Van Life Road Tripping - Cold Nights/Warm Sleep

Aside from physical safety from intruders or anyone or thing meaning harm, no issue probably concerns would-be Van Lifers heading out in the colder months more than the question of whether and how to sleep out there on a cold night. The good news is that the risk of harm from people or animals is probably far less in the cold when it is unlikely that kids will be out drinking or drag racing in a parking lot or remote hideaway. So that risk is considerably mitigated on cold, wet, windy, snowy or otherwise miserable nights. The even better news is that dealing with the cold in a van overnight is far easier and more comfortable than you will guess. Overall, I feel a lot more secure and confident sleeping out in a public place on a cold or rainy night than at any other time.

So let’s deal with the cold issue directly. Some basic physics will get us started. Is it in fact colder or warmer in an unheated vehicle than immediately outside? This is not a trivial question. I have puzzled over this much of my life after I was told very confidently by an adult while in my impressionable teens that sitting in a car in the winter will be colder than sitting outside. I had no reason to doubt that but it never made a lot of sense to me. Still, there seemed to be some truth to it sometimes. One often can experience a bone chilling cold when just sitting inside a car that had no heat on for awhile. So what’s up?

Well, there are two aspects to cold that are important, the actual cold and that which we experience. In news-speak, this difference is the foundation for all those wind chill figures the weathermen and women gush about. We may be sitting in air that is in fact 35 degrees, but the rate of heat loss from our bodies to that air may be enhanced by wind and if so it might feel like it is only 20 degrees. But it won’t be 20 degrees and that is something often misunderstood. Wind chill or its cousins will never reduce the temperature of something to below the ambient temperature of the air, no matter how fast it is moving past. A 100 miles an hour wind in air that is 35 degrees will still only make an object 35 degrees.

For similar reasons, if you are sitting inside a car or van, the wind outside can be howling but your vehicle will not get below the termperature of the actual air outside. The vehicle might lose its residual heat quicker if it is blowing stink out there, but it won’t go below the actual air temperatures. And the air inside won’t be moving either so you will not experience rapid heat loss due to wind chill inside.

But you still might feel colder than the actual temperatures would indicate, and that is because you are probably surrounded by heat sinks, things that suck up the heat your body is producing and so draws that heat away and makes you feel colder. This acts in the same fashion as wind chill. These can be some glass, some plastic, your seats, and most clearly any metal you touch or get near The softer that surface, the less it will act like a heat sink. The harder, the more likely it will make you feel cold. When I was a kid, seats were plastic; they felt damned cold when you first got in.

This physics summary gives us most of what we need to know. Just get inside, reduce drafts (though you will not eliminate them; I usually crack a window a half an inch even on the coldest nights to get some fresh air inside and reduce moisture buildup), and cover over any hard surfaces with soft material. All of that alone will dramatically increase your body temperature and the air next to it. Your body heat will be retained and the air you actually sit in will stay pretty warm.

And the last bit of physics needed is the fact that the less air you have to warm with your body heat the less energy or heat it will take to get that air to a desirable temperature. Smaller spaces are considerably more efficient. The main point is that it is not only better to have a smaller car or van, but you don’t even need to try and heat all of that interior space, just the area next to you.

That last point is the next most important factor. Try and only heat up with your body and breath that air that actually is right there in contact with you. The smaller that space, the more likely your body will keep that area warm and comfortable without any help from an artificial heat source.

This is why a large RV needs a heater. If you are going to be in an RV you are going to expect to walk around in it. And you are going to want all that air you walk around in to be warm. That is a big job taking a lot of energy and your body’s own heat will be wholly inadequate for that task. You will need to investigate all the many artificial heating sources available, which I will not go into here at all. Check out the many You Tube videos on all of that if you want some guidance. But if you are going to sleep in your small van or car, you don’t have room for that and most importably you don’t actually need it.

I cocoon my actual sleeping area inside an interior wall of blankets or sheets or tarps or whatever. I hang them over my head and sleeping bag opening so that I am comfortable; my shoulders and head are inside a close zone of comfort. But the wall or inner tent of blankets or sheets are not right next to my face and my breath. The space is large enough to permit some fresh air for breathing. I can adjust the ventilation needed to strike the right balance between retained heat and fresh air by just moving them around a bit, maybe opening out a little channel of fresh air to the van overall.

And usually, the temperatures inside my cocoon are around 50 degrees or higher, even if it is 5 degrees outside and maybe 20 degrees in the van generally. If outside it is around freezing or above I don’t even need to do this, my body heat will keep the whole inside of my minivan warm enough for sleeping comfort without having to seal myself up further in an inner cocoon. But as the outside temperatures plummet, I just start adding this cocoon structure around my torso and head. The feet are just fine buried inside the sleeping bag.

This isn’t a hard thing to do. The main thing is to be prepared with a sheet, tarp, blanket or comforter to hang over you and have a place to hang them from. I use small clips (clothes line clips work well) attached to a bungee cord running over my head from one over-the-door hand hold to another. A few clips will attach the the blanket where I need it, are fully adjustable and will create the dome of warm air inside where I remain very warm, cozy and comfortable.

There really remains only one circumstance when the outside cold intrudes. And that is when I actually need to get out of bed. For this there is one very handy tool and your car or van probably already comes with it. The remote start on your key fob. Before you go to bed do several things. Turn off the inside lights that might come on when the engine starts. Turn off the auto setting on the outside lights that might do the same. You don’t want to broadcast to the world that your engine just started. Then turn up your heater settings; I find the defrost on high is a good one to use since it gets air into the back area efficiently. Then about 3 minutes before you want to get out from your bag and inner cocoon, hit your remote start button and you will soon be in all the comfort you need.

This remote start feature is a good confidence builder too. You can go to sleep knowing that if in the middle of the night you get really dangerously cold for some reason, you are only a click away from heat.

A couple of things to keep in mind however. One is that many cars will not allow more than two remote starts without the car being started normally. So you might not be able to do this all night long unless you have a means to start the car with your foot on the brake every third time. Second, the remote start may only last 10 or 15 minutes. But that is plenty of time for your engine to heat up the insides of your van. Thirdly, the batteries in most remote key fobs are not terribly robust and may not put out enough of a signal when they are frozen. So sleep with a key fob inside your bag, or maybe under your pillow. If you forget this, then just put the fob under an arm pit for a few minutes and it will probably work fine.

Also, in addition to your key fob, put your phone and any other battery operated devices inside your bag or at least under your pillow. You want those to work too, and really cold temperatures are not good for lithium batteries.

Experiment with your key fob and its ability to start the engine from inside the vehicle. I am not sure but I think the remote start features are mostly designed not to work inside the car. I have gotten around this by simply reducing the signal of the fob as I start the engine. I put my hands or a large part of my body around it. That will reduce the signal to the point where the car will think that it is outside where it should be.

And if you don’t have remote start or you need to start more than twice in a night? I keep two walking sticks in-between my two front seats. I can reach them easily while in bed in back. With one I depress the brakes and with the other I hit the button starter (this is harder if your car requires a key to turn in the ignition, but these days many cars have a button). In a few seconds I can start the van even without the remote start on my key fob. It is always a good idea to have a back up plan, especially in winter on cold and stormy nights.

One thing to remember is that if you are out there in a winter storm, be mindful that if snow accumulates or drifts over the van’s exhaust pipe, that can be dangerous and lead to carbon monoxide coming inside. Be aware of how much snow is coming down. If in doubt you may want to get outside to clear the area around the exhaust, but that isn’t such a bad thing because you have a heated car to return to.

And finally, do not go into an overnight winter sleep out situation with less than a pretty full tank of gas. There are so many obvious reasons for this I won’t go into them all. But your safety is dependent on having options to get out, to keep the car running for while, and to deal with being stuck. It isn’t hard to understand. Get gas before you go to sleep. You will want to use the restrooms anyway.

And now a note about sleeping bags. There is probably a tendency to think you need some really special and expensive sleeping bag for this. You can, but you don’t need to. You are not having to stuff that bag into a small space or carry it on your back. Those are the features that make a quality winter bag expensive. I have been using my three season bag, rated down to 32 degrees, and not once has the bag been overwhelmed by the cold inside my van. And it if ever were, I travel with two woolen blankets ready to throw on it.

That is the key to using a less expensive bag. You don’t have to rely solely on it alone. You can supplement it with a blanket, or a liner, or a comforter or even just a sheet. Whatever you already own and have in your linen closet. A 32 degree rated bag with a wool blanket over it, a nice comfy mattress under it and sitting inside a car without wind blowing over the bag itself, will probably rate all the way down to zero degrees (F). And you don’t need anything even close to that.

With these tips and experience, I have slept very comfortably in zero degree temperatures with a howling storm outside. It actually is pretty nice and fun. The photo on the cover of this post was taken along the Colorado River while stopped overnight on a pullout on a small road, in December. A great evening and night.

Remember that your car is going to be much better protection than being in a winter tent and people go winter camping outside in those all the time.

Copyright © 2021 D Abbott.