The more camping trips you go on the more camping hacks you’ll learn. You look at a problem you had while camping and try to figure out how to fix it for the next camp out. However, it’s nice when others share their solutions to various problems and give you little hacks to make things easier. So here are a few of many camping hacks that will make your life easier.
Moving Blankets
It sounds weird to think about but a moving blanket makes a great heavy-duty throw rug for your tent. The tarp-like floor of most tents can be cold first thing in the morning and gets dirty pretty easily. However, using a moving blanket as a rug takes care of those problems. When you’re done camping you just pull the blanket up and all the dirt and whatnot comes with it. Saving you the time and hassle of sweeping out your tent before packing it away. Add in the extra padding again the hard ground, and some extra insulation you can’t go wrong.
The best part is they are washable, sturdy and designed to protect things, so you don’t have to worry about the floor of your tent getting damaged if you have your shoes on or something sharp drops on the floor. All that and they are cheap. You can buy them from Amazon for around $11, or Harbor Freight for $9 depending on the size you need.
Carabiners
Anyone that goes rock climbing knows how useful a carabiner can be. However, those who don’t climb can get cheap ones and use them for hanging and clipping all sorts of things together. Best the use for a carabiner is to hang a lantern inside your tent. While LED lights can be one of the best camping lights, they aren’t designed to produce light upwards. They are designed to light up downward and outward. So to get the most light from a lantern, you want to have it high up and not sitting on your floor.
Grab a carabiner and clip the lantern handle to one of the loops inside your tent, and you’ll have a lot more light than if you just sat it on the floor. You also to hang other things you don’t want sitting on the floor, and of course, they are easier than using a rope to tie stuff to the outside of your bags.
Coffee Cans
If you remember, one of the most important things to bring on any camping trip is toilet paper. The problem is keeping it dry if it rains. A coffee can works perfectly to keep a full roll of toilet paper dry even in the heaviest rains. If you really feel like getting creative you have even cut a slit on the side of the can big enough to feed the toilet paper through.
Drum Liners
Boy Scouts teach to always make sure you leave an area better than when you found it. So when you go camping you should always police the area before you leave and pick up all the trash you may have forgotten and even what others have forgotten. To do this you’ll need a trash sack, but there are more uses for a trash bag than just collecting garbage.
Cut 3 holes in a 55-gallon drum liner and you have a great poncho. One that won’t rip easily, and is going to keep you dry. Better than that you can put you’re sleeping bag inside it and keep yourself dry from a leaking tent, and warm from any sort of breeze. Although, you’ll have to be careful. If you sweat a lot in your sleep you’ll wake up wet because it does as good a job of keeping water out as it does keeping moisture in. So don’t use this camping hack if you don’t spare clothes to change into in the morning, or you’ll damp all day. This is even more important when cold weather camping as wet clothing doesn’t hold in your body heat.
Empty Laundry Soap
If you buy your laundry soap in the big containers you have the perfect container for a hand washing station. When you’re done using all the soap for laundry rinse out the container, and fill it up with water when you go camping. It has a spout already on it. Perfect for getting just enough water to wet your hands wash them off and rinse them afterward. With a bonus that you don’t have to turn the water on and off, nor pay for another water jug for washing your hands. Truly a win all the way around. If you want to get really fancy grab a bungee cord, wrap it through a paper towel roll and strap it on top of the container. Now you have everything in one place without fear of the towels being blown around in the wind.
Angled Tent Stakes
A simple camping hack is to angle your tent stakes. Many people will drive their tent stakes straight into the ground when setting up a tent. This works great until there is hi winds. This pulls on your ropes and can pull out a tent stake. Which, as we’ve all seen a tent that loses its ropes in heavy wind can blow away very quickly.
If you point the bottom of your tent stake towards your tent as you drive them in. You can prevent this. A 30%-45% angle is enough that if your ropes pull on the stake it may straighten it up but not pull it out.
Hot water bed warmer
On those cold nights of camping anything you can do to climb into a warm bed is nice. While you are heating up water to do dishes add some hot water to a plastic water bottle. Then making sure it won’t leak, put it inside our bed. The warm water will heat up your bed and can help keep you warm during the night.
Makeshift Fire-starters
I love Doritos for their flavor and crunch. I also like them for their ability to burn really nice and help you get a campfire started. If you’re having a hard time finding dry kindling or forgot normal fire starters. Grab a hand full of Doritos and light one on fire. It will burn for a bit and give you a chance to your fire going.
If you’re like me you keep all those old Birthday cake candles. Then wonder what you’re going to do with them. They make great fire starters. Stick the candle in the middle of all your kindling, light and away you go. If you don’t have birthday candles you can also grab cheap tea light candles.
Frozen Jugs
Buying ice for your cooler can get pricey after a while. Plus not all food likes to be stored in ice water. The solution to this is to use ice packs. Those get pricey too. The best solution is to freeze water in milk jugs, or pop bottles. They keep your food and cooler cold and dry at the same time. The best part is if you run out of water just sit one out for a few hours and you have ice-cold water to drink. It’s a win all the way around.
Pancake Mix in a Condiment bottle
You can buy shake and pour instant pancake mix. It comes in a neat bottle that you just at water to, shake and pour out the pancakes. It’s simple, easy, and twice as much as plain pancake mix. However, if you save your ketchup bottle or another squeeze bottle you can do the same thing with cheaper pancake mix. Just make sure you leave enough room for water and don’t add all the water to start. You don’t want a really runny pancake mix.
Turkey Fryer
For those who a gas turkey fryer for your once a year Thanksgiving meal. You can use that same Turkey Fryer for all sorts of things while camping. The best is to heat up dishwater. There is also seafood broils, and just about anything you want to cook in a big pot.
Conclusion
While this is just a few camping hacks there are tons more. Many you’ll learn from camping and fixing problems yourself. Others you’ll learn from fellow campers who have figured out things that make camping better for them. The most important thing to remember is to try something new. See how it works. Then share it with others. It’s really about enjoying the great outdoors and having a good time.
Great tips Jeff, thanks.