Truck Camping

When I decided that I was going to hike the entire Bruce Trail, it became apparent based on my home location that I would definitely need to stay overnight at places. I am very fortunate that my home is pretty central to the entire trail. For driving purposes, it would take me 2.5 hrs to get to Tobermory and it takes 2 hrs to get to the end trail of Niagara (thats with no traffic). So like I said, thats a pretty darn good location. However, I can't imagine driving two hours, hiking all day and then driving two hours home. That would be a long, exhausting day!

I really didn't want to spend a great deal of money on hotels/AirBnBs. To me, that's not what hiking is all about. I wanted to keep everything simple. Also, since I am doing this with the dogs that makes finding AirBnBs/hotels more difficult. So I had the great idea for truck camping.

Truck Camping Planning

I wanted to keep truck camping extremely simple. We have an F150 crew cab with a tunnel cover over the bed of the truck. So my plan was to sleep inside the truck and have all our supplies in the truck bed which is safely covered from rain/snow etc. Ok, easy and simple plan! So now I wanted to keep food simple as well. Staying in a truck in the fall/winter months meant that I don't have access to a lot of amenities. My heating source was to bring a kettle that I could plug in to the truck. This is perfect I could have warm oatmeal for breakfast and soup for dinner. Can't forget about instant coffee and tea. Perfect! Any other food I would have would either be packaged or eaten cold (sandwich etc).

Ok, I have my plan in place. Now to test it out. I knew I would be hiking the end of November for several days in a row. I wanted to test truck camping before this time to make sure that it worked well. I decided to hike locally and spend one night truck camping on Nov 15, 2025. I decided to go hiking at Hockley Valley, which was a 18 kms hike and then camp afterwards. Here's the blog post for that hike to read if you're interested. Hockley Valley Eastern Trails.

First Truck Camping Night

So after this long hike we decided to truck camp overnight and then we would be hiking again the next day. Once we got back to the truck it was about 4 pm. I was able to get changed into dry clean clothes and the pups were able to rest. At about 5pm, it was pitch black outside already. We were in a parking lot on the side of a quiet road. I decided I would get dinner ready because we were all quite tired. I went to the bed of the truck and tried to put the outside truck lights on, unsuccessfully. Ok, no big deal I brought plenty of flashlights so I will use those. I set up a flashlight and started to get the pups food all ready. I got them out of the truck to eat their food. While waiting for them to finish, I figured I would get the kettle started for my food while we wait. I just had a dehydrated soup package and I had pre-made and cut up smoked pork chop to put in it. I got my food all made up and set it in the truck so it would be ready to consume when I was.

At this point, I decided to get the truck ready for sleeping. My plan was that I would sleep in the passenger seat with the seat reclined back as far as it goes. The pups would sleep in the back on the floor. On all truck rides, they always have the entire back seat to themselves anyway so they're used to it. The F150 is really great because the back seats floor is completely flat. This makes it ideal for their comfort. So I reclined the passenger seat and got my sleeping bags all ready to go.

I took the dogs for a small walk in order for them to do their business. I figured once they got back in the truck then they're in it for the rest of the night. So with the passenger seat fully reclined, I put Mia in first and then Oliver hopped in second. I walked around to the passenger side and got in that seat. I look back and Mia is all curled up ready to sleep. Oliver is just standing there, staring at me. I realize that he has no room. He's literally staring at me "Mom, what the hell? Where am I supposed to lay down to sleep?" He eventually laid down but I came to the conclusion that this isn't going to work.

Even with Oliver now laying down, he has no space to stretch out and relax and Mia would not be able to leave her little Husky ball. I think this would have been doable if I only had one dog.

So I had originally thought that Mia would be able to fit underneath the passenger seat, which was not the case. I overlooked this small detail. While they always have the entire back seats to themselves and always seem to have tons of room, with the passenger seat down it blocks off just under half of their space. I gave Jared a call and explained the situation. After several suggestions, on perhaps making it work, I decided to call the night and drive home.

I had also felt uncomfortable staying on the street that I was on. It was super quiet but it was busier than I would have liked. I think I would rather have lots of traffic or none at all. In the end, I'm also glad I went home because it would have been a horrible sleep. After that long hike, my legs were so exhausted and they definitely needed to be stretched out, which would not have been possible in the truck. So with this option no longer available, for now, I've been thinking of other possibilities.

Potential Future Options

These are other options we've come up with:

1) Getting an inflatable truck cap (with heater). This would allow us to sleep in the bed of the truck with more space and comfort. The only down side is that I'm still preparing food outside in the cold. Even on this night, my hands were pretty cold and it only got down to slightly cooler than 0. I can't imagine preparing food in -40. Not saying I'd be camping in those temperatures but just saying that colder would be rougher when preparing food.

2) Find relatively cheap cabins. Since truck camping failed, I have booked one AirBnB near Sauble Beach that I will be staying at. It is literally a step up from truck camping. Its a small cabin with basically a bed inside it and that's it. They call it "glamping". So it will still be roughing it for sure. This will be nice though to stay in at night. Feeling safer and warmer. We will see how this goes and can be a potential for further stays. Going this route I would need to find one in the niagara region as well. But we will see how that goes, when I get to that section of the trail.

Wrap Up Truck Camping

While this was still a good experience to have and a little insight to how difficult truck camping can be, it's not a feasible option right now. I'm excited about different options that I can try out. Maybe I'll return to truck camping in the future, we will see.

Have you ever attempted truck/car camping? Was it successful? Share your tips and tricks with me in the comments.

Thanks for reading,

Kendal

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