When we’re camping the wilderness, privacy isn’t much of an issue. But the rest of the time, we need a way to cover the windows on all four sides, without looking like we’re definitely sleeping in the car.

Light blocking is important, too– if we’re sleeping in a parking lot or on a street, I prefer to park somewhere reasonably well-lit, but I need it pretty dark in the car to be able to sleep.

I looked at a lot of different options for curtains, sheets, car covers, window shades, etc. and finally settled on this combination:

Windshield

This one was the most obvious. Reflective windshield shades are pretty common, so parking the car somewhere with one of these up was still discreet enough. They’re also relatively cheap. It was just a matter of finding one that fits the Jeep’s windshield correctly. I eventually settled on the Teraflex 5028701 Sun Shade, because of the positive reviews, and because I know and trust the brand. It works as expected, keeping the light out and providing privacy from the front. It also folds up very neatly and fits in the map pocket of my seat, unlike a lot of reflective sunshades I see sprawled across people’s backseats.

First- and Second-Row Windows

This was the hardest part. It’s hard to find curtains that are only 20” long, so I considered either buying a longer curtain and cutting it or buying a piece of fabric, sewing a curtain rod pocket in the top, and hanging it from a wire or bungee cord. The problem there was that there was nowhere for it to go when I didn’t want the curtains up, unless I took down the bungee. Then I realized that many curtains are 42” wide, so I bought a set of 42″ x 63″ blackout curtains, and hung them sideways, folded over, using clips. I keep them clipped in the middle (to the sport bar fabric on the car’s B-pillar) all the time, and then clip the front corners to the sunvisors and the rear corners to the C-pillar fabric at night to cover the first and second row windows.

If I was going to do it again I might use a longer (84″) curtain like these. 63″ is long enough, but having some extra fabric would make it a little easier to put up and less likely to come unclipped at night. Since the rear windows are tinted, and the front windows have screens over them, you can’t even tell that there are curtains behind the windows; it just looks dark.

Rear (Hardtop) Side Windows

The challenge for the rear windows was different; since I knew I was going to have stuff in the back from floor to ceiling, I had already come to terms with not being able to see out of the rear windows (especially once I got my rear-view mirror camera. I still didn’t want them to be permanently covered, but I wasn’t planning on removing anything from those windows during the day. However, the hardtop section of the car doesn’t have sport-bars to hang things off of like the front section does, so hanging a curtain or sheet would be difficult without using adhesive, which I wanted to avoid.

Additionally, I had learned from past trips that our feet get cold during the night when they’re right up against the metal tailgate, so I wanted my rear window covering to extend all the way down and also insulate at least the top half of the tailgate.

While shopping in an office-supply store, I came across some black foam-board (the kind that’s used for school projects, etc.) and realized it would be perfect– rigid enough to stand on its own, easy to cut to the right shape and size, and thick enough to block out all light.

For the rear side windows, I bought 2 black 20″ x 30″ Elmer’s foam boards. They’re exactly the right size for the side windows, so I didn’t even have to cut them. They slide right in along the windows, and are held in place by some of my internal storage compartments.

Rear Window

Then for the rear window, I bought a 36″ x 48″ Elmer’s tri-fold foam display board in black. This one required some trimming to fit around the contours of the tailgate, subwoofer, window hinge, and other hard trim. I went with a trial-and-error approach, trimming away corners until the tailgate closed just right. The width of the tri-fold board is perfect, but the height is just a little short of covering the whole window. I elected to leave it as-is, since our suitcases cover that little bit of window, but you could also easily tape some of the trimmings to the top to make it taller, or cut it differently so it doesn’t extend all the way to the bottom.

Note: Because my bike rack prevents opening the tailgate more than a couple of inches, we had already decided we would leave it closed. If using the tailgate is important to you, you might want to consider a different approach for the rear window.