The Living in Your Car Podcast
The Living in Your Car Podcast
Where to Sleep Discreetly in Your Car
Ever wondered about the art of living comfortably in your car when you're on the road? Ever felt uncertain about where to park your vehicle for a peaceful night's sleep? In this podcast I'll guide you through the best practices of balancing safety, comfort, and discretion. My experience ranges from finding low-risk parking spots in mixed residential and retail areas to the bustling Walmart parking lots. The key is to stay discreet by only using your vehicle for sleeping - cooking and camping in your car can attract unnecessary attention.
Besides, there’s no need to worry about finding a secure spot to settle in for the night, as I’ll be sharing a plethora of overnight parking options. From dispersed sites, truck stops, to rest stops, you’ll learn how to navigate your options, check reviews, and observe parking restrictions to find the perfect spot. I even touch on the lesser-known option of hospital parking lots and why it's crucial to support businesses when you park there. As I share my favorite spots for car living at home and while traveling, make sure to check out my YouTube channel and Instagram for a behind-the-scenes glimpse into my adventures. Let's embark on this exciting journey of car living together!
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https://www.youtube.com/@elizabethoffgrid
Hi, this is Elizabeth Off-Grid, and you are listening to the Living in your Car podcast, where we talk about all aspects of living in a car, suv, pickup or minivan. Whether you're a full-time nomad, temporarily staying in a vehicle until you get life figured out, or just going on a road trip, join us for all kinds of topics that apply to you. So this is episode three, where we're talking about where to park so you can sleep in your vehicle. I'm specifically talking about sleeping in a car, suv, minivan, pickup truck, something that doesn't look like an RV. Now, a lot of these things actually also apply to something that looks like an RV. It looks like a camper, but my experience is going to be really from the sleeping in a car, where I sleep in a Honda Civic that I have converted into a car camper, Okay.
Speaker 1:So when you're thinking about where to sleep, what you're really doing is balancing, feeling safe, being objectively less likely to have someone break into your car, mess with you, and any of that with no one caring. The cops don't care, people don't care, no one notices and those things can sometimes be at attention. So, for example, if you park in a well-off residential area where people all own their homes right in front of someone's house, most likely you are incredibly safe. However, is a good chance that someone in that neighborhood will be pissed and they will call the cops on you. Now it may or may not be quote, legal unquote to sleep in your car in that area, but you still don't want a cop knocking on your window at two o'clock in the morning telling you you need to move on, or just checking to make sure you're not a bad guy in some way, shape or form. You want to be able to sleep soundly. So how do you create this balance? To find somewhere where you're going to feel safe, where you're objectively going to have a relatively low risk of someone messing with you and then also have a low risk of someone being bothered and calling the cops or you or them themselves coming out and knocking on your window. So how this works really does depend upon if you're in town or traveling, and I say in town I mean in the city where you spend all of your time, like if so, if you're in one city, most of the time, maybe it's the place where you have been living, versus you're going from place to place to place and traveling around.
Speaker 1:So first let's talk about in town. Now, this also depends on are you in California or not. There's probably some other places that are like this too, but California is harder to sleep in your car because there's so many people who are unhoused, people who are sleeping in their car, whatever, and so various municipalities have made up rules. All kinds of streets have signs on them that you might need to have a permit to park there, that you can't park there between three to five am, which is a bunch of places around here which is effective. You mean you can't sleep in your car overnight. Well, I guess you could sleep there during the day. It's not from three to five am. You just gotta leave during those two hours. So what does that mean when you're in town in California?
Speaker 1:For the most part, what I do in California, in the San Francisco Bay area, is I sleep on the side of a road. I park, I parallel park not. I actually can't parallel park with anything. So I'm pulling in and I park on the side of the road and that's where I sleep. I find it a wonderful place to sleep. No one has bothered me in that spot that I found. So here's the thing where I park is at the line between a kind of retail slash like industry area and a residential area. The residential area is blue collar. It's mostly duplexes and some houses. It is not fancy by any means. The light industry retail kind of area is also not fancy. It is in an older part of town so there's not strict zoning. So that's why I said it's retail slash, light industry, so it will be a bunch of different kinds of things all in a row because it's an older part of town that has less rules about what each property we have.
Speaker 1:Where I park is actually on the street next to a parking line that is government owned so and it's also closed at night. There are people who walk down the sidewalk. There are unhoused people who live in the area. There are other people who are sleeping in vehicles, sometimes on that street. That's not necessarily a bad thing. How I protect myself when I'm sleeping there is I only sleep there. I pull in, put my window shade coverings up and turn off my car and I have no lights on.
Speaker 1:After that I don't go to bed. Quite right then, because I have to use my stuffy device for migraines and change my pajamas and all that kind of stuff. So it takes probably about 30 minutes for me to go to sleep. But I have no lights on inside the car. I don't cook there, I'm not camping there, I'm literally just sleeping there. And that is what I do even when I'm not in California, when I'm staying in a town. So if I'm traveling and staying in a town very, very similar, I might park on the side of the road. That's a little bit harder to find places like that because you don't have a good vibe unless you know somebody there.
Speaker 1:So then a lot of times when I'm not in California and I'm staying in a town, I stay in a Walmart parking lot and I don't know Walmart's allowed that, not because the Walmart cares, but because there'll be some local ordinance that tells them they're not allowed to allow it. That's very true in certain parts of California. For example, I haven't actually seen a Walmart in California where you're allowed to sleep there anymore. I'm sure there are somewhere, but I because I haven't literally been to every single Walmart in California but generally speaking you're not allowed to. So that is something that I do in other towns throughout the West and typically what I do to try to see do they allow it. I have never gone into the Walmart to ask them. What I do is I go on iOverlander and I see has anyone said anything about this Walmart? Most of the time someone will say something about it. They'll either say yes, they allow it, or they'll say no, I got kicked out. And then you know the answer. I haven't ever run into something where no one has something to say about that Walmart.
Speaker 1:So that is what I do when I'm traveling and I'm in a town, is I just stay in a Walmart parking lot. Now I've also slept in some other kinds of parking lots. I've slept in a Home Depot parking lot. I have some other things on my list, like there are cracker barrels that allow you to. There's other kind of big box stores that have really large parking lots where no one's going to care. Typically, I would look on iOverlander to find those things, and so I highly recommend it. Now, one thing to remember is that other people are also looking at iOverlander, so sometimes that means that the place will get abused and then they'll stop allowing it. So it is not a guarantee. You still have to feel out the vibes when you get to the place.
Speaker 1:Now, when I'm traveling, there's a lot of other places that are available. My favorite place to say, besides a paid camp room, is a rest stop. Now they're parts of the country where you're not allowed to sleep at a rest stop, where you could only stay for one or two hours at a rest stop, so it's not very effective. In a lot of the West, if not all of it, you may not be allowed to camp at a rest stop, but you're allowed to stay there and rest for a certain number of hours, like eight hours or 12 or 18 or even 24. And if that's true, you can sleep there.
Speaker 1:When they say camping, what they're meaning is making it a recreational use like you're at a campground. You can't be putting out your slides. If you're in an RV, you can't be setting up a campsite and playing and entertaining and acting as if you're on the place. You need to be pulling in and going to sleep. So when I stay at a rest stop at most places, I am pulling in and going to sleep. Now, one difference is at a rest stop, I will go to the bathroom and brush my teeth, and that's one of the nice things about being at a rest stop.
Speaker 1:I have stayed at rest stops with eight hours limits, more than eight hours. I've stayed at some of them for 10 or even 12 hours. Typically it's because it was dark the whole time. I pulled in it was already dark, went to the bathroom, went to sleep and then slept the whole night and it ended up being more like nine or 10 hours. I haven't yet had someone have a problem with that. I suspect they would only have a problem with it if you look like you have set up a recreational camp. Now I tend to be out by five or six o'clock in the morning, so it's really not a problem where someone's gonna see me there for a huge amount of time because I'm gone.
Speaker 1:You wanna look at the rules for the rest stops in the state that you're going to and you go on the website for the state, like Department of Transportation, and they will say what the rules are and typically is gonna be done by hours. It's eight hours, it's 12 hours, 18 hours, it's 24. 24 is in New Mexico. You can stay in the rest stops of New Mexico 24 hours over three days. So my interpretation of that is you could have one rest stop for 24 hours and then you can't stay them for two days, or you can go to three rest stops eight hours each. You know what I mean. You have to look at how they calculate the rules.
Speaker 1:That is my favorite place to stay when I'm traveling, unless I'm gonna pay for a campsite because you have a bathroom, you have picnic tables. If I actually also go to rest stops, another rest stop will during the day and I'll cook a meal. You have a place to park, it's lit, there's usually other people there and then I mean that in a good way there's truckers there. It just seems like a very good place with good turnover. Be aware that some places it may be hard to find a parking spot, especially if you're pulling a trailer or something and you need one of the kind of truck parking spots. It can be very hard in some places. There are places in California along the I5 corridor where if you pull in there at 11 pm it's gonna be full or close to it. Now I pull in much early than that as I start going a bit early and I get up early, so I haven't ever had a problem with it, but it is something to be aware of that it does. You're not guaranteed a spot. Also, rest stops can be closed. In California you can go on the website for the state of California and they actually have a dynamic website that will tell you what rest stops are closed. Also, other states sometimes have that and sometimes they don't. Google Maps is not reliable. They are not reliable for this information. The only way to get the information is to either just go there in person or to see on the website for the Department of Transportation of that particular state. Some keep it up and some of them don't. Obviously, I stay at a Walmart if they allow that, and I already talked about that.
Speaker 1:Another great place to stay out while traveling is dispersed camping. Dispersed camping just means some you're camping somewhere that's not a campground and it's free in some way shape or form. How that works really does depend upon what your rig is. So there's dispersed camping that really is just a trailhead, a parking lot, a pullout on the side of the road, and it's paved, you know. So, like my car can totally do it, no problem. I have totally stayed in those kind of places. Sometimes it's gravel, but it's still a pullout, so it's very easy to get in and out, of no problem.
Speaker 1:Those places can be great. There's usually not always, sometimes there's a bathroom, sometimes there's like a pit toilet at a trailhead, for example. Sometimes there's a porta-potty. If a lot of people have been using that area and they'll just put up a porta-potty, it makes a lot of sense. Those can be absolutely great, but a lot of times there's nothing and so you need to be set up to be able to go to the bathroom somewhere. I mean, if you're just, you can just bring a shovel and you can dig a hole. However, there, if you're staying in a desert area, there's no privacy, so that may not really work. Also, there could be other people there and maybe that won't work. So I highly recommend that you have some way to go to the bathroom if you're staying in a dispersed site, because other people might be there and you might not be able to just go behind a tree.
Speaker 1:If you're in the desert and there are no trees, you also need to look at your car. So I've gone on Ioverlander and they said oh, this wonderful dispersed site, it's a campground, it's free, blah, blah, blah. And you know what? There ain't no way my car is getting there. It's very difficult to tell because most of the time on Ioverlander, people haven't been specific about what vehicle they have and when they talk about how good the road is. So they say, oh yeah, this road was no problem. Well, yeah, they have a high clearance four-wheel drive thing. So I need to know what car did you have? How do you have a regular passenger sedan kind of vehicle like mine and you're able to get there? Great, then that's what I'll do. So I typically will only do places that are dispersed or free campground kind of places if someone has written a review that says, yes, for sure you can get there or I have enough time to get there. So I'm, it's, you know, only noon or two o'clock in the afternoon. So if this plate doesn't work out, I can go to another one. So it's no problem. But when it's late at night I don't try to mess with any of that kind of stuff, because I'll have to go find somewhere else if my car can't get there and I need to be able to see whether or not the road is going to be okay.
Speaker 1:Other places that you can stay at while traveling is a truck stop. I actually haven't seen it a truck stop yet. I almost did, and then I realized there was a rest stop 10 minutes away. So I went to the rest stop and that rest stop there was a Nevada actually had an area for overnight camping that had a sign saying here's where you do your overnight camping. I'm like, wow, I love Nevada. I'm actually going to probably in the future, do like a video where I review every rest stop in Nevada because they are so great as far as the amount of time you get to stay there and there's no people and it's just absolutely lovely. But I also I love the desert, so that makes a lot of sense why I would like it. So truck stops are really all over the place. There's ones where there's actual places for you to park overnight. There are ones now that their loves, that actually have campsites for RVs where you pay and you have hookups and everything. There's ones where nobody is kind of super busy. You can just go over here and park. I did almost stay at a truck stop another time where I ended up also that guy's going to rest up because the truck top was so busy. It was just so loud and I can deal with loudness, but I mean this was over the top loud and I don't begrudge the people, I mean it was just people doing their thing, but it just wasn't very restful energy and instead I went to a rest stop that was absolutely, absolutely gorgeous. This was in Utah, so you do have to look at that. Sometimes they will not allow overnight camping because people have trashed the place up or done ridiculous things, and so they'll be signed up, and that's really a thing. You go to the truck stop and you look to see if they're signed.
Speaker 1:Now, like Walmart, there's a lot of people who advocate for going in and asking for permission. I think if you're more comfortable with that, you do. You go in and ask for permission. I am not. I'm more of a. I don't really want to go in there and alert them that I'm going to be doing that. So I just would just park and hope for the best.
Speaker 1:But it really depends on your own situation. I'm in a Honda Civic, so I don't look like I'm sleeping there. I'm not taking a part in any space. You don't park right in front of the place. You park far out by the road or on the side, somewhere where you're not in any way, where no one's going to care. Also, if I park it somewhere, that's a business, whether it was a cracker barrel or a truck stop or Walmart. I generally speaking, go into there and patronize the place. I'm going to go in the girl with the bathroom anyway, so I go in there and buy a thing, or buy a meal or buy something that I was going to need anyway. I'm not super guilty about Walmart because I mean you know they're Walmart, but generally speaking, if it's a privately owned place, then I spend a little bit of money there. If it is somewhere like a rest stop, I mean your taxes are going to it or, in the scheme of things, your taxes are going to it, so I don't worry about it all.
Speaker 1:Now there's a bunch of other places that people generally remark on as being good places that I have not tried yet, and there's reasons I have it. So one is a hospital, hospital parking lot. There are places where I think a hospital parking lot would be a great idea. It would be. You know, hospitals open 24 hours. There's a big, huge, giant lot. No one cares Around here. Hospital lots cost money. You have to either have a pass that you pay for because you work there or you have to pay to park there. So totally non-starter doesn't work at all here. But I acknowledge that in some places a hospital parking lot would be a great place and you could even walk into the ER and there's a restroom and you can use a restroom. So that may be a very good idea and there's a lot of hospitals in a lot of places where I think that would work the lot of an apartment complex.
Speaker 1:So I would never do a really small one but like a big, huge, giant apartment complex Around here. There's not enough spots in any apartment complex for the people who live there. It's going to be full. You're going to piss people off because you're taking their spot, even if the spots aren't numbered or anything like that. And even around apartment complexes the streets around apartment complexes around here are super packed, so it will not work around here to be by an apartment complex or in the lot. However, in other parts of the country where land is not expensive, there's probably tons of spaces in the apartment complex lot. There's tons of street parking outside the apartment.
Speaker 1:I think that could be a really idea. I wouldn't go in somewhere that only has four units, because they know who lives there. Everyone's going to know everybody's car. You want to go to these big, huge, sprawling ones that have hundreds of units. Nobody knows whose cars are whose, and you need to be very stealth there. You need to make sure no one knows that you're sleeping in your car. But if you just do it one night, that could be any problem. To be in the lot for one night. On the street you could probably do it for way more than one night. I actually don't have a problem, generally speaking, with street parking over and over again, because people don't really think that much. They will just see a car multiple times and they'll just assume that somebody's car who lives around there. They won't consciously think about that, but they're just going to assume that.
Speaker 1:Another place that people talk about a lot is the lot, parking lot of a hotel. I think this is actually kind of an interesting idea. So a lot of hotels. You have to give them your license plate number, but does someone actually going out there in the middle of the night and checking every single license plate against that database? I just highly doubt that that happens on a regular basis. However, I think they collect that so if something sketchy is going on, then they can go look in the database and see if that person is actually staying in the hotel. So you also don't wanna stay in a hotel where hotel parking lot, where there isn't enough parking for the hotel, and then you're taking someone's spot because then they might actually look things up eventually. So you wanna look for a place that has a very large parking lot, that kind of has a more of a back section where you're out of the way. That could be a very, very good idea.
Speaker 1:Now I personally wouldn't go into the hotel and go in the bathroom there. I think that's asking for trouble. So that's one of my issues with the hotel is are you going in there and going to the bathroom? I feel like that's really, really pushing it. But and then of course, there's other 24-hour stores and shops and things like that that people will stay at, and whether or not that makes sense really depends upon the situation. Of course you always wanna look for are there any signs? So there's a lot that I hang out a lot, a lot I hang out at a lot, and I do not ever spend the night there, even though there's a store that's 24 hours, because there are signs all over the place.
Speaker 1:The signs don't say no overnight camping. Interestingly enough, it says that it, but it is a two-hour limit and it also says you cannot leave your car there if you're not shopping there. Interestingly enough, that doesn't say that you can't be parking there and not shopping there if you stay with your car. I park there all the time, and so do a whole bunch of other people, but it's more like people who are gig drivers or they're waiting for someone or whatever, and they're only there for an hour or two, and so you have to look at the signs and see what they say. It's not just about no overnight parking. It could have a time limit, it could have all kinds of details of things. Look to see if there's a sign that talks about security and then park there and see the security show up. There's another lot, that of a shopping center that I go to the bathroom at that shopping center on a regular basis and I have parked in the lot for an hour or two while I'm working on something or reading something or what I'm watching a show. I don't stay there any longer than that because they do have security and the security drives around.
Speaker 1:So anytime you're gonna stay at some sort of lot like that, you do have to do a little bit of reconnaissance and see what signs are there? Is there security patrolling around? Are there other people there? And you want to balance out. Like, sometimes there's a whole lot of people who are camping in a lot. It can make it sketchy, and so you have to, because it can attract criminal people who are breaking into things. I'm not worried about the people who are sleeping there, I'm worried about the other people. I'm not worried about the people showing up, not because I, to be honest, I'm actually not super worried about someone breaking in my car. What I'm worried about is they're doing sketchy things and then the cops show up and want to talk to every single person in every single car because I had to happen, and that is, I do not want to get the knock, because I do not even want to deal with that drama. So, yeah, you want to do some investigation.
Speaker 1:And one thing I do want to remind you is do not discount paying for camping, and I pay for camping on a regular basis when I'm traveling. I pay for camping. Every so often, when I'm in town, I go out to a campground, and the reason is is that it is a great way to regroup. You have a picnic table, you have a campsite, you don't have to move for a while. You can redo everything in your car. You can reorganize things, clean things out. You have a bathroom to go to.
Speaker 1:Some campgrounds have water and so you can fill up all your water for free, because you're already paying for the campsite. Some of them even have a shower facility. You usually have to pay for it with quarters or something, but not always, it just depends. Some of them have laundry facilities. Some of them have electric. In the Midwest you can pay $23 a night for a campsite that has water and electric at your site.
Speaker 1:So you do want to factor in when you're thinking about whether or not you're gonna pay for camping is what services do they have at that campsite, at that campground? And so does it actually make it somewhat cost effective, because not only do you not have to pay for that from another way, but you don't have to go find it, go to the hassle of it. It is also really good. If the weather's bad or something, you haven't been able to use your solar panels, oh, you can go to this campsite and charge up everything. Now, electric campsites in California and other parts of the West are very few and far between. They tend to be more at RV parks, but in the Midwest there's a lot of them. I think the state park campgrounds will have electric, so you really have to research the place that you're in, but there's a lot of places to park when you live in your car.
Speaker 1:Now, as I said, my favorite places, my favorite place in town is side of the road. My favorite places while traveling, besides paid campgrounds, are rest stops and Walmart parking lots. That's where I'm at so far. So thank you so much for joining for the Living in your Car podcast and this was episode three, and I am Elizabeth Off Grid. If you would like to follow along with my travels, you can go to Elizabeth Off Grid on YouTube and I also have an Instagram, and then, of course, you can subscribe to this podcast, either on YouTube, on the Elizabeth Off Grid channel or any other place where podcasts live. Thanks so much for listening and watching. I'll talk to you later. Bye-bye. Always Be A couch.