| NATIONAL PARKS QUICKLINKS |
Also on Backpacker.com
Backpacker Magazine – March 2011
The Manual: Couples Camping 101
Use these proven methods to make sure your first romantic camping foray into the wilderness isn't your last.
-
Tags:
- Skills |
Light a Fire with Just One Match | Rein it in, Rambo | Go Ultracomfy, Not Ultralight | Top 7 Relationship Killers| Cook like Casanova
Rein it in, Rambo
“You can’t just take your honey backpacking and expect her or him to have fun,” says Andy Blair, program manager for the Wilderness Medicine Institute. “You have to ease your S.O. into it slowly.” Plan the first date as carefully as you would an expedition:
>> Start with short dayhikes and car-camps.
>> When you go overnight, keep mileage low (say five miles round-trip) and terrain easy.
>> Eliminate guesswork: “Know where you’re going to camp, and plan a few alternatives in case it’s taken,” says Blair. And choose a site that offers, ahem, privacy.
>> Pick a showstopper endpoint (a waterfall, hot springs, a meteor shower that night).
>> Be flexible with the calendar so you can go when the weather is perfect.
Subscribe to Backpacker magazine
Sign up for our free weekly e-newsletter
Reader Rating:
-
Editors' Choice 2013
412 trail-tested products
Boost Your Apps
Add powerful tools and exclusive maps to your BACKPACKER apps through our partnership with Trimble Outdoors.
Carry the Best Maps
With BACKPACKER PRO Maps, get life-list destinations and local trips on adventure-ready waterproof myTopo paper.
FREE Rocky Mountain Trip Planner
Sign up for a free Rocky Mountain National Park trip planning kit from our sister site MyRockyMountainPark.com.
Get 2 FREE Trial Issues and 3 FREE GIFTS
Survival Skills 101 • Eat BetterThe Best Trails in America
YES! Please send me my FREE trial issues of Backpacker
and my 3 FREE downloadable booklets.
Free trial offer valid for US subscribers only.
Canadian subscriptions |
International subscriptions
and my 3 FREE downloadable booklets.
READERS COMMENTS
Ramen, wow you haven't seen what I can do with Ramen. It might be one of the 2012 best pics for food if I send in my different styles of it...lol
I took my wife (then my girlfriend) backpacking / climbing Saddleback Mt. in Rangeley, Maine back in 1976. This was her first wilderness experience.
She loved the hiking, and the camping, BUT, she did not enjoy the climbing! My suggestion for a first timer is to backpack a level, easy to moderate trail, and not put a first timer on any steep mountain climb. We have since enjoyed many hikes, backpacks, and camping trips together. My wife thinks climbing is just too much effort. So I now climb with our 25 year old son.. JMO
Shawn D. Medford, Ma.
Over 40 years ago, I took my new wife on her first camping trip. We only hiked about 1/4 mile into some heavy brush next to a not-so-romantic irrigation storage lake/canal. But we had a grate time even though it was impossible to sleep both of us in my one-man jungle hammock. We also had a thick blanket that we used to sleep the rest of the night on the ground. In the last 42 years, we have camped all over Mexico , the USA and part of Canada and we are still happily married!!!
Consider base camping in a Natl Forest campground where there are bath facilities and day hiking. Some campgrounds are actually very remote, some backed up right next to wilderness. Or pack in only a mile or two, then same thing, day hike.
Consider caching a rose-in-vase, small italian style table and chairs, some cookery if needed, tablecloth, and maybe even a screenhouse (that's severe, but doable) in buggy areas.
It's amazing what bears will leave lying about in the wilderness....
I find that if we are going on short overnight hikes that a pack of colgate whisp's can really freshen the breath in the morning and the are super light weight.
ADD A COMMENT