Camping can be a lot of fun if it goes right. If it goes wrong, you might get a funny story out of it, but you could also have a really miserable weekend or week. Ideally, we want a good story and a fantastic time to come out of our vacations, and camping is no exception.
So, here are some tips to ensure that you don’t have any disasters on your next camping trip.
Plan The Trip
It’s been said that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. In short, if you don’t put in the work beforehand, any project or trip is far more likely to fall apart.
Once you have the idea to go camping, you have the beginnings of a plan. It’s not just as simple as deciding to spend a weekend in a tent and hoping for the best. The basic things to plan are when you’re going camping, where you’re going to camp, and who you’re going with.
Once you’ve answered those questions, you can plan the details. When depends on you and who you’re going with. Pick your companions carefully, great friends in everyday life might not be great camping friends, and you want to ensure everyone has a great time. If you’re camping with your family, think about your children’s needs and expectations.
As for where you’re camping, you may need to research local camping regulations and find camping sites in the area you’d like to visit. From here, you can determine what kind of camping you’d enjoy, as well as what equipment you’d need.
The Right Gear
Speaking of equipment, every kind of camping requires some kind of gear. You don’t want to be over or under-equipped when you’re on your adventures, but every camping trip seems to have its own needs.
If you compare the two extremes of wild camping and luxury camping (or glamping), you can see a massive difference. When you go glamping, you might stay in a luxury tent, a camper trailer, or even a cabin. You have the main mod-cons available to you, like showers and toilets. You can relax.
When you go wild camping, you generally only take what you can carry on your back. It’s hard to find a balance between what you’ll need and what you can comfortably carry, especially if you’re hiking while camping.
The right gear includes food, water, and ways to store, prepare, and cook it. Nobody wants to find out they haven’t packed enough food, or that the food they do have has gone bad due to improper storage.
Prepare For Disaster
While, ideally, everything should go smoothly if you’ve planned well enough, disasters can still happen. Your car might break down, the weather might turn on you, or someone might get hurt or lost.
Always have a contingency plan. If you know what can go wrong and what you can do, you might even be able to turn things around and enjoy your trip or at least get back safely.
