Camping For Dummies

by Michael Hodgson

You love the great outdoors, but you’re not always sure the great outdoors loves you. You can pitch a tent, start a campfire, build furniture by lashing tree branches together – in theory anyway! But while you may not have gotten your Girl Scout Gold Award, or your Eagle Scout with cluster, you can still enjoy a night out under the stars with those near and dear to you, or even work towards becoming a more serious outdoorsman, right?
Sure as a bear lives in the woods, Camping for Dummies shows you how to get out there and enjoy the best Mother Nature has to offer. With the helpful advice this common sense guide provides, you’ll be prepared when it comes to:

Destination
Gear
Shelter
Clothing
Food
Weather
Safety
Written by journalist Michael Hodgson, veteran of Utah’s Eco-Challenge and numerous other outdoor adventures, Camping for Dummies cuts out gear-head jargon and antiquated methods to give you, plain and simple, what you need to know to make the smart choices that lead to great adventures. You’ll find out:

How to tie a bear bag
The delicious caveman style for cooking fresh fish
The limitations of GPS
How to predict the weather by observing birds, frogs, and insects
Ten survival essentials
How to go canoe, kayak, or bicycle camping
What features make a good backpack, boot, and other equipment
When and how to bring along children
Whether the dictionary definition of “tenderfoot” has your picture next to it or you already consider wilderness your home away from home, you’ll appreciate this handy, concise reference. Full of illustrations, diagrams, and directions for finding additional camping resources, Camping for Dummies is your complete ticket to America’s great outdoors.

Genres: Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published May 23, 2000

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the intro says this is not a book to be read straight through, that's exactly what I did. It was a good refresher on topics I'd forgotten since my Girl Scouting years, and taught me a bit about backcountry camping that I did not know and hope to put to good use in the near future.

[Cindi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good starting point for a camping "dummy" like me. The author doesn't try to sell the reader on certain brands, just gives helpful suggestions.

[Kristen]

I left it out in the rain when we were staying at the beach. Dummy indeed.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Right off the bat talking about guy-lines and things. This book is more like "Advanced Camping And Wilderness" and doesn't take into account that people who want the dummies book are likely not:
- Hiking 20 miles to their campsite
- Looking to invest $2k minimum in camping equipment
- Buying and packing freeze dried space meals
- Thinking about minimizing weight while still having a full kitchen setup
- Shipping camp fuel with them on planes for their international trek
- Needing to predict the weather by nature signs in animal behavior

And so on. Truly, this misses the point for probably the 90% of Americans who camp by driving up, popping up a cheap tent in the summer (or even a ridiculous gas guzzling RV), and letting the kids run around a little bit for 24-48 hours before driving through somewhere on the way home. If anything, made me less likely to ever camp.

[Geoffrey Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect reference for newcomers to camping or people like me who just like to read about subjects they love as well as refresh my memory on things I may have forgotten. Love these For Dummies books! Next up- Fly Fishing for Dummies!

[Christy Keeler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Far too basic.