A $134 Permanent Hotel Room: My Honda Fit Car Camper

THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO.

If you follow me on Facebook, you may remember that last year I was looking to buy a car. And specifically, I was looking to buy a hatchback of certain proportions. I wanted a car with good gas mileage (35+ mpg) but it couldn’t be too small.

Why?

Because I wanted to build a car camper!

What exactly is a car camper? Basically, it’s when you modify your car to hold a bed, usually in the back. Instead of getting a hotel room every night on a road trip, you can save money by turning your car into a mini hotel room. Shower and all!

Now before you go running away from the crazy blogger living in a car, hear me out. I promise I’m a) not living in a car and b) not crazy. At least not because of this.

Where Did You Come Up With This Idea?

I think I first saw car campers on Pinterest. I mean obviously I knew people occasionally slept in their cars. I’ve taken plenty of roadside naps on road trips. But I think the first place where I actually saw someone create a full up bed in their car was on Pinterest.

For those of you not familiar with the concept of a car camper, here are some links to others I like. Different people build them different ways, so you might want to check out these to see what other versions look like.

• National Geographic featured one a few years ago
• This one makes creative use of a children’s tent to extend the sleeping space
• REI gets into the nitty-gritty of building a sleeping platform

These posts also offer ideas on where to sleep in a car camper and ways to make it more comfortable, so check them out if this idea appeals to you!

Why would someone want a car camper?

Well for me, it came down to two things.

First, I don’t like long, long driving days on road trips. I prefer to drive 8 hours at the most in one day, preferably 6. But there are a lot of things that are close enough to me to want to drive to rather than fly (like my hometown!) but more than 8 hours away. It may seem like I should just fly in that case but driving has the added bonus of allowing me to bring my dog. Plus the airport near me is very expensive and not actually very near to me. Driving is the better option for some of the areas I’d like to go.

Most people would just push through driving the extra few hours, but I prefer not to. A car camper lets me drive most of the way there, pull over in a camping area to sleep for a few hours in comfort, and finish my drive in the morning. I save on the cost of a hotel that I don’t really need and still get a comfy bed. And I don’t have to worry about finding dog-friendly hotels (this can be a real problem sometimes!).

Two, the place I live now is pretty close to some interesting sites, but not so close that I can leave my house at what I deem a reasonable hour (after 8am!) and still be miles into a hike by noon. My car camper acts as a mini RV in this case. I could drive to a national park on a Friday night, for instance, and sleep in the car on a comfy mattress. Then I can wake up in the morning and hit the trail first thing. Hike all day, sleep on the memory foam mattress again that night, and drive back to my place on Sunday morning. Think of it like a pop-up trailer for much, much less money.

Plus sometimes you don’t want to be tied to a hotel schedule, ya know? When you travel with a dog you kind of have to book in advance. With a car camper you can stop wherever you want. I like that flexibility.

I still like hotel rooms and I’ll never turn down a 5-star experience, so don’t think I’m going to forgo that in the future. But for quick jaunts where I want to be able to travel quickly without a lot of hassle, this is perfect.

Designing My Honda Fit Car Camper

So, yes, I bought a Honda Fit. It was the vehicle that best balanced what I wanted in a daily driver, what I needed for a car camper, and the budget I was looking to spend.

But the Honda Fit is not very big, as you may know. So I had to figure out a way to maximize the square footage of the bed, especially in case another human or my no-concern-for-personal-space dog joined me.

At the same time, I wanted my car camper to be very easy to install and remove. Unlike a lot of the versions I found online with really robust wooden frames, I wanted mine to be as lightweight as possible while allowing for setup in literally ten minutes or less.

And, I wanted a lot of storage that was easy to access. Some of the car campers I found online had tons of storage, but you had to lift up the entire bed to access it. Or it could be accessed from the sides, but anything not on the very edges of the storage area required digging. I wanted to avoid all of that.

And I wanted to do it frugally. Not cheaply – I wanted quality products. But frugally, because the whole point is to save money when travelling.

With those thoughts in mind, I designed a bed platform that:

• took up almost every inch of the rear of the Honda Fit, giving me the largest possible bed platform
• is modular, lightweight, and easy to move in and out of the car
• and only cost $134 for everything!

My car camper isn’t the cheapest or largest you could build. But it is a really nice balance of ease, function, and value. Just what I like!

Components of my Honda Fit Car Camper

Storage Drawer Base

The base of my bed platform is four stackable plastic drawers. I bought mine at Target for $7.99 each, but you can find a 6-pack on Amazon. I arranged these drawers for easy access from the side doors and the back. That is, the drawers nearest the back seat drawers were pointed out (the drawers at the top in this picture) and the drawers at the back of the vehicle pulled out towards the hatch. In between the drawers was space for me to fit things like a camping chair (pictured), my uniform (not pictured), and plenty of other space.

The drawers are resting on top of my folded-down back seat and the cargo floor. Some people like to remove the seats to gain more storage room, but again I wanted something I could install/uninstall in minutes. Honda Fits have Magic Seats which lie flat, creating a nice floor for the car camper base. Magic Seats may not really be magic, but they are pretty cool.

Each drawer holds a fair amount, about the size of half a large carry-on. So four drawers is approximately equal to two large carry-on suitcases.

As you can see I wanted to be able to pull the drawers at the back out fully, meaning there was a large gap between the drawers when closed and the back of the car. I had the perfect thing to fit in that space.

That green thing is a table-with-integrated-chairs that I bought when my household goods delivery was delayed last summer. When closed it packs into a case not much larger than a violin case. When opened it’s a picnic table with four chairs! It’s not the hardiest piece of furniture ever, but it’s exactly the right size for my car camper and it’s a great addition to bring along on a road trip. And to access the drawers, I simply have to pull the case out. Easy!

(note I’m not counting the price of this in the car camper expenses because I bought it for a separate reason. It just happens to fit perfectly with the design)

Car Camper Bed Platform

Next up, I needed to create a platform for my bed. Many of the tutorials I read recommended buying plywood and either leaving it rough, sanding it, or covering it with carpet. I didn’t want to leave it rough (that sounds like a terrible bed) and I wanted this to be as easy as possible. For that reason, I decided to use a plywood-sized MDF panel from Home Depot instead. You can easily find these at Lowes or similar stores, too.

Home Depot cut the panel into three pieces based on dimensions I gave them:

• 49 inches by 19 inches
• 49 inches by 18 inches
• 39 inches by 29 inches

That made the overall bed platform 66 inches long. I know that sounds short, and it’s certainly not something you will enjoy if you are 6’3″ and like to stretch out. But when you add in some extra inches due to folding the front seats forward and the mattress hanging off the end, it came out to about 72″ long. Good enough if you bend your knee a bit, or sleep diagonally.

Cutting the panel into three rectangles, rather than carefully shaping them to the interior space, gave up a few square inches of platform but it took literally about 2 minutes instead of who knows how long shaping it. I’ll take it!

I probably could’ve left the panel whole and just cut it to this shape, but like I said I wanted this to be easy. I didn’t want to have to wrestle a large, flat platform into the car. Plus, I plan to travel with my dog sometimes so I need to leave the backseat available for him. So I decided to connect the three panels in an accordion fold. That makes it easy to slide into the car, and it can easily fit in when my back seats are in place.

I attached the panels using continuous (piano) hinges. This is easy to do if you have a drill and an electric screwdriver. Because I used an accordion fold, one hinge is on the top and one is on the bottom. If you forget and put the both on the same side, it will not fold properly. Connect the two wider pieces on the “bottom” of the platform and the narrower/longer piece at the back of the car on the “top.”

As you can see, the drawers by the side doors remain easy to access. But how did I access the drawers in back, even after removing the table? After all, they are placed well back from the hatch and have a giant MDF panel on top. Ah, well that’s where the hinges are again handy. Because of the folding platform, I was able to lift just that section to access the drawers easily. With the table pulled out, it’s no problem. I can also reach into the area between the drawers for that camping chair and a hammock (the yellow thing).

Car Camper Mattress

Now for the part I’d actually be feeling – the mattress. The whole point here is to get a comfortable night’s sleep, right? So I needed a good mattress. But at the same time, every inch of mattress was one less inch of head space (this is a hatchback, so there wasn’t a ton to begin with). No 14″ pillow tops here.

I wanted to fill the entire bed platform with mattress, so I couldn’t use just any normal mattress. It needed to fit the shape. A twin mattress would’ve been too long and not wide enough. Some people use inflatable camping mats, and that’s not a bad solution. You get a lot of comfort for not too much height. But they also aren’t the right shape, and really good mats can get expensive.

Luckily, I randomly found a king-size memory foam mattress topper on clearance when I was walking through Target. I only paid $37.48 – they are usually $60 or more, sometimes far more. I’d love to say you can find the same deal, but honestly you probably won’t get as lucky. This one isn’t a bad substitute, though.

I cut the mattress topper into multiple pieces to cover the bed platform. There were pieces left over, so I created two very comfortable memory foam pillows to go with the bed. I also bought a cheap ($15) regular foam mattress topper to go under the memory foam topper to add extra cushioning.

Now, this is where I went wrong. I thought the two toppers together would make a comfy mattress. And it does, for about 4 hours. But eventually it feels like sleeping on, well, an MDF panel. So before I go out for the next trip, I plan to replace the cheap foam topper with one of my camping mats. Then I’ll still have the memory foam because, c’mon, memory foam. The mats come in a variety of sizes and styles, so I recommend looking at a few if you want to go this way. Inflatable mats are more comfortable but also more expensive and can get damaged easily. Self-inflating and foam mats are much more resilient and not as tall, but not quite as comfortable.

The Finished Car Camper

After assembling the base, platform, and mattress, I topped it all off with a queen fitted sheet and a comforter. The queen fitted sheet was a little larger than necessary, but easily wrapped around and under the MDF panel, ensuring it wouldn’t come loose.

In order to set the bed up, the front seats have to be fully pushed forward and the seat backs should be inclined forward as much as possible. This allows the pillows to rest partly on the back of the front seats which is what gets you the extra few inches of bed length.

In the end the bed is a bit shorter and a bit narrower than a full/double size mattress, or roughly what you’d get in many hotels. Except instead of sleeping in a hotel, you are using your own linens, in your car, for a one-time cost of $134 or maybe a little more.

Cost of Materials For the Car Camper

These prices are pre-tax. I’m listing them that way because your sales taxes will be different than mine. I’m also not accounting for my military discount at Home Depot.

• Four plastic drawers: $31.96
• One 3/4 inch thick, 4′ x 8′ MDF panel: $31.95
• Two 30″ continuous hinges: $17.96
• King size 1.5″ memory foam mattress topper: $37.48
• Cheapo full size mattress topper: $14.99 (you can get a foam camping mat for about this price)
• Total (pre-tax): $134.34!

There are some additional, optional items I purchased to make the car camping experience more enjoyable, but I’m going to write about that in a separate post since this is already a pretty long post. I’ll also discuss some lessons learned from my first trip in the car camper and what I need to fix for next time. Stayed tuned for that post soon.

So that’s my $134 permanent hotel room. What do you think? Would you create a car camper in your car?