Car Camping

Camping in a Car? That is crazy?! Well not really! Stay with me! 😊

Yossarian in Powalgarh

I first got into it by accident. I was on a long road trip in my Gypsy YOSSARIAN from Mumbai to Powalgarh in Uttaranchal for a Tiger Census and sleeping in the car was a way to save money. That was the initial idea but that idea has since grown on me! Park beside a Dhaba restaurant at 6pm after a hard days drive, have drink and a meal at the Dhaba, sleep in the car and then start moving by 4am for another long day of driving! I later camped out in the Powalgarh Jungle 3 days later and by then I was completely hooked on the idea!

The Gypsy Camper was an incremental project – Learn from each ride and implement the changes to make it better for the next one! Sharing the evolution of my build so it can help you with your Car-Camper!

Camper v1.0

Decided to take Yossarian for the 2008 annual Himalayan Odyssey. Setup for this trip was basic. Sold off the rear side-facing seats to get a bare rear platform. Kept bags and boxes for food and supplies here during the day. At night, pulled the driver seat all the way forward, moved all the stuff into the front seats and folded out the mattress on the floor in the rear to sleep! Only had a pathetic DC powered Car Kettle so Food on this trip was Cereals/Oats for Breakfast and MTR ready to eat meal packets for the evening. Basic, but it Worked!

Took the Spiti Route to Ladakh in 2008. Night halts in Chittorgarh and Ropar were at a Dhaba. But in the hills, I was camping beside a Fresh water source like a River or stream (dangerous in Ladakh I know!). Camped out in the car for 23 of the 30 days on this trip. The only place I stayed in a Hotel was in Leh Town. Ton of fun and saved a lot of money!

Learned a lot too! It got really stuffy inside the cabin at night! Cracking the window helped improve the circulation but created other problems. It was way too hot in the plains (dry heat) and way too cold in the mountains. Plus it got really dusty inside the poorly sealed hard top of the Gypsy!

Camper v2.0

Version 2.0 was the biggest upgrade! Completely upgraded the Electricals with Dual Battery, Inverter and Vent Fans, Improved comfort for Sleeping etc. What started as a Dual Battery upgrade project to enable fitting Vent fans grew and grew in scope! Instead of heading out Jungle Camping every weekend, our gang met up to work on the Build! Took way too long! So much so that 2009 I had to take the Bullet bike instead for Ladakh! Camper 2.0 build was finally completed only in Nov 2009!

2008 trip had taught me the need to have some kind of venting in the cabin to make Sleeping comfortable and the Vent Fan would have to run through the night. However Vent Fan would require cutting a 12×12 inch hole in the roof which I was hesitant to do. M came up with the idea of using Electric fans used in Gaming Computer builds. These are not regular Computer Fans – Gaming Fans have a high CFM value of 90+ and are really silent! They also have 3 pins so theoretically can be controlled by an Arduino based controller. I didn’t do the controller and connected the fans directly but it is Possible to do it! Much more expensive though – regular computer fans come for 30-60 Rupees. Good Gaming Computer Fans start from Rs.600! EACH! I bought 4 of them and fitted them in between the Fiber sandwich walls of the Hard Top – 2 in the rear and 2 on the B-pillar. While fitting the fans, also sealed up the cabin to the best of my ability! M helped – a little!

How do you run the Fans through the night and avoid draining the battery? Dual Battery Setup – one primary battery and a secondary camping battery. The idea is to Run all the camping gear off the secondary Battery. This way even if we exhaust the Secondary Battery while camping, we will still be able to start and run the car off the primary!

Sourced an Isolator Fuse from the US which allows the Secondary Battery to charge while the car is being driven but isolates the Primary Battery completely when in Camping Mode. All Electrical equipment in the rear cabin was powered via the Secondary Battery through a Separate Wiring harness we built and connected to a Secondary Fusebox (borrowed from a Maruti 800). It was a separate circuit altogether. When I sold the Gyp 10 years later, i merely pulled out the secondary harness and Fusebox entirely to get it back to stock!

Powered the Vent Fans, Cabin Lamp – no LED back then so borrowed one from Ambassador car - and a 240V inverter off the secondary Fusebox. Also upgraded the batteries to 90AH and the alternator to a bigger one sourced from the Suzuki Baleno. Some challenges - like Stereo was not available in Camping Mode because it remained connected to the Primary Wiring setup that was left untouched.

The original idea was to use an inverter battery for the secondary. However I got a really good deal on the Car Batteries – So both Primary and Secondary were regular “Amaron Green” brand 90ah batteries. I measured the voltages both when settling down in the evening and waking up. The secondary battery worked perfectly and did not lose much charge even with the Vent Fans running through the night for 9 hours+! The secondary battery would get fully charged within 3 hours of driving! The one instance where the Secondary Battery got completely discharged was when I camped for 3 days straight in the jungle near Dimbum. 

Honestly, You don’t really need Solar Panels (They didn’t work!) if you are driving 100kms everyday! The Isolator fuse worked perfectly - the Secondary gets charged fully within 2/3 hours of driving. A friend who deals with Solar panels installed a panel on my Gyp for the 2010 Ladakh trip to test it out. It lasted for 3 days only till I crossed Simla. By the time I reached a little ahead of Rampur in Himachal, the Roof mounted Solar setup had started falling apart with the bad roads. 

For breakfast used another trick suggested by M – Dry Poha! Make dry poha like usual but without onions and carry this in an airtight box. Take a bowl of this stuff, pour a little hot water, cover the bowl and 3 minutes later you have HOT poha! Healthy, nutritious and cheap! The MTR packets were only backup on this trip. Drinking water was from a 20L Can replenished at intervals on the way. Drinking water was a big challenge always and had to be carefully rationed!

Bought a cheap "Cement gamla” of the kind used by construction workers and used that as a makeshift BBQ. Would buy Chicken/Beef on the way and marinate it in a sealed plastic bag. In the evenings, lit up a bit of charcoal in the gamla to BBQ the meat. Went somewhat ok with Rum except for the Petrol smell! Chicken is ok -quick to do but Beef takes time on this makeshift BBQ! Took years to get the hang of it! Never did BBQ on Ladakh trips after 2010 and BBQ was restricted to our weekend Jungle trips after that!😊

In 2008, the Cardboard boxes holding Groceries broke up by the time I reached Leh. So for v2 bought 10x “Simtex” brand Ice coolers I got for cheap from Karol Bagh in Delhi. These boxes also doubled up as a base for my mattress. Surprisingly good! I sold these 10 years later for more than what I had paid for it – they were still as good as new! Kept food insulated but also more importantly – everything was free of Dust! Cabin gets REALLY dusty driving in the Himalayas!

Overall the v2 setup was a HUGE upgrade! Everything worked perfectly including the “Vent Fans”. Only problem was the BBQ setup. Kinda-sorta worked but setting it up and getting a fire going in the Himalayas in the evenings after a long, hard days drive was more of a challenge than I had imagined! Wood was not really an option so used charcoal. I had Zero experience with this so the meat always had a distinct petrol stink!

I also originally thought it would be nice to sit outside the Gyp in the evenings, do the BBQ and have my Rum+Meat watching the night sky! Bought a nice folding chair+table from Decathlon for this!  Good idea in theory, not so much in Practice! Realized this the 1st time I tried to do this between Nako & Tabo in Spiti Valley. It gets freezing cold after 6pm and the freaky winds don’t help either! That didn’t quite work. So typically, I would park the Gyp and get into camping mode by turning the Gyp rear cabin into my bedroom, prepare my drink and food and have it inside on the “Bed”.

PS: Another important thing to remember. When parking the car at the Camping place, ensure it is level and well secured. It should not place any undue stress on the gear box while parked. Learnt this lesson the Hard way! This can be more of a challenge in practice than it seems! But you got to be careful.

Camper v3.0

v3 was more of an incremental upgrade to get real food on camping trips. Bought a 2 burner propane Gas Stove (Everest make). The stove was an impulse purchase on a US trip and M built a Chuck Box to house it! The Chuck box was custom built in M’s garage to perfectly fit the stove and fit exactly on the rear tailgate of the Gypsy replacing 4 of the cooler boxes in the rear. When folded down, it served as one end of my bed. Had to cook with the Tailgate open. Bought a Frying pan and the smallest Pressure Cooker I could find and sourced a propane cartridge from Gurgaon. Another important learning – At altitudes above 8000ft ASL, it takes 15-20 minutes to just get water to a boil to make tea! So you absolutely need a pressure cooker to cook in the Himalayas!

Worked PERFECTLY! Now I had real food! Omelettes and Sourdough Toast for breakfast. Chicken Pulao or usually just Dal-Khichdi for dinner! Supplies last in the mountains without refrigeration. Atleast I didn’t face any problem. Spinach and Leafy vegetables tended to wilt quickly at high altitudes. But Carrots, Potatoes, French beans, Onions and Green Peas hold out quite well. I bought Sourdough loaves in Simla and Leh Town and they lasted for 3/4 days each time without any problem. Eggs have to be stored carefully though as the roads get pretty rough.

This v3 setup stayed for 8 years till the Gypsy was sold – 4 trips to Ladakh and a dozen local weekend Jungle ghooming trips to Masinagudi, Kutta etc.

A minor change was the addition of a Dometic brand 35L 12v car fridge in 2012 which replaced one of the 4 storage boxes immediately behind the passenger seat! Fridge was a HUGE upgrade! Cant think of building a car camper without it now! 

What would I change if I had to do it again?

Camper 4.0 – Gypsy to Toyota 4Runner

Gypsy is not an option in North America! And I wouldn’t advise anyone buying Gypsy or Jimny again even if it was available! There are much better options out there! For North America, I would do this with a Ford Bronco or Toyota 4Runner or Honda Passport as a platform.

Other upgrades?

– Roof Top Tent – Used this on my last car-camping trip and loved the idea! Not very expensive, very well built and very compact when folded down. Major cons are the road noise at higher speeds and the changed dynamics with all the weight on the roof. The road handling on the Passport especially is distinctly weird with a roof top mounted so rethinking this approach. Plus sleeping inside the car is definitely safer than the RTT.

– Chuck box idea in v3.0 was a stroke of genius! Worked perfectly! But every week when I went out Jungle camping, I would have to carry the heavy box down to the car - not easy when going solo! So this time, Instead of making one large chuck box sized to fit the rear tailgate, I think I would build a permanently fitted box platform of wheel well height for the rear cargo area which would hold all the kitchen stuff and serve as the base for the mattress.  One challenge with tailgate cooking setup is that we have to cook with the rear tailgate open. Not a worry normally, but this can be a challenge when camping in windy conditions above 10K feet like in Debring. and though I never had a problem, I was paranoid about cooking in the tailgate area with the gas tank so close by. The Gypsy gas tank was RIGHT there at the tailgate!

- The storage box/platform will also have space to fit a deep cycle battery here instead of an AGM battery under the bonnet. Deep Cycle batteries are more efficient for Camping use than AGM batteries. But it is unsafe to mount these under the bonnet because of the heat issues which is why we use AGM batteries wgen mounting there. Making space for 1 or even 2 100AH Deep Cycle batteries in the Cabin Floor at the Tailgate would make the setup more efficient.

– 240V Inverter was NEVER used! Orig idea behind fitting it was to be able to work while travelling. In practice it was NEVER used! Not once! And it only added to the complexity of the wiring harness we built!

– Need to devise some better solution for Drinking Water management. Biggest challenge!

- The build in 2008-2009 took too long! The build project suffered from classic scope creep and for almost 18 months, the Gyp was never used in the way it was meant to be used! No Jungle Ghooming trips at all! Wont be making that mistake again! Plan out the build and do it all at once and thats it! No building and rebuilding business!

In Closing – Car Camping is a great fun idea! Just remember to be safe doing this in India. When in the plains, stick to car camping beside Dhabas/Restaurants like Kamat. Parking anywhere else at night could attract unwanted attention! I learnt this the hard way on 2 occassions - Guna in MP and Chamarajpet in the South. 

In the mountains, It is a good idea to park next to a fresh water source so you dont have to use your drinking water supply to wash up. However, be very careful about doing this in the Himalayas. Water bodies in the Himalayas can suddenly change course without warning! Had a bad experience in Lhosar once and another time in Zanskar – got scarred for life with that! 😂

Drinking Water management has been one of the biggest challenges when car-camping for long duration like on a Ladakh Trip. Might not seem so, but it is harder than it looks! Something to fix in v4.0!

Like what you read? You can support my work with a small contribution. Scan the image or go to buymeacoffee.com/KaleshiBua to make your contribution.

 #startup #smallbusiness #startuplife #techstartup @buymeacoffee #gofundme