The first night I ever slept in a cab was in November 2021 at a layby outside Penrith. I had a fleece blanket from the house, a carrier bag with a sandwich and a banana, and no curtains because the Renault T I was driving had curtains that attached with press studs and half of them were missing. I lay on the bunk in my work clothes with the heating running and I slept for about ninety minutes total. By five in the morning I was so cold I started the engine and drove to the nearest McDonalds to sit in the car park with the heaters on full.
Three years later my tramping bag weighs about eight kilos and everything in it has earned its place by surviving at least two rounds of me throwing things out. This is what is in it.
Sleeping
The single most important thing I carry is a proper duvet. Not a sleeping bag. I tried sleeping bags for about six months and the problem is that you cannot move your legs properly in a cab bunk and the zip digs into your hip. A duvet lets you stick a leg out when it is too warm and wrap up properly when it is December.
I use a single Silentnight 10.5 tog from Argos. It cost £18. I have had the same one for two years and it washes fine in a domestic machine. The 10.5 tog is right for about nine months of the year. In January and February I add a fleece throw over the top, a Primark one that cost £6, and that combination has handled minus eight on an overnight at Carlisle without the heating running.
Pillow is a memory foam travel pillow from Amazon. £12. The proper-sized pillows do not fit well in most bunks because the bunk is narrower than a single bed. The travel pillow sits flat and does not slide around.
Cab curtains matter more than people think. If the original ones are in good shape, leave them alone. If they are tatty or missing press studs, buy a set of universal blackout curtains and velcro them to the headlining. I spent £28 on a set from a company called Campervan Curtains that makes them for the Scania S cab and they block out service station lights completely. Before I had decent curtains I was waking up every time someone in the next bay turned their sidelights on.
Food and drink
I carry a 12v kettle. This is the item I went through the most versions of before finding one that works. The first one I bought was a cheap one from eBay for £15. It tripped the cigarette lighter fuse every single time and took twenty-five minutes to boil half a litre. The second was a branded one for £35 that lasted four months before the element burned out.
The one I use now is a Waeco 12v kettle that cost £42 from a truck accessories shop in Warrington. It boils 750ml in about twelve minutes and has not tripped anything. Twelve minutes sounds slow compared to your kitchen kettle but you put it on while you do your walkaround check and it is done by the time you get back in the cab. I go through about four cups of tea a night and this thing has paid for itself many times over in saved McDonalds visits.
Other food kit: a small coolbox (not electric, just an insulated one from Halfords for £9), a set of camping cutlery that clips together, and a tupperware box that holds two sandwiches without squashing them. I make my sandwiches at home on Sunday evening and freeze them. They defrost in the coolbox during the day and by evening they are perfect. This saves about £30 a week compared to buying service station food, which is why I keep doing it even though my wife thinks it is sad.
I do not carry a microwave or a gas stove. I know drivers who do and I respect the commitment but the risk assessment in my head does not allow it. If the cab catches fire while I am asleep because of a dodgy inverter running a microwave, I would feel stupid in the ambulance. Your choice though.
Hygiene
A gym towel. Not a bath towel. A gym towel dries faster, takes up less space, and does not start smelling after one use. I have two in rotation. One in use, one drying on the passenger seat. They are from Decathlon and cost £4 each.
Shower gel and shampoo in travel bottles. Do not carry full-size bottles. They leak, they take up space, and you will knock them over at two in the morning and spend fifteen minutes cleaning shower gel off the cab floor. I refill travel bottles at home once a week.
A pack of face wipes for the nights when the service station showers are shut or the queue is too long. Baby wipes work fine. I buy the Aldi ones in bulk. A 60-pack lasts about two weeks.
Spare underwear, spare socks, spare t-shirt. Rolled up in a compression bag from Amazon that cost £8. The compression bag keeps them dry and stops them picking up the smell of the cab. I change into clean clothes after every shower and bag the dirty ones separately. Three sets gets me through Monday to Thursday without running out.
Entertainment and charging
A phone mount on a suction cup on the windscreen. I know everyone has one of these but I mention it because the cheap ones fall off when the windscreen gets cold. The one I use is a Quad Lock that cost £30 and has not moved once in two years.
A 20,000mAh battery pack. The one I have is an Anker that cost £35. I charge it while driving and then charge my phone from it at night. This means I do not need to run the truck engine or the auxiliary power unit overnight just to keep my phone alive. Some newer cabs have USB ports in the bunk area. The Scania S does. The Renault T I used to drive did not.
I watch things on my phone in the evening. I download episodes before I leave home because service station wifi is either slow or nonexistent. I use about 15GB of mobile data a month on top of whatever I download in advance. That is with a Three SIM on an unlimited plan for £20 a month.
Safety and practical
A head torch. Hands free, bright, runs on AAA batteries. Cost £7 from Screwfix. I use it for walkaround checks in winter when it is dark by half four and the yard lighting is terrible.
A spare hi-vis vest. Because the one you are wearing will be wet, dirty, or both by the end of the day, and if DVSA stops you and your hi-vis is in bits they will mention it.
Work gloves. I keep two pairs. One pair of thermal lined ones for winter coupling and uncoupling, and one pair of standard rigger gloves for strapping loads. The thermal ones were £8 from Screwfix and they are the single best £8 I have spent on this job.
A small first aid kit. Plasters, antiseptic wipes, ibuprofen, paracetamol. Not because I plan on getting hurt but because at some point you will cut your hand on a ratchet strap and the nearest chemist is forty minutes away.
What I stopped carrying
A camping chair. Sounds nice in theory. In practice you never use it because it is either raining or you are too tired or there is nowhere to sit that is not next to a diesel pump. It lived in the cab for four months and I sat in it twice. Both times I got up after ten minutes because it was cold.
A portable TV. Replaced entirely by the phone. The TV was bigger but it needed a separate power cable and it fell off the shelf once at Charnock Richard and cracked the screen. Phone on a mount does the same job.
Multiple pairs of shoes. I used to carry trainers for wearing after work. Now I just wear my work boots all evening and take them off at the bunk. One less thing to pack and honestly nobody at Tebay is judging your footwear at eight in the evening.
How my week shapes what I pack
If I am out for two nights I take the light version: duvet, pillow, kettle, food box, one change of clothes. If I am out for four nights I take the full bag with all three clothing sets, the coolbox loaded, and the battery pack.
I check my calendar on Sunday evening to see how many nights I am out, and that determines which bag configuration I use. The rest days are already marked, the 45-hour weekly rests are already placed, so I know exactly which nights are cab nights and which are home nights. It sounds like a small thing but packing the right amount means I am not hauling a full bag on a two-night week or running out of clean socks on a four-night one.
If you are thinking about tramping for the first time, the best advice I can give is to start with the basics and add things only when you actually miss them. My bag is eight kilos now. It was twelve when I started because I packed for every scenario instead of the real one. Most of what you need is warmth, tea, and clean underwear. Everything else is optional. Well, the truck stop is not optional, but the kit for surviving it is simpler than you think.
Frequently asked things
Is a sleeping bag or a duvet better?
Duvet. Not close. I tried both for months and the duvet wins because you can move freely, it washes easier, and it costs £18 instead of £60 for a decent sleeping bag. The only time a sleeping bag makes sense is if your bunk is unusually narrow, which I have not encountered in any cab made after about 2010.
Do I need an inverter?
For a kettle, no. Get a 12v one. For a laptop, maybe. I do not carry a laptop so I have never needed one. If you do carry one, get a pure sine wave inverter and check the wattage before you plug anything in. The cheap modified sine wave ones can damage electronics and the warranty will not cover it.
What about cooking in the cab?
I chose not to. Some drivers swear by 12v slow cookers and I have eaten meals made in them that were perfectly fine. I just cannot get past the idea of hot liquid in a moving vehicle. If you go that route, strap the cooker down properly and only run it while parked. The stories about cab fires are rare but they are real.