Your questions, my answers
The questions I get most often come from people who don’t know either lifestyle — neither living in a car nor living in a tiny house:
- How do you go to the bathroom?
- Where do you shower?
- How do you stay warm?
- What does it cost?
- And are you truly free — or just restricted?
In this live stream, I’ll answer all of these questions honestly and openly — after seven years living in a car and now three months in a tiny house.
I’ll share what has really changed, what has stayed the same, and where even I was surprised.
This live will be available in November in six languages on my international channels:
- 🇩🇪 Monas Zuhause auf Rädern
- 🇬🇧 Mona’s Home on Wheels
- 🇫🇷 La maison roulante de Mona
- 🇪🇸 El hogar sobre ruedas de Mona
- 🇮🇹 La casa su ruote di Mona
- 🇷🇺 Дом на колёсах Моны
Here you’ll find the schedule with all dates and languages:
Replay of the livestream (part 1 and 2):
1️⃣ Hygiene – Living in a Car vs. Living in a Tiny House
When it comes to hygiene, things have changed less than most people think.
Now I have my own camping toilet in the tiny house — I empty it in the washroom on the campsite.
There’s also a regular toilet there that I can use, and when I’m out, I go to cafés or public restrooms.
Before, it was much more complicated.
I was constantly looking for a clean toilet — in cafés, hardware stores, furniture shops, or shopping centers.
Sometimes I had to wait in line forever, and sometimes it was just gross because I had to clean the toilet before I could use it.
And if it was closed, I had to get back in the car and find another one.
At night, I usually parked at the edge of the forest so I could simply go into the woods in the morning.
Because honestly, it’s too much to ask to drive several kilometers after waking up just to be able to pee.
Showers — that hasn’t really changed.
I take one shower a week in the campsite washroom and another one in the swimming pool or climbing gym.
I don’t have a shower in the house, so that part is basically the same.
What has improved is washing myself — now I can do that in the tiny house, where I have real privacy.
That’s actually a big step forward.
Doing laundry was even easier in the summer, because I had a washing machine.
But I had to carry ten buckets of water over fifty meters to the washroom, since there’s no drain at the house.
It was a bit of a workout, but at least it was cheap.
Now in winter I go back to the laundromat — without a car.
That means: trolley, thirty minutes to the train station, one hour by train, ten minutes walking.
Before, I could just drive there — much easier.
Cleaning is definitely more work now.
Before, I only vacuumed the car occasionally, cleaned the windows, and once a year paid for a full interior cleaning — expensive, but super satisfying.
Now I have more surfaces to vacuum, mop, and wipe, plus dishes to wash after cooking.
But it stays cleaner and tidier because everything has its place.
What I miss a little is variety.
I used to go swimming in different rivers — now I rarely do that because it takes too long by public transport.
But I do have mountain streams and the lake right in front of my door.
Only thing is, I’m hardly ever alone there — too many tourists.
2️⃣ Sleep – Living in a Car vs. Living in a Tiny House
Now, after three months in the tiny house, as the colder months begin, I can really tell which is better: sleeping in a car or in a tiny house.
In terms of how it feels to lie down, almost nothing has changed.
I still have the same mattress as before — it just rests on wood now instead of a car seat, so it’s a bit firmer.
A thicker mattress would be difficult because the sleeping platform is quite low.
I could also sleep under the slanted part — there’s room there for my thinner mattresses on top of the bouldering mat.
What I loved about sleeping in the car was waking up in nature.
Sometimes I saw the sunrise or sunset right from my bed — by a lake, by the sea, in the mountains, or on a hill.
Once there was a herd of peacefully grazing cows right next to me, another time in France two wild horses.
There were mornings and evenings when I went swimming in a river or waterfall right before sleeping or right after waking up.
Those places — in Auvergne, in Tuscany — were often beautifully quiet, surrounded by nature, and that was priceless.
But I never knew if I would actually sleep through the night.
Music, engines, voices — sometimes I was woken up in the middle of the night, or I even had to drive away because the noise was unbearable.
That was hard, because I take medication to help me sleep – it feels like downing a whole bottle of wine at once or lying down after a sauna steam ritual – that’s when they pour water over the hot stones in the sauna and wave the steamy air around with a towel.
Driving in that state was really irresponsible, but sometimes I had no choice.
In the tiny house, it’s different — but not completely silent either.
I live by a lake and a road, and it’s often noisy:
sports cars, motorcycles, trucks with rattling cargo.
On summer weekends, there were sometimes drunk people wandering around my house at night — that has thankfully calmed down.
I was also really glad when it got cooler and I could close the windows.
Now the sound insulation is much better than in the car.
And more importantly, I’ve realized something:
When it gets loud, I don’t have to jump up and drive away anymore.
I can just stay.
The noise passes, and I can go back to sleep.
That’s probably the biggest difference — not the sleep itself, but the security of being allowed to stay.
3️⃣ Movement – Living in a Car vs. Living in a Tiny House
In the first year that I lived in my car, I lost twenty kilos — without doing anything special to make it happen.
I just moved so much more.
Okay, I also ate less, but I’ll talk about that later.
Simply by parking in nature most mornings and evenings and wanting to see my surroundings — or go swimming in a river or waterfall — I automatically reached ten to twenty thousand steps a day, sometimes even more.
From November 2019 onward, my project “Hosts by the Water” began.
I published a new issue every month with hiking trails and parking spots, and that meant thousands of extra steps because I needed photos of specific places.
I was constantly on the move, discovering new lakes, rivers, and paths.
I also went swimming much more often than before, because I used swimming pools to shower.
That was exercise, self-care, and joy all at once.
In 2024, bouldering became part of my life — and now I can even do it at home.
I have a small climbing wall inside my tiny house, and when I want to, I can just climb for a while.
Jogging has also become easier, because now I always have a shower nearby.
But there’s another side to it.
Before living in the car, I was too depressed to have the energy to move.
It was actually through living in the car that I overcame my depression — through movement, through constant change, through dopamine, adrenaline, and endorphins.
I was outdoors all the time, discovering new things, and that reactivated my whole system from the inside out.
Now, in the tiny house, the danger of falling back into old patterns is bigger.
It’s more comfortable, safer, quieter — but also more tempting to just stay still.
If I don’t consciously plan trips and challenges, I notice how quickly I slip into routine: watching series, eating snacks, moving less.
So movement used to be something natural in the car — now it’s something I have to plan.
And that, for me, is one of the biggest changes of all.
4️⃣ Food – Part 1: The First Year in the Car
By far the best my diet has ever been was during the first year I lived in my car.
I had a very simple routine:
In the morning, a pastry with coffee.
At lunchtime, a salad with fish — or back then sometimes with chicken breast.
And in the evening, often just a handful of nuts.
That was it.
No pudding, no cookies, no big dinners.
I simply ate when I was hungry and stopped when I was full.
Even after I came back from Tenerife, I kept that habit:
a small breakfast in a café, a healthy lunch in a restaurant, and that was all.
I spent a lot of time outdoors, always moving, and my meals were light, fresh, and simple.
I didn’t have to plan anything, store anything, or clean up much afterwards.
And that did me a lot of good — physically and mentally.
4️⃣ Food – Part 2: From 2020 Until Today
Starting in 2020, my eating habits completely changed.
During the pandemic, I couldn’t go to cafés or restaurants anymore — and once I began buying food in supermarkets, the temptation to eat more suddenly appeared.
Supermarket packages are designed to last for several days, but I didn’t have a fridge.
So I usually finished everything quickly so it wouldn’t go bad.
Then in August 2020, I quit smoking — and suddenly every hour that I would have lit a cigarette before, I craved something sweet.
And I gave in way too often.
In the winter of 2020/21, I couldn’t go to Tenerife because of the travel restrictions.
That was a really difficult time for me.
I was barely outside, sitting in the car most of the day, driving around the block every half hour just to stay warm.
On ice or slush I walked slowly and carefully, instead of briskly as before.
I felt uncomfortable, everything was exhausting — and I comforted myself with pudding and cookies.
It was a real vicious circle.
Swimming pools were closed too, so I lost another source of movement.
Since then, I’ve tried countless times to break this unhealthy eating pattern.
But so far, I’ve always fallen back into it.
To be honest, the tiny house hasn’t changed much about that.
I don’t enjoy cooking and still eat in cafés almost every day.
On top of that, I often have a warm meal for lunch — and, unfortunately, cookies in the afternoon.
I still have this silly idea in my head that I need to comfort or reward myself.
What nonsense, really.
My goal is to get back to eating the way I did in Tenerife, in 2018 and 2019:
light, healthy, mindful.
Wish me luck.
Leave a Reply