When it comes to sleeping in your car, you might have considered just throwing a mattress on the floor and calling it good. But the reality is that in most vehicles, a mattress alone will be super uncomfortable, and you will quickly regret not packing a tent.Â
But with a sleeping platform, you can drastically improve your odds of a good night’s sleep inside any vehicle.
Here’s 3 reasons why choosing an SUV sleeping platform makes a lot of sense for sleeping in your car:
- Levels the floor of your car
- Extends the length of the bed
- Gives you a place to put your gear
Your car floor is not level
The first big issue with sleeping in your car is that the floor of the car isn’t flat or level.
Folded seats stick up
Auto manufacturers don’t build SUVs for sleeping inside them, so they don’t bother making them perfectly level.
Even when the spec sheet boasts lay-flat seating, they’re usually not perfectly flat. This is a bummer if you want to sleep inside your car because even the slightest bump underneath your mattress can be quite noticeable. The average folded SUV seat sticks up 5″, but can vary quite a bit.
Sloping trunk load floor
And even if the seats do fold perfectly flat, the trunk loading floor actually slopes down towards the trunk hatch.
So if you just throw a mattress on the floor, your back will be propped up on the folded seat bump and you’ll struggle to get comfortable. And if you do fall asleep, you’ll most likely slide down the mattress in the night and end up with your feet pressed up against the trunk hatch.
So to level out the floor of the car, we actually need to lift up the end of the bed closest to the trunk.
The sleeping platform solution
A sleeping platform with adjustable leveling legs works perfectly to level out any uneven car floor.
And if you only raise the sleeping platform the minimum amount, you can level out the bed without losing any precious headroom.
Your car floor is not long enough
The second big issue with sleeping in your car is the length of the cargo floor.
Unless you’re under 5 feet tall, your head will stick off the end of the seats. So you’ll need to support your head for a good night’s rest.
Extend the length of the bed with bolsters
There’s a lot of different ways to lengthen the bed space in your car, but one solution offers more comfort and versatility than the others.
DIY bolster
Stuffing sheets and pillows in the footwell gap can offer extended support for your head, but is not a great permanent solution.
We’ve also seen some clever DIY solutions with wire racks and plastic bins that fit perfectly in the footwell space and bridge the gap.
DIY bolsters can work well to lengthen the sleeping area in your car, but can be inconvenient if you need to access the items stuffed into the footwell.
Luno bolster
Another option is to purchase an inflatable bolster from Luno. These are designed to fill the footwell space and they even claim to customize them to fit your specific vehicle.
What we don’t love about this option is that the bolster takes up a bunch of precious real estate that could otherwise be used for storing your gear.
Backseat Bivy
Backseat Bivy is another company with a solution to extending the length of your bed for car camping. This clever fabric bridges the footwell gap by attaching to the driver and passenger headrests on one side, and to the back of the seat on the other side.
What we don’t love about this solution is that it puts you back to square one with your bed being uneven and bumpy.
Don't extend the length of the bed
Perhaps the easiest solution is to ignore the issue completely. If you’re vertically challenged or don’t care about comfort, this option might work for a night.
Sleep diagonally or curl up
If you’re a very small person or don’t care about comfort, this option could work in a pinch. Just curl up or orient your body diagonally and pray for morning. But don’t expect to sleep well.
Hang a mattress off the edge
Hanging a firm mattress off the end of the seats may sound like a good idea, but it offers little to no support for your head. Plus the mattress rests uneven on the bumpy seat, so it’s not our comfort choice.
Of course you could flip your body around so that your feet hang off the unsupported end… Right? We tried that too, and unless your back seats fold perfectly flat and your trunk load floor is perfectly level, we found that your head will rest substantially lower than your feet, making it so your blood rushes to your head. Yikes!
Extend the length of the bed with a sleeping platform
A quality sleeping platform not only lengthens the bed in your vehicle and creates a perfectly flat surface, but it also does so without taking up the space on the floor so you can store extra gear and access it on the fly.
Fixed length sleeping platform
Most sleeping platforms are fixed in length and are vehicle dependent. This is because a vehicle like a Subaru Outback is much longer than a Ford Escape, so you’ll need to select a size that fits in your specific vehicle. But if you want to sleep in a non-traditional car camping vehicle, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
Adjustable length sleeping platform
TrunkMate sleeping platforms are fully adjustable in length thanks to a telescopic bed frame design, which pulls out from the back of the kit and extends up to 6′ 4″ long. This allows you to maximize the length of your bed in any vehicle.
TrunkMate sleeping platforms come standard with bed supports that rest on your folded seats and effectively bridge the gap without taking up precious space in your footwell. And we also offer bed support legs that extend down to the footwell to offer additional support and precise height adjustments.
The sleeping platform benefit is that you can lengthen the bed beyond the end of the seats, ensure your bed rests perfectly flat, all while keeping your footwell area free for gear storage and easy access.
Just push your driver and passenger seats forward all the way so you can maximize the amount of space available in your car.
There's nowhere to put your gear
The third big issue with sleeping in your car is gear storage. If you throw a mattress directly on the floor, you’ll have nowhere to put your stuff but on the mattress beside you in bed. This will get messy real fast.
Store gear under your sleeping platform
A sleeping platform solves this problem by lofting the bed up off the floor of the trunk so you can store your gear underneath.Â
The higher you raise the sleeping platform, the more gear you can store underneath. The optimal height of your sleeping platform is largely personal preference, but the obvious downside of a lifted bed is that it cuts into your precious headroom.
Store gear in drawers
You can either store gear in bins, or install drawers that slide out for easy access.
Store gear beside the bed
Another option here is to use a single-wide sleeping platform. That way half of your car can be used for sleeping and the other half for storing larger items like a cooler or storage bins. This is a great option for solo travelers with a lot of gear.
In summary, a sleeping platform can drastically improve the quality of your sleep and offers many benefits not found in tent camping.
By leveling, lengthening, and elevating your bed with a quality sleeping platform, you can sleep like a baby in any vehicle.
