How to Choose a Good Camp Site

Choosing a good camp site is one of the hardest decisions to make when camping. There might be hundreds of sites to choose from, but you can only choose one for the night. The three most important factors are legality, safety and comfort. I listed these factors in the order of importance. The absolute most important thing you need to check is whether you are allowed to camp in a location. To determine this, you can start by assuming you can’t camp on private land without asking. Camping on private land is usually paid, I like to avoid it when possible. In terms of camping on public land, there are a few major public land categories where camping is generally allowed and free. These are National Forest Service (NFS) land, National Park Service (NPS) land and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. There are tons of different policies for different segments of the land that belongs to these organizations, so Google is your friend. “Dispersed camping” and “backcountry camping” are keywords that will help bring you to the correct pages. For example, here is the page with information on camping in the Daniel Boone National Forest.

The next factor in selecting a camp site is safety. There are three major risk factors when choosing a camp site. The first is the environment. Camping around poison ivy or other plants poses the risk of touching it and having a bad reaction. However, it can be even more dangerous to sleep next to a cliff edge or a water. The danger of a cliff edge should be obvious, but water might not be so obvious. Water should always be treated as a source of danger due to drowning risks or other hidden dangers, like animals. Animals are the next risk factor. Animals may seem innocent enough, but a curious and easily startled animal could still injure you or spread disease. There is no easy way around animals, but proper food storage and understanding of how to deal with animals can reduce this risk factor. The last risk factor is, unfortunately, other people. It is sad that this is a risk factor, but people can be terrible. I wouldn’t say to stress a ton over others but being prepared for the worst has never hurt anyone.

The last factor in selecting a camp site is comfort. Choosing a site with level ground is important. Sleeping on an incline is uncomfortable. There is nothing inherently wrong with it, but you will tend to roll into one of the tent walls or feel weird having your feet above your head or your head above your feet. Making sure that the ground is smooth is also important. Ridges or rocks on the ground will make finding a good sleeping position next to impossible. The next requirement is having enough space. A cramped camp site will work but setting up the tent and walking around will be harder. The last aspect of a site is avoiding hard ground. The ground shouldn’t necessarily be soft, but hard ground is uncomfortable to sleep on.

The most comfortable camp site I have ever used was in a national forest on top of three of four inches of pine needles. It was some of the best sleep I have ever had. I’m not sure if it was due to the past week of sleep being relatively poor or if it was actually that good, though. The worst camp site I have ever used was on a logging trail and was on bumpy dirt with tons of rocks on an extremely cold night. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of these sites. I do have some pictures of other camp sites with descriptions of what made them good or bad.

This camp site was fairly comfortable. It was on packed sand, so it was soft with a solid base.

 

This camp site was uncomfortable. It was on a very thin layer of dirt on top of volcanic rock.

This camp site was alright in terms of sleep. It was just dirt, so not good but not bad. It was very pretty though. It had a small waterfall, pond, and river near by.