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Liminal — 04 — July 25, 2024

The peculiar freedom of sleeping in carparks

Why dossing down behind a railway station can be so appealing.

Hello, travellers —

​Petrina, here with a postcard from New Zealand. If you don't want to hear from me, you can always unsubscribe here.

I haven't had a permanent home in more than two years now. This has been partly by design and partly the result of stumbling from one plan to the next in the shameless pursuit of newness.

In the many days since I last bundled up my belongings and stuffed them into my van, for which I had traded my comfortable bedroom in Auckland, I have slept in many places.

There have been dorm rooms, probably too many dorm rooms, high-end resorts, tents in the mountains, airport benches, and hotels. I’m not fussy about where I sleep – I’m grateful for sheets but a sleeping bag is okay too.

Of all these combinations of bedding and locations, there have been few that give me the same sense of satisfaction and joy as freedom camping spots.

In New Zealand, freedom camping is often limited to campervans that are 'self-contained.' This essentially means you can manage all your waste and water within the vehicle. That little campervan had the coveted blue sticker on the back which meant I could park it at any legal freedom camping spot.

I pulled up the handbrake next to beaches, at the end of long, gravel roads into the forest, and alongside lakes.

My van, small though it was, was fairly luxurious. It had a very comfortable bed I made with flax linen sheets. There were fairy lights strung around the ceiling. I even had a small packet of incense on hand to create a vibe.

I went all over the country in that campervan, the first vehicle I ever bought. I'm not one to get so attached as to name a van, but I admit that when I finally sold it and dropped the keys into the palm of a stranger, I cried.

I gave it up so I could travel overseas for a while. When I returned home I didn't try to replace it.

This summer just past, I travelled around New Zealand in a car. A work horse of a Mazda, big enough to sleep in but small enough for me to park without accumulating too many scratches.

It was everything I could ask for in a car, but it was no campervan.

There are a handful of places around New Zealand where you can still camp for free in a regular car. They are rarely glamourous.

Without such amenities as a toilet and a greywater tank, we campervan-less freedom campers are confined to spaces which have toilets nearby and are out of the way enough that people won't mind we're there.

In Dunedin I spent a night slotted into a parking space among dozens of other vehicles lining a carpark. We were next to the train tracks, and great metal monsters screeched past at regular intervals throughout the night.

Other campers pulled their tables and chairs out onto the tarmac and ate dinner there.

It was, by all standards, a pretty bleak campsite.

But, settling into my makeshift bed of a camping mat covered in a few blankets for extra padding (there were no linen sheets in this wagon), I felt a deep sense of contentment. There’s something about the ruggedness of bunking down in the back of a car, in a carpark, that feeds the sense of adventure in me.

(Despite the fact my bed for the night was exactly one seat width wide.)

Maybe it was the hint of rebelliousness of being parked up in such an industrial area, or the sense of community I felt with the rows of other campers all soaking in the same clear evening. Or it maybe it's just the sheer, untethered freedom of not needing to book anywhere, just being able to turn up, park up, and settle down for the night.

It feels like the ultimate mode of travel, of throwing all caution to the wind and then seeing where that wind takes you, living outside of schedules and check in times. It's cheap, and dirty, and gives me license to feel like a true traveller.

If you have any questions about freedom camping in New Zealand, please feel free to reply to me. Let me know also if you too feel drawn to that grittier, more rugged path.

Until next time.

Petrina