Camping is a great hobby, suitable for all ages. It helps you relax, be close to nature, get some exercise and learn useful skills that can be a lifesaver in a fix. It is the ideal holiday activity as you can spend as much or as little as you want on a camping trip.
People who are new to camping may have difficulty adopting this hobby and may be left wondering how to get into camping. This is particularly difficult if you have never been outdoors much on your own. The best way to learn how to go camping is to jump right into it and give it a shot.
You may face some challenges at first, but that is part of the learning process. When you get better at managing stuff on your trip, camping will become a regular part of your life and you will enjoy it while creating great memories.
In this blog, we present a short guide on how to get into camping and the essential items you will need to have a good time.
What You Will Need
You do not need to buy a lot of expensive equipment to get started. If you are new to camping, we suggest buying only a few necessary items like a tent and backpack for your first trip.
If you really enjoy it, you can buy more items like cooking pots, pans and overnight sleeping gear for future trips. Here is a list of basic items that you need for your first camping trip.
- Camping Backpack
- Tent
- Water Bottle
- Lighting
Selecting a Camping Location
The first thing you need to do is select the location where you will go camping. We suggest making the trip close to home, like your local park or a farmhouse nearby that allows camping.
The location should have access to clean drinking water, food and other amenities like restrooms, power outlets and mobile signals so that you can get help if you need it.
You should not go camping in remote areas or the wild, at least for your first few trips.
Choose a Weather and Time
The season of the year and weather plays a big role for people who are wondering how to get into camping. Warm, sunny weather is necessary to have a good time camping.
Make sure to check the weather predictions for your camping destination before you set off. If heavy rain is expected, it is better to postpone the trip or switch the destination to some other place that has a better weather prediction.
The camping destination should be close to your home so that you can set off early morning and arrive there before noon. You may also want to pack up and leave for home before nightfall if you are new to comping and it is your first trip.
Learn How to Pitch A Tent
Your first few camping trips are meant to learn the necessary skills that you will need in the future. The first thing you need to learn is how to pitch a tent.
To do this correctly, you should have an idea as to what type of tent you have. Tents come in different varieties from domes and ridge tents to popups and A-Frames that are the most basic type. You can get better at pitching tents through practice so use the trip for learning.
Where you pitch the tent is just as important as learning how to pitch it. The ground for your tent must be flat and level, and should be near some shade. Avoid pitching close to tree roots, mud and rocks that make it difficult to rest inside. You should also pitch the tent on higher ground so that water does not gather into your tent in case it rains.
Learn How to Start a Fire
If you are serious about learning how to go camping, then keep in mind that no camping trip is complete without a little camp fire. This is quite easy to do if you have a fire-starter with you. Pile up some sticks, dry twigs and dead leaves and place the fire-starter in the middle.
Surround the pile of fuel with large stones to prevent the fire from spreading out. Use a lighter to start the fire. To keep it going, you will need to feed more dead sticks to the pile. Try to keep a small fire going during your stay.
Make sure to put it out completely before you leave.
Learn How to Cook Outdoors
You probably won’t need to cook on a half-day camping trip. However, your first few trips should be used to learn essential outdoor cooking skills that are necessary for multi-day camping trips.
Start by learning how to boil water. Experienced campers go out for week-long trips where they cannot carry enough water for the entire trip. They usually get their water from rivers and creeks. However, this water can be unhealthy for drinking so they boil and purify it.
You will also need to cook fresh food on longer trips. Two of the easiest items to cook are rice and potatoes. Rice can be boiled in a pot of water with a little sprinkle of salt. Peeled potatoes are also very easy to cook. Both of them are easy to carry in dry sacks and are packed full of carbs that you will need for energy.
Our Final Thoughts
Camping can be an incredibly relaxing and rejuvenating experience for people. It brings you close to nature and helps you rely on survival skills that come instinctually to each one of us.
If you are tired of everyday office work or staring at screens and working with machines, then you could be yearning for a camping trip. It gives you a unique experience from cooking your dinner over a campfire to collecting water, or just sitting down, relaxing and watching the sun go down.
Our advice is to take it one step at a time instead of jumping straight into a 7-day camping trip in the wild, without any skills or experience. Our step-by-step guide on how to get into camping for beginners should not only help you relax and enjoy your camping trip, but also teach you some valuable skills that you can apply to other areas in life.
