CAR CAMPING

with the Mazda CX-3

By Emily Malan Photography

June 1^st, 2016

Lauren from Driveshop was so nice to send us a car to use while car camping at Coachella weekend 1. The car is really great. I loved driving it around all weekend. The car felt very smooth to drive and large enough to fit in all our camping gear for the weekend. The navigation system and bluetooth is very helpful for making calls, as well as turning up the jams. The car is keyless, there’s a driver’s assist screen above your dash (that I found to be a little distracting). I absolutely loved the blind spot monitoring. The car would signal a sound if there was a car in your blind spot, also it would alert you in the side view mirror. I found that to be helpful with LA driving, so many drivers always drive in your blind spot. The car would alert you if you were tailgating, too.

One thing that I thought was odd about the car was that the gas tank was very small for a mid-sized SUV. It was only a 10 gallon tank! Cindy and I ended up getting gas for the car fairly often (at least 3 times before the weekend had ended). Gas mileage is pretty good— its about 31 miles to the gallon on average, 35 mpg on the highway, 29 in the city.

Despite the gas mileage, its a great car for quick weekend trips. Definitely recommend for car camping in desert at a festival or somewhere like Big Sur.