Sleeping Around the US in a Honda Fit

The mouth of the Klamath River

tl;dr

Why Should I Road Trip in My Honda Fit?

1. Honda Fits are much bigger than they look
2. Fits are very common cars that don’t look out of place in a parking lot or on a neighborhood street
3. The gas mileage is much much better than in a bigger van or truck (I averaged over 40mpg driving from San Francisco to Vermont)

I drove up to a cliff overlooking the mouth of the Klamath River. Across the river, lounging on a sandbar that threatened to block the Klamath’s access to the Pacific, were dozens of seals basking in the handful of rays of sunshine that cut through the fog. I popped open the hatch of my Honda Fit, tucked into my sleeping bag, and grabbed a chocolate bar, ready to watch the sunset.

By the time the sun set I was warm and comfortable and a little drowsy after a full day of mountain biking. Curled up next to my bike in the back of my Fit, dry and warm, I thought, “Why bother to pitch a tent?” And so, I slept in the back of my Honda Fit for the first time.

I was too lazy to set up my bivy. I stargazed by laying on the roof before retiring to the bedroom.

Fits are known as city cars for good reason. They are small on the outside making them easy to park and maneuver in tight quarters. However, they get 40+mpg highway driving and the interior is well designed for hauling things which also makes it a great car for adventures far outside the city.

When I decided to move cross country for grad school, I began to dream of the adventures I would take on my summer drive between San Francisco and New Hampshire. I wanted to bring my mountain bike with me, my backpacking gear, and I wanted to be able to sleep in my car. That night in Klamath showed me that I really am too lazy to pitch a tent sometimes. I didn’t consider until later that sleeping inside the car would be much easier than camping while in more heavily populated areas.

My plans for a big adventure through the Canadian Rockies and the Great Lakes was shelved when the US-Canada border was shut down due to COVID. I still had to get from California to New England, but staying distant from other people was critical. I did not want to be my generation’s Typhoid Mary, spreading the disease from California through small towns across the country. It was the perfect excuse to make a car camper in my Fit.

Why Not Get a Bigger Car?

One afternoon I was driving down a forest road when I was forced to stop due to a tree that had fallen. Some people on the other side of the tree were working to cut it up, but there was still a lot of work to do. Several vans pulled in behind me. I didn’t want to sit there for a few more hours, so I threw the Fit into reverse, banged a uey, and found a campsite on a different road. The vans lined up behind me? The road wasn’t wide enough for them to reverse and they sat there until the tree was removed.

A Fit may not be as comfortable as a much larger van, but it is much easier to maneuver and doesn’t automatically draw attention to the fact you may be sleeping inside. This makes it much easier to camp out in parking lots and deeper in the forest, along narrow twisty logging roads.

Construction

Requirements

I came up with a list of requirements.

1. No assembly needed before I could go to sleep.
2. My mountain bike stays in the car, virtually intact. I’m okay removing the front wheel and seat post, but nothing else.
3. I wanted to be able to drive a passenger (safely and legally) so the passenger seat needed to be functional.
4. I didn’t want to buy anything new.
5. I didn’t want to do any construction that required more than a screwdriver and a pocketknife.

I spent quite awhile on Google, finding a few ideas but nothing that really fit my requirements. Most suggestions I found tried to maximize the bed space and focused on constructing a foldable platform. I tend to sleep in the fetal position so I really didn’t care about getting those extra few inches of leg room.

Here are two articles I found quite helpful in getting an idea for my setup.

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

How I Turned my Honda Fit into a Home and Drove Across the Country

Design — Bed Frame

I used the bookshelves to organize my stuff. The red bag was emptied into the container so I could lay the mattress flat.

I looked around at my stuff to see what could be repurposed as a bed frame. Ideally it would be hollow so that it wouldn’t take up much space, but sturdy enough that it could support my weight. I found two bookcases, one slightly shorter than the other, each about three feet tall. I liked the bookcases but I could not justify hauling them all the way across the country. I took out the measuring tape and realized that as long as they could hold my weight they were the perfect size for my car bed.

I knew I needed to fit the bike in (and be able to get it in and out of the car easily and without help) so I measured the distance from the outer edge of one pedal to the other, then I measured that much distance from the passenger side wheel well into the car. The bookcase I used as the support here could not extend beyond this line. My shorter bookcase was an inch too long. I decided that this could still work, so I removed the top of the bookcase and slid the open end around the wheel well. This gave me plenty of space on the bike side without sacrificing much storage space.

Sketch of the back of my car with the bookcases and bike

I also had a foam IKEA twin sized mattress that I was going to toss when I moved. It was roughly the same width as the bookcases. I put it on top of the bookcases, laid on top of it, and nothing collapsed!

Design — Mattress

The mattress ended up a bit longer than the frame, but there is plenty of space to stash the bike on the passenger side.

I removed the foam from the the cloth that zips around the foam part and measured the width of the bookcases (ie the width of the bookcase when being used as a bookcase) along the length of the mattress. Using a bread knife I cut the mattress along its width at each mark. I now had two pieces, each roughly the size of each bookcase, and one extra block. All three blocks were roughly the same size for me but if you use different sized bookcases this won’t necessarily be true for you. I put the two measured blocks inside the zippered part, one at the head, the other at the foot, so there was a bit of loose material in the middle.

I made a foldable mattress! Now I could easily access whatever I had stored inside the bookcases just by folding that half of the mattress back. This was the best decision I made during this design. Nearly all of my gear was stored under the mattress. I ended up folding it back at least a dozen times a day. Do not skip cutting the mattress in half unless you have another way to easily access your gear. It may not seem like a big deal but you will be cursing yourself after two days if you don’t.

I still had an extra block of foam. One bookcase was a bit higher(when laying down) than the other because I decided to stow a folding table under it. It’s also nearly impossible to park on a perfectly flat piece of ground. I would place the third foam block under whichever end needed to be propped up that night and I never had issues with the mattress not being flat enough.

Packing the Car

My bedroom in the high desert of Oregon

Living in a small space forces you to be smart about organization. I had six built in storage compartments using the shelves on the bookcases.

The bike blocked access via the rear passenger door, so I chose to store my bike stuff in the hardest to reach compartment, that closest to the bike. The compartment closest to the driver side door was where I stored the stuff I used on daily basis. This included toiletries, clean clothes, my journal, and books.

The rear bookcase held all my camping and sleeping gear. I kept a med kit in a shoebox just inside the hatchback door, easily accessible without needing to touch or move anything else.

I kept my food in a plastic container that usually sat on my front passenger seat. If I had a passenger, that container would sit on top of the mattress.

I used small baskets inside the bookcase compartments for additional organization. I used books and extra clothes to ensure things were packed in tightly enough.

My takeaway from living in my Fit is that organization will make or break this adventure. Keep things organized and your little Fit will feel like home.

Would I Do It Again?

My little Fit was home all summer. This past winter it has been my mobile ski lodge. It may look tiny but the Fit has plenty of space for one person to comfortably live on a road trip. I love to travel but I live in a more rural place now that doesn’t have easy access to a major airport, so I see a lot more road trips in the back of my Fit in the next few years.