Taking the fam car camping is almost a guaranteed good time—you can light out to the wilds but bring most of the comforts of home with you. Favorite pillow? Check. Bluetooth speaker? Check. G&T with ice? Check check check.
But let’s not forget the essentials. If you are new to car camping or want to hone your game, here’s a guide to the essential gear for a successful family car camping excursion:
Sounds like a lot, right? Well, it is. While the cost to get geared up to car camp may be high, the good news is that once you have all this gear, camping itself costs next to nothing. And the even better news is that most of this gear can be had used, saving you MASSIVE amounts of money.
Theused gear store in Durango, Durango Outdoor Exchange, has most of what you need to get packed up and headed out the door:
Not sure what your particular trip needs? Stop by the used gear store in Durango and let the pros make suggestions for you!
Just a couple hours from Durango, Valles Caldera is a great cross-country skiing destination, with surprisingly good snow and very few visitors.
Valles Caldera National Preserve is a popular hiking destination in the summer and a surprisingly great skiing destination in the winter.
When spending one night (or many) in the backcountry, a warm dinner at night and hot beverage in the morning can make the difference. That invariably involves using a stove of some sort–but which one?
Stove technology has been around for decades, but new tech is making them lighter, more efficient, and more dependable than ever before. Here’s a rundown of the different kinds of backpacking stoves:
If you are camping in bear country, or in any place where food storage is a concern, you should strongly consider using a bear canister–a storage system that is built to keep bears out of your food. And in some places, particularly parks in California, Montana, Colorado, and Washington,backcountry campers are required to have and use bear canisters.
While you may get lucky by hanging your food in a sack from a tree, this is not permitted in many areas and virtually impractical in many alpine anddesert backpacking zones. Bear canisters are the preferred method for storing food and other smelly items, but there are many kinds to be aware of. Let’s look at them in more detail.