For many, summer fun starts when outdoor adventures do. While backcountry trips like backpacking and bikepacking certainly have their time and place, there’s a certain luxury in the freedom that car camping brings – because there’s no need to keep the weight of your gear to a minimum when it’s all going in your trunk, anyways.
Whether you’re a car camping newbie or a certified expert, there are always ways to improve your setup. That’s why we put together a guide to packing for your next car camping trip, broken into 3 parts: tips for packing for your trip, tips for the road, and tips to keep in mind post-adventure. Let’s get into it.
Packing For Your Trip
Start with a Gear Checklist
Sure, car camping is more forgiving than activities like backpacking due to its closer proximity to amenities. Even so, no one likes to forget essential pieces of gear from the start. To make sure you don’t forget anything, create a gear checklist. We’ve found that it helps to divide your list into categories like sleeping gear, cooking supplies, food, and personal items. This way, you can pack “like” items together – and even load them into your vehicle in close proximity to each other – to create a mental map of where everything is.
Pack Versatile Gear
While car camping means that you have flexibility when it comes to what you bring, it still helps to keep your gear to a minimum. Choosing items that serve multiple purposes allows you to save on space and reduce the amount of gear you need to pack. One item we recommend as a versatile piece of gear is a lightweight hiking belt. Durable and stylish, these hiking belts are designed for the toughest outdoor adventures and feature a micro-adjustable buckle that allows you to dial into your perfect fit.
Plan and Pack Meals in Advance
There’s absolutely no reason to not eat like royalty while car camping. The key to meals that are easy to prepare, and even easier to scarf down? Meal prep. Bring along a cooler for perishable items, and reduce the amount that you need to pack by pre-measuring and mixing spices beforehand. To really reduce the amount of cook time at camp, experiment with methods like dehydration that make bringing home cooked meals into the wilderness a breeze.
Set Yourself Up to Stay Clean and Organized
Keeping your car clean and organized throughout your trip is more important to your overall experience than you might think. Set yourself up for success by packing garbage bags for the road, biodegradable dish soap for cleaning dishes, and paper towels or rags for cleaning up the messes that are bound to occur.
Pack Your Car Efficiently
While packing up your vehicle might feel like an elevated game of jenga, if you do it right, you’ll be in for a clutter-free trip. We recommend using storage bins to keep gear accessible and organized and to think about the order of packing before you get started, placing items you’ll need first on top. This way, when the sun sets and you realize you need your headlamp, you won’t have to dig through your gear in the dark to retrieve it.
On the Road
Turn the Lights Off Inside Your Car
It’s easy to forget about interior car lights, but leaving them on can drain your battery. Make it a habit to check and turn off all lights before settling in for the night. This simple step can save you from the hassle of a dead battery in the morning.
Don’t Limit Yourself to Paid Campgrounds
While paid campgrounds offer convenience and amenities, there are many free camping options that can take you away from crowds and into spaces you wouldn’t otherwise see.
Store Food Properly
Proper food storage is essential to avoid attracting wildlife to your campsite. Use bear-proof containers or store food in your car, away from your sleeping area. Keep all food and scented items, including toiletries, sealed and out of reach.
Upon Your Return
Unpack Essentials Right Away
Upon our return home from a weekend away, nothing sounds better than running inside to take a nap. While we certainly encourage a big post-adventure sleep, take just ten minutes to unload items that need to go inside right away, such as food. The rest can wait while you snooze.
Build time into your schedule to clean your car
Returning from a trip late Sunday night so that you can head into work Monday morning? We’ve all been there. Even though you might be exhausted, make sure to build some time into your day before heading into work to unload and clean your car – because after a weekend of essentially living out of your vehicle, it's going to need some love before it's ready to hit the office parking lot.
As athletes and adventures ourselves, the team at Arcade is all about encouraging others to break boundaries. But breaking boundaries requires gear that’s made to move with you. That’s why we’re proud to offer our line of elastic hiking belts: belts constructed from performance webbing and featuring a tapered buckle design that ensures a custom fit. Unlike traditional leather belts that aren’t built for the backcountry, our hiking pants belts were designed for unrestrained function – so that you can break the boundaries you were meant to.
