So this weekend I finally did something that I’ve wanted to do for SUCH a long time which was travel to a beautiful place to do some photography and camp in my car (with my dog). I know this sounds absolutely crazy, why on earth would anyone want to sleep in a small car with a smelly dog, wouldn’t you rather find a cheap B&B? Well, ideally yes, but realistically no. Before I could drive I always found it such a pain to be able to get to the places I wanted to go for my photos, and now I can drive I can do that to my heart’s content, but there’s one little problem, and that is actually quite a big problem, money. As usual, money will always find a way to stop you from doing the things you want to do, that is if you’ll let it, and so I didn’t want to fork out for a B&B everytime I want to visit somewhere, they are cheap but in the long run the prices always add up, so I thought stuff it, car camping it is, I always enjoyed camping anyway, this way I can be totally flexible in where I want to visit and I’m not tied down to one location. So really I’m winning. I decided to go to the Peak District as I’ve wanted to go for a while and if anything did go wrong it wasn’t too far from home.

My route

So I decided if I was going to sacrifice a nice warm B&B to sleep in my car I would definitely make it all worth it a see a few places I thought looked pretty on google images. (Yes I did just say that). I places wanted to see where ‘Chrome Hill’, ‘Winnats pass’ ‘Mam tor’ and ‘Snake Pass’ and this was the order I visited them on the map. On Friday by the time I arrived all I had time to do was find a place to park and drive around the area that surrounded Chrome Hill, hoping that on Saturday I could find a good location for a shot, however when I woke up it was raining and that was a definite no, considering I had a dog and was in a small car we would never dry and be cold all night. We then moved onto our second location which was Winnats Pass and Mam Tor, the two are in the same place. When the rain calmed down a little we walk up through Winnats pass which was absolutely stunning, even in the grim weather. That evening I decided to have a proper meal in the beautiful village that was Catleton, all pubs where dog-friendly so it was hard to say no, treat yourself and all that. When Sunday arrived, we made our way to Bamford and drove along Snake Pass its a long road crossing the Pennines between Glossop and the Ladybower Reservoir at Ashopton, great fun for me but not so much for Bolski. We stopped at Ladybower Reservoir for some lunch before making our way back to Leicester.

How did I sleep in my car?

Sounds impossible to sleep in a small car, and a Yaris is definitely apart of the small cars club, but anything is possible if you put your mind to it, all it took was taking the back seats out, and that’s exactly what I did. I put boxes behind the front seats to use as storage and to fill the gaps, I would later use that as a foundation for my pillow. I laid two outside chair cushions down (about a metre long) a blanket and a sleeping bag and if I slept diagonally I could stretch my legs! Alongside me Bolski slept soundly, It was surprisingly comfy and on the first night I didn’t even wake up once! I will do a separate post explaining everything I did in more detail, but you get the idea.

So thats it, I did it and I can say after one night of being home, I’ve already planned my next trip.

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Car camping in the Peak District