Start of our adventure

Several years ago we had a large car and had planned to go off out for the evening and sleep overnight in it. This was long before I knew that there's a whole community out there doing exactly that. Then I had my hip replaced and it went drastically wrong leaving me with a paralysed leg. It's taken me two years to get my leg strong again and though it will never be fully OK it's probably as good as it's going to be. Fast forward two years since my op and the longing to sleep out somewhere in the car hit me again. Two weeks ago we  I decided once again that car camping looked like great fun. We bought a couple of sleeping bags and after watching the weather forecast we picked a day. There's a great phone app called  Park4Night and if you type in a town it will show you whether there are any paces worth considering as a parking spot. We were delighted to find that one of our favourite places had a great spot where parking was free between 6.30pm and 9am.  We packed up the car and headed over there with a bit of trepidation thinking it might be absolutely heaving. To our great delight the car park was virtually empty so we parked up and went into the town centre for a night out. After a nice meal and a couple of drinks we headed back to the car where we slept in the front seats for the night. We didn't want to adapt the car just in case I didn't feel safe but it was great fun and surprisingly comfortable. After reading a few blogs and watching loads of You Tube videos we bought some wind deflectors for the windows and a large sheet of plywood to make a bed base. The wind deflectors allow us to open the windows a crack and stops wind and sneaky hands coming into the car. It's definitely worth adding them as the car will be streaming with condensation if there's no ventilation. 

We are planning on turning the back of the car into a sleeping area using the ply wood for the bed base. I've covered the top with a large piece of carpet and added carpet strips on the bottom so that it doesn't scratch up the car interior

The bottom of the plywood

I've made a nice comfortable mattress to use on the bed base and we are already planning our next overnight sleep over. It's getting a bit late in the year for us to do much overnight car camping but we've have already booked a spot on my southern friend's drive for next year. It's a fabulous way to visit friends and we'll be browsing the app for places to stay for a night or two.