Article - Camping In The Winter

Are you planning a camping trip this winter? If you’re planning a camping weekend with your family and/or friends and the weather forecast is looking pretty dismal, don’t let that ruin your fun – embrace nature and the typical UK winter weather. Whether you’re set to face freezing temperatures, torrential rain or inches of snow, you can still go camping and have a great time. As long as you are well prepared and listen to our advice, you’ll enjoy the experience.

Winter camping isn’t for everyone
Camping in the winter isn’t for everyone. If you especially hate the cold, dampness and rain with a passion, then ‘wild camping’ as it’s known, probably isn’t the right type of getaway for you. But if you can put up with such weather conditions and enjoy an adventure, then go camping in the winter.

Always keep warm and dry
Keeping warm is vital and keeping dry will help you keep warm. Ensuring you’re accommodating to both of these needs, you’ll be fine. Layers are extremely important. By creating layers all over your body, this will help trap warm air inside.

Another key point about layers is that you need the right materials to create effective layers. Try to keep away from materials such as cotton – cotton will absorb moisture and therefore doing the opposite of what you require from your layers. When creating your protective layers, we recommend a base layer, mid layer and an outer layer – the outer layer needs to be highly waterproof, therefore successful in keeping you dry when outside of your tent. Here at Head Outside we stock some waterproof Ponchos – although they’re not flattering to look at, they’re very effective in helping to keep you dry.

Practice makes perfect
Preparing yourself for winter camping is essential, and we mean really practice. Pitching a tent isn’t as easy as it looks, so if you’re a beginner camper then you should practice pitching a tent until you’re comfortable. But for winter camping, that’s a whole new ball game – we recommend that you practice setting up a tent, with gloves on. Gloves can make certain activities harder, and tent pitching is certainly one action that becomes more of a challenge.
Speaking of gloves, if you do not have gloves, then get your gloveless hands on some decent gloves.

Wrap up at all times
Our penultimate point is to wrap up nice and snug with quality layers, gloves, scarves and hats at all times; day and night – and bring spare pairs if you can. Did you know that you lose almost half of your body heat through your head? This is why it's key to wear good quality hats. You'll be spending all of your time outside, so it's extremely important to wear hats which are windproof; so you don’t lose it if it blows away.

Have fun and be prepared
Our final point is to have fun. Camping in the winter is enjoyable, amusing, adventurous and exciting, but it also requires great precaution. Having a good quality tent, suitable attire, quality cooking and heating equipment, and a good bunch of family and friends to accompany is all you need to be safe and to enjoy your camping experience.

If you want to find a suitable campsite near you, then continue to our website and use our easy to use ‘Find a Campsite’.