There’s much to love about spending time in the outdoors. Studies have shown that it can do wonders for combating symptoms of anxiety and depression, and it’s also just all-out fun. With so many of us spending so much time staring at screens, there are few things that’ll lift our spirits more than embarking on a fun outdoor camping adventure.
Alas, many of us don’t get to spend as much time outdoors as we’d like to. In fact, some of us don’t spend any time in nature.
One fun and relatively easy way to get around is to start going on camping adventures. This is a budget-friendly way to explore the world, and plus, you’ll learn plenty of practical skills, too.
Get An Outdoorsy Vehicle
It’s just a fact that you’ll need to have a car in order to go camping. And not just any car, but one that’s built for the outdoors. So take a look at your vehicle — is it suitable for going on camping adventures in the UK and beyond? If not, then you might just have the perfect excuse to upgrade.
Plus, you’ll be more likely to find the energy and motivation to go camping if you buy a new vehicle specifically with spending time outdoors in mind.
Invest in Organization
Camping can be a whole lot of fun, but it’s not as if every aspect of camping is enjoyable. There are frustrating elements, too. For example, having a messy, chaotic car that’s jam-packed with your camping supplies. You might be able to handle that chaos if you only go camping once a year, but not if you’re going regularly.
Adding things like tub drawers and roof boxes to your vehicle can help you keep your camping supplies organized and safe. Plus, they tend to provide easy access to your supplies, too, which is extremely handy when you’re pitched up in the rain and need to quickly grab an item.
Build Your Camping Supplies
And talking of camping supplies; you’ll be more likely to go camping if you have reliable, sturdy equipment. You don’t need to own every piece of camping equipment before you set off on your first camping adventure, but it’ll be best if you can slowly but surely add to your supplies.
There’s no shortage of options out there. If we could offer one piece of advice, it would be to buy camping equipment that is made to last. Your camping supplies will be put under pressure on your adventures, especially if you go camping in the rain, and there’s nothing that will put you off camping forever more quickly than dealing with broken equipment.
Photo by Laurine Bailly on Unsplash
Get Serious About Food
If you have all the right camping equipment, then you’ll be in a position where you can pitch up for multiple days — or even longer — without feeling like you need to go back home. After all, the best tent setups are extremely comfortable, allowing you to sleep and relax just as well as you could at home.
But there’s one thing that might have you running back to civilisation, and that’s the quality of the food you’re eating. If you’re relying on basic camping food (including those ‘just add water’ meals), then you won’t want to stay all that long.
So look at upgrading the food you eat while camping. There are camping recipes that are delicious, easy to make, and, perhaps most importantly, easy to clean up. Look up a few of them, and you’ll be able to camp for weeks on end.
Have Your Favourite Places
People are more likely to do things if they know that it’s a straightforward operation. While you’ll have plenty of motivation for going camping sometimes, at others, you’ll have a take it or leave it attitude. Making camping as easy as possible increases the chances that you’ll ‘take it.’
You can simplify the camping process by going to the same campsites again and again. That makes things easier because you’ll know exactly how to get there (some campsites are hard to find) and you’ll know exactly what to expect. All you need to do there is drive there, get set up, and settle in.
Photo by Lesly Derksen on Unsplash
But Also Explore
With that said, while you might have your favourite ‘go to’ places, it’s also recommended that you explore new campsites from time to time, too. The UK is home to some truly brilliant campsites, and new ones are opening all the time. Making an effort to discover these new sites will help to keep the camping experience fresh, rather than making you feel like you’re doing the same thing over and over.
Looking to really inject some excitement into your camping adventures? Look at taking a camping trip overseas. They’re a little more difficult to organise, sure, but they can also be highly rewarding.
Expand Your Group
Camping is a fun experience whether you go by yourself, with your partner, or with the whole family in tow.
One way to add another level of excitement and diversity to your camping adventures is to expand your group to include friends and family from time to time. If you have friends who also love camping, then why not see if they want to join forces and go on a big camping adventure together? You’ll have a fun time — and you might also pick up a few camping tricks that you can incorporate into your own adventures.
Go With the Flow
Finally, perhaps the best piece of advice we can offer to people who are relatively new to camping: go with the flow! Camping can be a lot of fun, but it’s not always a walk in the park. It’ll rain, you’ll get dirty, you’ll have to settle for less-than-perfect showers, and so on. If you can take all those things in your stride, then you’ll have everything you need to become a long-term camper.
Top photo by Baptiste Valthier/Pexels
I am a 50-something Torontonian who loves everything about my city. It’s been my home, my playground, for my entire life. I went to school here. I met my wife here. I own real estate here. I love writing about the transformation of my city on the world stage, which hasn’t been anything short of dramatic. That continues on, as I write this. I write on the real estate scene. I write on travel and fashion. I like following the world of luxury watches.
But I love writing about cars – check that, luxury cars, a level of superior, engineering sophistication, high performance and style, that transports you not just from one destination to another but also out of whatever you are going through on a particular day, whatever mood you are in, all to another head space. It’s complete and total exhilaration, head to toe.
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