Isn’t a camping trip the greatest travel adventure? Getting out into nature, camping in the woods or nestling beside a river or stream can soothe the soul in ways that other social experiences simply can’t.
Most people know the basics of camping: You set up a tent, roll out your sleeping bag, and cook yourself some beans on an open fire – or a portable stove.
However, just because you’re camping doesn’t mean you have to be completely rustic about everything. There are some great innovations and appliance upgrades hitting the market that can appreciably enhance your next camping trip.
Camping Trip Must-Haves
Heavy-Duty Cooler
The cooler may be the most underappreciated, unsung hero of a camping trip. Without adequate sustenance, you can’t really enjoy yourself and there’s nothing worse than not having enough cooler space to store all your beverages and food.
Additionally, your cooler needs to be big enough to store the amount of ice needed. Unless you’re camping on an arctic tundra, without ice, you don’t get to eat things like cheese or milk.
You won’t be able to pack raw meat to cook or anything else that can spoil.
For most outdoor excursions, a 65 qt. cooler is ideal because it’s small enough to be carried by one person while still spacious enough to hold 64 cans, plus ice.
Whether you’re utilizing it for a marine fishing trip, a hunting expedition, or just a classic camping weekend, you want to make sure you have optimized your cooler space situation.
GPS and Location Tracking Devices
We’ve all heard horror stories of people who get lost in the wilderness while camping. Usually, it has a happy ending, but is it really worth taking the risk?
When you’re camping in a confusing area or hiking an uncharted trail – and especially if you’re alone – you absolutely have to have some kind of tracking device.
The most common devices are GPS satellite and personal locator beacons. It’s important to not rely on your smartphone’s GPS because, if you run out of battery or are using an app, it’s very easy to lose access.
Instead, you want a separate emergency device that will alert people when you have a problem or are lost. Satellite phones are increasingly popular for this and the newest models are easy-to-use, portable, and offer SOS functions.
Satellite phones also generally offer customized messaging, and individual text streams. Some of the latest models even offer web-linked live tracking.
If you go camping with your kids, live tracking could be an ideal way for you to keep an eye on them. Or it could help you monitor your kids’ location if it’s their first camping trip without you.
There are many options but the important thing is that you have a reliable tracking device in the event you ever get lost or have a medical emergency.
Portable Water Filter
Any avid backpacker knows that you need to have a portable water filter before you head out into the great outdoors. After all, there’s only so much water you can pack.
If you happen to get lost or lose your rations, you could be stuck without liquids, which is one of the worst things that can happen.
There are many streams, rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water out in nature, but if you don’t have a filter, it’s incredibly dangerous to drink it.
Without decontaminating and purifying water out in nature, you risk consuming bacteria, viruses, parasites, heavy metals, and all kinds of toxic particles, which can be life-threatening.
Portable water filters will vary by size, storage capacity, filtering capacity, and other factors, and they are not necessarily synonymous with regular water filters.
The main aspects you want to look for are the micron size (how small of a particle it will filter) and making sure you can filter as many microorganisms as possible from as many situations as possible.
For example, will your water filter work with snow? What about sand? Can you dip it into a murky pond or just clear rivers?
There are many ways to get out into nature. Whether you want to go backpacking, take a camping trip, go fishing, or participate in any number of activities, but it’s important to be prepared.
Being prepared for an outing in nature means you need clothes, shelter, food, and beverages. But you also need to be able to keep any perishable items cold.
You’re camping trip or other outdoor adventure is your chance to escape from the world for a bit but you don’t want to be permanently lost. A tracking device will help you in the event that you do get lost.
And probably most important, you have to be certain you will be able to have clean, drinking water. So, be sure to add a portable water filter to your prep list.
Once you’ve got these basics covered, it’s time to plan your next camping trip and have an epic outdoor adventure.
