Money saving and a car mentioned in the same sentence? That's crazy talk one might think, and in a way it is. Let's be honest: in most cases owning a car is NOT going to cheaper than not owning one. If you already happen to have one though, you might want to consider saving some of the money you still have left after covering the upkeep of the car :).

Having a hotel that moves can give you many kinds of benefits.

Accommodation can eat up a huge chunk of one's travel budget and I thought that sharing our car hotel setup could help someone save a bit of money while traveling or even make traveling possible in the first place! We used to sleep in a tent a lot before figuring out that sleeping in our car is not only cheap but easy and relatively comfortable as well. We still like to spend our nights in a tent but usually only if we really are in the wilderness and/or not traveling by car.

So what makes sleeping in a car so cheap, easy and even comfortable? Cost savings can come in a couple of different ways. Obviously spending nights in hotels, hostels, villas, apartments etc. costs money while sleeping in your car usually doesn't. In addition to the obvious you might save a bit of money because most of the time you don't have to travel any extra to and from your accommodation. More often than not accommodations in nice locations are quite outrageously priced so one can be forced to spend his nights a bit further from the action and end up wasting money and time to get there.

Sleeping in your very own mobile hotel is quite easy as well! While sleeping in the very center of a big city can be a bit awkward and perhaps not even allowed, finding relatively calm and even beautiful locations out of cities isn't usually too problematic. Big parking lots, small roads, meadows, river banks etc. can offer great places for sleeping!

And comfortable you say? This naturally depends on many factors but one doesn't exactly need a 30 feet long American style mobile home to feel relatively comfortable. Just know that it's never going to be a 5-star hotel. A station wagon with the possibility to extend the trunk by folding the back seats is a great option. It's quite important to be able to lower the back seats all the way down to make the trunk floor flat or you're going to need a thick mattress to compensate. We carry and use the same small and light inflatable mattresses that we use while hiking and they work like a charm.

Taking a shower isn't usually a problem either. We carry some extra water with us for washing and especially in the summer staying warm is not all that difficult. In some countries one can even find cheap public showers next to parking lots designed for trucks and their drivers. In the winter one might want to skip the shower and concentrate on staying warm instead. Priorities... :).

Making things ready for sleeping takes us usually about half an hour, which is probably faster than finding accommodation online, paying for it, finding the actual location and finally checking in. To make the car ready for sleeping we have to:

• Fold the back seats (usually once per trip)
• Move the front seats as far forward as we can
• Move our stuff from the trunk and the back seat to the front seats and the ski box
• Inflate the mattresses (usually once per trip)
• Open the back windows slightly for ventilation

In the morning we don't even have to unfold the back seats or deflate the mattresses unless we're planning to pick up some hitchhikers or to hike.

Stuff moved to the front seats

Finally everything ready for a good night's sleep!

Everything's back in order in no time as well!

All in all I'm very happy with our low budget car sleeping setup and throughout the years it has saved us a lot of time and money, which is quite important when you travel more than a couple of times a year. If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments!