Camping Essentials – building your basic gear stash, and then some!

As you may remember, I've started guest-blogging over at the Extra Space Storage blog. For each post, I'll be posting a teaser here, and you can click through for the full post over on their site.

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Camping Essentials – building your basic gear stash, and then some!

A few weeks ago, I gave y’all a detailed list (with photos) of the contents of my super awesome camping box. That post will help you maximize your efficiency when it comes to packing for camping trips, and hey, since it’s so easy, maybe you’ll find yourself camping more often!

But there are a few areas I didn’t cover with that post…clothing, food, hiking gear, bug spray…oh yeah. Things you need. Or maybe, not always things you need, but things that you might want. Or things that if you’re buying gear for your first ever camping trip, you might want to consider. Instead of, you know, buying everything at REI. For the purpose of these posts, I’m talking about car camping: where you drive to a campsite, park your car, and set up shop for a while. Backpacking is a whole different beast! Since I do the majority of my camping with my husband I’ll share tips we’ve learned across our many summer camping trips.

Let’s just jump right in, shall we?

Me at a relatively hidden and totally beautiful river
bend near Pothole Dome at Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park.

Ha ha, fooled you! Read the rest here!

Camping Gear: Storage and Organization and What to Pack

Exciting news! I've started guest-blogging over at the Extra Space Storage blog. For each (quarterly-ish) post, I'll be posting a teaser here, and you can click through for the full post over on their site.

I'm pleased to present my first post, just in time for summer camping (or a little late, perhaps, but hey, better late than never).  Enjoy!

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Camping Gear Storage and Organization (Bonus: What You Should Pack)
If you’re like me, you’ve amassed quite a collection of gear over the years…and if you’re like me, you might not have a beautiful suburban garage in which to store said gear. In a small apartment, or even in a small home (ah, city life), storage space is often limited, and miscellaneous gear ends up all over the place. Whether you’re finding tucked-away corners for your gear or storing it away from your house (hello, Extra Space!) when not in use, it’s important to keep things organized.

The best thing I ever did was create a Camping Box (ok, well, now we have a Camping Box, a Backpacking Box, and a Miscellaneous Extra Outdoors Supplies Box as well, but still). Inside the camping box is (almost) everything we need for a weekend mountain getaway, and oh man, do I love it.

-Keep reading on their blog for more tips, photos, and an itemized list of everything our box contains. Oh yeah, baby. (CLICK HERE)