Camping is popular among families and friends who want to bond in nature. As such, a camping trip should be a stress-free vacation for everyone. While you can enjoy a relaxing trip by researching your potential campsite and making a list of things to bring, there’s another way to achieve this: minimalist camping. As its name suggests, this type of camping doesn’t require too much equipment, allowing you to enjoy the activity hassle-free.
It’s challenging to decide what necessities you should bring, so we’ve provided some tips to help. If you’re bound for a minimalist camping trip soon, here are a few tips you can keep in mind:
Choose a tarp over a tent
When you think of camping, tents immediately come to mind. It’s a staple camping item, but did you know there’s a better option? Between tents and tarps, it’s actually best to pack a tarp for your minimalist camping trip. Tarps are often used over tents as extra shade or protection from the rain, but they can serve as your shelter. Since it’s a flat piece of durable material, it’s much lighter than a tent. As such, it’s easy to fold and store in your backpack.
Before getting a tarp, make sure it’s the right size for you or your group. Pack sleeping bags to sleep under the tarp. Bring a paracord—a lightweight nylon rope—that you can use when hanging the edges of your tarp on branches or trees. This type of rope is strong enough to keep your tarp up even in windy weather.
Bring multipurpose camping gear
Multipurpose camping gear makes it possible to pack light without sacrificing essential tools for camping tasks. Using these, you’ll be able to accomplish many tasks while living your minimalist camping lifestyle.
One example of this gear is a swiss army knife. It has a knife to cut rope, a bottle opener for drinks, and an awl to punch extra holes in your tarp. Another example is a multipurpose outdoor pan that can be used for grilling meat, frying eggs, and even toasting marshmallows. When buying multipurpose equipment, ensure that it’s made of high-quality materials, so they don’t break when you’re camping. Besides, if they fall apart or stop working, the tasks you relied on won’t get done.
Pack travel-sized personal items
Full-size products—like shampoo and dishwashing soap—take up too much space and weight in your bag. Thus, they’re not efficient for packing lightly. This is why an efficient packing hack for travelers and minimalist campers is to pack travel-sized products, especially personal items. Fill travel-size bottles with your everyday products to prevent excess baggage weight.
If you want to save even more space, get fluid pouches. You can flatten these or roll them up once empty. There are also single travel bottle dispensers that have multiple compartments. This option allows you to store numerous products—sunscreen, mosquito repellent, shampoo, and soap—in one container without mixing fluids. Travel-sized products save space and weight for successful light packing.
Invest in a water filter
Bringing drinking water is one of the reasons campers cannot pack lightly. After all, safe and clean water is necessary, so they’d rather lug big jugs around than go thirsty. Fortunately, there’s a way to forego carrying water so you can enjoy minimalist camping: portable water filters.
A recent camping innovation is water bottles with filters. You fill them with water from rivers or streams and drink directly from it with the straw as a filter. This guarantees you’ll have drinking water anywhere you go without packing heavy water bottles.
Minimalist camping is stress-free because you don’t have to pack many items. Try it today and use our tips for a successful experience.
exclusively written for sotooutdoors.com By Janice Noell
