>>2343123I could give you some pointers for car-camping for free in the west, but
>especially in CaliforniaThat's gonna be a problem. A huge amount of camping in that state requires reservations and fees, even dispersed car camping.
Listen to
>>2343234 also. There are unseen costs, and since you can't refrigerate or probably accomplish complicated feats of cooking while living out of your car, you are essentially eating out for every meal--or the equivalent in cost to it. Doing laundry, showering, pooping, the kinds of things other homeless people struggle with, you will also struggle with.
My general advice is that you can usually find a free (no charge, no permit) dispersed campsite in National Forests and on Bureau of Land Management land throughout the intermountain west, but you will eat the suck in wintertime, unless you migrate to Arizona from about October to April, and even then, you're only going to be able to camp in the desert, like in Utah or Nevada. Anything resembling a "forest" outside of Arizona will be too hard to access due to muddy roads or the road will simply be closed off to all cars until the mud dries out in early summer. In theory, the BLM land in California should have the same rules as elsewhere; however, National Forests and National Parks located in California absolutely do not have the same rules as elsewhere, so I would not bet on it.
If it were me, my biggest challenge would be the boredom and lack of privacy. A van helps with the latter, but try to make a list of all the things you do in a normal day from sunrise (not when you wake up, from when the sun rises), until you go to bed. You're going to be essentially outdoors the entire time. Especially since you are a California, you will probably find it unbearable to not be connected to all of your Tiktok buddies for an extended period of time. I think your best bet might be to suck it up, get a job that lets you afford your rent, and just stay in the state that spawned you.
