Carliving.info - Free information about living in cars, vans and campervans.

If you don't have a camper van fitted out with a stove then it is not so hard to cook inside of a van or car. There are some very important safety considerations though. Flames and most things do not mix. If you are living in your car it is a lot safer to find a quiet place to cook outside of your car. In a van there will normally be enough space to set up a cooking area on a stable surface. Also stoves give off carbon monoxide. You must have some ventilation when you use a stove. Preferably open at least two windows in your vehicle. Also, gas can leak so always, and I do mean ALWAYS ventilate your vehicle before lighting any naked flames in it.

Cheap camp stoves abound. You can buy ones that run on butane lighter fluid. You can buy Coleman / Primus gas stoves that are small and compact enough to fit in one hand. You can by little two burner units that can be connected up to 3, 5, 8 and 9 KG gas bottles. The choices are almost endless. The one you choose will probably depend on 4 main factors:

When it comes to choosing a stove I urge you to avoid ones that have a single burner attached to the top of a small gas bottle. I have one myself, a little Primus unit with a gas bottle not much bigger than a soft drink can. Even with a slot in base to hold the bottle, these stoves are pretty unstable. You can be balancing a pot or pan on top of the stove, go to give it a stir then flop, the whole thing falls over. If you are lucky you will just loose your food. If you are unlucky you will get scalded, the stove will set fire to something and before you know it you've lost your dinner, your stove, your vehicle and maybe your life.

Buy a stove that is stable! Those little butane burning ones that are squat and fit the bottle in to the side are a good choice. You can also get a little two burner unit that folds out of a brief case sized unit with a wind shield, controls and legs. These have now been copied by all sorts of companies, so you can get them really cheap. They fit in to a car fine.

Most of these stoves are pretty straight forward. You switch on the gas, light the burner and then cook your food. When you are finished you switch the gas off, allow the unit to cool then pack it away. You can also use the cooker to heat water for washing and heating.

If you do have a folding table and you can find a reasonably private area then you should consider cooking outside of the car. There is nothing worse than a car full of the smells of cooking. Unless it's really nice smelling cooking. You can set up your stove, a plate for eating off and a bowl / bucket for washing up in on your table.

There are also some places that you can cook food for free.

Barbecues. Due to the wonderful mentality that we are a fun loving outdoorsy type nation there are piles of free barbecues in Australia. I have many times encountered a guy living in a small Mitsubishi van who seems to do all of his cooking on free public barbecues. He even wears an apron to prevent the fat and oil spits from spoiling his clothes as he cooks. At first glance he might look a little like a fellow out having a barbecue, but I've seen him around so much that it is obvious that he's living in his van. But as van dwellers go he is certainly on to a good thing. My best tip for using public barbecues is to lay a sheet of aluminum foil on the barbecue first or to use it as a hot plate and put your own frying pan and pots on it. This will make it easier to clean afterwards and will prevent any germs present on it from getting on to your food. The al-foil trick allows you to just peel the foil off of the barbecue afterwards to clean it up.

Microwave ovens. A lot of convenience stores like 7-11, petrol stations that sell food and some others have a microwave oven to heat up food like hot dogs and pies. If you buy some stuff from the store like fuel, ask them if you can heat up your store brought meal. Try not to buy food from these stores though, it is usually over priced and not very nutritious.