Sleeping in your car overnight means one of two things. Either you are an incorrigible wanderer in the vein of Jack Kerouac, going on country-spanning adventures where sleeping in a bed is unaffordable or impractical, or your life has taken a sharp turn for the disheartening and you should really start to reflect on the bad decisions you made recently.
As someone who has frequently slept in his car for both reasons, I feel it is a public service to share what I have learned with other free spirits/poor planners.
Put Your Shoes in the Trunk
No one wants to sleep while wearing shoes, but taking them off and leaving them in your car just releases a cloud of hot foot funk inside the car. An odor that would go wholly unnoticed if you kicked your shoes off in your room somehow turns into mustard gas when trying to sleep in a confined, unventilated space.
The simple solution is to just take your shoes and socks off and put in them in your trunk, keeping you hopefully safe from having dreams in which you smell your own sweaty feet.
Get in the Passenger Seat and Park at an Incline
The best place to sleep in car isn’t the driver’s seat (where the steering wheel gets in the way) or the back seat (which is cramped and has seat buckles that dig into your side), but rather the passenger seat, preferably with your car pointed up an incline. This will put you at more of a horizontal position when you lean the seat back, which will make it feel more like a real bed.
Manage Privacy/Outside Light
When you pull into some underfunded rest stop at night during a crazy road trip you might notice that it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep when street lamps filled with dead moths swamp your car with egg yolk-colored light. That’s why it’s smart to invest in a foldable windshield sun shade to block out that oppressive, nausea-inducing glow coming in from the front of the vehicle. Mine has drawings of Flamingos wearing sunglasses on it.
Also you should tuck any spare clothes you might have into your four door windows to protect you from light coming from the sides. Now you can get a good night’s sleep without excessive light or the stares of other rest stop patrons bothering you.
Stay Safe
Always lock your doors and avoid parking your car in any shady-looking areas. Keep a charged cell phone on you at all times and have a good idea exactly where you are, should you ever have to tell anyone your location.
Have you ever slept in your car? Any pointers you might want to share with the rest of us?
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