotel, we could keep our expenses down. The only thing about some of these nicer hotels is they charge a fortune to park and we had to find a parking spot on the street a block away and walk in the dark, kinda scary, but... We've never stayed at a campsite, and I'm not real keen to outdoor cooking on the road, seems too messy and I don't like cooking anymore, anyway. We can carry those microwavable heat in a bottle soups, and some hotels have kitchens if we need that one hot meal to keep us from going crazy for a decent meal. I'm more of a coffee only for breakfast person, and my daughter isn't big on breakfast, either. We want to spend more on things to do, than on food and lodging.

What kinds of things can a person do to be safe when sleeping in a car besides making sure the doors are locked, valuables are hidden, and putting up curtains for privacy? I'd hate to have a steel bat or something for personal safety, but have it turned against me if someone decided to break in! I guess car alarms might help?

Determined Duck

[glc]

I was thinking more of a minivan than a conversion van, and the ones I've looked at were listed as 28 mpg highway

You will never see 28 mpg in a minivan in the real world.

We looked at a car yesterday that does up to 50 mpg on the highway, and boy was that tempting.

You will never see that in the real world either.

[DuckInTheLake]

My daughter and I have slept in both a small car and a minivan, and being petite, we fit comfortably.

The mpg of a vehicle also depends on what you are carrying in the the vehicle. If we travel light, this will help. We won't have to carry tent equipment, and the heaviest item would be a small cooler for cold drinks, etc. We will just have to watch that we don't carry too many heavy cans, etc, so we don't hurt our gas mileage.

Determined Duck

[Rook]

DuckInTheLake,

It sounds like you have plenty of on the road experience.

One thing you did not mention is the quantity of stuff you plan to bring along. I have used minivans (Some of my best memories are from a 1980 road trip in a 1968 volkswagon van) and they are great but I currently use a hatchback and would recommend a small station wagon if you are not taking a lot of stuff.

I have been taking on and off road trips for over thirty years and the majority of the time I sleep in Interstate Rest Areas. This practice is not recommended on this forum for a number of good reasons. Although I can now afford to stay in motels/hotels, I still use rest areas because it is convenient and it is a tradition I don’t want to give up. I try to stay at campgrounds when it is practical. If car camping, you don't have to erect a tent of cook by campfire; just treat the campground space as a parking space. One of the benefits about campgrounds is the number of great people you will meet. I am not totally anti social but I will not generally start a conversation. Plenty of times the people in the nearby campground will notice that I am not setting up a tent or cooking (I am usually reading one of the travel guides I picked up, writing in a journal or filling out postcards) and come over to talk to me and offer to feed me.

You mentioned a few good ideas about privacy and security at rest areas. I use pieces of cardboard, painted black and cut out to fit the inside of the window as screens. Just like a tent, vehicles are very poor insulators against heat and cold. Research the equipment used by backpackers and look at closed-cell foam mattresses and sleeping bags rated for low temperature. Backpacking equipment is actually great for car camping as they are designed for light weight and space spacing.

I try not to stay at rest areas that are near cities, which is easy since most rest areas are not located near cities. I have only felt uncomfortable about three times and it was just a sixth sense feeling about another car/person in the rest area parking lot. In those cases, I recommend that you listen to your intuition and look for another place to stay. Most rest areas are paired with another stop across the Interstate for traffic going the opposite way. I would rather take the time to drive to the other rest stop then to tempt fate. You will encounter undeveloped rest areas along the highway. They might be as simple as a dirt pull out with a metal trash can or a paved area that is also a posted as scenic viewing area. I strongly recommend that you do not sleep at those types of rest areas.

Another option that is gaining popularity is couch surfing. There are internet sites where you can find people that will let you sleep on their couch and generally all they want is to hear tales of your adventure. I also suggest that you research internet and blog sites of bicyclists traveling cross country. They have lots interesting solutions to finding places to stay the night. One group was generally successful in small towns by asking around and getting permission to camp in churchyards and public parks.

[Midwest Michael]

Just to be clear, the reason is that we recommend strongly that people do not sleep in rest areas because there have been many cases of serious and violent crime against travelers.

Rest areas by their nature tend to be a long distance from populated areas and see relatively little patrol. On top of that, their locations right along the a freeway are an ideal target for criminals because it provides the perfect opportunity for a quick getaway. A sleeping traveler is just about a perfect target for a criminal, and putting up shades is practically an invitation that a defenseless victim is inside.

Florida now has armed guards patroling their rest area, because of the murder of several travelers a number of years ago, but almost nowhere else offers such security. There have been several other cases of robbery, rape, and arson throughout the country, and most of those cases are never solved.

I would never tempt fate just for tradition sake, especially since there are so many other options - like truck stops - where you can pull over to sleep, in a much safer environment.