City Girl’s Guide to: Camping

Hello Hello!

I hope that everyone’s coffee with strong this morning and you are powering through your day! I recently posted a poll on whether any of you would read about a “glam girl’s guide to camping,” and received a great response! I have actually decided to change it from “glam girl” to “city girl” because I don’t REALLY consider myself glam…but I have definitely gotten used to the city life in my 3 years living here…so camping for the first time in years was an adventure!

#1 Packing List

We decided that we were going to go camping for my husband’s birthday, so I immediately started creating a packing list of things we needed to remember. I looked all over Pinterest, Google, outdoor stores, and asked around to create this list because I didn’t want to forget anything (spoiler alert: we forgot things…)

So, after all that research and then actually going camping and noting what we should have brought, here is the list that I am going to use next time we go:

I would say that what you pack is the most important part of a successful camping trip, since that is all you have while you are out there – and most campsites are not close to a store to go buy what you forgot!

#2 Be One with Nature

The next important thing to remember: You are going to get dirty. You are going to smell like smoke. You will get bug bites even if you have 10 layers of clothes and big spray in every nook and cranny. It is part of the experience (although not my fave for sure)! When we first arrived I found myself longing for cell reception, grossed out by my bug spray + dirt caked legs, but my husband was having the time of his life and I wanted to join in that! So I sucked it up (and too a long shower immediately when we got home)!

#3 Speak Up

I am not the most graceful, coordinated or sportsy person, so hiking can be a little scary. And, of course, we went on what we thought to be a 2 mile hike but it turned out to be about 6 miles at a steep slope the whole way… During that hike, I needed to speak up so that I didn’t just die right there on the mountain (a little exaggerated). I didn’t want to make Daniel slow down (he was climbing like a champion) but I did not want to push myself so hard I wouldn’t make it back down. I want to stress the importance of knowing your limit, especially when you are out in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception! Once I spoke up I felt more relaxed, and made it to the top!

So these were my top 3 recommendations for the city girl (or anyone, really!) when going camping!

• 

• 

Meals

Not in my top 3, but something that we researched for a bit to figure out, was what meals to cook since we did not have a camp stove. We made sure that we had a fire pit at the site, so we made food that could be cooked over a fire! Check out the “camping” board on my Pinterest for all the recipes I saved, but here are a few ideas and pictures of ours!

• 

• 

• 

I hope that this is helpful for those of you who have friends/partners/etc. who are forcing you (um I mean taking you…) to go camping! Or, if you aren’t going camping, I just hope this was entertaining to read, because looking back on it, it was quite humorous at times!

~McKenna