Tips in Choosing a Campsite

When you go camping, you would want to take note of a few pointers that could prevent your camping experience from being a negative one. While the perfect camping ground may not be chosen, awareness of the possible dangers helps.

Some tips in choosing a site: By keeping these tips in mind, you can have a pleasant and safe camping experience
 * Avoid pitching your tent under a tree. Branches of trees come lose and fall down, so keeping outside the area of the canopy is advisable.
 * Take note of watershed areas. Sites too close to rivers or the sea maybe prone to being underwater at other times. High tides could cover the land on a shore line and rain upstream on rivers could cause the banks downstream to overflow
 * Look for gentle sloping ground. This allows water to flow instead of getting waterlogged.
 * Pitch tent with entrance facing the prevailing wind direction. Most tents would 'catch' too much wind on its sides, so by reducing the wind force on the tent by taking it from the front, it will reduce the chances of the tent collapsing.
 * Make sure ground is neither too hard nor too soft. Hard ground would be bad on the bad (unless you have a mattress) and soft ground makes pegging in difficult. Something in-between is ideal.
 * Don't pitch it on trail. Trails need not be necessarily defined as fixed trails for walking, but could be ground leading from one place to another that has relatively heavy traffic. People going through would disturb you and may trip over your tent.
 * Avoid clayish ground. Unless you plan to have a mud bath as one of your activities, you won't find such ground pleasant if it rains
 * Avoid pitching your tent near ant nests, bee hives and wasp nests. Be sure to check for these insects as most people don't and suffer as a consequence
 * Look out for poisonous plants in the area. These could just as well cause a nasty surprise if you camp there

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