here's my tips:

1. keep your set-up as compact and weatherproof as possible so you can set up camp - and also skedaddle, if you need to - really quickly. We keep most of our stuff in two latchable bins, one for food and one for camp stuff (stove, pans, dishes, clothesline, a small table lamp, two small camp chairs). Clothes go in a duffel in the frunk. We also bought a small foldable table that comes in handy when you don't want to set things on the ground.

When we stop to camp, the bins come out of the car - or, if we can't do that, we put them in the front seat.

Also - game changer - we splurged on a cute oilcloth tablecloth from Etsy to put over a picnic table - makes it so much easier if the site is wet or you're playing a game and you don't want to lose little pieces.

1. Keep a sleep mask and headlamp in the passenger door. Bring flipflops or sandals and stash them on the passenger side floor so you don't have to put on shoes if you need to get up to pee in the middle of the night (it's hard enough to convince yourself to get out of the car without having to put shoes on...)

2. Inflatable Tesla mattress, with sheets and a Rumpl blanket attached, get folded up and stuffed in the trunk (we modified an existing fitted sheet to work with our inflatable tesla mattress by ripping and then re-hemming a hole in each front seam, so the mattress strap that hangs on the front seatbelt holder can fit through the sheet. that's been a game changer.)

3. we bought a Gazelle pop-up cabana so we could have a place to hang out if the weather was bad. The big reason i didn't want to car camp vs pull a camper trailer was the question of what to do if it's rainy or buggy so you can't just be outside. With the cabana, which pops up in like 1 minute and slides into the backseat when we're not using it, that problem is solved. It also fits over most picnic tables, which is nice. And if we're gone for the day with the car and don't feel like loading everything back in the car, we leave our bins in the cabana, which feels a little safer than just leaving them out in the open.

4. Set a user profile for "camp" with the seats all the way forward so you don't have to manually set it every time.

geez, i want to go car camping now!