Camping is an ancient tradition. As long as there have been people, they have spent nights lying under the stars. Of course, nowadays, we don’t actually have to lie under stars, we can curl up in a cosy sleeping bag and look up at the bright nylon roof of our insulated tent.
Camping has a number of advantages over staying in a hotel or hostel. You don’t have to share a room with a dozen strangers, although there may be some camped nearby. Tents can be set up pretty much anywhere, so you don’t have to wait until you get to the next town. And let’s not overlook the obvious, camping can be a great money-saver, depending on where you set up your tent.
I’ve spent the past few weeks camping on a small patch of land that a friend was kind enough to lend me and I intend to spend the rest of the summer there. Although I have done some camping before, I must admit I’m learning a few things about living in a tent as opposed to just sleeping there for one night.
For example, tents are waterproof (supposedly, they seem to develop seam leaks rather rapidly. Use Seam Sealer to fix that problem.) And therefore also keep moisture inside. I got into my tent last night and noticed a funny smell. Further investigation revealed mold growing on my foamy (a definite must-have) and my sleeping bag. Yuck! So they’re out drying in the sun today.
So, now I know not to leave my tent sealed up all the time and to make sure any water that gets in gets mopped up right away. And I’ll be airing my tent a little more often.
It’s always a good idea to take a new tent for a test run before you head out into the boonies with it. Figure out how to set it up ahead of time and do it while there’s still light in the sky, it totally sucks to do it in the dark when you don’t know what you’re doing! I highly recommend tents that have the ‘two-minute’ set up feature. Basically, you have a center piece with four arms coming out of it, the arms break down and fold up. You snap them all together, spread out the tent on the ground, and just snap the hooks on the tent onto the arms. Presto, a tent in two minutes.
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