Camping - Things you need to remember !

• Author: DigitalMind
• Filed under: Camping, Solar Power and Off-Grid Living
• Date: Jan 27,2008

This is my “getting ready for camping” guide for the techie :

I love camping. A lot of people think of techie’s as people who are always in front of a computer, but I see it very differently. To me a techie is someone who needs to know how things work. The most interesting things are the newest technologies, (hence the term techie) but a techie’s interest are not limited only to these. The “Techie Power” needed here is simply a matter of how to live comfortably away from home without sacrificing anything you don’t want to. When I go camping, I don’t have much technology with me as that’s what I’m trying to get away from temporarily.

The Checklist : (What you need to go camping, comfortably) :

1. Shelter (I like tents … but it could be a pop up trailer, an RV, whatever) I think this one is self-explanatory. I got my tent at Wal-Mart of under a hundred dollars. It’s a six person tent. A Rule of thumb : Divide the number of people a tent can hold in 2 to have the number of people that can COMFORTABLY sleep there. My tent will hold 3 people without being cramped. It would TECHNICALLY hold 6 people like advertised, but that’s using every square foot of floorspace and there’s no room to store anything. My tent is rather large, for the sake of comfort, but If I were going camping out in the forest where there’s limited cleared room to put up a tent a small one would be better. DON’T FORGET TO WATERPROOF YOUR TENT EVERY YEAR !!!!
2. TARPS : Atleast 2. Somehow I didn’t realize this need until I was caught camping in a major rain storm. It’s IMPERATIVE to have a tarp UNDER your tent, (between the ground and the floor of the tent) in order to help divert water from flowing UNDER the tent. Make sure that the tarp doesn’t stick out from the bottom of the tent, or else it will have the opposite effect of taking IN the water and putting it beneath your tent floor. (Just tuck the tarp under the tent if it’s sticking out) The second tarp should be a LARGE tarp that can be used to create a second roof for your tent and an area in front of the tent to “hang out” in if it’s raining. I always figure out HOW i’m going to put up this tarp if needed, but wait for some sign of rain before putting it up. (Although it’s a pain to put up in the rain, so keep an eye out for mother nature! Don’t let her sneak up on you! )
3. Cooking Station : Going camping for me doesn’t mean cutting back on anything. It’s quite the opposite actually. I bring a portable propane BBQ for most of the cooking. I also bring a propane mini stove to boil water for coffee and anything else that requires a pot or pan to cook on. (Although I could easily get away with just bringing one of the 2) A 50 Gallon jug of water with a water spout for washing hands, dishes, and coffee water (Did I mention i’m a coffee addict?). I also bring my own Foldable 6 foot table, that way the picnic table that usually comes with camping sites is used only for eating and hanging out, and the cooking station stays there with everything on it as long as we’re camping. The table is annoying to carry, and I wouldn’t bring it if the Car was far from the camp site. (The cooler goes beneath it if animals aren’t too much of an issue at night, otherwise it’s back in the car every night)
4. Food : This is a really tricky one. It depends on your tastes, but here are a few tips. Plan your menu’s in ADVANCE. This is SOOOO important if you don’t want to spend your camping trip going to and from the closest store getting missing supplies. Don’t forget you need EVERY LITTLE THING that is needed to eat and make these foods. Utensiles, ketchup, mayo, cheese, plates, salt - pepper, etc.. (The little things are the things that are usually forgotten, because we get to used to always having those things handy in every kitchen) Try and make meals around food items that can’t go bad while you’re out there. Potatoes, canned things such as chef boyardee’s and pork’n'Beans. Those things are fun to slowly cook in the fire at night and eat right out of the can. Hotdog’s are a classic and last a long time in the cooler. I bring frozen burgers but I’ve learned that you wanna eat those within the first 3 days. Most things that need to be refrigerated can last your entire camping trip in a well ice’d cooler, but things like my burger that are meant to be FROZEN should be eaten in the first few days of the camping, because they will be thawed. My girlfriend Marina and I have a tradition of making a fancy STEAK dinner on our first night of camping. It’s a nice way to start a camping trip. Steak’n’ Baked potatoes and macaroni salad… mmmm … (Although our first trip the steak was meant to be eaten on the 3rd day, but it didn’t look so good on that day… Don’t make my mistake! ) Bring EXTRA FOOD that is stored seperately from your main supply since things can go bad. (Or, like Marina and I discovered, you may encounter Insane Killer Thieving Racoons that have the strengh to push HUGE rocks off cooler lids and aren’t afraid of people) The Canned things are usually my “emergency food”. Bottom Line : THINK HARD about what you’re going to eat on your camping trip, and have emergency food that can’t go bad.
5. Clothing : Bring clothing to match EVERY SCENARIO on EVERY DAY. So if you’re gone for 4 days, bring 4 days worth of clothes to match for sunny and warm, cold and cloudy, and raining / snowing. (Well, … Use your judgment for the snow.. ) Bring LOTS AND LOTS of socks, and always have backup clothes in case one pair of something gets soaked somehow. (no one like to be in wet clothes, camping is supposed to be fun, so BE PREPARED!)
6. SLEEPING : I like air mattress’s since it puts a buffer between the floor and you. I have a queen sized one for when i’m camping with my girlfriend Marina, and a single one for when i’m camping alone or with a friend. (That way there’s plenty of room for 2-3 other single air mattress’s in my tent) The Air inside the mattress can get VERY cold at night though, so don’t use a thin small blanket on the air mattress like you would at home, put a REALLY THICK blanket (or comforter) on the mattress and sleep on that. Then put LOTS more blankets for yourself. (Or a combination of sleeping bag with blankets) ALWAYS BRING EXTRA BLANKETS. I usually bring double what I think i’ll be using, and I usually end up using them all at one point or another when it gets REALLY cold in the middle of the night. Don’t forget your favorite pillow’s in order to be comfortable !! Make sure every camper has their own flashlight by their bed in case they need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I’ve learned the hard way that if you don’t know the area you’re camping in, DO NOT LEAVE FOOD IN YOUR TENT. To be honest, i’ve read this many places, but never really followed it until recently. I think i’ll write a post about this story of insane racoons. Click here to read it ! That experience freaked me out enough that I now tie-wrap the zipper openings of the tent shut at night, and need wire cutters or scissors to open it. (Which are kept by the door) It’s a pain but atleast I don’t have to worry about crazy’coons.
7. Fun Activities : I’m not going to tell you what to bring to have fun. You need to use your imagination here. What do you want to do while camping ? It depends on where you’re going. When Marina and I went to OKA, (Which I recommend to others, but be warned of the racoons!) there was a beach within walking distance and we rented Bicycles to go through the National Park forest trails, and Kayaks, and Pedal Boats, it was great ! We brought cards for the campsite, (although i’m not a big card player), and we’ll probably bring a few board games next year. Personally, i’m happy just lounging around in my foldable chair (which is another handy thing to bring for everyone) drinking a beer and listening to nature. Marina likes the activities.

I could go on and on with little details of things to bring, but instead i’ll just point you to a list someone else made. This list was my brief description of the things I recently re-learned while starting to camp again. It’s not fun to be out far away from everything, and be missing something important for your day to day enjoyment. I’ll admit i’ve always brought my laptop, but never taken it out except for one night to watch a movie in the tent. I turn off my cell phone when I go camping. It’s hard work planning a camping trip, but once you’re there and you have everything you need, it reverses and life is good, simple, stressless, and fun.

For those of you techie’s in need of your technology, (I understand, it’s ok) it would be easy to setup a portable solar powered system for your camping trips that you could use to power your laptop, mini DVD, cell phone and walkie-talkie chargers. I have alot of posts about Alternative Energy / Solar Power here, so please do a search using the Search Bar on the right.

Here are pictures from some 2007 camping trips :

Camping in Oka National Park with Marina

Camping on my sister’s 10 acres off-grid chunk of land near Kingston, Ontario

Camping in KOA Montreal - I wouldn’t recommend this place to be honest …

Thanks for reading, I can be contacted at digitalmind @ techienation . com anytime ! (remove the spaces in the address)