Camping can seem an uncomfortable and daunting prospect to beginners, so here are four pieces of advice from us about cheap and easy things you can do to get a better tent experience and to improve your camping comfort.
1. Use a pillow
I don’t carry a pillow, but having something to rest your head on makes a huge difference when you’re camping. You can even make one for free using things you already have with you. Just turn your sleeping bag’s stuff sack inside out (so you don’t get the buckles) and fill it with clothes. In terms of fillers, down jackets work well, but you’ll need the stuff sack to keep it clean.
You can also buy dedicated camping pillows very cheaply on Amazon. The best ones are inflatable and pack down very small. You can get very cheap ones (such as the Trekology, around £10).
As I mentioned, I don’t carry a pillow myself, I just use a jacket, but the extra £10 isn’t much and for some it’s worth it.
2. Keep your bag at your feet
This one seems really trivial, but its worth it.
The best option is often to keep your pack outside the inner, but it’s not always possible. If your tent doesn’t have a vestibule or the vestibule is small, you’ll end up sleeping next to your bag. In cramped tents, this isn’t very comfortable because it steals a lot of your space, so instead, keep your bag at your feet. You can rest your feet on it, which is good because most sleeping mats finish before your feet and the bag will keep them off the ground.
When your bag is unpacked for the night, it will most likely fit across your mat, however big it is, so this will work with most bag/mat combinations.
It seems trivial, but this will make a huge difference to the quality of your sleep with an extremely simple and easy-to-make change.
3. Stay dry
This might seem quite obvious, but we cannot state this enough, and here are a couple of little tips that can really help with this.
Pack up your inner separately.
This is one for the tents with two layers (most ones you’ll buy if you’re starting out), and by packing the two layers separately, you can make sure the wet outer layer doesn’t soak through to the inner, so everything stays dry that way.
Get a dry bag.
Having a dedicated dry bag (it doesn’t need to be anything very expensive) can make a world of difference for keeping the stuff in your backpack dry. This is because, while a couple of bin bags will work in a stretch, with a dry bag you won’t have to worry about it tearing, and you can cinch it down a lot more.
My favourite drybag is the Mountain Warehouse pack liner (40l), which retails for £12 but is often much cheaper on amazon.co.uk.
Vent your tent.
By opening up the little vents that most tents come with, you can hugely reduce the amount of condensation you get. There’s nothing worse than getting woken up by water dripping on your head in the middle of the night.
4. Choose a good spot
Good spots for a wildcamp (or even in a campsite) can sometimes be hard to find. For wildcamping, you’re looking for flat places that are near a source of running water (so purify and drink). Obviously, avoiding boggy/uneven ground is essential.
There can also be tactics to choosing where to pitch in a campsite: I prefer being further away from the centre in a quiet area, but this necessarily comes with far more walking to any facilities the campsite offers. Flat ground is, of course, essential.
The key to backpacking anywhere is, obviously, comfort (vs weight vs cost). These four tips are free (or very close), and have made my camping experience much more comfortable. It is worth noting that, whatever gear you have, it can be the most expensive available, if you don’t know how to use it, its pointless. The same can be said of cheap gear: cheaper gear items have multiple uses, and I hope this article has helped you explore some of them.
See more of our tips and tricks here.