Camp Sunset: A Modern Camper's Guide to the Great Outdoors

by Sunset Books

Plan your next adventure with this complete guide to exploring nature, campfire cooking, and sleeping under the stars.

The experts at Sunset draw on more than a century of outdoor experience to create a guide that leaves no stone unturned. Easy to navigate and chock full of clear how-to's, handy checklists, lush photographs, and a nifty pull-out glow-in-the-dark constellation map, Camp Sunset offers something for everyone.

You'll find essential advice on choosing the right gear, setting up camp, and dealing with local critters, alongside Sunset's best tips for an unforgettable trip. Learn to whip up a flawless camp stove meal, mix a cocktail to match, and stargaze like a pro. Discover hands-on activities for campers of all ages, plus special features on photographing nature, foraging, and telling campfire stories. Upgrade your outdoor skills with Sunset's proven strategies, then stash this book in your bag, and get ready to explore!

Useful on the trail and inspiring in the off-season, Camp Sunset is the ultimate handbook for having more fun outdoors.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 24, 2016

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding, though basic, primer for beginning campers. I'd like to share it with many of the camping "neighbors" as I've had over the years as the chapter on etiquette is excellent. Marvelous recipes too!

[Marcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great guide to family car camping for a beginner. I learned all of this in Girl Scouts, but gained a few tips and recipes for my next outing.

[Carl Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars. Camp Sunset: A Modern Camper's Guide to the Great Outdoors is compiled from issues of Sunset magazine, a western US-focused lifestyle publication. It's a breezy, pretty collection of camping tips that can't quite decide whether to focus on camping beginners or more experienced outdoor aficionados and winds up being too generalized to be terribly helpful.

Perhaps it's the result of being a compilation, but the sections are fairly uneven. Several of the sections are for the rank beginner, explaining basic camping equipment and skills. Others are quite advanced, especially the recipes--many of these have huge ingredient lists and are very labor-intensive. While I quite enjoy some outdoor gourmet meals, lots of them simply weren't practical for camping unless one person who loves to cook stays back at camp all day handling the food preparation.

Some features are far too superficial to be useful, such as a two-page spread on kayaking and canoeing. These contained an odd mix of overview and instruction, combining basic boating terminology with capsule descriptions of skills that no one should try to learn from a couple sentences in a magazine such as re-entering a swamped canoe or kayak (seek hands-on instruction rather than thinking you know how to do this because you "learned" it from here!).

Camp Sunset also runs a little Pinterest-y, with over-the-top things like marshmallow animal treats that were really cute but I can't see myself ever doing.

I found some nice tips here; the section on packing the cooler was very well done, I thought. There are links to some cool downloadables such as checklists, outdoor bingo, and patterns to make masks for kids. The photography is also lush and beautiful, making the book a pleasure to flip through.

Camp Sunset is an OK camping guide; hopefully its lovely presentation will encourage those who are interested to try a weekend campout (it really isn't that hard). I wouldn't rely on it as my primary guide for camping, but it's a good inspiration to hit the Great Outdoors.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intended as an introduction for people who don't think they want to or like to camp, CAMP SUNSET is set up like an inspirational guide to the pleasures of being outdoors. Certainly geared towards the newbie and the car camper in particular, this book is full of great to-do lists (from how to pack your cooler to what supplies to bring), lovely pictures, and a general can-do tone. More complex or advanced aspects of camping (like fishing, hiking, etc) are just briefly touched upon, most likely to answer "what about" questions or provide inspiration.

If you've never been camping before, or you have tried it and didn't like it, this book will likely be a wonderful introduction to trying it.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book is the very definition of basic of basics it does the job well in an uncomplicated way. (It’s only “no duh” stuff if you’ve never been taught/shown/experienced.) The camp cooking section felt very gourmet for being on the road - if I don’t cook like that at home what makes me think I can take that on with just about everything else stacked against me sort of complicated. The photos were great.

[Linnea]

This was a favorable, useful guide for our upcoming trip.

[Juli Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hip guide with useful information for camping newbies.

[Pixie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was reading a 2016 Sunset magazine from the library's free basket, and saw an ad for their new-at-the-time camping guide. It is still fresh, current and useful. It has everything from planning to set up to recipes to crafts and activities. I'm pretty sure one of the camping cookbooks I've looked at recently used it for inspiration. As one would expect from a top magazine, the design elements -- layouts, typefaces, illustrations, etc. -- are very appealing, and the advice is succinct but rich in useful information.

Update: Looking over this again b4 returning it, as the library has started letting people return books in a limited way. Remember 4 or 5 years ago when the hipster lifestyle would have you eating shaksouka for breakfast and drinking negronis at cocktail hour, in between times heading to your favorite coffee place, no doubt decorated with vaguely steampunk chalk art? This is the era of this book. Before apparent end times with an orange antichrist, unchecked pandemic and financial meltdowns, global warming-induced firestorm and hurricane devastation, to name a few. So, not that you're likely to be able to use this fine book for its intended purpose, but it is still nice for dreaming of a happier time. Maybe strap on that mask, have the sani wipes at the ready, and make the risky trip to the grocery store to make some of those recipes at home. Hope you don't run into any of those nasty anti-masker, aggressively non-social-distancing disease vectors who make going out to parks or anywhere nearly impossible.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've never gone camping before, this is a great book that will inspire you to get out into the woods. The photography was well done, particularly the photos showing basic knots, how to build a campfire, and how to cook with in a Dutch oven. The book is really geared toward the novice camper, but I thought that some of the recipes were pretty advanced for a beginning outdoor cook. I suppose if you brought instant oatmeal and hot dogs to eat "just in case," trying out the recipes would be fun. I'm going to try the Dutch Oven Double Chocolate Cake the next time I go camping.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you keep their camping edition magazines (I do) or have their cookbook for camping (I do) or save their magazines (again, guilty) ... you really don't need this book. But it's a fun read and it's got pretty pictures. And can a book about camping go wrong? I say not!

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I flipped through this at Cabelas before buying it cheaper used from Amazon. It's a gorgeous book (which is why it caught my eye at the store); I want to frame some of the pictures. If you don't already love camping, this would definitely make you want to give it a go, simply from aesthetics. But I'm not sure who this collection is meant for. A lot of the information is incredibly basic, definitely intended for beginning campers, but the recipes are fancy, requiring quite a few ingredients and steps.