We are planning the annual family get together and we want to include relatives who are farmers and don't have time for a weeklong commitment during July. Are there any interesting natural scenic areas within two or three hours of Tri-state IA/MN/SD?

Is this canteen safe?

I just got my hands on this canteen with. It was donated to a scout shop which then gave it to me. I want to use it for any kind of task thing where it would be inconvenient to run back and forth to a water bottle.

I used soap and water, then I used 2 retainer cleaner tablets for 30 minutes, but that residue isn’t going away.

From my googling I’m starting to think this is aluminum oxidization, which would make it not safe.

What do you think? Can I drink from it? If I can’t, is there anything I can do to make it safe?

At our favorite spot on the river. I love campfire cooking so I’m the designated chef every year. This year I got a tripod and did most of the cooking in the Dutch oven. First time ever doing Dutch oven pizza and apple pie.

Hi everyone!

If you have ever used a tent from Zempire, I'd be very grateful if you could tell me what model it was, and what your experience with it's durability was. I'm particularly interested in how it handles high winds.

Thanks!

I will be in Colorado for about 10 days here soon and plan on hiking away from where I park at least a mile or two and set up camp. I likely won’t be back at my vehicle for multiple days or even a week. Should I be worried about break ins, etc or am I overthinking it?

Solo overnight kayak camping in the Apostle Islands. I got a primitive camping permit that allows camping outside of the established campsites. Lake Superior was calm which made for some excellent kayaking! Had some fog in the morning but otherwise great weather!

But thankfully my knife cut through my cans like butter 😅 did a lot of soul searching, it was a very cathartic experience and I can’t wait to do this again. I’ve never felt such bliss, I only got scared once!

During my leave, after finishing basic paratrooper training at 19, I decided to break away and head to Estonia with a great friend to explore and enjoy its nature on a 200 km route.

​Honestly, it was a wonderful experience. The forests, fields, lakes, and rivers gave me a sense of peace and satisfaction that's hard to find anywhere else. That feeling that time no longer matters, disconnecting for a while, and forgetting about responsibilities and obligations—it's a unique kind of therapy that helps me immensely. 🙂

The whole floor got wet even with a groundsheet. is this a warranty issue? I thought a 400 euro tent could survive a rainstorm?

Went camping probably 9 or 10 weekends this year, mostly state parks and one longer trip by the lake. I realized I was bringing way too much stuff that I never actually used lol.

A few things I’m definitely keeping:

My two burner Coleman stove. Had it for years and it still works fine. Being able to make coffee and breakfast at the same time is nice.

Black Diamond headlamp with the red light. Mostly because I got tired of accidentally blinding people at night.

Nexbie Aeroraise shoes. Been using them around camp instead of my boots. Pretty comfortable, but they took forever to dry after getting soaked at the lake lol.

A regular pillow from home. I genuinely don’t know why I kept buying inflatable ones when I could just bring my own. 💀

Things I’m leaving behind are my hatchet, which I haven’t used in probably two years, and my air mattress. That thing has leaked on three different trips and I’m done with it.

What about everyone else? Anything you thought you’d use a ton but ended up leaving at home?

The site is right off of the river so the chilled water in the fall weather is tremendous. The white noise as you rest makes the 4mi hike in worth it, as the foliage drops youre to be wary of the roots. Beautiful hike and park.

Somewhere in the Rockies. 🗻

We started going on backpacking this year. over a year in the making. We begun with just car camping with majority of our gears already geared towards doing backcountry in the future. Finally, we did it this season, such an awesome and humbling experience.

Looking forward onto next season where we will be doing multi-day trips.

​

I'm heading out camping in Norway this winter and want proper coffee, not just instant. I've been looking at AeroPress, percolators, and portable espresso, but I'm not sure what holds up when it's well below zero.

For those who camp in winter:

1) What do you use, and what works in the cold?

2) What fails or annoys you most (batteries, frozen water, coffee cooling too fast, wet grounds, cleanup)?

3) How do you keep water hot long enough?

I'm also thinking about designing some coffee gear, so honest answers about what really sucks would help a lot. Thanks!

I am an inexperienced camper, went camping last December with my fiancé and I felt like everything was everywhere! In my car, in my tent, and outside the tent. How does everyone pack and organize for every aspect of camping?

I drive about 30k miles a year and do a lot of solo camping out of my vehicle between Texas and whatever national park I can get to. My cooking gear sliding around in the back of the SUV gets old fast. Digging through three separate bins just to find a spatula is worse.

I'm building a chuck box this month. I want it functional, not overly complicated. I've got a drawer planned for utensils and cutouts for the propane tank and a couple pots.

Main concern is weight. I need to be able to lift it in and out by myself without wrecking my back. I'm using half inch plywood because that's what I have in the garage. I know it's heavier than it needs to be but I'd rather it hold up to being bounced around on dirt roads.

For those of you who have built one, what do you wish you had done differently on your first try? I'm debating whether to add a fold out prep surface or if that's just asking for it to break on me. Any input on hinges or hardware that actually lasts would be useful too.

Hi everyone 👋 I am trying to plan out a backpacking trip to do half dome with my fiancé, mom, and dad this upcoming year. I’ve been to California as a small child, but don’t recall anything about it, so this’ll pretty much be my first time. I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed about it and want to get everything planned and set up right. We’re all pretty fit and love the outdoors and have prior camping experience as well, but when it comes to planning stuff I feel like it’s going to be a lot of me and my fiancé doing the work to figure out the details on how/what to do.

I’m anticipating my parents will be flying out from Pennsylvania, and my fiancé and I may be driving out from Colorado. My fiancé and I have typically driven to our camping/adventure locations out here in the west (Arizona/Utah/Wyoming/New Mexico) and we’re not even sure if this is the right move at all, so we’re wondering if we should consider flying ourselves? But also flying all the camping equipment out has to cost a pretty penny I assume?

Besides travel accommodations, the other part I’m kind of antsy about is the permits. I’m fairly positive we all are not trying to do Half Dome one single day out and back, even though we’ve all done that distance and elevation gain before. I’d like to make a backpacking trip out of it to really fully immerse ourselves in the nature of Yosemite. I’ve read there’s options for this that all include a Half Dome permit with the backcountry camping permit:

Happy Isles to Little Yosemite Valley
Happy Isles past LYV (Donohue pass eligible)
Sunrise Lakes
Cathedral Lakes
Rafferty Creek to Vogelsang

I’m interested in hearing about some of your treks. and also how you did the permit process, cause I’ve read attaining a Half Dome permit can be quite competitive.

Would our best odds be for each member of our group to submit a permit for each one of these back country permits and just cross our fingers and hope one of us wins? I’m assuming if all four of us submit a 4 person permit for all 5 of these we’d have a good shot right?

The travel and permit situation is really what’s got me anxious, (and maybe what gear we’d need) and I feel like once that’s figured out the rest of the trip will kind of plan itself. TBH I’m not really keen on going to the city or anything too urban/congested (I know it’s California, so I’m going into it anticipating congestion anywhere we go). Prioritizing experiences at national/state/local parks out there is my main objective, I just really want to connect with the nature I’ve never had a chance to experience before. I’m open to all suggestions though, as I’m obviously not a local, and I have no idea when I’ll ever be back in California.

Thanks so much for the help, I’m just overwhelmed at where to start planning this. Hoping that everyone reading has an amazing day 🫶

I live in the Greenville area, and I feel like to go camping I need to drive 3+ hours to the outer banks, 3+ hours to Uwharrie, 4+ hours to Appalachia, 5 hours to SC, is there just really no local options out here?

I know there’s some campgrounds and Croatan national forest, but it’s mostly just swamps and there’s hardly any dispersed sites. Really missing camping and if I gotta drive, I gotta drive!

The Rockies are beautiful, and so are many areas of Utah, California, and even the Great Plains.

But for my money, camping in the Appalachian or even Great Lakes bioregion is much more immersive and scenic than out west. I have camped, hiked and horseback ridden in the Rockies and yes it is beautiful but it just doesn’t have the same warmth and intimacy as those in Tennessee, Eastern North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia.

Broadleaf forests are more dense and conceal more, giving you more of a feeling of being lost in the wild in my opinion. Compare that to West where everything is so spaced out and open. Both are beautiful, but I prefer this. I should mention I have an implicit bias of being a fisherman, for which the multi species opportunities and size are much more abundant out here.

Just an appreciation post to my camping chair, from snow to outback and in between it's still supporting my fat arse. Coleman chairs are the Toyota of the camping world I reckon

Location - Yarra Valley, Victoria Australia

Heater in tent? All help needed

I’m going back and forth on my heater build. I have a horizontal vevor heater for my tipi style hot tent. I’m trying right now to build a weatherproof tote for it but keep running into issues making it actually work and SAFE. using it in middle of winter in Ohio so a lot of snow or rain overnight is issue I’m worried about

Some people say just keep the unit outside in the elements but In Ohio a night of snow can pile up quick and clog my intake and just mess the vevor up in general

Do people keep units inside the tent? Is that actually safe?? What’s my best bet with this please help I get so many different answers

Hello r/camping!

I'm doing a fundraiser in a couple of weeks, and a part of that is lighting of a campfire. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make that special for the kids?

Back in my scouting days, 30+ years ago, I know the leaders would set up a trickle of nitroglycerin, which they'd light up at some grandiose moment. And I've seen the videos of meteor like fireballs down a line. Both seem intriguing; but I wonder if there's anything else I haven't considered.

Edit: Nitroglycerin is now a controlled substance in Canada, and can only be used for medicinal purposes. 30+ years ago, it was a different story.

Hey everyone, looking to replace/upgrade a lot of my gear. I understand the next couple of months are a great time to shop for next season as sellers are looking to clear out inventory. Any places/sites anyone can recommend for good deals over the next two months? tried posting this in CampingGear, but it never got approved. Thanks in advance!

This year's trip was South dakota & Colorado. I hit both areas at great foliage time last week and a perfect weather window.

We are looking for some new campgrounds in Florida that we can use our roof top tent. We like national forest or state forest style sites that are semi secluded and not right on top of the next camper. The problem I run into is that most primitive sites seem to be setup for ground tents where they have barricades to park and carry your gear in or the RV spots are pads with no space or privacy between them.

We have stayed in the Ocala National Forest before and are looking for similar spots that can provide some privacy where we are not a bother to our neighbor. Im not asking anyone to give away their secret spots. You can DM me any information and we can chat there.

On my way to New Mexico, I took a detour and spent a couple of days in Rio Grande National Forest. It was absolutely beautiful warm during the day and very cold at night.

I spent most of the time exploring around and took these pictures along the way. The exact spot where I parked was 37°33’21.1”N 106°42’01.2”W.

I was there from Sunday to Tuesday, so it was very quiet. I saw a few cars passing by, but I didn’t meet another camper the whole time.

Also, the town of South Fork is gorgeous. Definitely worth stopping by if you’re in the area. 🏕️