Nice work. You're leaving me hanging.
Oh.
What? What? It was a fist bump.
Hello, you cool cats and kittens. I had to. I had to. Okay, it's been a really long time
since I've shot a video and that's because I had no idea what to say. But all that changes
today because I'm heading out on a little road trip, a little car camping road trip.
And I'm super stoked because for me the outdoors is my church. It's my close to godliness type
of place.
It's where I feel the most at home. And I know a lot of you are maybe thinking about
trying to dip your toe into the great outdoors this summer. And I'm really excited for you.
This is going to be the beginning of a beautiful love affair. But first you need to be adequately
prepared or you're not going to have a good time.
On the road again.
Today I am headed out to the Nevada desert.
I like, need this so badly today. So I'm really excited to talk to you about nerdy things like your car camping
checklist, because I've made all the mistakes in the book so you don't have to, so you don't
have to. So first things first, let's talk about food because everyone likes talking
about food.
Food is a wonderful thing. We all need it to survive. So, food, if you're camping, whether
it's going to be at a campground or maybe not at a campground, if you're camping on
Bureau of Land Management, hereafter abbreviated BLM land, which is usually what I like to
do, you are not going to be able to refrigerate unless you have a camper van, which good for
you is awesome. But I don't. So let's talk a little bit about what kind of food I usually
bring so that I don't starve and that it doesn't go bad because both things suck.
When it comes to food, the best thing you can do is bring non-perishables. That would
include anything powdered, like powdered potatoes, or you can do those just add water camp meals.
I do need to warn you that they are not all created equal. Some of them are truly terrible.
I do have a ranking actually of the best to the worst on my blog, so you can check that
out. I will link it below.
But I like to do that if I'm backpacking and weight is an issue, but if I'm car camping,
I'm like, "Dude, this is when I luxuriate." So what I'm bringing is a whole bunch of snacks
that will not go bad. So a lot of these are dehydrated vegetables and fruits because that's
how I roll. Maybe you want to bring beef jerky or fruit can be great in the beginning, especially
apples because they will keep for a nice, long time.
But maybe don't bring a watermelon for example. I think you catch my drift. So just remembering
that your food could go bad. So you want to bring things that are not going to spoil easily.
I also really like to eat some of my perishable stuff early on. So I will make a meal with
all the things that could go bad if they don't get refrigerated. Like, if you're bringing
meat for example, keep it on ice until you use it.
If you can't replenish your ice that means you use it on day one so that you don't make
yourself sick. One of my favorite meals to make is called hobo stew. This is what a friend
of mine taught me. And you basically just take a square of foil, you put in veggies,
you can put in ground meat if you want to, barbecue sauce, splash of whiskey, scrunch
up the sides, throw it on the fire, and in about 20 minutes you have a really delicious,
very easy to clean up, very easy to make meal. If you're not going to have a fire, what I
really like to do is get, like, a semi-burrito]. That was terrible. That was so terrible.
Bring it with you and eat that on night one. That's what I'm gonna do today.
So food wise, a really easy way to think about it is, will it go bad? If it's in a can, bring
a can opener. If you're going to be cooking, you're going to need a stove and you're going
to need a source of fuel for that stove. So remember that you need to check what the deal
is with your campsite, what the deal is with the state National Park, National Forest,
wherever it is you're heading.
Can you have an open fire? Are there bears in the area? In which case you need to put
everything, including even your ChapStick and your sunscreen in the bear can. And are
you going to be able to get more ice? Are you even going to be able to cook there? These
are all things that you have to look into before you plan out your car camping checklist.
Another really important thing to consider is your safety. You should bring water. If
you're going to be going out into the wilderness, bring water with you. In my case, since I'm
going out sort of into the desert and it's June, I'm bringing plenty of water because
you just never know what might happen.
Another important thing is to have your maps downloaded offline. I really like Maps.Me
for this. So this is the app. I'm pretty sure it's crowd sourced. But you've got every state
basically and every country where you can download the offline map and use it as a GPS.
It's not always right with the travel time so I would cross reference with Google Maps,
but it's really helpful for trails, and it's really helpful when you don't have cell signal,
which is true for most of the wilderness.
Next, let's talk about sleeping. Again, when I'm backpacking, I tend to shave off every
gram that I can. I don't want to have any extra weight. But when I'm car camping, I
would bring a nice big ass tent. I would bring a very comfortable air mattress for you. Make
sure it doesn't have holes in it. I've had it happen before where I had to wake up in
the middle of the night and re-pump my air mattress.
And because I couldn't get a new one based on where I was, I had to do that three nights
in a row. So don't make the same mistake I did. Honestly, test it out, probably the night
before. Put some weight on it and just see if it's losing air before you take it on this
big camping trip, because trust me, if you're not sleeping well you're not going to have
a good time.
That also goes double for your sleeping bag, your blankets, whatever, make sure that they're
going to be adequate. If you're camping, if you're in the wilderness you might be at altitude,
you might be on the coast where any kind of weather can come in, including moisture. So
just make sure that you are going to be warm enough. And if you're afraid you'll be too
hot, you can always take off but you can't add if you don't have it.
Now let's talk about your light sources. I personally love to use my...I'm gonna go get
it. So this is my solar charger. I think it was, like, 40 bucks on Amazon, which is an
evil company but whatever. And it definitely works. And I can keep almost all of my electronics
charged just from that in the sunlight.
Make sure that you have light sources besides your phone because that can get really annoying.
Have a headlamp, have a lantern. Make sure that you have some way of providing light
for yourself because remember, there's not going to be any out where you are.
Clothes, again, you don't want to be cold. So just make sure that you're packing a variety
of things that you can wear for whatever activities you're going to be experiencing. Personally,
I'm bringing a beanie and a puffy coat, even though it's June and I'll be going to the
desert, because again, it is cold AF out there. And the worst possible time to realize that
you didn't bring enough is at 4:00 a.m. when basically it's coldest. So don't make that
mistake. Make sure that you are comfortable or you're not going to like camping.
So it's really important that you
just make sure that you are adequately prepared to really look into the camping situation
that you are heading into. If you are going to a paid campsite that provides showers and
toilets for you, that is awesome. But in my case, I'm going out into the middle of nowhere.
So it's really important that I leave no trace. It takes millions of years to make these beautiful
landscapes that you're looking at, and it can take a second to destroy it all.
So if you're going to be camping on BLM land, let me just tell you right now that, no, there
are of course not any showers. There are not any toilets. In fact, there are rarely even
paved roads. So you're going to want probably a 4x4 vehicle if you can get one. Otherwise,
really look into the road conditions where you're going so that you know if you can make
it or not. Because getting stuck out there with no signal, not great.
Going off trail can often mean leaving a big impact more than we even realize, even in
the desert. I'm thinking back to when I was in the California deserts, and I learned all
about this. Morning. So I am here with Jessica of Mojave Desert Land Trust.
Jessica: Hi. I think what people don't realize is that the desert is actually extremely fragile.
So there's tire tracks you'll see in the desert on the soil. Those can take hundreds of years
to grow back to a normal kind of vegetation.
Kristin: Hundreds of years.
Jessica: Hundreds of years. Something to be mindful of and to stay on trails that have
been designated, especially for us humans, to be out and being out here in the desert safely.
Way behind schedule.
We made it. I'm just saying I'm wearing a boy underwear. But it's really a lot more
comfortable. We're the only ones out here. It's beautiful. It's amazing. I can't wait
for the stars tonight. This is exactly what I wanted. It's so beautiful. There's a hot
spring over there. Kind of a tricky road getting here, but we've got a pretty good set-up here,
which my stuff is currently all over.
But check it out. Better than a five-star hotel, right? I get this question a lot actually,
and it's cool because a lot of people I think are deciding that they want to get outdoors
in the summer, but I'm asked all the time, "If you're camping out in the wilderness,
where do you go to the bathroom? Where do you shower?" So the answer to the shower is
you don't. We have a hot spring here so no big deal.
You could bring a solar shower. But that does mean you're going to need to bring a lot more
water. You could also just not shower, which is what I usually choose. I've been on, like,
six, eight-day backpacking trips now, and I don't think you would shower either if you
were sleeping next to a glacier in Alaska. It's not that big of a deal. It's really not.
It's worth it to be in places like this, at least to me.
You can always look for gyms and campsites that will let you buy showers, and it's a
lot cheaper to buy the shower than it is to actually stay at the campsite. So a lot of
places actually know that people are looking for that kind of thing and they offer it.
So just google it if you're looking around. But usually camping in this way does mean
that you shower less often, and I don't think it's that big of a deal.
But if you do, you should probably opt for an actual campsite that has facilities. Bathroom
wise, and this is really important. If you're going to be out in the nature, please respect
that you need to dig a hole and that you need to pack out your paper. So you'll just pick
a spot at least 100 feet away from any water source, dig a hole, pop a squat and do your
business. And trust me when this is your view, it's better than a bathroom, I think. So,
it takes a little bit of getting used to, but it's really not a big deal at the end
of the day. And I really think it's worth it to have these amazing experience.
A few other key things to note, make sure you know where your keys are. Don't leave
them inside the car in case you might lock yourself out. And be really sure that you're
not somehow using up the battery. So minimally keep the doors open. Only open them when you
really need them. Don't use the car as light unless it's solar powered or not on the same
system as your battery. Because as you can see, we would have a real long walk to any
kind of civilization. So I hope that you enjoyed this video. Give it a thumbs up if you've
made it all the way to the end. Let me know if you've ever pooped out in the wilderness
before, and I will see you for another video soonish.