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Essential Camping Gear for First Time Campers
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May 22, 2024
I share the bare bones basics that you need to take camping with you, and encourage you to KEEP IT SIMPLE. You really don't need much to get outside and have a great time. If you're new to camping, you'll be empowered to buy the right gear. Don't miss: "The Ultimate Knife for Camping" Video - https://youtu.be/afp9RchZK2Q I also mention: "Camping in the Freezing Cold" Video - https://youtu.be/yhRD1_cV-yE And: "Essential Gear for Creek Fishing" Video - https://youtu.be/pl05c0B_6O8 0:00 - Keep it Simple! 1:03 - Shelter 2:02 - Water 3:13 - Food 4:45 - Coffee 5:41 - Light 7:49 - Fire 9:26 - Cordage 10:35 - Pocket Knife Gear in this video:
View Video Transcript
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What's up everybody? It's Simon from Lake Hub. We're outside. Today we're talking about the
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essential gear for camping. I want to share with you the bare bones essential gear that you need
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to get started camping. It's really not that complicated. If you're feeling a little bit
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intimidated, if you're a beginner camper, I really want you to know we're going to keep it
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simple today and you're going to come out of this video feeling empowered to go camping for
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the first time. So the three things that you need to cover
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When you're picking your gear for camping is your food, water, and shelter
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All right? Those are the basics. Everything else you stack on top of that is all about comfort
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And the more comfortable you want to be, the more gear you're going to have to pack
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And the more gear you're going to have to buy. And when you get to the campsite, the more gear you're going to have to unpack and set up
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And then when you go to leave, you're going to have to pack it all back up again. So if you just keep it simple, you'll get outside, you'll have a good time with some really basic
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here. Don't overthink it. Food, water, shelter. So when it comes to shelter, obviously a tent is a
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pretty basic, you know, shelter unit, but you may not even need that. It depends on the weather
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It depends on your location. If I'm in the south, if I sleep in the wide open, I might get tore it by
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mosquitoes depending on the time of year, but I've done it before and it's fine. You know
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it just depends on the weather. You know, especially in the summertime, it's super hot. Just sleep
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outside. No big deal. You can do a mosquito net if you feel like you're going to get
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torrent by bugs, but you can sleep in your car, you can sleep in a truck, you can sleep in an
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RV, you can sleep in a tent, on the ground, on the wide open, in a hammock. I think I've actually
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done all of those things. I've done all those things on the ground, tent, hammock, RV
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car, and truck. Yeah, that's funny. So you can do all the, I'm living proof, you can do all
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those things. All right. Take care of your shelter. Keep it simple
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Number two, take care of your water. This is my favorite type of bottle
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I've tested all kinds of water bottles. A soft-sided, soft-bodied, nalgin, wide-mouth, 32-ounce
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Those are the three features that I like in an algin bottle. These are, I mean, these are universally
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You can buy these anywhere online. They're the same price at REI
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They're the same price at Walmart. anywhere you get them they're like 11 bucks 12 bucks okay I love an algae bottle
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it got the loop on it so you can you know careabiner to your belt or back backpack or what have you then you just need to worry about your source So if you don have clean water at your campsite if you don have a full hookups or what have you
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then you might need to be boiling your water or packing in water
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You know, you can get those big five-gallon jugs at the grocery store at Walmart, pack in your fresh water
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So just make sure that you stay well hydrated because when you're outside all day, all night
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if you're not used to that lifestyle, I mean, it'll it'll dehydrate you stay hydrated food prep you really don't need to
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overthink it keep it super simple look at foil pack dinners if we've got electricity
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we have an electric griddle and we cook everything on it I mean from eggs to
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hot dogs to burgers and pork chops anything vegetables cut them up and kind of pan fry them. Anything and everything we cook at the campsite
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we cook on an electric griddle if we have electricity. If not, I always take this with me. This is a
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single burner. You get these green bottles, and it's just two parts. It's the, uh, just the top
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and the bottom. This is a super simple device. You don't need a full on camping stove. If you do
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that's cool. Some people like that, especially for nostalgia's sake. For practicality
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and money this is all you need it's a really simple device you twist this on the top set the bottle in here
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and then it's it's real grippy just make sure it's the level surface if there's a picnic table
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we always do it on top of the picnic table and just make sure we watch the kids and the dogs right but you can you can pan fry you can boil water if you need to to keep clean water so this
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and a pot and at least two bottles of propane in case you run out of one and a match
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and all your food prep it can all be handled with just this one simple device keep it simple
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since we're talking about food i'm going to share with you something that i never leave without when
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i'm going to the campsite and this is my little mini french press this thing's awesome so um i got a
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look at that i got a thrift store that's some that's a thrift store price tag right there so that was
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like half price from three ninety three so dollar 71 look at dollar 71 um
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I've seen these for sale for, you know, six or eight bucks, something like that. But $1.71 can't beat that
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You just put boiling water, some fresh grounds in the bottom, push it down, twist the top
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and then you drinking the filtered coffee right there I love this thing I love this thing I got to have my coffee you know so I say keep it simple but a few creatures come first go a long way when you living outside
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So now that our survival basics are covered, there are a few other really essential items that I really recommend for first time campers. One of those is going to be a light. It's going to get really dark. It's going to get darker than you think it's going to get. So when I say a light, I mean
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at least one light. Here's my trifecta. A lantern, especially one that's got like a clip like this on the top
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and doesn't take a ton of batteries. This takes all double A batteries so I can do rechargeables
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I used to have a lantern that did C batteries and that just gets really expensive
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So lantern that you can hang or two, one for the table
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maybe a tiny one inside the tent, or one on the table
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or one on the table and then one that you can hang up high. I also, I never leave home without my headlamp
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I've got a couple old headlamps that I've retired that may be like broken patched up
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even this one's got a little duct tape on it these days. It's struggling, but it still works
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This is a great headlamp. It's a nice, bright one. You can get them from really cheap
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but I recommend going a little bit, just putting a little bit more money into a headlamp
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rather than getting any other gadgets in gear, because when you're walking around in the pitch black
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pop this thing on, I leave it on all night, right? And then a flashlight
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I used to go with a big, heavy, old school flashlight. I don't do that anymore
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Flashlight technology has come a really long way. This sucker is bright
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This takes one AA battery. So I bring backups. This thing will go for hours and hours
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I mean, this will go our entire trip on one battery. It's got three settings, super lightweight, fits in my own
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pocket it actually has a step up to show you it's got a double pocket clip here so I can
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clip in my front of my hat and it works okay doesn't work as well as a headlamp but it
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does work okay in a pinch it's kind of a neat design really lightweight this is a
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phoenix e12 I'll put a link for that in the bio be or in the in the description too
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because this is a great little flashlight so here's my trifecta pocket flashlight
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headlamp lantern we can talk about fire prep but fire is not essential to camping
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that's a comfort thing it's really nice to have it's you know obviously it's
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nostalgic it great everybody loves a campfire so that why I mentioning it but I don really feel like it it is absolutely bare bones essential to camping to have fire prep gear I say that as somebody who really enjoys preparedness So I really
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going out on a limb here, going outside my comfort zone. But if you do, take a good hatchet with you
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you know, something to light with, some matches or a lighter, some kindling, some spare junk
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I use all my junk mail. I put all my junk mail into a box and, you know, those little penny saver
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like newsprint type stuff. That's great fire starter stuff. So I mentioned in my camping in the
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freezing cold video that I have my kids pick up little sticks throughout the year and we just keep
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a big cardboard box in the garage full of sticks. I can grab a little bundle and hit the road
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when it's time to go camping. I grab my junk mail and I've got everything I need to start a fire
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So one thing to think about with firewood, this is just kind of a word of caution is that if you
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you're traveling a long ways to your camp spot to where to your final destination from your home
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if you're packing in your firewood you could be potentially bringing in new pests to to those woods
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so just be mindful of that it's it's always best to buy firewood logo if you can okay all right
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finally on my essentials list paracord this is the most universal tool that I have in my camping gear
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believe it or not, we almost always end up using our paracord
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This is a 50 foot length. These are like six or seven bucks. I mentioned this in my fishing video because it's also handy for other purposes
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My creek fishing video specifically. But we use this. You can build a shelter out of this
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You can use this for a tube tent. You can build yourself a lean to in an emergency situation
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You can make a splint if somebody gets hurt and you're way, way out there, really far from help
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You can use this as a tourniquet if somebody's got a serious bleed on hand
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I mean, this is an emergency tourniquet. I recommend you carry actual tourniquets as well
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but this makes a good emergency tourniquet if you need to. And we've got one of these set up for our dog leash
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So I've got a loop on the end, and I just take his regular leash. I loop it through the handle, tie it to a treat
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and now he's got a 50-foot range. He can cover our whole campsite, but he's leashed up
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So paracord is awesome. I don't leave home without it. This goes in my essential camping gear
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I hope I helped you out today. If you do, I'd really appreciate it if you like this video
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And also, don't miss out on my perfect pocket knife of camping video
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I talk about what knives I use and why. I never go camping without a pocket knife
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So don't miss out on that one. Talk to you soon
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