What To Bring Camping

If it has been a while since your last camp­ing trip or if you have never been camp­ing before then a com­mon ques­tion is What to Bring Camp­ing?  There are some things that are a neces­sity, a few that make camp­ing a lit­tle eas­ier, and some items are just for the spoiled among us.

The Camp­ing Essen­tials or the Camp­ing  Necessities:

• A tent, or some type of shel­ter. You will need pro­tec­tion from the ele­ments. Insects and other pests can make it dif­fi­cult to sleep. The weather can also ruin a camp­ing trip if you are not well shel­tered. and don’t for­get the tarp.
• Food: Make sure you pack enough food and water to last for the entire trip. Peo­ple need a cou­ple thou­sand calo­ries a day, so pack enough.
• Sleep­ing Bag and Camp­ing Pil­low: these items will make sure you rest well.
• Water­proof Matches or a Good Lighter: or both to make sure you can start a fire when needed.
• A Com­pass: Just in case you decide to go wan­der­ing in the wilderness.
• Toi­let Paper: You will def­i­nitely need it at some point.
• Flash­light and/or Lantern: How else will you get around in the dark when nature calls?
• Insect Repellant/ Off: There will be insects. But will you be ready for them?
• Proper Cloth­ing: This can vary depend­ing on your planned activ­i­ties and the sea­son. Make sure you have warm clothes in cool weather and cool clothes in warm weather. Also remem­ber to bring your swim­ming gear if swim­ming is in the plans.
• Sun­screen: to pro­tect your skin from the sun’s harm­ful rays.
• A watch: your cell phone may die and you may need to know the time of day.
• A Tooth­brush and tooth­paste: That feel­ing of going unbrushed should be moti­va­tion enough.

Nice Items to Have Handy while Camping:

• Extra bat­ter­ies: For the flash­light, or the Hand­held video games if your like some of my friends.
• Sun­glasses: it’s nice to be able to beat the glare
• Hatchet: For cut­ting some fire wood.
• Chairs: Because sit­ting on the ground can get old. there are many good fold­ing chairs out there.
• Soap: If you plan on stay­ing clean while camping
• Comb or brush: you will want to keep your hair look­ing good.
• Aspirin: Just in case
• Cook­ing and Eat­ing Gear: You will need to serve the food some­how. there are a lot of good and easy to travel with stoves and dishes that are made just for camping.

These were just a few things off the top of my head for those that have trou­ble remem­ber­ing what to bring camping.

This video also has some good advice as to what to bring camp­ing.

EX-60LW Review">

Camp Chef Explorer Series EX-60LW 2-Burner Mod­u­lar Cook­ing Sys­tem Review

Camp Chef Explorer Series EX-60LW

Cook­ing while camp­ing can some­times be a dif­fi­cult task. Cook­ing on the open flame of a camp­fire has sev­eral issues, the biggest of which is tem­per­a­ture reg­u­la­tion. Most BBQ grills are too large to take camp­ing. Although, there are a few good ones out there. Lately my favorite method of cook­ing while camp­ing has been the Camp Chef Explorer Series EX-60LW 2-Burner Mod­u­lar Cook­ing Sys­tem . It is fueled by propane, which makes achiev­ing the desired tem­per­a­tures easy.

I would like to cover some of the appeal­ing  fea­tures of the Camp Chef Explorer Series EX-60LW 2-Burner Mod­u­lar Cook­ing Sys­tem. First the legs that sup­port the stove can be indi­vid­u­ally adjusted, mak­ing it easy to get a level cook­ing sur­face. This is not a com­mon fea­ture with grills intended for back yard or patio use. The three sided wind screen helps block the wind and keep the burn­ers lit. The burn­ers are 30,000 btu burn­ers which means you can cook just about any­thing you like. The  Camp Chef Explorer Series EX-60LW is very easy to travel with,  mak­ing it not only good for camp­ing, but also for tail­gat­ing, can­ning, or just gen­eral use like any other grill. But my favorite fea­ture of all is that it is mod­u­lar, mean­ing there are a ton of acces­sories avail­able for it. Grab a Camp Chef Explorer Series EX-60LW from Ama­zon now!

• Camp Chef Carry Bag 2-Burner

Camp Chef Carry Bag

Makes trav­el­ing with the EX-60LW a cinch.

• Camp Chef SG60 deluxe steel fry griddle

Camp Chef SG60 deluxe steel fry griddle

Turn the stove into a large sur­face grid­dle. Per­fect for cook­ing breakfast.

• Camp Chef CGG16 Cast Iron Grill/Griddle

A small grid­dle that frees up a burner for other uses.

• Camp Chef BB-60L Deluxe Sport Grill Box for 2-Burner Stoves

EX-60LW Review">

“Now where are those marshmallows?”

So you’re get­ting the gear together for that week-long fam­ily camp­ing trip. You’ve got your brand new tent, your sleep­ing bags, cook­ing gear, cool­ers, food, light­ing, fur­ni­ture… Hey! Where are we going to put all this stuff? Where are the kids going to sit?

Well don’t have a tentrum. An easy way to solve your cargo conun­drum is with a Stow­Away Hitch Cargo Car­rier. An eas­ily acces­si­ble hitch mount cargo box, the Stow­Away is the ideal com­bi­na­tion of stor­age, secu­rity, reli­a­bil­ity and con­ve­nience. Slid­ing quickly and securely into the receiver hitch of nearly every make and model of SUV, mini­van, truck and RV, Stow­Aways have up to to 16 cubic feet of stor­age capac­ity and can carry loads of up to 200 lbs. That’s a lot of s’mores fixin’s!

Offer­ing easy ground-level access to all your gear, the Stow­Away makes it a snap for any fam­ily mem­ber to grab what they need at rest stops, and pro­vides easy access to your gear when you reach the camp­ground. Say so long to the incon­ve­nience and fuel inef­fi­ciency of a rooftop car­rier. A secure lock­ing mech­a­nism keeps your gear safe while you’re at din­ers, trail­heads and other road­side attrac­tions, and pro­tects your food from the wildlife while you’re out in the wild. Man­u­fac­tured in the USA, the ruggedly con­structed Stow­Away won’t sway or wob­ble as you’re head­ing down a rugged back-country road to your favorite remote camp­site. A weather tight seal keeps every­thing nice and dry should the weather turn wet, and there’s a well-placed drain plug for easy clean-up. Your gear will arrive safe and secure, and your pas­sen­gers comfortable.

Like to take the bikes along when you camp? No prob­lem. The Stow­Away Hitch Cargo Car­rier has been designed to be used simul­ta­ne­ously with the Stow­Away Hitch Bike Rack, a 4-bike and bike gear rack that can also be used sep­a­rately for non-camping excursions.

So grab your gear and head on out. With a Stow­Away Hitch Cargo Car­rier you’ll have plenty of space to haul all every­thing safely and securely to your next great out­door adventure.

 Ther­marest Com­press­ible Pil­low Review

 

The Ther­marest Com­press­ible Pil­low  is quite a won­der­ful item I have recently added to my camp­ing back­pack. For years while sleep­ing at camp­sites, I would use rolled up dirty clothes or my back­pack as a pil­low. These were not good options for sev­eral rea­sons. Com­fort being the rea­son that stands out. A few times I brought pil­lows from home, but they can be rather bulky and are eas­ily dam­aged while camping.

Ther­marest Comfort

The Ther­marest Com­press­ible Pil­low solved all my prob­lems while tak­ing up very lit­tle space. It rolls up so small, it fits nicely into my back­pack. At first I didn’t believe that once it unrolled, it had a chance of retak­ing a com­fort­able form again. I was very wrong. Once I unrolled it, it still looked flat but after a minute it had regained its fluffi­ness and pro­vided the most com­fort­able camp­ing pil­low option I’ve yet to come across. When you roll it up, the attached draw-string secures the pil­low and keeps it from unrolling in your back­pack or bag. This Ther­marest requires no infla­tion either. Those infla­tion pil­lows can be comfy, but they require you to carry around an infla­tion device, which is why I pre­fer this pillow.

Com­press­ible Pil­low For Travel

The Ther­marest Com­press­ible Pil­low is a good option for travel as well. Long rides of any sort can be uncom­fort­able places to try to nap, whether it be car, train, bus, or plane. This pil­low can store eas­ily in your carry-on bag or back­pack and will let you get your desired rest.

Ther­marest Com­press­ible Pil­low Review

Camp­ing Pillows

It is also machine wash­able. I have washed and dried mine sev­eral times and it always main­tained its com­fort.  After stor­ing for long peri­ods of time in the rolled up posi­tion, it still comes to full fluffi­ness within a few minutes.

The Ther­marest is avail­able in three dif­fer­ent sizes rang­ing from small to large. There are at least six sep­a­rate design schemes to choose from as well, includ­ing two dif­fer­ent cammo pat­terns, two solid color, and two dec­o­ra­tive pat­terns. I bought one of the polka dot­ted patterns.

The Com­press­ible Pil­low is a great option for campers, hik­ers, back­pack­ers, and trav­el­ers that need a com­press­ible solu­tion for head rest. They make a great gift for the out­doors­man on your shop­ping list as well. Pick one up from Ama­zon today! The medium and large sizes are even avail­able with free ship­ping.

 

Blue Water­proof Poly Tarp  for Camp­ing and Tents

Blue Multi-Purpose 6-mil Water­proof Poly Tarp

 

Avail­able in sev­eral sizes, This tarp made by Griz­zly Tarps is per­fect for plac­ing under your tent to pre­vent dam­age to the bot­tom of your tent and to pre­vent mois­ture from find­ing its way into your tent. Many tent do a pretty good job of keep­ing out water but extra pro­tec­tion is really nice. These tarp are also good for keep­ing your tent clean and free of dirt and mud, which makes putting the tent away after camp­ing a bit less messy. It saves you from get­ting dirt every­where the next time you unpack your tent.

These tarps are also good for plac­ing inside your tent on the tent floor. The pur­pose of this is to make clean up of the dirt you would track inside the tent much easier.

Another ben­e­fit is to stretch it out between some trees or poles to pro­vide a shaded area for your camp­ing trip, beach vaca­tion, and even just around the yard. Noth­ing like some extra shade in the mid­dle of the sum­mer, espe­cially while cook­ing and eat­ing. It could also work as shel­ter from rain. In a bind it could func­tion as a makeshift rain fly.

Some peo­ple use these for cov­er­ing wood piles. Oth­ers for secur­ing cargo in the bed of there pickup truck. Being water­proof they will keep your fire­wood or your cargo dry from the rain.

The built in grom­mets are there for  tying  the tarp to what­ever you need to tie it to.

These tarps are avail­able in sev­eral sizes. Check out Ama­zon for a good price on these reli­able tarps.