There is very good – and very obvious reason – why camping is more popular in the summer months. Quite simply, a tent is not a house, and it fairs best at keeping you warm when the weather outside isn’t too harsh. Or perhaps we would be better to say when the weather outside isn’t too cold. Summer camping can often involve very harsh weather indeed, only at the opposite end of the thermometer.
Camping somewhere warm though means that you don’t need to worry too much about the effects of temperature as you sleep at night. Camping buffs and tie-down strap manufacturers, Roller cam, advise that summer camping in a warm place does indeed relieve you of the possibility of freezing at night, but it brings with it a range of other challenges.
Some of these challenges involve the wildlife – on balmy summer nights you are sure to encounter many more insects, for example. The ways to avoid this problem are fairly obvious – bring the bug spray and make sure you are sealed up in a tent at night. However, another, much more fundamental problem, can be more complicated to alleviate – simply staying cool!
Indeed, sometimes when you camp in a warm place, the heat can get to you, and you could end up having to consume much more water than you can feasibly bring with you if the summer air has you sweating it out consistently.
A Word About Desert Camping
Before going on to some top tips about how to stay cool when you’re camping, it’s worth first paying some special attention to the unique challenge of camping in the desert. Naturally, staying cool and drinking enough water here is vital, and you seriously need to plan for this. The thing to note about the desert is not only that it’s hot, but that it is deserted, so running out of provisions (or, worse, water) is certainly not a good situation to be in when you’re out there.
Another particularly important tip for desert camping is also that you also need to plan for the cold. Indeed, the desert can even be freezing at night, and so this is an extra challenge and one of the reasons why this type of camping is considered so extreme.
How To Stay Cool When Camping
With this important fact about desert camping out the way, let us return to more normal “warm place” camping and offer a few fundamental tips about staying cool.
Dissemble the Tent During the Day
This might seem like quite a bit of extra work and a pain to be doing every day, but a tent acts like a greenhouse under the blazing sun. Getting back into it at the end of the day could end up feeling like entering a sauna – with no cool weather outside to alleviate the accumulated heat.
Camp In the Shade and Bring a Fan
We don’t need to elaborate too much here, do we? Where possible, try to pitch your tent under natural shade – most often, this will be a tree or a rock formation. A portable fan is also your friend, and you can pick up effective ones with long battery life pretty easily and cheaply.
Consider a Hammock
Sleeping in a hammock is not only an effective way to stay cool, but it can also be a real luxurious experience. Just be careful, to say it again, about the bugs.
Camping in a summer is considered the easier form of camping (unless you’re in the desert), but there are a few things with the potential to spoil your trip. So you should certainly account for these.
