There are so many aspects to love about camping. Being closer to nature, filling your lungs with fresh air, long days of walking and exploring and ending your day with the sun going down. Sure, there are the muddy roads, rough surfaces to sleep on and the temperature drops, but it’s all part of the camping experience!
When you are going camping for the first time, it’s way too easy to get into the trap of buying more than you need and missing out on the bits that are actually required.
Before we get into it, please note that this is our camping essentials list, based on our experiences. By no means am I or Oskar professional campers, but we think we have pretty much nailed the list of items that are absolutely essential for short camping trips, so here goes!
List of camping essentials for first-time campers
- Tent (along with something soft for the floor like duvets or a yoga matt).
- Sleeping bags and pillows.
- A source of light (flashlight and/or lamp).
- Clothes (bring your pyjamas and have an extra set of clothing for exploring).
- Towels, your essential toiletries and some wet wipes.
- Water, some juice and tea/coffee if you have a way to boil water.
- Some basic food preparation tools: bowl, two cups, knife, spoons, and forks, plus a dry towel.
- Food to suit your needs — sandwiches, fruit, nut bars, protein shakes, meaty snacks — whatever fits.
- Cash for the “just in case” situations and ad-hoc purchases.
Yes, there could be more items on this list. For example, a cooker so you can boil your water and cook your food. But honestly, unless it’s your aim to have a BBQ on your first camping experience, you will be just fine as there will be plenty to get used to.
Just like there are pros to camping, there are cons, but hey — everyone should do it at least once — at least that’s what we believe. I invite you to keep reading to learn more about our essential camping items and how we narrowed down our list.
Planning your first, weekend camping trip 101
Our list is by no means extensive, but answering these questions should give you a pretty good idea about what kind of camping trip you would most enjoy! And from there, all you need to do is work through your experience and see what else you’d like to add to the camping essentials. Simple!
🏕 What kind of camper are you?
Do you see yourself as an off-grid hiker who would be sleeping in the mountains to ease the long hours of hiking? Or, are you the type that would prefer to be closer to nature while lounging in a comfortable chair, sipping a cold beer?
We are somewhere in-between where we enjoy being close to a national park while pitching our tent at a camping site with other campers. For the stage where we are at, it feels safer and it’s very convenient to have shower and WC facilities, even if they are shared!
Of course, you could be camping in a camper van or even an RV, but I presume you are here to read about camping with a tent, or rather tenting, so think about mobility. Are you happy to safely set up your tent on one spot, or do you prefer to do it in nature on the path to a landmark?
We can’t advise much on the latter, but if you are interested in finding some shared campsites, give Cool Camping a try. It’s a great website with some unusual choices for campers. Browse by location, date, and availability to find your perfect spot.
🗓 For how long would you like to camp for?
Taking a weekend trip is quite different than camping for two weeks straight. The longer you go, the more stuff you will need and you’ll most likely want a bigger tent to go with it too, unless you are a backpacker, of course.
By taking an extra day off on either Friday or Monday, you can extend your weekend and truly switch off for a few days. So far, we have gone camping for three nights at a time, arriving quite late on the first day and leaving early on the last. It has worked quite well and it’s the shortest amount of time we see as worth it, especially if there’s a long drive between you and your destination.
Going camping doesn’t mean switching off from the outside world completely. I’d recommend charging all of your devices and finding out if your camping site has a charging slot. If you are travelling by car, this will be a tiny problem as you can always charge your phone while driving. You wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to take those pretty pictures, would you?
🎒 How to choose the best camping gear on a budget?
Alright, probably the most important item for your camping trip is the tent. When browsing for ours, we were unpleasantly surprised by the prices and how huge tents had gotten. I still recall a time when you could buy a tent for 20 euros and it would sleep two just fine.
As a result, it’s really easy to overspend on a big tent. If you are travelling as a couple, note that two-man tents are quite small. So if you are 6 feet tall (180 cm) like us, aim for a three-man tent and you will be quite comfortable. They say you should be looking at the nylon threads, breathability, and height but if you are looking to spend no more than £50 (which was the case with us), the quality will be quite similar across the board.
Which shop is best for buying camping essentials in the UK? 🤔
We dug deep into the stock at Go Outdoors (a great shop if you are shopping for any outdoor activity), and chose the smallest and second cheapest tent — it was perfect for what we needed. We also bought the rest of the gear here.
Note that if you want a tent you can stand in, it will cost you at least three times as much as the same quality and size without the height. Some of our fondest childhood memories we have were from sleeping in tight spaces so we didn’t mind downsizing in this case. We can’t stand up in our tent, but we can sit on our knees in the middle which is quite alright.
P.S. Our tent can get quite damp on the inner layer after a rainy night, but even with heavy rain and wind it didn’t leak. However, I can imagine that our shoestring budget tent wouldn’t stand the test of that kind of weather for weeks on end, and that’s probably why you see the drastic price difference for bigger and more durable tents.
⛺️ What will you need to make your tent more comfortable?
Or should we say, how can you improve your night sleep while sleeping in the tent? Well, make it as cosy and soft as possible — contrary to your mattress, the earth doesn’t bend to your body shape!
Soften the floor of the tent as much as you can
We used some old duvets, bed covers and actually, we used a yoga matt the last time we went camping and it made a huge difference! There are fancier options — you can buy thermal mats or even have a raised bed if you have a taller tent, but we decided to invest that money in a pair of great sleeping bags.
Invest in a pair of mummy sleeping bags
These are such a great invention! You can wrap yourself completely and sleep through -7 C degree weather, or open them up and use them as a cover up in +15 C degrees too. Absolutely brilliant invention and worth every penny we spent. The brand name is Vango and the range is Nitestar — I opted for the slightly warmer one and each cost us about £35. Don’t forget to grab a pair of pillows too.
Make sure you have a source of light!
The dark sets in quite quickly so you will need something to lighten the space of the tent. This can be a lamp or a flashlight that you attach to the top of your tent (we went with this option) or you can place it in the centre of the tent.
Note: You absolutely will need a source of light if you arrive terribly late at your camping site and only have 15 minutes to set up your tent. In this case, it helps to have a tiny tent! 😄
Also, you can hear everything that happens in the tent — yup. No sound isolation in tents. Same goes for whatever happens outside the tent. This was the most surprising factor for me, personally. As romantic as falling asleep in the rain is when you are covered in your bed at home, it’s much less romantic on a hard floor.
What food and drinks are the best when camping?
Okay, we are on the subject of food (finally!). This is one of my favourite topics to talk about. Where should we start? 😅
Your food and snack selection depends on your budget and preferences. We try to be mindful and take what we can from home, but we will reward ourselves with a great dinner at a local pub or some cake in the morning if we feel like it.
If you have fitness goals, special dietary requirements or if you are vegan, our selection of foods might not be as useful, but the key takeaway here is to take the foods you usually eat while remembering that you don’t have a fridge to take with you, so the foods and snacks have to be good at keeping fresh at warm temperatures, especially in the summer. In spring and autumn, this isn’t a big issue though, but it’s still something to take into account.
Food ideas that are easy to take with you (think breakfast, snacks, lunch)
- Sandwich (with the filling of your choice, be it ham, cheese, lettuce, etc.)
- Granola or protein bars
- Nuts (can be spicy, can be salty or plain)
- Juice
- Oats*
- Coffee/tea*
- Fruit (strawberries**, pear, bananas, nectarines)
- Crackers or biscuits
- Cooked and smoked meats
- Beef jerky
- WATER!
*Only if you have access to boiling water which we didn’t unfortunately, but hey!
**Strawberries aren’t great at keeping fresh at warm temperature but it felt pretty epic to have some strawberries with white wine on top of a hill.
But what about dinner when camping?
Dinner meals are the ones we struggled the most with as we prefer to have warm food at the end of the day, but you can easily create a loaded salad, or buy pre-packaged, cooked or smoked meats and voila!
Now, if you can figure out a way how to boil water — a world of options open to you! All of a sudden you can have a hot bowl of soup or noodles, and hot coffee or tea with oats for breakfast, but hey! Sometimes you need to take away the comforts of a well-equipped kitchen with your coffee machine and the rest to enjoy a simpler moment while sipping some cranberry juice in the morning.
We found that it was quite rewarding to go to a local pub (also known as bar/restaurant) to finish off a long day of hiking. It helps you learn more about the place you are visiting and also try something new.
👣 What activities can you take on when camping?
The whole purpose of camping is to be closer to nature but you could be doing anything between hiking in the mountains and exploring heritage sites, castles and their small towns.
Having a plan helps, especially if you want to cover a greater distance or are hoping to reach the peak of a mountain. With the latter, you need to check for weather forecasts and if it’s a foggy day, it might not be worth climbing to the top anyhow. In the UK, there are good transport links, even in the national parks, so they are worth checking out.
Rainy days are the most difficult, especially if your tent is tiny like ours. We are quite fortunate though as we have a car and can drive around the area. Looking up things to do on TripAdvisor quite often inspires us and we can almost always find something interesting to see.
It may feel like cheating a little, but we use the time between complete darkness and falling asleep to catch up on some Netflix series. Yeah. You are out there in nature but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy some technology too!
🍃 Which clothes should you bring along?
If you are planning for a relatively short camping trip (a few nights), we’d recommend with packing as little as possible. I can recommend splitting it like this:
- Regular clothes for city/exploring
- Sports clothes and hiking shoes for hiking
- Clothes you will be sleeping in
- A clean set of extra regular clothes or whichever you are planning to use more
As for other items, don’t forget to grab a towel or two for showering, your favourite toiletries and some socks. Tents can get pretty cold overnight and you wouldn’t want to wake up feeling you just caught a cold!
If you are going on your first camping AND hiking trip, why not watch our video where we go through the tips above and more?
All set for your first camping trip?
Ready, set, go! You should now be well-equipped to make the best decisions when it comes to sourcing your gear and bringing it with you to your chosen camping spot. We hope you found these camping essentials useful! As always, if there’s anything we have missed or if there is something you’d love to share, please let us know in the comments below.