More Camping Safety Tips: Campfires And Wildlife

Respecting nature should be a top priority anytime you relax or play in the great outdoors. Camping safety and protecting yourself from common outdoor hazards should be just as important. Each year, thousands of accidents occur in the outdoors as a result of camper and backpacker carelessness. Protect yourself with these camping safety tips.

Campfire Safety

Campfire negligence is a leading cause of forest fires and also causes many camping injuries and deaths. Only build your campfires in designated areas. Most campgrounds provide fire rings or pits for campfires or you can use a Coleman fireplace to safely contain your campfire. Keep the area surrounding your campfire free of trash and other debris that could ignite and set your tent, chairs, and other gear a safe distance from the flame.

Many campgrounds and state parks provide wood for campfires for a small price, but supplies are often low during peak seasons. Bring your own dry firewood to avoid taking wood from the natural area. If you do gather firewood at your campsite, only take pieces already on the ground. Never cut trees or branches within the campground or park and find your wood away from your campsite.

Begin your fire with a small stack of twigs. Aromatic cedar and pine and other soft woods burn quickly and make excellent fire starters. Use a match to light the dry sticks and add larger pieces of dry hardwood as the campfire strengthens. Burn any garbage or waste that will burn to reduce the amount of waste you carry out and to limit your use of firewood. Before leaving your campsite, completely extinguish your campfire using water. Stir the ashes and pour more water on the embers. Make sure the ashes are cool to the touch before leaving the campsite and remove any debris that didn’t burn.

Always keep water close by whenever you have a campfire. Breezes and wind can cause embers to spread quickly. Keep the campfire at a reasonable level and never leave it unattended. Put your campfire out before going to sleep each evening.

Wildlife Safety

The wild animals you may encounter in the great outdoors can be beautiful and amazing to watch, but can also be quite harmful and even deadly if you’re not careful. Anytime you see a wild animal, observe the animal from a safe distance. Never try to feed a wild animal and avoid sudden movements or closing in on the animal. Report any strange wildlife behavior to the park ranger to warn of possible rabies.

To reduce the risk of bears or other animals in your campsite, never leave food and drinks out in the open. Cover all your food and keep the containers inside your car or suspended from a tree out of animal reach. Garbage should be burned, immediately disposed of, or suspended in the air as well. To prevent bears, hang your bags at least 12 feet high and 4 feet away from the trunk of the tree. Avoid storing food inside your tent and take out any snacks before bedtime.

Have The Best Camping Trip Ever With These Amazing Camping Tips

While we all know that camping is fun, great and so on, we also know that it entails careful planning to make it a memorable and fun experience. But the thing is, you don’t need to be a seasoned camper to enjoy camping. You don’t have to be a camper for 10 years or more to experience what an amazing camping trip is.

With these useful tips, you will know the secrets to having a wonderful camping trip.

Smart Packing

• Create a checklist and bring only the real essential things. Bringing a dozen suitcases filled with what you think are important will not only slow you down but might ruin your camping trip.
• Ration out supplies like medication, fuel, lotion, shampoo and the like in smaller containers filled with the amount that you’ll need for the duration of the camping. Add only a little extra for emergency.

Picking a Campsite

• Pick a spot with a clean and safe water source. Bringing too many bottles of water will slow you down and not having enough to drink will dehydrate you.
• Choose a shady spot. But don’t pitch your tent directly under the trees because it is dangerous in case of sudden thunderstorms.

Keeping Unwanted Guests Away

• Spray ammonia on garbage to remove the smell of leftover food and to keep animals away.
• After washing, use baking soda on your hands and clothes to remove the smell of food so bears and other wild creature will not go near you.
• Draw lines around your tent floor with chalk. This will keep ants and cockroaches away.
• To protect yourself from mosquitoes and ticks, wear insect repellent lotion and tuck in your clothing like your shirt into your pants, pants into socks and so on.

Convenient Cooking Techniques

• Prepare and measure ingredients at home before you leave for the camping trip so that you need not bring your measuring spoons and cups. Place the pre-measured ingredient in small containers and be sure to label them so you don’t mistakenly put salt in your coffee.
• Half-cook food at home to save cooking time and fuel at the campsite.
• Always cover pots and pans while cooking so that food are cooked at a much faster time.
• Make your matches waterproof by dipping them in nail polish or melted paraffin.

Getting a Good Night’s Sleep

• Try being naked when you sleep in your sleeping bag. The heat of your body will be reflected back to you.
• Don’t forget to bring a catalytic heater like the Coleman BlackCat™ Perfectemp™ Catalytic Heater that will provide you with safe and flameless warmth for a comfortable sleep.

Hiking Tips

• Don’t forget to bring the hiking essentials: snacks, water, watch, whistle, cell phone, compass, flashlight and knife in case of emergency.
• Opt for light running shoes and nylon socks if hiking boots cause blisters on your feet.
• Put a wet towel on top of your head if it’s hot. This will help keep you cool despite the scorching heat of the sun.

These tips will prepare you for your camping trip. And your camping trip will surely teach you more tips that you can add to these ones.

Camping Holiday Tips For The Beginnner

With forethought and a little imagination your camping trip can be very enjoyable and a bit of an adventure. Before I go off on holiday I always have a practice in my garden and make sure I can remember how to put my tent up. When my tent is erected this also gives me the chance to check that all the pieces are there and in good working order and I can also make sure my tent is waterproof. If I have bought a new tent then this will give me the chance to familiarise myself with it before I venture out. Just think how embarrassed I would feel if I arrived at my beautiful destination and didn’t know how to assemble my holiday accommodation!

When I have chosen my destination and found my camping site I think facilities, do I want to have them readily available or do I want to ‘rough it’. If I were a happy hiker and carrying my tent and equipment in a rucksack then depending on where I stopped for the night I may have to forgo some of life’s little creature comforts. I would also be limited to how much I can physically carry so I would have to remember to take this into account when packing.

If I were travelling by car or van then obviously I can take more equipment and can travel further afield. There are many organised camping sites available world-wide. They vary from basic sites with water and toilet facilities to ones that also include a swimming pool, shops, restaurants and entertainment. Costs will vary immensely so I always weigh up my options before I decide. Do I want peace and quiet and open spaces, basic facilities or a more sociable and busy holiday full of entertainment, the choice is mine.

I really do think it is a good idea to make a list before I embark on any trip. For camping you really do need to remember the basics. A drinking vessel, water, plate, cutlery, pot for cooking and heating water in, a torch and of course a warm sleeping bag are a definite must as is the one thing most people forget – a can opener! On a personal level, I always think it is also a good idea to take along my own toilet roll. A camping bed or blow up bed are also a must so that I can hopefully have a good nights sleep off the lumpy ground. I also take warm clothes even if I am travelling in the summer as night time can be decidedly chilly in a tent.

Normally when camping I cater for myself so I obviously will need some sort of cooker. I could by a small gas or petrol stove and can choose between single ringed stoves or larger double ringed cookers. It may take skill and ingenuity to cook a three course meal on them but they will do the job of heating or cooking my basic food. Opting for nostalgia and lighting a fire is always a last resort as my surroundings might be dry and a spark could easily set dry undergrowth alight. Apart from the safety aspect fuel would have to be collected for the fire, not easy if there are no old branches or pieces of wood in the near vicinity.

Careful thought goes into what food to take. If I only have one cooking ring then there is no point in taking food which needs to be oven cooked! Unless I can buy fresh food daily then tinned food is ideal as I won’t have a fridge to keep perishable food in.

Most importantly remember to do as I do and leave my camping site as I would wish to find it, clean and tidy, I remove all my rubbish and leave it looking as if I was never there.

Camping Accomodation Tips

You may not think about this, but camping requires a lot of common sense. You will need to use basic education that you have acquired through out your years of school so that you can avoid doing anything that is basically dumb. You will find that there are a lot of dangers that lurk in the woods and you will find that the most commonly found dangers include the climbing aspect and lightening.

Did you know that there are over a hundred people who die in a year because they were struck by lightening? You will want to make sure that you use your common sense when it comes to being outside in an electrical storm. You will also find that the lighting will occur mostly in the clouds, but there are going to be a few strikes every now and then. If you happen to be the tallest thing around like standing on top of an open mountain site, you will find that your odds of getting hit by lightening are very high. This is because of all the salt water that is in an human body will attract the lightening and forms a conductor. You will find that when you are wet, your odds are even worse. You will want to think about the safety by taking cover. Even though your odds of being struck (even at higher risks) are very low, you will need to still take precautions because it is not something that you can predict.

Being struck can end up seriously hurting a person and could end up killing them, depending on the voltage. You will want to consider that this odds or not something that you will want to mess with. As for the second major danger, you will want to consider that you need to have common sense in the safety matters of hiking.

Obviously, you don’t need to stand too close to a cliff, and you never know when a gust of wind will knock you down. You don’t want to put your life at risk just for a thrill. You will need to think about how sturdy the mountain side is before you climb it, because you never know about rather or not your stepping area will give away. You will also find that even if you don’t get seriously hurt from a fall, you are now at danger for parasites and infections from the open cuts and scrapes.

7 Top Camping Safety Tips

No doubt about it, camping can be fun. But, if you don’t pay attention to safety, your fun camping outing can turn into the camping trip from Hell. What are some of the most important camping safety tips you should know?

1. Plan Ahead. Do your research. Make sure the campground you’ve chosen is a safe one. Make sure there are no current fire dangers. Check out the weather. Any health alerts in the area, such as dangerous bacteria count in the water, or outbreak of any rodent-carrying viruses?
2. Pack the Emergency Kit. Be prepared for cuts, bee stings and allergic reactions. Bring antihistamines, antiseptic, bug sprays and insect repellents, pain relievers, bandages, sunscreen and if possible, a snake-bite kit.

   An emergency kit should also include the following items: Whistle, flashlight, compass, a small Swiss Army knife, razor blades, tweezers, magnifying glass, sterilized water packets for cleaning wounds, emergency blanket, thermometer, cold pack, and a mirror. A mirror can be helpful when signaling for help. Some people also use a CD. If you can afford them, a pair of night-vision goggles can also be a help in an emergency.

3. Arrive at the Campsite Early. Arriving early, with ample daylight, allows you to examine the entire campsite and set up while there’s still light. Be on the lookout for sharp objects, broken glass, huge ant beds, branches, poison ivy, hazardous terrain and bees.
4. Build your Tent on a Safe Spot. Make sure your tent is flame-resistant and keep it at a safe distance from the campfire. Try to pitch your tent on elevated land so it doesn’t flood in case of rain. In order to keep the bugs out, make sure you close your tent immediately upon entering and leaving.
5. Go Over Safety Issues with Family Members. Make sure family members are aware of poisonous plants in the area. Be sure the children understand that they should never drink from any stream or river, regardless of how clean it may look. Finally, issue each member of your family a whistle for emergency use only.
6. Be Fire Safe. Make sure there are no current fire restrictions before building any fire, and don’t build a fire if there are strong winds. When you do build a fire, keep it in the fire ring, and make sure there are no flammable items near the fire. Do not use heating devices or candles inside the tent.

   Never leave your campfire unattended, and keep the area clear of leaves and twigs. Before going to bed, make sure the campfire is property put out by drowning it with water.

7. Be Aware of Wild Animals. Be sure to familiarize yourself and your family with safety concerning wild animals. Wild animals have acute senses of smell. Make sure you keep your campsite clean and free of food or garbage which might attract them. It is best to store all food, garbage and strong-smelling items (such as soap or toothpaste) in bear-resistant containers or your vehicle. Keep your sleeping bag and tent completely free of food and food odors, and set up your cooking and eating area at least 100 yards from your tent. Do not go to sleep in the same clothing you cooked in, as even the cooking smells can attract bears and other wild animals.

   While it may seem like attention to safety takes the fun out of camping, in reality it helps ensure that your camping vacation is a fun time for the whole family. And, isn’t having fun the point of camping?

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