Nissan March 'the tin' camper

I wanted to write a post about both of our DIY campers, but in the middle of my picture hunt I realized that it would be endless, so I'm going to break it into two parts. The first one is about our little blue hero. The second one is available here.

Let's start at the beginning. We had a Nissan March, which was not only adorable but also had a magical ability to fit into any space and park without much struggle. At first, the idea of sleeping in the car didn't even occur to us, so we camped like normal people.

Then our daughter was born and suddenly a camping tent wasn't big enough or warm enough or safe enough. Only then we started looking into campers, hoping to buy one if we're lucky.
The thing about them: the ones that are affordable also tend to be used or old so all that money that you didn't spend on buying it, you'll have to spend on repairing and maintaining it.
And the ones that were new, big and efficient had a price tag that we would only be ok with if we live in it full-time. Clearly, we weren't ready for such a step, so a compromise was reached: we would take baby steps and allow ourselves to make some affordable mistakes and then if we do use it and do love it, maybe one day we could upgrade it to something bigger.

Yes, maybe trying to camp in a car this small with a toddler and hope for comfort is over-ambitious, but sometimes you just have to do the best you can with what you've got.

It started with figuring out how to have lunch inside the car. Memo turned one of the front seats around and was somehow able to fit a foldable plastic table inside. Did it take us ages to convert the car into the lunch area and back? You bet it did.

The next thing we conquered was cooking.

After buying the stove with a little gas tank, my husband made the base that would hold it in place. As you can see, it involved a lot of recycled wood from other projects, duct tape and that same plastic table.

The gas tank fits inside the box just next to a cooler. Both things could only be accessed if the 'kitchen' slid to the side.

Later on, it got an upgrade that included a 'sink', but we quickly came up with a much more efficient way of washing hands and dishes so what you see on the picture was only used one time.

That whole thing was removable and was stored in the cargo box at night.

Most of the time we used it outside of the car.

It always required some sort of a second table.

The next thing was to figure out how to convert two rows of narrow seats into a bed. My husband spent a lot of time designing it, building it and then adjusting everything a bunch of times.
In the end, it looked like this.

Three wooden boards with hinges. While we're driving, they would be stored in the cargo box, and then come out when we needed to make a bed. It took a few tries to close the trunk just right for the pieces to fit properly. Tte back of the seat is folded forward and everything becomes perfectly flat with the weight of our bodies.

Sofi also got a bed. It could be used as a table during the day and transformed into her bed with wooden bars.





Straight up this was not the most useful thing in our car.

We ended up eating outside most of the time for one reason or another.

Oh, and the child mostly slept with us.

Sometimes she couldn't fall asleep and we would just give in.

Other times it was too cold in the car, and sleeping together was the only option.

Space, as you can see, is very limited, which has resulted in serious back pains in the morning.

But for a chance to travel and wake up to this...

... it was absolutely worth it. Take this stupid picture as proof that your spirit can totally survive a horrible restless night.

Now let's get to the biggest downside of it all - the tremendous amount of time that it took to convert from 'driving' mode to 'eating', 'cooking' or 'sleeping'.
The space was so limited, every single thing had a designated place.

Which means you'd first have to take everything out.

Then turn the seat around.

And then proceed to assemble it again the way you need it.

It took us anywhere from 1,5 to 2 hours every time. Such a struggle. And our child is very forgiving in that sense, she can entertain herself for a very long amount of time. I can only imagine how hard this would be for someone with less patient children.

There have been times when we chose to sleep in our front seats and put Sofi in the back either because we didn't have time to do all the movements before going to sleep or the morning after, or in parking lots that only allow 8 hours of parking and technically could ask us to move.

Sharing a tiny bed with a toddler seemed amazing in comparison.

Overall, camping in that car required some serious teamwork.

But I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who likes camping and wants to take it up a bit. The places we've seen and the adventures we've had thanks to that little 'tin' heavily overweigh all the inconveniences.

My husband even found a way to shower.

Never give up, even if something seems ridiculously unachievable. It might as well be. But if you at least give it a try, a lot of things will turn out to be very doable.
Be happy, find positivity in 'the bad' and 'the awkward', don't neglect your curiosity and don't apologize for being weird. We're all weird by default.
Tune in next week for the second part where I explain how we converted our new Toyota Avanza into a much more comfortable camper.