The summer offers long days you can fill with pretty much any activity you desire.
Camping also comes to mind when thinking about the summer.
But with blistering hot days and not-so-cold nights, it seems like the middle of summer isn’t too fun of a time to pitch your tent out in the wilderness.
I say otherwise!
So, how do you go camping in extreme heat? To go camping in extreme heat, you’ll need to pack plenty of water (and know how to get more), wear lightweight, use sunscreen, and use shade to your advantage.
Below I’ll break down some extreme scenarios and how you can handle them with relative ease, as well as provide some helpful tips for staying cool even when it’s really hot out.
Nature Is Your Best Friend
The first tip to staying cool is to use your surroundings.
Knowing exactly what you’re getting yourself into can help determine how to stay cool.
You can stay out of the blistering sun’s rays by using the shade of trees.
In fact, standing in the shade can provide a temperature difference of between 20 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit (11-25 degrees Celsius) according to the EPA.
Set Up Your Tent In The Shade
Using the data above (and your own experience), you can see that setting your tent up in the shade can keep temperatures inside of your tent drastically lower than setting up in direct sunlight.
Find a nice piece of flat ground underneath the shade of some trees to take advantage of those cooler temperatures.
Using trees is nice and all, but what if you don’t have trees to provide shade?
Take Down Your Tent
If you’re camping out in an open area where there isn’t too much shade, you obviously won’t be able to utilize the previous tip.
If that is the case, one of the best things you can do is disassemble your tent during the day.
Your tent isn’t too efficient at regulating heat, especially if it doesn’t have a lot of mesh or windows to allow for ventilation.
If left set up it can absorb heat and trap it inside, leaving you sleeping in a makeshift oven.
To combat this, disassemble your tent during the day.
This will prevent any heat from building up inside your tent and allow you to at least sleep in the outside temperature.
Use Water To Your Advantage
Even if you do your best to keep your tent out of the sun or keep it down during the day, it could still get hot at night.
Instead of just trying to make your tent colder, you could also use some cool tricks with water to make yourself colder.
Here are a few creative ways to use water to combat extreme heat:
- Stay hydrated – this one is kind of obvious, but staying hydrated can help your body deal with the heat
- Use a wet towel – pouring water into a towel (or shirt. Whatever is handy!) and wrapping it around your neck or placing it on your forehead can be a great way to lower your body temperature while sleeping
- Use ice water in bottles – if you’re camping in a campground, you’ll likely have access to an ice machine. If you can, fill up water bottles and add in ice. Then place them at your feet under your blanket to cool you off. Bonus: when you wake up you’ll have a refreshing bottle of water!
- Make a fan colder with ice – placing ice in an open container (such as a bowl) in front of a fan can help cool you off as the wind blows over the ice and onto you
Dress Accordingly
Switching up your gear for extreme heat can make all the difference.
Obviously, wearing heavy gear such as a snow jacket will cause you to overheat.
But there are some less obvious changes you can make to your clothing to help keep you cool in extreme heat.
Is Cotton The Best Material For Camping Shirts?
While cotton is a great choice for a shirt material and does a solid job keeping you cool and dry, it also soaks up sweat, which can make you stink after just a day.
If you don’t mind it, then feel free to wear a lightweight cotton tee.
If you want a material that keeps you cool just as good (if not better) than cotton but also does a little better job at wicking away sweat and keeping you from stinking, merino is your best bet.
Merino shirts are extremely lightweight and durable, and you can also get both long sleeves and lightweight hoodies that can protect your arms and neck from the sun.
What About Pants?
A lot of outdoor enthusiasts prefer to wear pants when camping.
And with good reason.
The extra material does a great job protecting your legs from scrapes and bug bites.
Lightweight, soft shell pants are available that allow you to stay cool while being protected.
The Right Footwear Is Key
While it may be tempting to go for the waterproof options when it comes to footwear, you may be better off with an airy-style boot instead.
The waterproof membranes work great for keeping moisture out of your boot, but they also do a great job of keeping your sweat in.
If you don’t want swampy feet, you’ll be better off choosing a boot with some ventilation.
And similar to shirts, picking a merino sock can help wick more sweat away while keeping you cool.
Neckwear Counterintuitively Helps
You may be thinking that wearing extra material would cause you to be hotter.
However, not with neckwear if you get the right material.
Similar to what was mentioned in the above section about utilizing water, you can wet a silk bandana and wrap it around your neck.
What this does is transfer your body heat onto the bandana and into the air as the water evaporates.
Think About The Foods You Bring
The food you bring along with you can have an impact on how hot your camping experience is.
You read that right.
The reason is that if you are bringing food that needs to be cooked over a fire, you’ll be sweating beads while cooking it during the day.
Because of this, you’ll want to pack breakfast and lunch items that don’t need to be heated up and save the items that should be cooked over a fire for dinner when it is cooler out.
The cooler you bring will also have an impact.
Depending on where you are camping, you may not easily be able to get a refill of ice, so you’ll want to preserve what you have as best as possible.
We wrote an entire article on how to keep your cooler cold, but the basics are as follows:
- Don’t open your cooler – the easiest way to preserve ice and keep things cold is to open your cooler as little as possible. You’ll also want to make sure you shut your cooler properly when you’re done.
- Ice blocks work better than cubes – Freeze water in Tupperware containers to create ice blocks. They will last much longer than single cubes.
- Freeze gallon jugs of water – This works for both keeping your cooler cold, but will also double as drinking water as it melts.
- Organize your cooler – keep the stuff you’ll be accessing more frequently up top to prevent digging through the cooler.
- Have a separate cooler for food and drinks – most drinks won’t go bad if they warm up. Food, on the other hand, can spoil if it’s not kept cold. Having a separate cooler means opening the food cooler less, preserving ice.
Choosing The Right Tent And Sleeping Gear
The tent you use can have a huge impact on how hot you feel while sleeping.
Just like there are tents made for extreme winter conditions, there are tents made for hot weather conditions as well.
Tents made mostly of mesh will allow any breeze to pass through, but pay attention to the weather in case of any rain.
The more hot-weather tents are generally not as waterproof, so you’ll either need to purchase one with a rainfly or bring one separately and be prepared to set it up if necessary.
If you’re camping in the trees, setting up a large tarp above your tent is also a great way to protect from the rain while allowing a breeze to pass through.
You can attach it to the trees above your tent so there’s more room than a rainfly (rainflies sit roughly 1 inch above your tent, not letting too much airflow pass through).
It’s a bit more work but will provide a ton of cooling power.
No matter what you bring along with you, be sure to face your tent door towards the breeze to get the most out of it.
What To Sleep On
The best thing you can do for sleeping in extreme heat is get off the ground.
Bringing along a cot can help air pass underneath you, which wouldn’t normally be there if you were just sleeping on a mat.
There are lightweight options available that can be used for backpacking as well.
Sleeping Bags Or Blankets
Depending on what type of camping you’re doing, you’ve got a few options for what to bring as a cover for sleeping.
Sleeping bags (even lightweight ones) can tend to be very warm, but if you get one and leave it unzipped it shouldn’t get too hot.
Another option if you are car camping is to bring along a set of sheets and a light blanket.
If you won’t be packing up every morning and traveling during the day, sheets can be a great option for sleeping in warm weather.
Whatever you pack, you’ll want to be sure you are prepared for any cool weather during the night.
Some areas are extremely hot during the day but temperatures can drop greatly once the sun goes down.
If you’re in one of those areas you’ll want to prepare with a bit more cold weather gear.
Bugs
Hopefully if you’ll be camping in extreme heat you’ll have a water source nearby.
However, having water nearby will mean that you’ll be dealing with the swarms of bugs that accompany it.
So you’ll want to be prepared.
DEET
DEET has been the number one option for many years.
When used properly it can protect you from bugs for up to 6 hours (depending on the DEET concentration in your bug spray).
Despite all of the alleged negative news about it, DEET has been found to be very safe.
It has been used billions of times since it was created in 1946.
There have been very rare cases of a contact rash, but in general the spray is safe to use.
In fact, fewer than 50 cases of toxicity have been reported since it was created, which is much less than the harm that mosquito bites can cause.
The actual downsides to using DEET spray are:
- Greasy – DEET leaves your skin feeling greasy, which is more of a personal preference whether it bothers you or not
- Reduces the effectiveness of sunscreen – DEET can effect sunscreen, so be sure to apply sunscreen roughly 15 minutes before applying bug spray with DEET
- It dissolves certain materials – DEET has the ability to dissolve fabrics made of rayon, spandex, and vinyl. Try to keep it away from these materials and you’ll be fine.
If you can be aware of when to put on sunscreen then bug spray and don’t wear any materials it dissolves, DEET is an amazing choice for repelling mosquitoes and other bugs.
Picaridin
A little less common but still extremely effective, Picaridin was created by Bayer in the 1980s to help repel mosquitoes and other bugs alike.
It has been sold in Europe and Australia since 1998, and finally made its way to the US in 2005.
Just like with DEET, using as instructed will not cause any harmful side effects.
Unlike DEET, however, picaridin is odorless, non-greasy, and doesn’t dissolve plastics and other synthetic fabrics.
Not only that, but studies have shown that picaridin is just as effective as DEET at repelling mosquitoes.
Permethrin
A little less known but very effective way to keep bugs away from you is to wear clothes embedded with permethrin.
This synthetic chemical kills insects that come in contact with it.
There are two options for permethrin:
- Purchase clothing which already contains the chemical
- Spray the chemical onto clothing you wish to wear
The difference is in how long the chemical lasts.
Pretreated gear can last up to 70 washes, whereas spraying it on yourself will give you about 7 uses before you need to reapply.
The benefit to spraying items yourself is you can wear your favorite gear and still be protected.
No matter which way you use permethrin just remember you’ll need to wash the treated clothing separately from non-treated clothing.
Bringing Along Dogs
It’s tough to pack up for a trip and leave your pup behind.
Especially if you don’t want to pay for boarding or you can’t because your dog is in heat.
But there are some significant dangers that can be present while taking your dog camping in extreme heat.
Here’s how to address them:
- Keep them hydrated – just like you, dogs can lose plenty of water in the heat. Be sure to provide them with ample water.
- Protect their paws – if you’ll be walking out in the sun on a hot surface, be sure to pack a pair of booties for your dog. Walking on hot surfaces can damage their paws, causing pain and discomfort.
- Watch for signs of overheating- it doesn’t take insane temperatures for a dog to overheat, so you’ll want to be extra careful. Signs include excessive panting, drooling, dry gums, and hot ears.
For more tips, check out our article on keeping dogs cool while camping.
Stay Safe Out There
There are plenty of ways that camping in extreme heat can cause discomfort if you don’t plan for them.
But there are also plenty of ways to have fun and stay safe even in the most extreme temperatures.
Just be sure to pack accordingly and be mindful while you’re out having fun!