Car Camping
Twitching often involves long trips and the option of stopping on location overnight. Over the years my experiences have progressed from sleeping rough in the car & pitching a tent to car camping. If you are interested in these experiences and what my car camping set ups have been like, please read on:
Sleeping rough in the car
In the early days I would usually head off home after a twitch, but would occasionally decide to stay in the area I was visiting. If I couldn't find anywhere to stay I would find somewhere quiet to park up and sleep for the night, push the passenger seat back for leg room, drop the back of the seat, grab the blanket and hope for a bit of sleep. Needless to say, this was never going to be a long term solution.
Using a tent
After visiting Mull in 2012 I decided to purchase a tent, a decent self inflating bed and a cooking stove, etc. The cooking side of things worked a treat, but having to find a suitable place to pitch the tent on twitches proved to be quite aukward. It was fine when going on birding breaks when I could plan where to pitch up, but this still wasn't the answer for overnight twitches and travelling between sites for targetted birds.
Car Camping
I next moved on to creating a decent set up for sleeping in the car. Combining this with having the tent proved to be the best all round option and it worked very well.
In the 5-door Vectra I had, I would just frop the rear seats, push the passenger seat forward, roll the inflatable bed out and I was set for the night. By no means perfect, but at least I was lying down and was getting a better sleep than sitting back in the passenger seat.
The first car I worked on with what I would call a proper car camping set up was an Audi A4 Avant, which is a medium sized hatch back that I purchased from Southlands Motor Company. A very nice compact car, which was quick and nice to drive. I created a base for the boot that would house my scope, tripod & cooking utensils. The base had a board that I would simply slide forward after dropping down the double rear passenger seat. The self inflating mattress was then rolled out and job was done (most comfortable sleep to date). In addition to this I used two old storage type boxes from Ikea to create a cooking area.
This set up was reworked when I purchased a VW Tiguan 4-motion, which offered a bit more space to move around on a night and was also higher off the ground. I purchased a memory foam type of mattress, which provided me with a good sleep that didn't deflate in the middle of the night.
By now, looking for somewhere to pitch the tent had become less important and was happy to just look for somewhere to park up for the night. Worked very well and had some decent nights sleep with this set up.
Campervan
I always dreamed of this being possible and in August 2025 I took the plunge and purchased a van from Southland Motor Company in Whitley Bay. This first van turned out to be a lemon and we had nothing but trouble from company the time of picking up the van to selling them it back in March 2026 (read my full review here).
A new campervan is now in the process of being in our possession and I'm quite certain this one will not be anywhere near as bad as the one from Southlands.
Conclusion
No harm in having 1-2 nights sleeping rough in the car, but if I was to start again I would skip this part of the experience and instead make a base with a sliding board to go over the rear seats. Purchase a memory foam type folding mattress that can be opened out when needed. I would also have a travel box that has a gas stove, cooking gear, basic food & a few bottles of water. Of course, the campervan would be the perfect solution but very expensive.
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