27F Solo Car Camping Freezing Temps in My 4Runner

It is snowing outside. We are losing daylight. It's going to get below freezing tonight and I need to find somewhere to sleep. Okay, Google Maps here. Oh my gosh, and there is. We should be coming up on our campsite any second. Okay, I think this is it. It is quiet. There is absolutely no one around. This is the road we just drove up to get here and then the road keeps going that way and I think there are more campsites up that way. It is eerily quiet. We really lucked out with this Forest Service Road. If you are fortunate enough in an area that has BLM, Land, Bureau of Land Management, that has Forest Service Roads, often you just need to look onto Google Maps or you can Google Forest Service Roads near me and these roads aren't always clearly marked. You might have to do a little bit of digging to find them but normally they are roads that sometimes are paved but most often are back roads and these spots are really great in the nick of time if you are pressed to find a spot for the night because normally they have designated campsites along these roads and you can stay at them for free. It's first come first serve. It might not look like it's snowing. There is like a very light dusting happening and it's in that in between of like it's not quite freezing but it's getting there so it's more of like a misty rain that will definitely turn into snow this evening if it continues to rain because it's supposed to get to a low of 26 degrees. So hopefully we stay toasty warm tonight in our home away from home for the evening. This is the campsite and there is a pre-made fire ring and it looks like someone very recently made a fire and there's also some kindling here that we could use but everything is pretty wet. It has been raining all day long and even if I wanted to make a fire I really don't think I could. We managed to find a really level spot which I'm very excited for. I found that with car camping it's more often than not that you're on some sort of slant and it's rare to find a level spot so very excited about this. When I am car camping I like to make sure that the driver's seat is completely clear and this is for safety reasons because if I'm in a situation where forbid I need to evacuate the campsite quickly I don't need to fuss with anything that's in the driver's seat and I can make a quick exit out. And another thing I'd like to note in that regard I have backed into my campsite so that way if I need to leave I can drive straight out and either make a left or a right and behind you there's another exit that I can do. I have multiple exits. When I'm camping by myself I like to make sure that I have plenty points of exit in order to get out so I'm not locked in. So what did we learn? Always have the driver's seat open, ready to be sat in, back into your campsite, have multiple exit points. I'm really glad it's not raining too heavily so I can be outside a little bit. It's hard for you to see isn't it? I'm gonna put up the twinkle lights. Twinkle lights. Okay so this needs to be plugged in so that I'm gonna tuck the duct tape. Okay and then plug this in to our anchor and we hit AC outlet. We are at 98 percent and voila we have a freshly lit car. I also have a very exciting addition to my car camping setup. I have a new mattress that fits perfectly in the back seat of my 4Runner. Look at this thing. It's just me sleeping on there tonight but it would definitely comfortably fit up to one other maybe two other people. So I did bring my sleeping quilt and I'm actually going to sleep on the sleeping quilt. I'm gonna lay the sleeping quilt down because that way there's a barrier between me and the air mattress and what that does is it increases the R value which is basically how insulated you are from losing heat from whatever you're laying on. So I have my air mattress and then I have this my down feathered Enlightened Equipment quilt. I'll link everything that I have in this car in my bio if you're interested in the details of my setup. In addition to my Enlightened Equipment quilt that I'm sleeping on I also brought my Marmot sleeping bag. This is the Marmot Women's Yure and it's rated for zero degrees Fahrenheit but when a sleeping bag is rated for a specific temperature for example zero degrees Fahrenheit that is the most extreme temperature that this sleeping bag will keep you insulated in. Meaning you'll still be cold at zero degrees Fahrenheit but you'll survive. So what you want to do is you want to think about like okay tonight it's going to get to 29 degrees Fahrenheit and this goes down to zero degrees Fahrenheit so it's probably going to keep me warm at 29 degrees Fahrenheit but if I were camping in some situation for some reason where it was zero degrees Fahrenheit sure I would survive in this thing but I wouldn't be very warm. I would feel cold. Does that make sense? So for example what I would not sleep with tonight is a sleeping bag that is rated for 30 degrees Fahrenheit. I would be chilly. The precipitation has stopped which I'm honestly shocked. It was really coming down there for a second. I've already had dinner. I've already had dinner so we don't need to have dinner sorted out which is quite nice. We just get to relax and enjoy nature until bedtime. Oh hey it's pretty cozy back here. Very cozy back here actually. As much as I love this view I am gonna go ahead and close I really love having the ability to close the 4Runner from the inside. That is maybe one of my favorite features of the 4Runner. I'm gonna get the car fully ready for bed that way when sleepy time comes for me I don't have to do anything. All of my chores are done. That good stuff. So first things first. Actually pretty much the only thing that I can think of that we really have to do is crack the windows. Now you might be asking yourself why are you cracking the windows when it's gonna be 26 degrees Fahrenheit tonight? Which is a fair question because normally you think well it's gonna be cold outside why would you crack open the window? Don't you want to conserve the heat inside? I'm like yes of course but the thing is cars don't really conserve heat well. They're like big metal boxes. You can pretty much guarantee that it's gonna be as cold inside the car as it is outside the car. So one it doesn't really matter all that much if you have the windows cracked but what does matter when having the windows cracked is it prevents condensation. Now you create a lot of moisture when you breathe in and out. You'd be surprised. I mean just like sit in your car with the windows up for a little bit especially when it's raining outside you'll see the windows start to fog up. That's condensation from you breathing. Now that's a bad thing when you're sleeping especially when it's below freezing because that condensation can make your body wet. It can make your sleeping bag wet which can actually make you colder and you really really really want to prevent condensation from happening if you can. So one of the ways to do that is just to crack the windows a little bit that way there's some fresh airflow and it'll stay nice and dry in here. Now if it starts like really really really raining or snowing um we'll cross that bridge when we get there but I'm gonna go ahead and crack the windows a little bit. Didn't mean to fully start the car. I think what we'll do is we'll have the windows cracked up in the front of the vehicle. Now I only have it cracked like literally this much. You really you really don't need much more than that. There we go. Also the car I don't have a thermometer but the car says it is 34 degrees Fahrenheit so it only needs to drop four degrees more before it is freezing temps. I'm actually feeling really warm right now to be honest. I'm not feeling cold at all but I have been moving around so I would imagine now that I'm sitting still I'll probably start to get a little chilly. So for the morning I do have some gloves because I would imagine it is going to be frigid in the morning. I also have an extra pair of pants and what I'm going to do with these is I'm going to stuff them in the bottom of my sleeping bag. That way when I wake up in the morning and um I want to put those things on they're a little warm at least from my body heat. I almost forgot too in addition to my sleeping bag I also have a Sea to Summit Thermalite Fabric Reactor Extreme which is basically just a sleeping bag liner. I wear it inside of my sleeping bag and it adds a little bit of warmth. I love this thing and I'm just gonna go ahead and hop right in my sleeping bag right now. I have some popcorners, some chocolate, and some zero sugar coca-cola. Trying my best to get comfy. This is a pretty good situation. I'm pretty happy with how this all turned out. All right it's about 9 16 p.m. I'm feeling pretty sleepy so I'm just gonna go ahead and turn off the lights and try to drift off to sleep. Hopefully we stay warm tonight and I will see you in the morning. Good night. It is 5 59 so it's 6 a.m. and it is 27 degrees and it feels like it is pretty chilly. I'm not gonna lie it's pretty chilly. I was toasty warm all night long. I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna turn the car on and get the heat started because I'm feeling pretty chilly and I also just like want to make sure that my car starts. Okay let's see. It paused even for just a moment and not gonna lie it kind of freaked me out. Frosty. Hello snow. Let's put the twinkle lights back in. How much battery is on this? 78 percent and I charged my phone on it all right. It is chilly. Crawling back in this sleeping bag waiting for the car to heat up. My shoes. Well as much as I want to stick around and freeze my fingies off but you know all I can seem to think about this morning is a hot cup of coffee and a baked good of some sort. A pastry something. So we're gonna go ahead and uh pack up and head to a coffee shop. He's thirsty. Come here. Hi JK. Come here. Come on. Good boy. Well that's gonna be the end of the video for me. Thank you so much for watching. If you like that share, like, subscribe, all that good stuff and I will see you in the next one. Bye.