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Camping is fun, exhilarating, and exciting. It allows you to enjoy nature and bond with your camping partners in new ways. However, nothing is perfect, and everything comes with its advantages and disadvantages. When you go camping, one major thing you have to battle is the cold at night and sometimes during the day. Although camping is enjoyable, you shouldn’t sacrifice your health for momentary enjoyment. Before you go camping, you should make sure you are fully prepared to stay warm and protect yourself from harsh weather. Experienced campers already know what works for them and how they can keep warm on cold camping nights. However, if you are a new camper and want to know how to stay warm while camping, then this article has been put together, especially for you. We have outlined practicable tips that you can follow to stay warm while camping. Enjoy!
Tips for staying warm while camping
You can follow these tips to stay warm while camping.
- Don’t sleep with sweaty clothes
Sweating is how the body cools down its temperature. When you walk around the woods all day, you are bound to generate a lot of body heat, and this will lead to sweating. When the sweat cools down, it becomes like cold water on your base layer clothing, and if you don’t take it off before you sleep, you are looking at a cold night ahead. Always take off your base clothing before sleeping so that the condensed sweat doesn’t keep you uncomfortable at night.
- Dress in multiple layers
The most straightforward way to keep warm while camping in a cold environment is to dress in multiple layers. When winter comes, we dress heavily to keep away the cold, which should be the case when we go camping. While packing your camping bags, make sure you include two base layer clothing, mid-layer clothing, puffed clothing, and even shells (if you can). While dressing in multiple layers, avoid tight-fitting clothes that can restrict the flow of blood around your body. You should also wear more synthetic fabrics and avoid cotton anytime you go camping.
- Pack two closed-cell foam sleeping pads
Your sleeping bag will rest on your sleeping pad. This means that the sleeping pad is the only barrier between you and the cold, hard ground. If you attempt to sleep with your sleeping bag alone, the ground will give you all the cold it has to offer, and that is precisely what we are trying to prevent. If you want to keep warm at night, then carry at least two closed-cell foam sleeping pads when you go camping. These sleeping pads are well insulated, lightweight, and highly durable. Before you get a sleeping pad, make sure it has a very high R-value.
- Take high-protein and high-fat snack bars
When the night is approaching, you should bite down on high-protein and high-fat snack bars. This is because the body is designed to burn calories to keep you warm and high-protein foods burn much slower than carbohydrates. When you munch on protein snacks at night, your metabolism is fired up, and the digestion process is 8ure to keep you warm from the inside. It would help if you also drank a lot of water because your body also spends energy to heat the water in your system. All these should be done at night, shortly before you go to sleep.
- Come with heated gloves and heated boots
Technology has made everything better, and this includes camping. If you are going camping during summer, then you can pack regular gloves and boots. However, if you are going camping during winter, it would not be wise to pack regular gloves and boots. You would need to pack Heated gloves and heated boots. The hands and feet are always the first places to feel the harsh effects of cold, and you should h=give them special attention when going camping.
- Try to reduce heat loss from your body
When your body loses heat, you become susceptible to extreme cold. When you go camping, you should guard against body heat loss as best as you can. One way of doing this is by knowing how your body loses heat in the first place. Your body loses heat in four significant ways; evaporation, radiation, conduction, and convection. Evaporation primarily deals with sweating. Radiation causes heat to move away from the body. Conduction transfers cold from another surface to your body. Convection happens when heated fluid settles on your body.
- Have your hot water bottle close to you
When going camping, you should always have a hot, stainless steel water bottle with you. However, it is not enough to have this water bottle if you don’t use it the right way. Most people place the water bottle in their sleeping bag close to their toes. However, the best place to put it will be next to one of your critical regions (your inner thighs or close tour neck). When the water bottle radiates heat, you are getting the heat in a comfortable and relaxing spot.
- Don’t hold your urine at night
Holding your urine in at night means that your body has to burn extra calories to keep the urine warm. Anytime you feel pressed at night, you should try to relieve yourself as quickly as you can. If you procrastinate and leave the urine, you would begin to feel colder in the long run.
Conclusion
When you are fully prepared for an activity, that activity has a high chance of moving smoothly and being more enjoyable as opposed to poor planning. As a camper, proper planning will help you enjoy your camping session more. One of the important things you have to plan for is your sleeping arrangement and set up to manage the inevitable cold. After moving around in the woods all day, you need to sit, relax and sleep comfortably. You can only do this if you are prepared to stay warm during the cold night. In this article, we have outlined some tips that will help you stay warm while camping. We advise that you put these tips into practice when next you go camping. Cheers!
