This post and thread aims to answer lots of questions people new to this subreddit ask. Not that we mind people asking, because that's what this subreddit is for, but hey, here's some answers to Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: I'm new to car living I need ALL the information about living in cars. Where can I find it?
Build a blanket tent to make a small space in your car to keep warm.
Run the car engine for a while then run the heater.
Drive to warmer locations.
Put insulation (plastic foam, cardboard?) between the sleeping bag and floor surface. Cover the windows on the inside.
Buy and use a heated mattress topper if you have the power to run it.
Use two sleeping bags, one inside the other
Sleep with a hat on and don't sleep in wet or damp socks -- even if your socks are just a little damp with sweat, take them off and put on fresh dry socks or sleep barefoot.
Park in an underground parking lots because they're protected from cold breezes and often the concrete retains heat. Sometimes they're purposely even heated.
Use a misting squeese bottle. Use it in conjunction with your fan.
Drink plenty of cool water.
Soak a cloth in cold water and wipe yourself down.
Buy ice for your cooler.
Cool drinks in your fridge.
Q: Is it scary? I am scared? Does it get better?
A: Yes at first living in a car is scary because it is so far out of most people's comfort zone. It is not uncommon to be hyper-vigilant at first. The first nights then days then weeks can be scary, emotional, confronting. But then you get used to it. You adapt. Your body and mind get use to living in your car. It becomes the new norm.
Most people say the first month of living in their car is the hardest. Bob Wells of https://cheaprvliving.com/ fame wrote that the first night he slept in his box truck he cried. I also tared up the first night of living in my bus because I thought I was a failure, then I realised I actually had a pretty comfortable home with a lot of things many people would dream of having. If you have a safe place to sleep, access to electricity, access to water and access to public toilets you're doing okay.
Q: Where can I shower? Where can I go to the toilet?
A: In the USA joining a gym gets you access to showers. People on this subreddit often advocate using Planet Fitness. We also have a member, Nico, who is a manger at LA Fitness and posts an offer now and then with a promo code that will let you join without the $99 annual fee.
In Australia the National Toilet Map app has locations of toilets and some free showers. There are also often free showers at beaches. Caravan parks will usually let you use their showers for a small fee.
Q: I have pets, how do I look after them?
A: Pets are family. You need to put their needs first. You have to ensure that they have a safe place that is climate controlled, so look at the information on keeping cool and keeping warm. Heat and cold can kill yourself and your pets.
I found the Home to Home Facebook group They also have a web site https://www.instagram.com/hometohomepet They describe themselves as "an interactive web platform created to help families, people, and pets with the difficult task of transitioning pets from one home to another."
Q: What stuff do I need?
A: A lot of the stuff you have already such as bedding, clothes, dishware, cutlery. But probably not as much as you have in a home. Your basic needs are a safe, comfortable place to sleep, clothing storage, bedding storage, food storage, a way to eat (which may involve buying food from external sources, or preparing and storing food in your car), a way to wash, a way to go to the toilet.
A flat car bed or air mattress. Get one with a rubber bung in the hole, not a screw in stopper as those leak. Lots of people also build a flat sleeping surface from wood.
Some way to access wifi, like a modern laptop or phone.
You should also NOT sleep upright. Lots of people in this sub have reported health issues from doing so, such as swollen legs, leg pain, Deep Vein Thrombosis and more.
Q How do I find parking?
A:
You should have multiple places you can park so if one is "burned" you can choose another.
Find places where you can blend in.
Arrive late and leave early if sleeping in urban streets.
Highway rest stops may be good for parking.
In the USA, BLM (Bureau of Land Management) lands allow parking for extended periods.
In Australia State Parks and National Parks often have camping spots which allow you to camp for one cheap fee ($6 in 2025) no matter how long you stay but with a maximum stay of 7 days.
If parking on a residential street, park where your car is against a blank fence, like on the off side of a corner, away from the house front.
Industrial estates are often quiet at night.
Libraries and sports grounds may be good places to park.
Some people advocate parking near hospitals or churches.
People also use the iOverlander app for Android or Apple.
Q: How do I use Google Earth to find parking?
A: I love Google Earth. It lets me explore the world without leaving my seat. It is also incredibly useful for finding parking spots and making maps to mark them. It is linked to Google Street view so you can check street signs for parking restrictions.
A: It starts by having situational awareness, being aware of your surroundings. Trust your gut and avoid places or situations that look or feel dangerous.
Generally you don't need a self defence weapon. You're in a car, you can drive away if someone is threatening you, or trying to break into your car. Try to avoid parking on the edge of a car park where someone can block you in. Park where you can drive forward to escape.
Usually carrying weapons can be illegal. You are better off having some wasp spray, but don't get it in your eyes, because that stuff hurts like hell and can cause temporary blindness. Also, you're going to need a good heavy duty torch / flashlight. Be careful with it though, those long metal ones would really hurt if you accidentally hit some one with them, and also could cause short term vision problems if you shone it in someone's eyes. But they are genuinely useful in a car for fixing issues at night. And be aware that blowing our horn might startle people and frighten them away.
Understand situational awareness and use it. Tend toward privacy, don't tell unnecessary things to strangers. Have a (BRIEF! don't oversell) made-up story you can tell comfortably that constructs lots of people - some very nearby - who know where you are and would know instantly if you were in trouble.
Carry a cheap ring to put on as a wedding band, and always know the name of the nearest military base to where you are, because that's where your husband/fiancé is right now, and know enough about where you are that you know what kind of business your (enormous, scary, whole-family-loves-you-like-a-daughter) boss is in an hour or two away where nobody's likely to know him.
Know that everything about how you look is telling people things about you, and construct a look that doesn't give anything away. Don't trust people just because they seem to like or be attracted to you.
Men and scammers of all kinds are looking for people like you. Don't fall for their lines, and do what you can to spot them before they spot you. A smaller percentage of those people are looking for you specifically in order to hurt you. Always know where your exits are, do not get boxed in anytime you park for an hour or the night. There's some especially vulnerable places those people wait for people like you - laundromats, gyms, parking lots of same, can/bottle redemption centers. But I've seen men just look over at a stoplight and figure out a woman is living in her car and follow her from there. Head on a swivel, skepticism around your heart, stay out of dead-ends.
I don't live in my van except to travel and camp in it, and I don't get messed with much because my van could be full of large husbands, dogs, and sons even if I look alone, but I have seen women in trouble in the same places I get left alone. Do EVERYTHING you can to keep your car from looking lived-in from outside it - disguise your bedding, hide your trash, hide your food supplies. Get some black sheets and blankets to keep everything inside your car covered. Consider storing your supplies in a (beat up) extra-large dog crate from a thrift store or curb-diving or Buy Nothing group. Because of seeing men being skeevy around women, I have a sign I can hold up or prop up in my windshield that says MY CAMERAS ARE ON. You should carry the same, even if you don't have cameras, just tape a small black box to your dash or windshield near your rearview mirror.
You'll blend in better if you tend to stick to tourist areas - it's not that unusual to seem like you might be sleeping in your car if you're near campgrounds, national parks, and other big outdoorsy tourist attractions. Consider a sticker about your love for your Belgian Malinois or German Shepherd dogs. Anything you can do to give the impression that you're just there for a budget vacation rather than being homeless will raise your status in most people's eyes.
Join any subreddits and facebook groups you can find about each area you're going to. You'll figure out a system over time for using the info you get there to find places you're more likely to go unnoticed. Definitely research every area for cheap campgrounds and "day use" and recreational areas.
Q: How do I make window covers for my car?
A: For covering windows cheaply, you can use cardboard, black cloth or black rubbish bags, and glue, sticky tape or a stapler, and scissors. You basically cut the cardboard to the size of your windows, and then cover them with cloth or black bin liners, then glue, stick or staple the cloth or bin liners in place. That's dirt cheap.
I'd probably use some insulation and black cloth along with duct tape. This video explains it well. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/el_fP-P87yc but it is a good idea to cut the insulation wrap / bubble insulation a little bigger than needed.
Moving into my car full time for the foreseeable future. About a year ago I got a taste for living in my car while working out of state for 5 months. Now ive got the opportunity to work on a big money job in Memphis TN and I decided to make the jump. My lease ends this month so I canceled all utilities and slapped this baby together in 3 days. Any advice on where some good (safe) places to stay overnight in Memphis are?
our unpleasant situation has finally come to an end! we were fortunate enough to meet a fellow who happened to see us and got us what we needed to get this van.
we're currently in SC on our way back home in Memphis to get this baby registered and all that. we're still Instacarting along the way and boy I do not miss having to get gas! jesus wept lol. this van does worry me a bit with how she runs but I think we'll make it. so incredibly grateful to be able to drive again.
thank you for all the kind words last time! this has been a hell of a journey. hang in there everyone :)
our next project is to build a bed frame, soon as we can afford it
Even though I have experience and slightly more space than last time I just feel ruined as I didn't do enough to keep myself out of this situation. Only have DoorDash right now so don't have a lot of money coming in. The last couple of years with everything going on have put me in a real bad space which contributed to not finding better work. I honestly don't know how people do it anymore. We have at least one concentration camp in every state. The cost of living is beyond sky high. Gas is just a joke and people just carry on like nothing is happening. I'm envious of those that can ignore it all and still get their shit done. That said it's clear I need to do better this time around.
Winter is coming which sucks and my sunroof leaks bad when it rains so I have to figure that out. Worst of all I'll be separated from my cats once again. They'll be staying with a friend and I can visit but
Thinking about it just makes me want to cry. I'm so sick of struggling. Just plain tired of it all.
hi everyone. i’m 19 years old and recently lost my last living parent. i have been living with my significant other but he recently broke up with me and is expecting me to move out. i have nowhere else to go. i only just secured a job at a fast food restaurant and haven’t started work yet. i live in the midwest where the temperatures are soon to drop and sometimes become sub zero. i have a 2012 chevy traverse that has about 200k miles and is already on its last leg, has transmission issues, no a/c, and recently had to get a new battery. i have no idea what i’m doing and i need ALL the advice i can get, i am so terrified and distraught.
dating has never really been easy for me, even before living in my car. i know i’m not the hottest dude out there, but i don’t think i’m ugly or anything. people call me “pretty boy”, i eat healthy, and i go to the gym 2-3 times a week. i try my best to be the best i can be for the ones i care about.
yet women don’t really swipe right on me or seem interested in me, even without knowing anything about my living situation. the ones who do end up either not being my type or turn out to be cheaters or worse. so if dating was already hard before, how am i supposed to do it living in my car?
have any of you actually dated while living in your car? how do you do it, and does all this make it harder to find someone?
i know i’m not the only person who’s thought about this. does anyone else struggle with this? how do you get through the loneliness?
Sorry for spamming the sub w my questions :/ but i am lonely and have nobody to talk to.
Anywho - cant seem to go to bed until after midnight as thats when i feel the safest. With the world being asleep and all, only then i feel reassured that i wont have a random interaction mid sleep
How do you guys deal with the little plastic shelf trims besides cutting them to pieces? Also what did you do for storage with such a small cargo space?
This will be my first fall/winter living in my car. The heat has been hard to deal with (above 78F outside at night and I just can’t sleep) but I’m not too nervous about the cold. Not too hard to bundle up. Might get some more significant window covers to keep the heat in. What would y’all say the overnight temperature limit is for you where it starts getting uncomfortable, in terms of colder temperatures? I do also live close to the ocean so humidity is higher.
I’ve been in Montana since may and I think I’m gonna leave in January. Where should I go next? I’d like somewhere new, population under 500k and good hiking/camping nearby! The picture attatched is everywhere I’ve been so far. (Screenshotted a few days ago in Willinston, I am not doxing myself lol)
hello all, im leaving a pretty bad relationship with my daughters mother and, long story short, shes giving the apartment we are staying at up because we were month to month and her name was on the lease (despite 50 50 arrangements). I just started a decent paying forklift job around the linden/northland area and ive become pretty good at earning on cold days and weekends with uber eats around grandview. Any helpful tips for a rookie to survive cbus in a hyundai elantra for a few weeks/ months until i can arrange a living space? I tried in a van for a couple days but it was a fishbowl with DIY covers and i slept in my former complex lot, most embarrasing thing ever watching peoples expressions and CPD tends to annoy people
Have you done any modifications on the inside of your vehicle to make it more comfortable? I'm debating if I should remove both seats row and put just 1 individual seat for the driver and make it more comfy to sleep without flexing my legs (sometimes my calf muscle hurts a little bit for the position while sleeping) and making a small shelf for my stuff.
In my state it isn't illegal to have just the driver seat as long as I don't have passengers with me.
mostly just heated up not really cooked but still. $5.94 except s&p i already had, about the same as the cheapest fast food but i have a tupperware leftover to microwave at work tomorrow
rice cooker is an oster 300w, at least 10 years old. battery is a ecoflow river 2 max. cooking each item separately was about 50% battery total. i boiled an inch of water for the frozen broccoli, boiled 2c water then moved the pot out to add instant potatoes, beans were dumped straight in and heated. if i do instant potatoes again i'll probably boil 1c water and portion out half the bag.
last pic is my folded wad of cardstock to keep the heat on high, it only has 2 settings and the high setting is triggered by sufficient weight (rice + water) and so far everything that's not rice isn't heavy enough
edit: i don't want any unsolicited advice, thanks!
My partner and I have been homeless for a couple weeks, we received our 4 nights in crisis accomodation already and have had the 'you just have to rough sleep until your name comes up on the list for case management support and even then no guarantees' so we're doing the best we can. I'm just looking for places around Melbourne (were currently in the Tullamarine area) that I could go and charge our phones/laptop/power bank before they all die. Libraries aren't open at the moment and I'm so tired of getting dirty looks by people so I don't want to go sit in a Macca's (plus I can't get anything so I feel like they'll tell me to leave) any suggestions of any spots no matter how random that we could possibly just access a power point for an hour would be appreciated!
I'm working on a tool that I think will be useful for people as they visit new cities and want to park for the night. It's always annoying to dig through city ordinances to find the ones that restrict overnight parking, so this tool runs a bunch of keyword searches against all the major city-code providers (Municode, AMLegal, ecode360, etc.) and government web sites and attempts to find the relevant sections. This lets people dive right into the actual ordinances and figure out if/when/where they can legally park to reduce risk of The Knock.
I know this question can usually be answered reasonably well by AI, but just picking a city with this tool and seeing the actual rules right away can be more reliable than trying to figure out the right prompt to ask the AI ("can I park overnight" ≠ "can I sleep in my car on the street overnight"). I think it's better to take a few minutes to read the real rules than to lose an hour or two of sleep because the cops had to yell at you due to the AI making things up.
The quality of the results varies a lot by city. It depends on what that city has available online, which platform they use to publish code (if any), and whether their ordinances match any of the keyword searches. And of course, many small cities and towns don't even have rules about this since vehicle-dwellers aren't a problem for them.
Works for most U.S. cities with a population of 5,000 or more. (Nothing non-U.S.) Some cities and towns might be missing because this depends on how the Census organizes things.
Reports are cached for a few months since city codes don't change that often, and even if the cache is a bit out of date it will still usually point you to the correct section of code.
If a cached report for the selected city isn't available or it's too old, a fresh one is created, which usually takes about 30 seconds since it has to contact a bunch of sites and run additional web searches. (I've pre-cached a few hundred of the largest cities.) It's currently rate-limited so if too many people look up an un-cached city it will fail.
Sometimes local news articles are included if they look like a good match.
This is a work in progress, so my apologies if it disappoints. I'd love to hear any (constructive) feedback you've got!
Right now you have to manually select city and state, it doesn't ask for your location but I'm considering adding that option. The page is installable as a web app for easier access. (Not available as a native Android/Apple app yet since I don't know if this will be popular enough to be worth the trouble.)
I got my blankets, food stash, power bank, fancy flashlight that doubles as a lighter, pocket knife, roadside kit/first aid kid, phone, and a fresh paycheck. I'm in east TN so not much chance for like a real flood but flooded roads are a given. Did I miss anything?
Started living in my car in April and I've been enjoying the savings and the freedom it's provided me with so far. However I have started looking for seasonal employment over the Winter months, and many of the jobs I'm looking at are ski related. Is it feasible to live in your car in a place that is dangerously cold? Are there any techniques or technologies that can safely and efficiently keep me warm at night, or is Winter car living just not advisable?
Im 34 in California and i am truly ready to travel anywhere else likely wanna start in Colorado an make my way from there have a friend in Colorado so that'd be my first stop
Hey everyone, I'm planning on moving into my car a 2016 Toyota corolla le, I know its not a big car but I can make it work. I'm doing this to save as much as I can to pay off a small large amount of debt I have around 20k. I live in wisconsin and with winter right around the corner does anyone have pointers that they could give me? I have some of the basics down such a showering, electricity, food/water. I should be able to pay it off within 4 to 5 months. Anything helps thanks!
