Camping Tent Tips Guide.
These hiking and camping tent tips will help your shelter to last longer, keep you drier, and save you money... Great camping tents aren't cheap, so unless you don't mind buying a new one every few years you'll probably want to keep yours in tip-top shape. The following camping tent tips will help make your tent last longer and perform better. You wouldn't spend $30,000 on a new car or truck and not change the oil, wash or clean it would you? The same goes for your tent. Just like your car, if you take care of your camping gear it'll take care of you. And just like your car, some simple tent maintenance and camping tent tips can insure many years of trouble-free enjoyment and comfortable reliability. First and most obvious of all, make sure that you get the best quality camping tent you can afford. My camping tents page will help you to do that. No amount of maintenance or fixes can change a low quality tent into a great tent so invest in one you'll be happy with. This camping tent tip is one of the most important, use a tent footprint or a tarp to act as a ground-cover between your camping tent and the ground beneath. If you're not using a tent footprint you're probably cutting years off the life of your tent, which might not be a bad thing if you're trying to convince your significant other that you really need a new one. ;-) But seriously, a footprint or even a tarp will help stop sharp sticks and stones from piercing your floor, it will significantly reduce the amount of abrasive wear caused by it moving around on the soil (walking, etc.) and it also helps minimize damp tent floors which can easily lead to mold and mildew problems. Clean your tent by sweeping it out, removing tree sap and bird droppings as soon you notice them, and dusting off any dirt before you stow it away. (Have a look at the articles on how to remove tree sap from a camping tent and how to clean a tent here.) Tree sap and bird dropping can attack the canopy and eventually weaken the fabric. Dirt on the inside (tracked in on hiking boots or footwear) or the outside (splashed up because of rain) of your tent is extremely abrasive and will wear on the material as it's rubbed across the surface. It acts just like sandpaper when it's wrapped in between the layers of your tent. So take a minute to brush it off before you put it away. Always let it dry completely even if the weather hasn't been damp. Rain, condensation, and moisture in the soil will dampen your floor, especially if it sits in one place for much more than a day. If you pack it away before it has a chance to dry and then store it, you're inviting mold and mildew the possibility to destroy your investment. If you have to take your tent down when it's wet, set it up once you get home. If it's raining at home too, drape it over something. Shower rods can work well for small tents and basements with clothes drying racks and dehumidifiers work really well. This is a simple camping tent tip. Get some good quality tent stakes. I love my tent, but even though the aluminum stakes that came with it are nice and light, they weren't designed well and have a tendency to bend easily in hard soil or when they bump into a stone or root. Now this isn't a huge deal, but it can be a little annoying when you're setting up in the dark or if you're really tired not wanting to hassle with it. My article tells you how to find tent stakes that can take a heh, heh... beating. ;-) Here's some important camping tent tips on choosing
tent poles. Although there are some new camping tents available now that say that they have taped seams and don't need to be seam-sealed it's not a bad idea to have some seam sealer on-hand just-in-case you need it. Better yet, test yours out before your trip. Set it up in your yard and blast it from all directions with a garden hose. If you have a seam leak, it's better to know it and take care of it before you leave rather than being stranded in a driving thunderstorm in the middle of nowhere and having rain drip on your forehead all night long. Here's some more camping tent tips that will make your life easier If you need some seam sealer I'd look at Seam Grip Seam Sealer. It's good for sealing seams as well as a few other uses you may or may not have thought of. While you're checking those seams, look for holes too. It was also Backpacker Magazine's Editors' Choice Gold Award for 2002. If there's one drawback to seam sealers it's the fact that they can take awhile to set-up properly. To work best they may require a dry surface and for the seam to be cleaned with something like isopropyl alcohol before they're applied. After that it can take 12 or more hours, depending on humidity and temperature before they cure. This little inconvenience can usually be avoided by sealing everything you need sealed before you leave home. In other words if you plan on trying to fix leaks as they happen, you probably won't be in for an enjoyable experience. Unless you're a duck. ;-) Here's another simple camping tent tip, but one that's always good to check before the first big trip of the year. Check to make sure your shelter is dry and sealed in a rodent-resistant bin like a sealed Rubbermaid container. It's a bummer to discover mice have decided to chew up your gear and use it for their nest. So protect your investment. And just to be safe check over your hiking equipment before you leave to make sure someone hasn't borrowed something since the last time you used it. Otherwise you might be in for a trip killer if you discover the storage container you quickly tossed in the car is full of dog food. And that would be a bummer to realize upon arriving in bear country. ;-) Though it's best to have a tent that's waterproof, these camping tent tips will help in an emergency... Ok, so you forgot to check before you left and the mice have left your canopy looking like Swiss cheese (kind of ironic, huh?) so now what do you do? Pull that extra tarp you so smartly packed for just such an emergency. No it's not elegant and it won't win you any style points but at least you won't have to call it quits for the weekend. Using some well-positioned trees, some thin rope, and a large tarp you can position the tarp at an angle over the top of your canopy to keep the rain off of it. That tarp and some thin rope can also come in handy for a lot of other things like covering the firewood to keep it dry, covering your picnic table or other camping furniture to keep you dry, a noisy windbreak, a shower stall, or you guessed it... a tent footprint. Make sure to bring along tent patches and repair kits in case you need to make an unexpected repair. These quick camping tent tips don't take up much room and can save you in a pinch. Get a stable aerodynamic tent with guy lines or tie-downs. If you camp in windy conditions aerodynamics can be an important feature in a tent. A tent that cheats the wind increases the chances that your tent won't collapse (if you read my camping tents page you probably already know that I've had a cabin tent collapse on me twice) under strong gusts of wind. Dome-shaped tents are usually pretty good at shedding wind. Guy lines do help but they're not as important as good design. Take a look at my
hiking checklist
and
camping list
for other camping tent tips and for gear you won't want to forget.
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