Prioritising Safety On Your Next Camping Trip

If you’re reading this, chances are that you have a camping trip planned or booked in the near future. Camping can be an extremely fun experience where you get to experience something new and spend some quality time with family or friends in the depths of nature. But you do need to remember that you need to take various steps to ensure your safety while you are away. Here are just a few to consider in the lead up to your camping getaway!

Know How to Defend Yourself

When you head into the wilderness, you are likely to be relatively vulnerable. Not only are you relatively unfamiliar with your surroundings, but you do not have a secure house to sleep in at night. Other people and animals could both become threats to you. This is why you might want to learn some defensive techniques before heading away. Enrolling on a self defence course or picking up martial arts could help you to know what to do when faced with danger. You might also want to carry defensive tools. Take a look around for the best pepper spray and learn how to use it safely and legally.

Learn How to Start a Campfire

Knowing how to start a campfire is an essential skill when it comes to spending extended periods of time outdoors. No matter what time of year you decide to head away, temperatures are likely to drop at night, and you will need a campfire to provide yourself with a source of warmth and heat. It can also provide a source of sustainable light should you wish to stay up and talk past dark. A campfire can also be used to cook your meals if you are reluctant to carry a heavy camping stove and fuel with you on your journey. You should start preparing for your campfire by collecting flammable materials to burn that won’t emit toxic smoke. Wood, leaves, and other natural materials will do well. Just make sure to be careful when collecting these, as small creatures may be hiding inside and you don’t want to endanger or harm them. The best way to then actually start the fire is to use a ferro rod. This is essentially a form of match made of different metals – making it waterproof and thus particularly useful when spending extended periods of time outdoors. Remember to follow fire safety tips when starting any fire. You don’t want to harm yourself, damage your personal belongings, or start a fire in the woods or forest.

Understand How to Purify Water

Bearing in mind that the average person should drink eight glasses of water a day, you’re going to consume a whole lot of water during your camping trip. This is before you tailor in the fact that you are likely to become more thirsty when you are spending the day being active and hiking. It’s highly unlikely that you are going to want to carry sufficient bottled water to tide you over during your trip – this would prove to be extremely heavy and cumbersome. Instead, you will need to understand how to purify the natural sources of water that you will come across. It is extremely important that you do not consume any water from its natural source – water in lakes can be stagnant and water from anywhere can contain a whole host of bacteria that could cause you to become extremely sick. This rule applies regardless of any water’s clarity – just because water is clear does not necessarily make it consumable. There are three different ways that you can purify water safely.

• Boiling water – the first, cheapest, and perhaps simplest way to purify water is to boil it. All you need to do is collect water in a pan and place it above a fire (and if you have followed the steps above, you will already know how to start your own campfire). Wait until the water boils, allow it to completely cool, and then it will be safe to drink.
• Using a filtration system – your second option is to pump water from its source and use a filtration system. The water will be ready to drink as soon as it has been filtered. This is a much faster means of accessing clean water.

• Purifying water with chemicals – your final option is to purify water with chemicals. Most people opt to use iodine. All you have to do is add an iodine tablet or drop to the water that you have sourced. This will kill the bacteria that exists within it.

Incorporating these steps into the lead up to your camping trip can help to improve your safety and wellbeing while you are away!