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What were you doing back in May 2015? Yup, I had no clue either until my husband recently reminded me of our very first US and NM camping trip with a series of pictures. And it made me realize how basic our setup was - and how little we needed to have a great time. If you worry about not having the right or enough gear to go camping, then, my friend, you want to read this.
You hear me constantly advocating for outdoor adventures and camping with your kiddos. Seems easy to do when you have the time, the gear, the right car, the right location and all of that. Yes, I know. The point I'm trying to make: we all start from scratch - and camping is very doable at all levels. You CAN actually have a great camping experience with just the basics. My favorite memory from our very first trip was huddling up in the back of the Jeep (Can you believe we were Jeep people?!) which we had to move every half hour to get our of the ever-changing wind. Today, we would just seek shelter in our ‘desert palace’ aka our giant tent. More about that soon. Let me take you on a little journey to show you where we started.
It started with a Jeep Cherokee and book about local campsites
We got our Jeep Cherokee for the iconic 4x4 look and knew we had to take it camping. Having no backcountry experience, no serious 4x4 knowledge or knowledge of New Mexico, we got a book about local campsites with thorough descriptions. From that, we chose Lake Sumner State Park for our first trip in May, mostly because it offered water and warmer temperatures (it gets very hot later in the summer). The area also seemed big enough to offer a variety of dispersed and developed sites. We never set out to do dispersed camping, but have always liked the idea of privacy and room for our dog to roam.
Related: Dispersed (Wilderness) vs. Developed Camping: Find out what suits your family
Our gear
It was very basic and included mostly backpacking gear (an aspiration of ours that was never tested before baby's arrival). We set out with a two-person tent, two REI sleeping bags, an old foam pillow cut in two, a rolled up foam mattress (husband got it from work), a grill to place over the fire for cooking, various backpacking cooking utensils, a kettle, two pots, two plates, two mugs, two cheap camping chairs, a small rug for our dog, headlamps, a cheap cooler box, storm matches, an ax and some firewood, a compact REI Roll table, garbage bags, bottled water and a small bag of clothes. Mike had found an old metal strongbox at a local army surplus store. It kept all miscellaneous items contained and doubled as a table'/footstool. That’s it.
(Make sure to get my dispersed camping packing list for the ultimate family camping camping checklist, including an essential packing list for baby and nursing mom).
Our experience
Mike has a ton of car camping experience from his childhood. They would set off from South Africa in a converted Land Rover with a freezer trailer full of food pulling behind them. They would go into Mozambique and camp on the beach. Sounds both heavenly and terrifying at the same time.
I, on the other hand, have camped in a trailer RV (small and old by US standards) with my dad in extremely civilized campsites in Denmark. There would be clean toilet buildings with hot running water, freshly baked bread in the morning and a big playground. However, my sense of adventuring and acceptance of primitive and tiny living was fostered - and further developed by vacationing with my dad on a 20-foot sailboat as well.
Our knowledge of NM (US camping in general) was zero, though. Finding out the rules about where to camp was probably the hardest. In Denmark it’s easy. There is no wilderness and you can by default assume that no camping is allowed unless it’s a designated campsite. I can’t speak for South Africa and Mozambique, but I assume there are a lot fewer rules. Hence, why we got the book about Southwest campsites. We later found tools to help us find dispersed camping spots.
Related: How to find wilderness (dispersed) camping sites using Google Maps and Caltopo
How did we do on our first camping trip?
We arrived at the developed sites below the dam on the Pecos River, but decided to explore the opposite side of the dam where we spotted a forest road along the water edge. The sites along the river were beautifully nestled between Cottonwoods and probably out of the wind. But we decided to look for a more private spot. It was a doable road for trail-rated cars along the lake, although somewhat bumpy. We definitely felt proud of making it all the way when we decided on a spot. (We knew nothing about airing down at this point, not that it was necessary). And we found the best spot: a little sandbank away from everyone else. It was worth driving just a little further to see what was around the corner.
We did well with our gear, but definitely learned a few things about preparing for weather and how to make life more convenient when camping. Little did we know that the spring in New Mexico is notoriously windy. Choosing the most open and flat landscape we could find was, in hindsight, not the best idea. On the other hand, it was a beautiful spot and the stormy weather would have probably followed us anywhere that day. We make sure to study the weather and the winds of a given site now before we go.
We spent a good part of the night huddled up in the back of the truck, trying to escape a lingering storm that would move back and forward over the lake. It was really the most bizarre weather. The wind would change direction every half hour, so we had to run out and move the car up against the wind accordingly. The second we thought the storm had passed, we looked up and saw the cloud coming back. This went on all night.
Cooking in (not up) a storm
We planned to cook all our food over the fire and had no alternatives. Getting dinner ready was an all-night event with Mike running out to attend the fire and kickstart it every half hour when the weather cleared for a moment. This was fine since it was just the two of us. Had our kids been there, it would have been different.
What we learned: Bring enough snacks or foods that need no cooking in case you can’t cook over the fire and you have little ones with you. Bring a stovetop or a small gas burner to cook on if the weather is against you or to speed up the process. Decide how you want to spend your night. The less cooking and prepping, the less you have to worry about the weather and bedtimes.
The tent, the placement of the tent, and the mattress matters
Sleeping on Tempur-Pedic foam while camping sounds heavenly, right? In real life, not so much. Don’t give me wrong. I will never trade in my Tempur mattress at home for anything in the world. But memory foam gets very hard in cold temperatures. And foam, in general, doesn’t roll up very compactly (unless you have a machine for it). It took up most of the back of the car - which wasn’t a problem with just the two of us and our dog. But it would be a no-go today.
Our two-person tent held up well and we used it even after baby arrived. However, insisting on waking up to a lake view meant that we set up on the sandbank close to the water and the mesh door was facing towards the water - and the wind. This tent door did not seal around the mesh, so when the wind picked up, a gust of sand would blow up under the door and through the mesh. We soon learned to recognize the sound of the wind picking up and take cover under our sleeping bags. This is where we learned that wind in Cottonwood trees sounds like rain. We had a sandpit in our tent when we woke up - and gritty teeth.
What we learned: it’s okay to move the tent further back (at least out of sand) and even face the door opening away from the wind. You don’t spend much time in your tent anyway, so don’t worry about missing out on the view (although, we still struggle to compromise on this one).
Beautiful sunshine and lake view makes it all forgiven and forgotten
The whole night’s ordeal was worth it when we woke up to sunny, blue skies and perfectly still lake water right outside our tent. It was the most amazing and serene morning we had had in a long time. We cooked our breakfast and coffee over the fire - a lot quicker this time. However, we learned that we prefer being able to make coffee a lot faster in the morning, so we soon brought an MSI gas burner.
The shift and our gear now
We camped with this setup for two seasons, one being with a baby. We did add some luxuries to the setup: an MSI gas burner, a coffee press, a compact Kelty Tarp for shelter, inflatable (compact) sleeping mats and a better and bigger cooler box. This worked well for campsites with tables and flat terrain.
But the real change happened as we started camping with friends who brought us into the wilderness and who had a setup for being able to survive outside civilization for a while. It can be argued how much of the gear we actually needed, but a lot of it is very cool. And extremely practical.
The pricey but game-changing equipment we’ve added include the Oztent RV-5 (found it used, so couldn’t resist for overlanding trips), The Springbar 11x14 (the ‘winter palace’), KISS drawers for Landcruiser (organizing is heaven now), and a Whynter 65 qt. fridge (again, Craisglist bargain).
I love our setup and the extra gear. But I promise you, we had great fun and successfully camped for 2-3 years without it. Don’t let the fancy gear distract you from the real reason to go adventuring with your family.
Happy camping!
Hello, World!