When my friend and I took off on our cross-country trip, our minivan was neat and organized. As you can see below, we didn’t go through any fancy minivan conversion. (We are too lazy for that.)

But we were both happy with our simple setup.

Our minivan camping setup was actually pretty spacious. And the air mattress was just as comfy as our real beds. Overall, it was a big step up from tent camping.

The problem is that our van didn’t look like this for long…

My friend and I adjusted to the cramped space and disorganization pretty early on. What we didn’t anticipate were the occasional unexpected challenges. I wanted to share a couple, because they are great examples of minivan life.

When camping in a tent, you have lots of screened openings and breathable fabric. Whereas in a minivan, it gets stuffy fast.

While the extra insulation of a vehicle may be helpful in the winter, it’s not so great in the summer. During our stops in the southeast, it was commonly 80°F at midnight. Inside the minivan, the heat and humidity were suffocating.

Needless to say, we kept the windows rolled down each night.

Of course, if it rains—you’re out of luck. One night we parked as a Buc-ees in Texas during a thunderstorm, so we kept the windows rolled up. Pretty soon it felt like we had created our very own tropical microclimate in the minivan.

As I mentioned before, my friend and I slept on an air mattress in the back of the minivan.

Which worked great…until it started leaking about a week into the trip. Rather than buy a new one, we figured we could make it last.

So, we inflated that mattress EVERY SINGLE NIGHT before going to bed. By morning we had sunken into the mattress, but not enough to be a problem. By midafternoon, if we tried to lay on the mattress, we’d be touching the floor of the minivan.

It wasn’t a big deal, except that we typically threw our bags and grocery totes on the bed. By the end of the day, everything was collapsed into the center of the mattress.

Of course, this usually caused the grocery totes to fall over and spill the groceries onto the bed. (Hence the bread in the picture above.)

One time, the mattress was so deflated that our bucket of kindling (which was usually wedged up against the foot of the mattress) spilled over. We had sticks and dirt all over the air mattress, and had to aggressively shake out the sheet before going to bed that night.

Sometimes we got unexpected visitors while camping in our minivan. Like flies.

Basically, one night we decided to minivan camp next to a lake in Arkansas. There was a small park by the lake open 24/7, with bathrooms and picnic tables. Plus, we thought it would be pretty to wake up next to a lake.

Well, our morning wasn’t quite as peaceful as we expected. We woke up to find that a whole swarm of flies had come in through the open windows, and they were making themselves right at home! The first fifteen minutes of our morning were spent hopelessly trying to shoo hundreds of flies out of the van.

I guess that’s what you get when you stay next to a lake.

Okay, so now that I’ve turned your idea of minivan camping upside-down, let’s look at the flip side. Why did we choose minivan camping?

Aside from the obvious (it’s cheap), the answer is pretty simple: if you do it with someone you actually like hanging out with, minivan camping is awesome.

We drove when we wanted to drive. When we wanted to stop, we stopped. If we didn’t have a place to stay the night, we could stop at a rest area, a Walmart…anywhere really!

There’s no setting up a tent or checking into a hotel. Just book a campsite, slide open those minivan doors, and hop right into bed.

Furthermore, you don’t have to spend time setting up or breaking down camp. My friend and I could get up and be on the road in five minutes.

On the other hand, if you don’t want to be stuck in a stuffy box every night, maybe look for another way to camp!

For more camping tips, head over to my blog on what to include in your camping kitchen box.