Tips for Sleeping Comfortably in a Tent!

This week we are sharing some of our favorite ways to up the comfort when camping out, in a tent!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Camp Mindowinia, where we're reviving the vintage camping vibe in the Midwest. There is so much to see and do in the Midwest, and we want to share it with everyone. So on this show, we'll be talking about all things camping as we explore the states of our name. Glad to have you back at camp, everyone. I'm Liv and I'm here today with my longtime camping buddy and sister Ab. Hi, everybody. And today we're talking about how to sleep more comfortably in a tent. Yes. Quite frankly, it's more like how to exist comfortably in a tent. But yeah, sleeping too. Yeah, a lot of the time when you're in a tent, I mean, unless you have bad weather, you're pretty much just using the tent for sleeping. Yeah. That's what I typically do. And you know, so if you're in there and you're sleeping, how to be more comfortable when you're asleep. Right. Yeah. Or in the the the asleep part is not usually the problem. It's getting to the asleep part. Yes. How to fall asleep more comfortably. Or in a more comfortable environment. Exactly. So today we're just gonna chat about some ways we have found to make the tent space more comfortable. Yeah. So one of the first things that comes to mind about sleeping comfortably in a tent is the setting. And this is something you can choose before you even get to the campsite or before you even get to the point of, you know, being comfortable for the night. And something that I have found is I just do not love tent camping in RV parks, like in a site that's by the RVs. Yeah. It's just noisy, you know. There's RV noises where, you know, the their heater comes on, their air conditioner comes on, their water heater comes on. I mean, you know, they're just noises associated. They accidentally turn on their outside speakers. Yes. I've had that happen. Yep. I've done that many, many times where I've because like mine, I have to I turn on my my radio or my you know sound system, yeah, and I have to turn off the outdoor speaker because its default is just to come on. That's so crazy. I know. And so yeah, you bet many times I have forgotten to turn off. Usually, you know, I'm not near anyone and it hasn't been a problem, I don't think. But it may not be a victimless crime. And if you're the person in the tent, you might not want to have that potential experience. Yeah. So maybe consider like a pack-in campsite or like a carton campsite, something that you know possibly wasn't on your radar before, and just go, oh, this could be a way to get really the same camping experience, just in a more private setting, it'll be a little bit quieter. And it's I find it so much easier to sleep in a more quiet area. I agree. Also, you know, planning a campground that isn't by loud traffic. Oh my gosh. We were camping in, I think it was Kentucky, and we didn't realize that when you park in a beautiful campsite in a really bluffy area that has a highway running by it, you're gonna have jake breaks all night long on those semi-trucks. And they are loud. Yes, yeah. And depending upon like how far you are from the nearest town, like the rush hour can start at like five in the morning. Yes. So you're up till midnight with the jake breaks, and then at 5 a.m. you're up again because it's over again. Yeah. Okay, so you have selected a spot that is hopefully a little bit quiet, it's a little bit removed, whatever. It's the right setting. Now you want to make sure your tent is in the most level place it can be. And I realize sometimes the spot is just not big enough for your tent, or it just is not level at all. And so it's really hard to get a level spot for your tent. Yeah. However, there are some times that you set up your tent and it looks level or it seems level, and then in the middle of the night, when you wake up and you're like sleeping with your your legs all smooshed up against the bottom of the tent because you've slipped down the hill. You're like, this spot was not level. Yes. So some things that I have done in the past to try and test the levelness of a location before I put up my tent is first I lay out my tarp, tarp footprint, whatever you use, and then just lay down on the tarp and see, does this feel like there is any, you know, weird gravitational pull here? Yes. Am I falling up? Am I falling down one side or the other? Something that seems really obvious. Now, obviously, the way you lay on a tarp for five minutes to test and see if it's level is not the same experience as sleeping there. Yeah. So if you still are not quite sure, you're like, well, it feels pretty good now. Um, something that I heard, I don't even know where I heard this years and years ago, is take a clear water bottle and lay it on its side and see where the little bubble goes. And it makes a pretty decent slapdash level that you probably already had with you. Right. Most of the time, you know, you have a water bottle of some kind. And if you don't, you know, as long as you can see the liquid in there, it's not like it has to be just a you know, water bottle from the storage. Obviously, a metal one is probably not gonna work. But if you can't see where the bubble is anything, or you can see the liquid inside, you're good to go. Olive oil might work too, then. It might. And I have to bring that with whenever I go camping because I love it. Yeah, there you go. Inside the tent, of course, it is always important to choose the right pad or all the way up to mattress or cot for you and for what you are able to bring with you. When I first started tent camping, I went for just the thinnest, lightest, most easily packable, inflatable mattress possible. And it was one you had to blow up by like, you know, blowing air into it with your mouth and everything. And it was miserable. I mean, it was making camping not very fun. And in fact, I would even say starting before that, when we were kids or teenagers, and the few times that we went tent camping, we used like yoga mats. And they do work just as well as those foam ones you can buy in the camping area, but they're not great. No, it was awful. But of course, like, you know, when you're 16, it doesn't really matter. Those would not work for me at all now. And these ultra-thin little pads just are not cutting it for me either. It's not comfortable. And this episode is about sleeping comfortably in a chance. Yes. So something I graduated to after that, especially for like canoe camping, where I don't want to be carrying a lot of things and I might have to portage distances and things like that. Is um I just got a generic one from Amazon, and it's it has a a little pump that you, you know, you pump it up with your foot. Yeah, you step on it. Yeah, you step on it. And it's like three inches thick, I want to say, maybe when it's inflated. And that was, I would say, a game changer. It is so much more comfortable than those ultra-thin little thing, little pads. And honestly, when it's all deflated and rolled up, it's only probably like one and a half to at most two times the size of the ultra-thin one. Yeah, and I have slept on that one as well. You'll recall I borrowed it. And I was surprised. I was like, this is not bad. I mean, yeah, it is not my plush setup, but it is not bad. Right. Yeah, especially if you are gonna need to carry your gear. Yeah, it is source of the extra ounces. Yes, by far. Now, this spring I took my first tent camping trip with a real air mattress, and because just this is all they had at the store, it's a 13-inch air mattress. It's like you don't even have to sit on the ground. Uh-huh. Wow, that was really comfortable. That was the most comfortable I have ever been in a tent. I mean, it was like sleeping, well, obviously on an air mattress, but like a real bed. Yeah. But you still get all of those sounds of nature, including possibly a raccoon rubbing up against the tent in the middle of the night, you know, all those fun, exciting things that you're not gonna experience in an RV that do make tent camping so fantastic. And it was really comfortable. Yeah. Game changer. That brings us to air pumps. So Mitchell and I initially started with one that you had to plug into like the cigarette lighter in the truck, but that thing was so stinking loud, and the cord wasn't very long, and then it had an adapter where you could plug it into like an outlet. And then we're like, well, then we have to bring the Jackery, which is really heavy and big and inconvenient, or we have to put an extension cord to reach it. So we finally bit the bullet and got a rechargeable battery little one, and that thing is great. It can probably do, I don't know, maybe three or four air mattresses all the way full, and you know, like nine, eleven inch ones or whatever, nine to eleven inch thick. And it can do like three or four of those on one charge. So, really, for one camping trip, it like can do the whole trip, even if we do have to take down the tent and bed, you know, one or two times on the trip. And you know, you can get them on Amazon for like under 20 bucks. They're fantastic. See, I didn't know that. So, kind of by accident, I ended up buying, I think it's Ryobi, like the Home Depot brand or whatever. Something like that. Something like that. Yeah, sure. It's a little rechargeable battery kind as well. Uh-huh. And it puffed up two twin 13-inch deep air mattresses um easily. Yeah. So, and that's I haven't tested it very much since we just bought it. This little pump worked great. Because your air mattress is going to be filled with cool air, probably at best, or maybe even cold air. Yeah. Um, doing something to kind of help insulate you from the mattress side is a good idea. And what I did on this trip, because it was a few weeks ago and it was definitely chilly overnight, was I just put a mattress pad on the mattress and then put on sheets. I did go sheets instead of a sleeping bag, but we'll get into that later. Yes. Um, but I just put on a mattress pad and I felt like just that little bit of cushion from the mattress pad was enough to keep it warmer. And because the mattress pad has, you know, corners, it's a like a basically a fitted sheet. Yeah, it stayed on, you know, the whole night and and I knew that it was gonna hold. Yes. That's why I do the egg crate, like I had said, to help with that heat retention, especially in shoulder seasons, or if we're just gonna have weird cold temps overnight. Another thing you could do though, as well, as use those heated blankets. Some of those can just plug into a battery pack or one of those Milwaukee batteries, or if you have a small jackery or something. Okay. Yeah. And those can be super game changers to go underneath you, you know, so you're not as cold. Yes. Especially if you want to go the sheets and blanket way instead of the sleeping bag. Right. Which brings us to the next thing, which is just changing the way you sleep. I do not like a sleeping bag. I mean, I just have never really cared for them. I don't like being so restricted. I know that in obviously very, very low temperatures it's essential. Right. Or for extreme pack-ins where you have to have super light stuff, like your hiking miles to your camp spot. Right. Yeah. Then you don't want to be carrying blankets and bedding and everything. Right. But what I have done for a long time is just always use a sheet and blankets. And I just use a fitted sheet. Uh, this is what I did this time. In the past, I've used a fitted sheet as well and put on the little puff up thing where you, you know, pump it up with your foot. But using this this twin airbed, oh my gosh, it was so comfortable. I put on my real sheets, my real perkale sheets. I had my down blanket, which was so cozy and warm, and just felt like, you know, I was at home. It was absolutely comfortable. And then did that make you feel more motivated to tent? Hands down. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I just love so much waking up. You you hear nature so much more in the tent. You know, the tent walls are just a little piece of nylon. So you can hear all the bird sounds, and I just I don't know, I really loved it. You can feel the breeze even with a rainfly down, you know, things that you're not really getting to experience in the RV. This is true. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the other thing about bedding that I have done for years is just bringing a real pillow. I, yeah, I've known people who, especially like if they're doing camping where you have to carry your gear a long way, they bring, you know, smaller pillows or a pillow substitute. That would just not work for me. It's worth the extra ounces for the pillow. Yes. If nothing else, do the pillow. Do whatever you have to do, but make it make it so you have a real pillow. It makes all the difference in the world. If you are going to use a sleeping bag, some things to just take note of, always buy a sleeping bag that is rated for 10 to 20 degrees colder than what you expect the coldest temperature to be. Okay. And then that way you are, you know, you'll still be comfortable. Those temperatures, like the temperature rating on there, is like so that you won't die, right? Not that you'll be comfortable and happy and cozy. Yeah. So you definitely want to make sure that your sleeping bag is easily going to handle the weather that you are actually going to be experiencing. And then there are some ways to make even your sleeping bag a little more cozy. Something that our sister does all the time is she always puts like a fleece blanket in her sleeping bag. And she does just like a throw size. So it doesn't have to be anything exactly or heavy or crazy. Yeah. Yep. You can do a small one and then, you know, it's just something to make it feel extra cozy in there. And I'm sure that also increases the warmth. Yeah. Or another thing is if you and your spouse are going to be sleeping together, get the type of sleeping bigs that sip together. So then you're in like one big pocket. Because then it's going to feel more like camping, or not camping, sleeping at home versus like, oh, I'm in this weird little cocoon. What's going on? Right. Yep. And of course, it'll be double the warmth. Yes. Of course, the other discomfort in sleeping in a tent is being too warm. Yes. And we're coming into the that time of year now, of course. Absolutely. I know for Mitchell and I, when we go camping to go fishing, so we haul the boat, and then we, of course, have to tent. It can be so blistering hot. I think it was two years ago. They were having like this crazy heat wave, and they're like, you picked the worst weekend to come up. And we're like, Yeah, we know, but you didn't have any other availability, and we didn't either. Yeah. So our solutions for that were again back to the betting. We did the perkale sheets because they're cooler, lighter. And then just super duper lightweight cotton PJs. Like incredibly breathable, incredibly cool. You know, they just feel cool when you put them on immediately. Right. Yeah. Oh, that is such a game changer. Oh, yeah. Especially because sometimes in a vinyl tent, it's maybe not breathing like all that fantastically well. Yeah. So having, you know, natural fibers that are going to breathe, that could be really helpful. It can. But then also you can get those pillows that are like cooling material or whatever. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing we find to be fantastic in the summer when it's hot are clip-on fans that you just clip on in the middle of the tent. We have a great one that has like a little timer so it doesn't have to run on. Yeah, because sometimes it gets chilly in the middle of the night and I'm like, I don't want it blowing on me. Or I don't want the battery to die. And then we also have like it has this teeny tiny little battery remote so we can turn it up or down or turn it off if we need to. It just came with it. And I was like, this is weird, but very convenient. Yeah. And then another thing it's great for is in the morning, there can be condensation with the temperature changes overnight to day. Yep. So you can aim it at the walls to help like dry it up in the morning when you have like the windows all zipped open and everything. Yeah, sleeping in a damp space is definitely not good. Unless it's really dry where you're camping, which I know sometimes in like Nebraska it can be in Iowa. And then if you have that, those cooling towels can be really great. Like I have literally put one on my pillowcase before to be cooler, sleeping with my head on my pillow. That was especially needed when we were camping in Kentucky.

unknown 17:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

But that's a way warmer climate than the rest of the Midwest, I feel like. Well, maybe not in July. This is true. Another thing that comes to mind is having a nightlight. I know that a lot of times you don't need or want a nightlight. However, sometimes being able to find your way around your tent in the middle of the night, especially if there isn't a moon or it's extremely dark from tree cover or something like that, it can just be helpful, especially if you have, you know, little kids or pets or, you know, anyone who might need assistance in getting out in the middle of the night, or even just, you know, finding your way to the to the vault toilet or whatever the case may be, the latrine. A lot of lights are really just too bright to leave on overnight, in my experience. So what I did again on this trip I took a few weeks back was used the battery-operated candles. And I just kept a couple of those in my tent, and I just left one on. And it, you know, was on the little flicker setting, which was, I guess, a little reminiscent of the campfire anyway. And it was just, I felt like it was kind of a glamping touch, honestly. I thought it was cute and kind of charming, but also gave me that light to be able to see my dog easily. She did actually have to go out in the middle of the night and on one of the nights. So that was really convenient. And it was, it made it easy for me to find my own way out of the tent in the middle of the night if I had needed to do so. What Mitchell and I do to make tent camping more comfortable is we use this kind of hybrid tent situation that goes in the bed of his pickup truck. And it works wonderfully because you're off the ground and you're anchored to something stable. So my absolute favorite part about it is we have gone to the Dakotas with intense windstorms. And you know how those great planes are. Like the wind just comes whipping across. And we are so stuck down in the bed of that pickup truck that I'm like, we're not going anywhere. And funnily enough, we actually, when our very first trip using it, we were in South Dakota and we saw someone's tent had blown away and it was floating in like this little duck pond thing at the campground. That is like my fear when I'm tent camping. I am like, if it's windy, I'm like, I have to sit here and hold the tent down. I know. And when you're on social media, you see these videos of people's tents just like leaving the campground, and you're like, is that gonna happen to me? So if you have the option to use like a pickup or even a car, they make these really cool ones that go on the back of I think crossovers, not like a car car. SUV. Yeah, like a small SUV or a crossover, and they go out the back door. So you like turn off your dome lights or whatever to sleep, and then out the back, it like seals around the door, and then you have extra space, but then you can sleep in your vehicle, and then you don't have that extreme wind fear, which is just a big one for me, and I'm not really sure why. Right. It's a silly fear, but it's there. Like a reasonable fear. I mean, I feel like you're heavy enough that, you know, as a human that you're not gonna move. Right. Not when you're like sleeping in the tent. Right, but at the same time, you know, I don't know. The only downside is with these options, if you're not gonna be not moving your vehicle for multiple days, you do have to take the tent down. However, we have found that it's actually pretty easy to just like snap it down, push it into the bed, put the little tunnel cover on, and then, you know, drive around like that, and then you can pop it back up in like five minutes. Oh, yeah, that's not bad at all. Yeah, that so the those tents that attach to the back of your vehicle, I have thought about those in the past. I just wasn't sure if I would use them, you know, enough to justify purchasing one, but I I've been interested in those again recently, and that was something I thought about. I'm like, yeah, anytime you're gonna drive off, you do have to like at least disconnect, you know. So that's kind of the only downside. But other than that, like the wind factor. But then we get into sleeping more comfortably in the shoulder seasons in the tent. The best part is you are off the ground for these scenarios when they're part of your vehicle. Yeah. So when you're not directly on the ground, you're not having that cold ground sucking the heat out of you. Yes. Yep, that's huge. And then, of course, you do need to find a level spot, like Liv was saying, to park your vehicle if you're gonna be sleeping in your car. Otherwise, some options would be that you could do like leveling blocks under your vehicle if you can't get it level. That's a good idea. Yeah. But those are, you know, a little bit more advanced and another piece of gear you have to buy. So instead you could just try parking it in a more level spot. I know for us in the pickup, we have a special mattress that fits around the wheel wells that we use. But you don't need that. You could do like a queen size mattress, usually in most crossovers or pickup beds. And then that gets you off of that hard floor that you're going to have in the bed of the pickup or the hard car floor. And then on top of that, we will sometimes do like an egg crate that's like maybe an inch thick of the foam, maybe two inches. And that kind of gives you an extra bit of cushion so you don't like sink into the grooves of air mattresses. But also so you don't feel really comfortable. Yeah, it's super comfy. Then you don't also lose your body heat through the air mattress. And the last thing, of course, is reducing the amount of mosquito bites you get in your tent. And this to me is something that is like a very hard and fast rule for me, but I have seen other people not follow this. And that is I keep my tent zipped constantly. Like there is no time that it is unzipped unless I am getting in or out of it or putting things in or out, you know, setting up the bed, whatever. I just keep my screen door zipped all the time. And one, it, you know, dramatically reduces the amount of mosquitoes and even flies that you might get in your tent, but it also keeps out other creepy crawlies like spiders and things that you don't want in there. And um, something that, you know, it has been kind of a hot topic, I feel like, this year is ticks. That this is more of a safety, I guess, even than just comfort thing. But if you keep your tent closed all the time, ticks aren't gonna be able, obviously, to get into the tent without you opening the door. And of course, they can come in on you or other people or pets or whatever. So if you just do kind of a brief tick inspection of yourself before you get into the tent, you know that they are not going to be in there and you're gonna have a safer night's sleep. And of course, it's more comfortable to not be worried about things like ticks and spiders and mosquitoes and all kinds of wildlife that is better outside of the tent. All right, so those are our ideas on how to sleep more comfortably in a tent. We hope that something is new here for you. And of course, as always, we would love to hear from you on your thoughts, any ideas you have for how to sleep more comfortably in a tent. And that is our show for this week. Thanks for listening to the Camp Mindowinia Podcast. If you want to connect with us, head over to our Facebook group, Camp Mindowinia, or follow us on Instagram at Camp Mindowinia. Take us on Instagram in your camping posts for the chance to be featured on our page. And if you're enjoying the show, please follow us on your favorite podcasting platform, and we'd love it if you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or a comment on Spotify. Join us next Monday for another episode. Bye, guys!