Things you should know about camping in a Toyota Prius or Prius Motel
In the Summer of 2016 my wife and I decided to embark on a national journey across the United States. Our mission was to visit all 48 contiguous states and still keep it affordable and within our budget. This meant that we were going to sleep and camp out of our 2005 Toyota Prius. We prepared months in advance trying to think of ways to keep all costs low, knowing that others may want to take the journey like we did, and keep it simple.
Prius Camping
Where to begin is a difficult question, let's start with "how we are going to sleep in a Prius?" Unfortunately I am a relatively tall guy at 6 foot 5 inches and my wife is 5 foot 8 inches, it's pretty much a joke when we hear everyone ask how we fit sleeping in the Prius. First thing is the seats can be laid out flat! That doesn't just mean the back row but the front seats as well! We would push the seats forward as far as possible and then lay the back rest down to meet the back seats when they fold down (FYI, you need to take all the head rests out for this to work right).
Once the seats were all laid flat we then took a 3 inch thick tri-fold foam mattress pad and laid it on top of the seats. We also had quite a bit of pillows to make sure the mattress could lay flat if there were any divots or uncomfortable areas.
We bought a couple of sheets so the mattress pad stayed clean, the mattress pad cover could be washed if needed but is a pain to put back together so covering the pad with bed sheets worked best. The mattress pad that we got was a twin-sized mattress pad we bought Amazon for less than $90. Lucid Tri-fold Mattress.
Car Camping Ventilation
Camping can get really hot, especially if there isn't any ventilation circulating. To solve this problem we purchase some silk mesh window screens that were perfect for allowing air into the car without having to let the bugs in. Shade Window Socks. We bought two pairs just in case either pair got any rips or tears or even if we wanted maximum ventilation with all 4 windows. Another thing purchased were two battery powered fans that we could charge on the go and keep us cool at night. Find them here on Amazon.com. Fortunately the Prius is quiet and has the best feature when it comes to Prius camping, you can leave the car air conditioning on all night. Many say it's not great for the car but it'll help keep you comfortable when you sleep. The only down side is the engine will turn on to charge the battery every 20 minutes or so, just be sure to put the parking brake on or else the vehicle will shake each time it starts up.
Gear Storage
When you are on the road for several weeks at a time you tend to carry everything you got. This makes it challenging when you want to fit everything into your Prius, it makes it tough and nearly impossible to carry so much equipment without a trailer. The trunks to the Prius are pretty good size and can hold quite a bit of stuff but you might sacrifice comfort for space. Let me explain, we could have left all of the stuff we brought in the back of the Prius but we would have had to sleep on thin camping mattress pads where you would still feel nearly every bump the seats make when laid out. We, instead, went for the comfort and kept our 3 inch mattress pad in the back along with all the pillows stacked on top of it. It also would have been annoying to move even more stuff than we already had up front when making the Prius into a livable space for sleeping. We installed a Curt trailer hitch and bought a CURT trailer carrier and a large Rubbermaid plastic trunk to keep a good amount of our stuff in. We kept our camping and hiking gear, souvenirs, extra shoes, emergency tools, food, and clothing and several other things that we didn't always need access to. We bought bungee cables to keep the box from bouncing around as well as a snake lock and regular lock to make sure no one would be able to break into it. We even bought a hitch lock so the carrier couldn't be stolen. The Curt trailer carrier we purchased had a raise in the trailer carrier neck so that it wouldn't scrape as we drove over bumps and climbed hills driving around. The best part of having the trailer carrier rather than a roof rack is the amount of drag you don't produce. There is nearly no drag for driving with a trailer carrier and because of it we were able to get anywhere from 44-48 miles per gallon in our camping Prius. Research showed that with a storage roof rack the Prius averaged less than 35 miles per gallon. It was also cheaper to purchase the trailer hitch, the trailer carrier, and storage bin than it was to have a roof rack installed along with an aerodynamic roof storage case. We also never had to worry about the back door not opening without moving anything out of the way. The trailer carrier was also nice and low making it easily accessible and it also protected the rear of the car when we were driving and parking. We had no problems with theft or water getting inside thanks to the snake lock and it also having a tight lid. The only downside was an occasional steep driveway where the new trailer attachment would scrape the street but only happened once or twice.
Electronics and Power
It was really important that we had the right chargers and back up batteries to power everything we had. We took with us One laptop( for blogging), an IPad, our Cell phones, Night Fans, and a few other electronics. I think the single greatest source for our devices, while in the car, was this powerful Universal Car Charger USB charger we bought off Amazon for cheap. It really put in the juice to power and charger our devices. As for being outside exploring we had nearly 3-4 external battery power packs. The best ones were bought at Walmart in the checkout lines. They seemed to have the most juice and were better than several Amazon battery packs. We had purchased an 18650 battery charger that worked really well from Amazon but half way through the trip we had lost it in a hotel in Washington DC along with two of the batteries that we used to power our night fans in the car. Thankfully they were not the only batteries that we had and we could still charge them through the fans USB chargers. Since we lost the main charger we purchased a battery charger that doubles as a external battery and could charger four 18650 batteries at a single time. That helped quite a bit while we traveled. Amazon was pretty amazing setting up pickup stations but they aren't always easy to find as they sometimes are located in the back of restaurants or gas stations.
Clothing Organizers
Being out on the road for weeks and months meant that we had to carry a good number of clothes. We had to have the right clothes ranging from casual to dressy casual which meant we had lots of clothes. We folded them and rolled them up so that we could fit all our clothes in our clothing organizers. We each had a clothing organizer that could fit in the back seat and still give us some room for food and drink. Each organizer had three compartments which we placed pants, shirts, and under garments in so it worked out great. We carried a cloth hamper that was thick enough to keep the bad smelling odors away until we were able to find a place to wash our clothes. We also had separate mesh bags to keep some emergency clothes in the trunk behind the car. We kept these organizers in the front when it was time to sleep.
Where to Sleep
A third of the trip we were fortunate to sleep in a hotel or friends places but the other two-thirds were spent either at a campground or in a Walmart Parking lot. The most common Campground that we stayed at were the KOA Campgrounds because of their reasonable price. We could normally go without a campground for a few days but the showers were hard to pass up when available. Campgrounds were also great because there wasn't any noise and hardly any lights to keep you awake. Walmart parking lots were quite interesting. Most of the Walmarts where we stayed were open 24/7 just because we were able to use their facilities when needed. The scariest thing about staying in the Walmart parking lots was not the other people around sleeping in the lot nor people driving by and around us but it was the Parking Lot Cleaners. I remember numerous times being woken up by those stupid parking lot cleaners being so loud and coming so close to our car. I thought for sure they were going to hit our car. You'd be surprised to see how many people actually sleep in their cars in Walmart parking lots. It is pretty eye opening, you see travelers, truck drivers, homeless people, and others all staying at Walmarts all over the nation. A great website for finding a Walmart to stay at is http://www.walmartlocator.com/rv-parking-at-walmart/. Be sure to follow the Over Night Parking Etiquette if you ever have to sleep in a Walmart parking lot.
Food and Drink
When you take on a national journey you want to eat out everywhere and that is pretty much what we did on our expedition. We ate a lot of good food and went to various restaurants. There were less than a handful of restaurants that we ate at that we considered "chain restaurants" such as Subway, McDonalds, or Texas Roadhouse. All I can say is be careful where and what you eat. I think I might have eaten some food with growing parasites or bugs in them because my stomach hasn't officially been the same. I have been taking a parasite cleanse and it seems to have helped a little bit. While the list of places we ate at could take up a whole new web page, we mostly ate snacks we bought from Costco such as Chips, Fruit leathers, Peanut Butter Pretzels, and other things while on the road.
Prius Motel Conclusion
Although it is not the best way to travel I don't think we could have done this vacation any better in such a small but roomy car. The Prius Camping experience was an experience we will never forget. It was both thrilling and exciting along with crazy and adventurous. We would definitely do it all over again so long as we don't have to share with any kids. At times a tent was great but for the majority of the time we loved sleeping in the comfort of our Prius. If we were to do it all over again I think we would try to sleep with having the A/C on as the car engine generates electricity for the battery so the engine doesn't run all night, benefits of the Prius. We were very lucky with the weather, I think we only saw two nights of rain and we had slept in the tent those nights, I was afraid the rain would get inside the car with the window socks covering the open windows and get everything all wet. We would recommend getting a hotel for the nights above 85 degrees outside and/or in larger populated cities or keep the car running at night with the AC running (if you do this option be sure to keep the emergency/parking brake on the entire time as the motor will kick on occasionally during the night and jolts the car a little bit). We hope you enjoyed the read and we hope you go out and enjoy your own Prius Camping adventures!
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