Urban Camping 101

There have been times when I have to admit that I was too cheap to spring for a hotel room on my travels. When I rent a car, I have a hotel on wheels. Here are a few stories of my memories of Hotel Avis also known as urban camping.

My brother and I did a 4000 mile road trip throughout the Southwest USA in ten days. At the airport, we rented a car where the back seat folded down allowing us to put our lower bodies in the trunk while the upper torsos stayed in the backseat area. It was kind of like a coffin. We nicknamed ourselves Up and At ’em because we were able to hit the road at the crack of dawn every day. I doubt we would have covered 4000 miles if we had opted for hotels. My brother was skilled at finding places to park for the night–one morning we woke up parked in someone’s driveway. As the homeowner was getting her newspaper, my brother noticed his mistake and peeled out of there before she had a chance to call the police.

Another time my sister and I drove to Kentucky and North Carolina and slept in my Jeep. We kept the back seat down and put an air mattress in the cargo area and over the folded seats. Since it was summer and hot in the evenings, we simply rolled down the windows and covered them the screen that I bought at Home Depot. I cut the screen to fit and taped them into place. One night on that trip we felt like we were in a three star hotel as rain poured down on the tent next to us and collapsed it. It was nice knowing that our structure wasn’t going anywhere, we were dry and had AC just in case.

Several years later, I was driving from Michigan out to Iowa to visit my sister. I left right after work so by 10:00 p.m., I was just east of Chicago.  I pulled into a Flying J, backed my car in for the night and was ready to catch a few zs before I hit the road at the crack of dawn. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, the couple next to me had a huge fight that ended as a breakup.  I have to admit, the drama was too exciting to pass up so I didn’t get much sleep that night.

My cousin’s son got married just outside St. Louis so my cheap butt took to the road again. This time we slept at the Pilot in our car and in the morning, we walked in like a member of the truck driver’s union and paid $10 to shower there.  After 30 minutes we were clean and dressed to the nines ready to attend the wedding.

A few weeks later, my cousin got married in Washington D.C.  We drove until late hours of the night and when we got tired, we found a gas station to pull into where we reclined the seats for the night. We arrived in D.C. with plenty of time to spare before the wedding so I decided to show my son around.  Across the street from the White House, was a very nice hotel.  We went in for breakfast and to get cleaned up.  What luck!  They had washcloths in the bathroom.  We cleaned up, had breakfast, did some sightseeing and made it to the wedding.

There were two occasions where I flew into Fort Lauderdale and had an overnight layover.  Both times, I rented a car at airport and parked at cheapest off lot parking I could find.  I backed up to the fence and when nature called, I opened the front and the backdoor and between the two I had an instant toilet. Rather than paying around $80 for the night, I spent around $25.

One time in Puerto Rico, rather than getting a room we parked the car in a Walmart parking lot.  While we slept a robbery took place across the street at Burger King. We discovered this since we waited forever for them to open so we could go to the bathrooms and clean up the next morning. Finally, a worker came to the door to tell us they weren’t going to be open for a while due to the event that occurred while we were asleep.

When we did our Micro-nations tour of Europe, we found ourselves spending a fortune on tolls and gasoline. So much that it took a bite out of our travel budget.  We just decided to sleep in rest stops. I perfected the art of car sleeping on this trip.  I took my suitcase in put it in the foot area of the passenger’s seat.  This elevated my feet.  I reclined the seat, covered up with my airline blanket and slept like a baby.  We weren’t the only ones using the rest stop for lodging.  We saw a few foreign families set up tents, clotheslines, and grills.  They did their laundry in the bathrooms and even hung it to dry.

We did a 12 hour trip to Las Vegas.  It made no sense to get a room for such a short period of time.  We learned that parking in Vegas is plentiful and free so we rented a car and parked it at the highest level of the parking garage where there would be less traffic.  We put the seats back, and slept for a few hours.

When we went to Jordan, we slept in our car a lot. We arrived late in the evening and had to be at Wadi Rum by around 9:00 a.m.  We drove to Wadi Rum and just slept in the car in the parking lot. We awoke before the park opened so we drove around the area for a bit, had coffee, and took some pictures. We left Wadi Rum later that day still tired from not having a proper night’s sleep for two consecutive nights.  We drove to the town of Aqaba and parked in front of a Pizza Hut, kicked the seats back and got a few hours of shut eye before hitting the road again.  On that same trip, we decided at the last minuted to go to Israel. The only way it was possible was that we slept in the car at the border and got in line early in the morning to cross over on the first bus. Many people had the same idea. By 6:00 a.m., the parking lot was full of fellow car sleepers waiting to cross over.

If you think travel has to be expensive, give it a second thought. There are ways to cut costs. The bonus I found was all these great stories would never have been told it I had decided to get a room every time.

~Bella