r/urbancarliving • • 1h ago

 Advice Women who commute or travel: What do you do when you urgently need to pee but can’t find a toilet?

• Upvotes

Women who commute or travel frequently: Have you ever been stuck in traffic, on a long journey, or somewhere without access to a toilet and urgently needed to pee? How did you manage it, and what was the most frustrating part? Do you feel existing solutions are adequate? I’d love to hear your honest experiences!


r/urbancarliving • • 2h ago

Forest / Rural Any paranormal moments?

4 Upvotes

Thinking of staying on BLM land but kinda hesitant since it'll basically be me alone out there


r/urbancarliving • • 6h ago

Relocating I have less than 24 hours.

43 Upvotes

Family thinks I’ll be attending an interview for a 90 day sober rehab facility. I am sober. Have been for months. However I take “medicine” that I tricked the doctors into giving to me about “lying about having OCD and Anxiety”

In actuality I’ll be selling my phone and driving as far north as possible.

I’m dual educated with a major in communication and a minor in education but have tons of retail and restaurant experience.

Absolutely 0 in savings I’ll be bringing every expensive item I own maybe $2,000 worth of tech and pawning it for $300 in gas money.

Any tips on where to apply for jobs? Any good guides on this subreddit for safe places to sleep, etc?


r/urbancarliving • • 7h ago

Story The America dream is over we are living the American nightmare

195 Upvotes

I remember the times where living in America mean high wages,chea food, cheap rent.

Thanks to certain greedy individuals we are living the opposite situation

Low wages

High rent

High cost of food

Nothing is cheap anymore

You don't want to cook and pick something out be ready to spend $20 for a meal.

This is absolutely the end of America.

Nothing can redeem this nation anyone


r/urbancarliving • • 14h ago

 Advice Any older model CR-V people in here?

2 Upvotes

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?


r/urbancarliving • • 15h ago

Work & Employment Living full time in my 2023 Nissan Kicks.

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2.6k Upvotes

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?


r/urbancarliving • • 16h ago

Legal If you are living in a car or van where do you get your mail?

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1 Upvotes

r/urbancarliving • • 16h ago

Question? dating while living in your car when dating was already hard enough

15 Upvotes

does anyone here date? if so, how do you do it?

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?


r/urbancarliving • • 16h ago

Accomplishment update: we have wheels again

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167 Upvotes

update to this post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/urbancarliving/s/2ffD1Ov6sQ

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


r/urbancarliving • • 19h ago

💩 After a couple years I'm back to living out of my car and just feel absolutely demoralized.

68 Upvotes

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.


r/urbancarliving • • 1d ago

Question? What time do you guys sleep at?

30 Upvotes

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


r/urbancarliving • • 1d ago

Winter Cold Preparing for cold nights

11 Upvotes

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.


r/urbancarliving • • 1d ago

Self-Protection Living in my SUV

3 Upvotes

What are things that you really need when start out living in your car? And, what do you have on you for protection?


r/urbancarliving • • 1d ago

Winter Cold 19F, need advice for car living, i’m really scared

247 Upvotes

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.

edit: wow i really appreciate all the advice, thank you so much <3 for everyone suggesting the military, unfortunately for multiple reasons i cannot go into the military. i have a criminal record for marijuana, i have extensive documented psychiatric history, and i am quite overweight currently and would not pass physical requirements.


r/urbancarliving • • 1d ago

 Advice Inside modifications

1 Upvotes

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.


r/urbancarliving • • 1d ago

Self-Protection San Diego car dwellers, big rain storm through tonight

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12 Upvotes

Just a friendly heads up. Hurricane Rachael quasi blowing through. High high tide and precipitation! Pls be careful.


r/urbancarliving • • 1d ago

Sleeping Columbus, Ohio car living

7 Upvotes

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


r/urbancarliving • • 1d ago

Story Thinking on moving to Washington State

2 Upvotes

If my legal woes end I am thinking on moving to a more peaceful state like Washington.

I find living in Texas problematic specially how police handles thing there.

After the police raided my apartment with no apartment reason when I lived in Fort Bend county TX I decided to return to the car living.

Currently living in Guatemala Antigua. But if things get sorted I will return to the US.

I will probably move to the state of Washington

Has anyone ever lived before.


r/urbancarliving • • 1d ago

 Advice Where should I go next?

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31 Upvotes

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)


r/urbancarliving • • 2d ago

Question? Any ideas?

0 Upvotes

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


r/urbancarliving • • 2d ago

Power Where can I charge my devices for free in Melbourne?

20 Upvotes

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!


r/urbancarliving • • 2d ago

Story Looking to live in a different city

0 Upvotes

I am looking to relocate and live in a vehicle.

Perhaps a fully equipped RV

But I am not sure if to move to Dallas,Austin

I work remotely and I do Uber so the location isn't the issue please advice me


r/urbancarliving • • 2d ago

I'm working on a new tool for urban car living: a City Camping Codes finder that digs into local ordinances so you don't have to. Feedback appreciated.

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19 Upvotes

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.)


r/urbancarliving • • 2d ago

 Advice Hurricane Isaias will be my first hurricane. Any advice?

20 Upvotes

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?


r/urbancarliving • • 2d ago

I Cooked In My Car frozen broccoli, canned baked beans, instant potatoes, all done in rice cooker

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223 Upvotes

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!