What Should You Listen To On A Backpacking Trip?

Music can enhance the experience of a backpacking trip. Source: Flickr

What to listen to while on a backpacking trip? An age old question for a real music lover like I am. Even though I love going out to the wild and looking at birds, animals and trees I get that ache from time to time that tells me to listen to my favorite songs.

If you are like me, you have different songs or types of music you love to listen to depending on what state you are in. For example I will gladly listen to some lounge or trip-hop on a summer evening sipping wine in the yard, or I would gladly listen to a Metallica album while in the gym, but I never want to listen to a DJ Bobo album during a funeral.

Backpacking is all about relaxation, and the adventure you go on. It is not uncommon that you have to travel to awesome heights and incredible lows during backpacking, and you will quite likely experience multiple mindsets.

There will be those moments when you think that you just can’t take it no more and you need to get some motivation to keep you moving. This is the famous state that marathon runners call the wall. It happens with backpackers as well. If you go on a long trip, and you have been carrying all your gear for two straight weeks you will surely feel like it is hard to carry on. This state requires something motivational. I am not talking about the theme from “Rocky”, but you get the idea. A pulsating song with strong groove and rhythm as well as inspiring lyrics is the music to go for in these situations.

If everything is going fine, you don’t need extra motivation. These states call for a completely different kind of music. How about something chilly. You just want to observe the beauty of mother nature, feel the breeze on your skin and get as much energy as you can from the sunshine. You might even pull out your headphones and listen to the singing of birds, if you like that sort of stuff. Who doesn’t? In these instances I recommend something from Thievery Corporation or any other lounge artist. Something that has sexy saxophones in it.

If it is raining, and you are forced to take cover inside your shelter, under a tree or worse, in a cave you will have to go for something more melancholic, because these states are the worse. You came out here to hike, backpack, go on an adventure, and not to just sit in one place. I often get quite depressed if the weather turns like that, and I have to listen to something bleak and dark, like Type-o-Negative.

Conclusion

No matter what the weather is like, or where you are on your backpacking journey, music can be a great companion on the road. It can elevate you, give you motivation to carry on. I always carry my iPod with me on a hike, and you should too because it is a great form of entertainment during a backpacking trip.

So You Want A Backpacking Tent

So you want a backpacking tent…You have been to a hike, or a day-long backpacking trip, but you have never stayed overnight, and now you think it is time to make the leap. You want a shelter, you want something to sleep in when you spend the night under the stars.

The answer to your question is pretty easy, you need to get a backpacking tent. A backpacking tent will be easy to carry with you, set up and it will be easy to take down.

A dutch army tent. Source:Wikipedia

The best backpacking tents have a few features that make them great for their intended purpose. I am going to introduce you to those features, and I am going to tell why these features are so important.

First of all the best backpacking tents all need to be waterproof. There is no way to tell how the weather is going to be the next minute, so it is best to get ready for all scenarios. The way to do so is to make sure that the tent remains dry in even the worse weather conditions.The best backpacking tents can stay strong and dry in even the fiercest of storms.

The way a tent remains waterproof is that it has waterproof walls, a waterproof floor and it has sealed seams. The waterproof walls can be single or double layered, one is the inner wall, the other is the outer wall. The outer wall makes sure that the tent remains waterproof, while the inner wall provides protection against condensation, and it is the wall which has the windows on it. The windows let the air move between the inside of the tent and the outside of the tent, and it allows the camper inside the tent to look out of his shelter and observe the outside world.

The best backpacking tents also need to have D-shaped doors. I like these because they are easy to close with a zipper, and they are big enough so that the backpacker who uses the tent can get in and out of it.

The best backpacking tents are also light. This is a must because the backpacker has to carry all the weight of the tent, so it can not weight a lot. The way this is achieved is that the tent has to be made of lightweight materials. This means that the poles are made of fiberglass most often, and the tent comes with lightweight, narrow aluminium stakes.

Conclusion

A backpacking tent is worth investing in if you want to have a shelter for backpacking trips that take up multiple days. There are a host of features that the best backpacking tents all need to have. I hope that the article gave you all the knowledge you need about what  makes a great backpacking tent.

Which one is the best camping tent?

So you love nature, and you would like to get a tent that would allow you to sleep under the night sky. There are many types of shelters out there that you could use for example RVs, tents, but you could also stay in youth hostels.

There are many features that make a camping tent great. Each person is different, and each campground is different, but there are a few features that the best camping tents all need to have.

There are two ways to carry your tent to the campground. First is to carry it to the campground by a car or some kind of transportation. The second way is to carry all the weight of the tent to the campsite with your own muscle power. The first way enables you to use heavier tents, as you have a transportation to bring the tent to the campsite. The second way doesn’t let you  use a heavy tent. You can use only lightweight tents.

The best camping tents can differ based on how many people can sleep in them. The biggest tents usually have one inner room, but if you put in a plastic wall to the inside of the tent you will have a tent that has multiple rooms. This is crucial as a large tent needs to give shelter to all kinds of different people, so these people might need to have different rooms.

The best camping tents have at least one window. This window gives you a chance to observe the world outside the tent, while still enjoying the nice climate inside your tent.

The window can be made of mesh, or it can be made of plastic. The plastic window doesn’t enable the air to move and ventilate, it only allows you to look out through the tent.  The simplest window design is a simple hole on the wall of the tent with a plastic sheet that can be used to cover the hole on the wall of the tent. Some tents have mesh windows on the top, but this is more prevalent at the dome-shaped tents, which are predominantly backpacking tents made for not more than four people.

The best camping tents need to be easy to set up and take down. You most likely want to spend as much time as possible with your family, so the quicker you set up the tent the more time you can spend with them. If it is easy to set up, your children can help you with setting up the tent, and they can feel successful, which would make them even more interested in camping.

Conclusion

The best camping tents can be different for everyone and every situation, but the above features are useful and great when it comes to camping tents. The best ones are all waterproof, have windows, they suit your means of transportation, and they are easy to set up. I hope you liked the article, and I hope you will be able to find the camping tent that meets your needs the most based on these pieces of advice.