The summer finds me a rolling stone; I sometimes camp, sometimes motel, sometimes just pull over and nap, sometimes put on the shoes and run, sometimes get out the bike and ride. The Trek 950 lays out in the fold- down back among my other gear, wheel detached. I'm sneaking up on 74, so I can get away with almost anything. This is my third Prius III/navigation. this one's dark grey, climate control is fabulous, sound system is superb, and the hi way ride and handling is like that of a larger car. The Prius became a motor home three weeks ago when a thunderstorm attacked my campsite just as I began to set up. I forgot my tent poles (did I mention I'm almost 74?); so, I staked out the pole-less tent, and zipped up all the camping gear inside the dry tent. Then I inflated the twin-size air mattress inside the Prius, threw in the sleeping bag, shut the hatch, and sacked out. Very comfortable night's sleep. Perfect fit. I'm not a big guy. Now, I just deflate the mattress and throw my gear on top of it when I'm rolling during the day. I inflate it the next time I want to sleep. I talked to a guy who had a beautiful motor home the other day. He and his wife graciously showed me around and made us some lunch. He put 180 gallons of fuel on board. The most gas I could force into my Prius Motor Home was 10.2 gallons. When I want to sleep, I get a campsite and inflate. If I want fancy, I stop at Best Western.
And when it does get too hot or cold at night you can always leave the car running. With AC or heat at medium settings you should use just a small amount of gas. Assuming you aren't near other campers whom it might disturb. And of course it requires getting used to sleeping through the engine coming on occasionally. But I have taken many a nap in my Gen 2 and I have gotten to where the engine coming on doesn't even wake me up, or if it does it's only for a few seconds, then I drift right off again, to the point that I have to set my phone alarm to keep from napping too long. . On that point, one thing that I don't like about the Gen 2 is that when ICE does come on in that situation, it only comes on for maybe a minute or two, just enough to move the battery indicator up about one bar. But that means it comes on again much sooner than if it had charged it to full (well at least the Prius version of full). I wish that it would charge to full each time so that ICE would come on longer but less frequently, which I think would be less disruptive. I wonder if Gen 4 is any different in this regards or the same. I realize that in normal operation like in a traffic jam with AC running and the traction battery gets depleted, that they (HSD engineers) don't want to give it a full charge because they don't know if you might start moving at full speed again at any moment. But if the car hasn't moved for let's say five minutes then they should assume the driver is stopped for an indefinite length of time, recognizing that sometimes people use READY mode for tailgating, sleeping, and as mentioned in another thread even drive-in movies, which nowadays requires (or at least benefits from) using your car stereo for the audio
Congratulations on your seniority and your tenacity. Just hope I'm as versatile as you in a couple more years.
Getting a motel room occasionally, or even frequently is a lot less expensive than purchasing just about any motor home or truck/trailer combination. I wish I could lay out in the back of my Prius but the seat configuration, the deep well in the back, and my 5'10" stature doesn't work out for me. I wish the back seats truly laid flat. I could put a chunk of foam in the trunk space to raise it.
This summer my wife and I are going to stretch the legs of my 2016 PriusC with a road trip from Pittsburgh to Dekalb. Someday we hope to take road trips like yours. driving around in Luke's old jalopy Red Five
