outdoorhacks.com

Here are 26 excellent tips for you campers. Best of all, these are cheap. These were originally posted at Get Rich Slowly, which is a great and useful website.

Check them out:

1. Channel lock pliers make good pot holders.
2. Nylon rope can be used as shoe laces.
3. Use a large zip lock plastic bag, filled with air, as a pillow.
4. A plastic bottle makes a good latrine for cold weather camping. (You don’t have to ‘go’ very far from your sleeping bag). Keep it just outside the tent flap.
5. Carry several pieces of lumber cut into two-inch squares to summer camp and use these to level platform, tent, and cot.
6. Old shower curtains make great ground tarps.
7. Waterproof matches by dipping them in nail polish.
8. Waterproof matches by dipping in melted paraffin.
9. Make fire starters by filling paper condiment cups with saw dust and pouring paraffin into the cup.
10. A length of chain and a piece of coat hanger bent into an S-shape will allow you to hang your lantern from a tree limb.
11. Keep batteries in prescription bottles.
12. Prescription bottles also make good match safes.
13. In fact, prescription bottles (or 35mm file containers) make good storage places for small items of all sorts.
14. A frisbee will add support to paper plates when the plate is place inside the frisbee.
15. Laundry lint makes good tinder.
16. Keep the water in your canteen cooler by wrapping the canteen in foil.
17. When it comes time to pack up at the end of a camp, a wet toothbrush, face cloth and bar of soap wrapped in foil won’t dampen the other things in your kit.
18. To prevent batteries from wearing down if a flashlight is accidently nudged on while you’re traveling, put the flashlight batteries in backwards.
19. To protect your feet from blisters, smear soap on the inside of your inner sock at the heel and underneath the toes. Carry along a bar of soap and, when you feel your feet become tender, give it a try.
20. To keep mosquitoes away rub the inside of an orange peel on face, arms and legs.
21. Wrap fishing gear in foil to keep line from tangling and hooks from rusting. By lining the compartments of a tackle box with foil, you can prevent rust damage to plugs and other equipment.
22. To remove musty smell from canteen, put three teaspoons of baking soda into the canteen with a bit of water. Swish it around and let sit for an hour, then rinse out the canteen.
23. An empty plastic soda bottle, cut off to a convenient height, will work as a camp bowl. You may want to sandpaper the cut to smooth the edge.
24. Save inner cardboard tubes from kitchen and toilet rolls, stuff with waste paper and use as fire-lighters.
25. Use zip-lock bags for mixing foods, be sure it is closed tight and the top is held shut before shaking or kneading.
26. Duct tape can be used to repair most everything on a trip. Use it to patch tents, mend poles, hold up schedules, patch torn shoes, hold poles for mosquito nets to cots, etc.

My personal favorite is the very last one. You absolutely have to have duct tape when camping. It solves so many problems.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 10:30 pm and is filed under camping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.