This document is about my life living in a car. There is a spiritual element to it because I'm a Christian, but the main purpose of this document is to provide information for anyone who decides to live in their car.
The question for why to live in your car is an important one because there should always be a good reason for living in your car. Car living is not something you should do without a good reason because there are too many downsides to it. Without a good reason, you will not be able to be confident enough to overcome the resistance society has against it.
There are a few points of resistance that come from society against car living. One point of resistance is the law. The law prohibits dispersed camping in BLM or National Forest land for more than 20-30 days, depending on the area, for a certain radius. While the law is very gray on many things, one thing is sure: You aren't allowed to stay in one area for too long. In addition, residents of an area will also sometimes complain that there is an unusual vehicle nearby. While this is fairly unfriendly and quite evil behavior, it can happen nonetheless, and should be considered. Lastly, it's not very common for God to agree that you should live in your car, and that is definitely a point of resistance.
For all of these reasons, living in your car should be done only in rare circumstances and with good reasons.
I want to be brief about why I lived in my car because my story can be complicated, especially since it stems from mental illness. Put short, I was fired or left 8 jobs in 5 years. I had a job for 7 years, but once I became a Christian, I developed a mental illness, and was forced to leave or was fired from 8 jobs in 5 years. I had faith that God had something in my future, so I decided the 8th time was the last straw, and moved into my car. I maintained confidence that my previous employer would hire me back, and spent 18 months in my car with the hope of that happening.
The first main thing you'll need living in your car is good cell service. When I first moved into my car, I was super newb and did not always have very good cell service.
The second thing you typically want to have is to be on public land, i.e. national forest, BLM, or state land. Basically, anything except private property.
The third thing you will need is good weather, i.e. COOL weather. In a car, at least in the U.S., you can easily find warm weather, but finding cool weather can be a challenge in the summer. The best place for this in the U.S. is the northern west coast, which can have days as low as the 50s fahrenheit even in the middle of summer.
Now that we've covered the 3 main things, we can talk about maps. There are 3 maps that I use to find good spots to spend the night or even to stay during the day. The first is Google Maps, for street view, to identify a spot and scout it out. I also use Verizon's Cell Coverage map to make sure it has 5G UW (dark red), or at least good 4G coverage, which would require the 5G UW signal to be nearby (4G can be very bad if not). The third map I use is the U.S. government's online BLM map, which shows other land types as well, and can be used to see if there is any private property, or maybe it's on private property and therefore is not a good spot.
It is important that you have income or a lot of savings. I've found that to safely live in your car, it is the same cost as living in an apartment in Boise, Idaho. That might sound extreme, but I believe that living in your car should have a significant amount of fun, otherwise you're doing something wrong and likely will not have the right amount of confidence in your reasons for doing it, which will cause the problems mentioned in section 1.
And of course you will need to decide how you're going to eat. For me, I bought food 100% of the time after realizing I didn't want to cook. This was an interesting aspect of car living that I didn't expect, as I thought I'd be cooking. For me, the Lord had different plans and I never cooked.
Get a Planet Fitness Black Card membership for showers, or you can go to truck stops/campgrounds for showers.
Because of the dangers of living in your car, it helps to have faith. This will also help with your confidence that you are doing the right things and going to the right areas.
There are many people who live in their car for the wrong reasons. You should make sure that there is absolutely no alternative solution to your situation than to live in your car, before you decide to do it.
Secondly, do not stay in one spot for too long. There is a high amount of respect for people that is needed, and to exhibit that respect (as well as respect for the law), you should not stay for an amount of time that would indicate that you are trying to make it your home or something. Your top priority should be having fun, and making a spot your home isn't really the level of fun that you should be exhibiting. You live in your car, and you should be travelling.
Thirdly, I want to mention that worrying about money is not a good idea, as that reduces the amount of fun that you can have. While I would say you shouldn't be recklessly spending money, you also should not be worrying about money. As I said, I didn't cook when I lived in my car, which can be expensive, but conforms to the standard of fun that I believe helps to stay out of trouble.
And believe me, having fun does keep you away from conflicts, generally speaking.
Living in your car is a very good response to some rare situations because you do not have any of the pitfalls that you used to have, thanks to cell phones. It is a much more viable thing to do nowadays, assuming you can avoid the dangers and know what to expect.
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Wine, since it tastes good at room temperature
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Get a car phone mount, and a stand for your phone, to watch videos on it.
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BATTERIES - Get extras, and use your car battery (you can remove fuses to save power).
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Hest Memory Foam Mattress (short one)
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Zero degree sleeping bag