14 Important Points to Consider for Choosing the Right Campsite
During a camping trip, when you are extremely tired after a long hike or trek, you need rest and for proper rest, you need a good campsite. A bad campsite may contain anything from lack of water to one or more trees abruptly falling down to wild animals attracted to your food packets to your tent pitched on a bed of rocks that keeps your sleeping bag slipping down, throughout the night. And, when you choose summer season to go camping, you should additionally take the heat, winds and rains into consideration which can make or break your camping. Here are a few things to consider to help you choose the best campsite for summer camping.
Choosing a wrong campsite can result in a miserable night in the dark wilderness. Worse even, it can be downright dangerous. All in all, you need to think before leaving for the trek on how to choose a good campsite. Here are some important points to consider.
1. Gather Knowledge from a Website like Outdoorcampingadvice
Outdoorcampingadvice is a useful website where you can get many camping merchandise, product reviews and advice. Here you’ll get advice on what essential things you should carry on your camping trip, how you should take safety precautions, gluten-free camping meals, how to camp with your dog, how to camp in your car, and much more. These tips will help you make your camping a pleasant experience.
2. Choose a Good Campsite
This is an important thing to consider because after a tiring day when you come back from hiking, trekking or biking, you need a good night sleep to be ready for the next day. Here you need to choose a level ground to pitch your tent. Plus, there are some more things you should ensure:
- Your campsite is near water and firewood. You should never camp less than 61 meters (200 feet) from a source of water, you should be close enough to one for cooking, bathing and dish-washing purposes.
- Your campsite is not on or near animal trails or their prime habitat which might invite unwanted midnight visitors. Your campsite should also be at least 61 meters (200 feet) from the trail, so you as well as people hiking on the trail can enjoy more solitude and be on a safe distance from wildlife.
- Also, your campsite is not near insect breeding grounds, like stagnant ponds or waterlogged meadows
- Your camping spot is not at the bottom of a canyon or valley, where the atmosphere could be coldest and dampest!
3. Check Drainage
Rain is a potentially problematic element you should consider. Camping in a low spot has a risk of collecting water during a storm, or even worse, the collected water could drown you away in a flash flood. Higher spots are likely to drain better and as a bonus, they stay warmer at night as cooler air is likely to sink in the low areas.
Checking drainage of your campsite is very important especially when you’re living in a tent or are on a cowboy camping trip. Check if the area surrounding your campsite is not sloping towards it, as, if it is and there is midnight rain, you’ll certainly not want to get out of your warm, comfy sleeping bag and move your tent away from the flood. Listen to the forecast carefully and if precipitation is predicted, digging a canal or moat away from your tent can be helpful.
4. Choose a Shaded Campsite
When you choose summer for your camping trip, it’s a must to choose a shaded location so you can keep cool. Sure, open areas seem to be prettier than a spot with a crowd of trees and it can even give you better views of sunrise and sunset. However, with the sun exposure going higher with the moving day, you can feel the heat pretty intensely. Conditions will become worse as your tent will also be exposed to direct sunlight and you’ll feel like taking a sauna by the time you go to bed, not to mention the high heat and sunlight will reduce the life of your tent.
5. Choose a Flat Ground
Make sure that the spot is flat. Even if you don’t find a perfectly even location, make sure to position your tent in such a way that your head will be higher than your feet. Before pitching the tent, remove objects like rocks, pine cones and sticks that might prick your back while you’re trying to sleep.
6. Choose Your Tent Direction Wisely
Also, think on weather conditions. If it’s cool, consider pitching your tent in the east so that you’ll wake up in the warmth of the rising sun. If it’s hot, consider camping in a shady spot where the sun will be less intense. Never camp in narrow spots, valleys, notches or top or low points in a ridge because these are spots which tend to receive strong winds. If there is wind everywhere, take shelter behind a windbreak like a boulder or bush. And if there is no wind, check the area for dead trees or broken limbs called widow-makers that could smash into your tent at night.
7. Make Sure You’re Not Near Unhealthy Trees
Although you’ll need the shade of trees surrounding your campsite to keep you cool, it’s also extremely essential to check whether those trees are healthy enough not to get crushed down during a huge midnight windstorm. This is also a caution for hammock lovers. Choose only healthy trees to hang your hammock.
8. Clean off Sharp Objects from Underneath Your Tent
Sharp objects like hard rocks, pine cones etc. can cause your discomfort and may even puncture your sleep pads. To reduce these odds, take care to clean the ground off such sharp objects before setting up your tent.
9. Camping Activities
It depends on types of activities you prefer to do in your camping. If you want to act or dance in your trip, then obviously camp focused on water sports is not at all for you. You need to be very much careful about it, as there are many camps which are alike but have dissimilar activities. For example, in some camps you will enjoy various types of water activities such as rafts, hiking and ropes. However, there are few camps in the same location, which offer water activities as well as visit to historic state park, pro-basketball games etc.
10. Compare Similar Camps
When you find there are two camps with almost similar features, you must feel free to contact them. Ask questions to enquire about the facilities they will offer. After they respond you, compare the responses of both the camps. You must join the camp which will offer the best in minimum cost.
11. Consider Size
Choose an area for camping that is big enough to accommodate your entire trekking group. If your group is considerably big, choose an area which is big and leveled and should accommodate all the tents.
12. Toilet Area
The excreta should be carried away far from the campsite. It can spread foul smell and also invite flies and mosquitoes that can spread diseases. Your campsite should be at such a spot from where you and your fellow campers can go far away from the campsite as well as from the water source in the downhill direction to carry on personal business so that rain should not wash away the waste into the stream to pollute it.
13. Choose an Established Spot
You may be aware of the Leave No Trace principles, if you’ve done any camping before. These are meant to protect natural recreational resources. As far as possible, choose an established spot to set up a camp. If there is none available, you can even create a new one.
While moving around the camp, never wear your hiking boots, but wear soft-soled shoes as your hiking boots can compact the soil (making it hard for plants to grow).
It’s also recommended to avoid starting a fire if there’s no fire ring. However, if you seriously need one, make sure you create it from firewood from the ground. Let the wood completely burn and after the ashes cool down, spread them around.
Try not to camp in a spot for too long. While leaving, collect all your trash and replace anything you took, so that the place would look as if you had never been there.
As mentioned earlier, Outdoorcampingadvice has many such camping tips for ideal camping.
Think also on how your stay might affect the wildlife in the area. Find natural paths in the forest called game trails on which animals travel. Camping on such a route may block animals’ way towards a water source or other necessity. Also if the campsite is properly selected, you can avoid nuisance from animals. Avoid spots where wind and water are stagnant to avoid pests like mosquitoes. Infrequently larger animals like skunks, possums, raccoons and even bears may visit your camp just out of curiosity. To minimize such occasions, avoid camping around game trails and make sure you wash your dishes immediately and hang food minimum 61 meters (200 feet) downwind from your tent.
Strictly avoid feeding the animals. When they get accustomed to human contact, they can become a greater trouble or danger to other campers.
14. How will You Choose a Winter Campsite?
A good thing about winter camping is that you have fewer chances to impact the environment, since it’s covered in the cold, white snow. But there is a bad thing too and it’s that the cold white snow is bad for your body. However, with a few simple things to remember, you can have a pleasant experience of winter camping.
Many of the factors that should be considered during summer campsite selection are true for winter campsite selection too. You can camp on the snow or any open ground showing through the snow, but avoid one if it’s supporting considerable plant life. Just like during summer camping, you should choose a flat ground so that your sleeping bag won’t slide downhill while you are in deep sleep.
Wind can cause a great problem during winter camping too. A sign of wind is hard, sculpted snow of a brittle, frosty texture. Loose, powdery snow is a bad sign as well. It indicates that wind has deposited the snow and your tent too will soon be covered. So, avoid both these areas.
Bottom Line
We hope that the above tips will help you choose the right campsite so you can enjoy your trip to the fullest. Don’t forget to share your experience. We give tips helpful to campers from time to time. To read them, read other articles on this site.
