Truck Camping: The 6 Components You Need To Address

hey what's up everybody Brian here I just wanted to go over a few components that I think are important for vehicle camping I do in the truck people doing all different sorts of vehicles I've seen passenger cars vans RVs you name it people can come up with some pretty creative things but there are six components that if you cover this when your vehicle camping whether it's part-time or full-time you'll make it a comfortable endeavor and it would be a lot of fun so let's dive right in the first component which I feel is the most important is your sleeping setup what I chose to go with was a platform bed in the bed of my truck I've got an a re topper here that has an insulation package for cold weather camping and what that is it's just basically a liner for both the bed of the truck that's about this thick and then it was a liner attached to the inside of the topper here it's like a felt liner just basically helps to keep it warmer and keep the cold air at bay when the night's get a little chilly for the platform bed itself this is a very simple setup I chose to go with a basic two by six with with plywood on top set up the reason for that is I didn't want to do a complete drawer system because I wanted to have the flexibility to break down the platform bed itself if I needed to utilize the entire interior space in here from from floor to top so the drawer system once it's in there it's in there so you can't like take that out and push it to the side or whatever if you need it to utilize the entire space I've never had an instance we're going to haul something that big but if I do run into that instance you know I know add that flexibility another thing that's nice about this sort of setup as it's cheap all those materials that I've used for my platform bed it's under $50 so I've got just two two by sixes that are cut to size the Tacoma has a liner in it where it has these little notches and so you just lay those two by sixes in there then you put your plywood piece on top and you're set I cut my play with piece in two pieces so it's the two halves that make a hole and then I can just break it down real quick and push it to the side if I need to legalize excuse me utilize the entire bed of my truck for my sleeping itself I've got a knee mail salsa 15 degree rated sleeping bags this is great because it's one of those flexing bat or sleeping bags it's flexible so you can actually sit up in this thing while you're still in it and cross your legs and all that stuff there's plenty of room but yet it still has the taper like a normal mummy bag so it doesn't take up a whole lot of space for my sleeping pad I have a seat of Summit clicking pad this is an inflatable 12.5 inches I'm not sure I think it's 2 inches and it has an r-value which is the heat rating value got our value of 5 which I really like for cold weather camping I never get chilly from my sleeping pad so this is a good choice and it's super comfortable you know my bed is six there's only five feet long but I'm 6 feet tall so I sleep diagonal in there but it's really comfortable and I actually like the cozy split the cozy space so that's never really been an issue it's great to have it and I enjoy the platform bag the next component that you need is you need some sort of cooking station and I've got two ways to cook I've got a I've got a backpacking stove it's the MSR pocket rocket you take these little fuel canisters you screw the stove on top of it it's got three prongs that come out and then you can set a kettle on there or a skillet small skillet or maybe even just like a single walled metal cup you can heat up water for like oatmeal for tea for coffee you know whatever it is you want and that's my staff but when I'm at camp I want to utilize a full stove and so what I deal with here is I've got the Coleman Triton two burner stove this stove is awesome it's bulletproof not not literally but but almost and I've you been using it now for over two years and it's never once failed me it's super easy to clean and it's easy to set up it's got these these wings on only on either side and what these are for this actually creates a wind block and that way if you're camping and somewhere with high wind it's not really going to affect your cooking performance of your stove with the backpacking stoves even though it's small and compact when the wind gets high it's kind of hard to utilize it because the wind can blow out the flame or it just pushes the heat over and then not coming up direct underneath your your cancer that you want to heat up so this is great for when you're you're actually you know at a campground or just to have on your tailgate to cook with they utilize a little one gallon propane container and then you just plug this in on the side here pump that in and you're jamming what I do is I keep the the hot pad in the stove here along with a little scrubber to clean it and then an extra like cloth napkin just to just to use when I don't want to use paper towels because it just creates too much wave and I don't like up and get with trash all the time so that's that cooking station obviously is extremely important and then what I what I use is for water storage as I've got I've got this aqua container this is a six gallon container these things are great they're really durable they're BPA free so there's no leaching that comes off the plastic so it's nice to use and then I also have a cooler I use the Yeti twenty liter they call it the roadie this thing is awesome it's a cooler but it also doubles as like a place to sit because it's just about this high off the ground so if I if I don't want to pull on my camp chair or if I'm just wanting something quick to do I'll pull this out I'll open it up get the food out that I need get my stove going and then I can utilize my tailgate as my desk and then I can just sit on my my cooler here and that's that's my staff has a little feet or you know it's not an extra seat if I have somebody come visitin camp back in real quick so the the third component which is vital to camping is a hygiene station and the hygiene station that I use is I'll have this little camp suds container what I'll do is I'll put about this much camp suds concentrated soap in here then I'll fill the rest up with water and then you can just shake this up and it creates like a sudsy water that you can use to wash your hands or you know clean off your Stover after you get done cooking or whatever is you need one thing about hygiene is that if you keep your hands clean while your vehicle camping then you're not going to get all your gear dirty I found that out the hard way I'd always said there be like man why is my gear just getting so dirty all the time it's because my hands were a mess I'd be working with the fire and you get like ashy stuff all over it well it just makes sense if you're you know touching your clothes or touching your gear that's going to get really dirty as well so one way to keep everything clean is to keep your hand clean and to have soapy water on demand is real nice to have so that's a little hack that I use another thing that I have is I've got on my roof rack I have a road shower this is a five gallon metal canister that you can pressurize with a bike owes and then it has this little nozzle here that you can create like a misting stream or you can have like a real direct stream for showering for washing off gear but I've also utilizes utilize it to wash off my dog after she gets into mud we could go hiking so this is extremely useful at heats up in the summertime you can actually get the water up to about 108 degrees in direct sunlight I found that it gets warmer if you're in warmer climates but in Colorado when the temperatures stay around 75 to 80 per day I can get cold creek water that's 40 degrees up to over up to about 104 within two hours of this indirect Sun so that's really great to have it's awesome have a warm shower in camp especially after like hiking in or something like that or just before you go to bed and I utilize that quite often so that's the hygiene that I utilize hygiene station stuff that I've got the fourth component is you want to have a place for storage now I've got I've got two storage bins I've got one storage bin for for clothes and the other for gear and they're red underneath here so I'm going to stop and I'll show you what I utilize so I've got my clothes here this is a the plastic bins that you can buy anywhere you mount Walmart's or chief a little rollers on them so they come in and out real easy and then on this side I've got all of my gear now everything that I need for truck camping as far as gear is concern is then this dope is in this little toe bag so one thing about being on the road full-time is that you become a minimalist by default because you don't want to carry around a bunch of crap you don't and you're not so you pair down all your gear to just the basic essentials and then you realize you're like man this is comfortable as I was when I carried around a bunch of stuff with me so why not just minimize everything and then that way I don't have to sort through a bunch of stuff every time I get to camp try to figure out what I need so you know that's one really great byproduct of this lifestyle that I didn't anticipate is becoming too minimalist has been really freeing when you have less stuff you actually have more flexibility to do things and so now I think more people should should to go on the road full time to experience that because it's kind of an eye-opener so that's what I use for storage feel simple and then the fifth thing and one of the more important features or components for for vehicle camping is you got to figure out some sort of power solution some people use solar power these a secondary battery system I have right now I've got a 400 watt inverter in the back of my truck with a power strip but I can utilize to power stuff the drawback to that is you have to have your vehicle running in order for the inverter to work because you don't want to drain your battery of your truck just having your battery on without actually running but I drive around a bunch I usually switch locations about every two days so when I drive to a new location I'll put all my electronics in the back and then power them up so I can add just a simple power strip it plugs right into the back here this came standard in my or 12 as an option in my Tacoma or Tacoma that I have this is great I mean it works for me I'll probably get a secondary battery system eventually because I want to put up a lighting system around the around the roof rack in my truck for security purposes one of my camp but for right now you know it's good to go so those are the five components that that I think are important of the six component is kind of more like what I call quick grab gear there was a gear that I think is essential to your vehicle camping especially if you're going to be you know kind of out in the boonies somewhere if you're going to camp on public land as a post like a campground campgrounds usually have lights and stuff like that so when you pull up at night it's not an issue but it's but for me I love to four-wheel back into like really remote locations and there's no lighting back there and so you know you have these could grab things available just to help out so with the lighting solution you know any sort of standard headlamp it's fantastic to have IDs rechargeable batteries which I I charge up with the inverter when I'm running around so that's a nice one he is also - I have a GPS unit I use the alarm well now it's Garmin because Garmin purchased alarm but I use the the in reach Explorer this thing's fantastic you can two-way text anywhere in the world and when I text someone like my folks and my brothers or friends it has a little link at the bottom that shows my exact location so they know exactly where I'm at so I can be like hey what's up guys just got to camp here's where I'm located and that way they can contact me and I can be in touch with folks even if I'm off-grid and out of cell phone range because I don't have a cell phone I can't put my cell phone about six months ago so I just utilize this for staying in touch with people and then other quick grab gear I'll utilize I like to have leather gloves available that's that's great for processing firewood also use a multi-tool I've got the leather man 300 super tool this thing is awesome it's got a bunch of different stuff in it from knives to screwdrivers to files you name it and then other things at all years I've got a I've got a gerber outdoorsman axe I'll put this right here when I stack up that's great for processing and chopping big pieces of wood and then when you want to break it down even more I use a East Wing hatchet packets are extremely useful this I probably use this from most out of all the tools that I have even more so than my multi-tool because I'm always chopping wood and processing wood to make a fire and I don't use fire starters I think that's kind of a waste of money so I make my own fire starters by using just a cotton ball and petroleum jelly then they take the petroleum jelly and you work it into the cotton ball and spread it out a little bit then you place that underneath your tinder bundle which you can use a lot you can utilize a hatchet to really break down wood and then you know you get that going you like that and it just stays lips like five minutes and so you can pretty much eat your fire going I can't stand you know messing with a fire non-stop for 10-15 minutes try to get it going so I'll spend a lot of time using my hatchet or you know the outdoorsman axe down would that way I can feel a tender bundle that has small piece of wood with larger pieces on top of you no no for larger pieces on top of that larger pieces and that big piece of the wood I'll be out lighting I'll walk away from it and do other things at camp and the bark is going in and of itself Tom's babysitter's that's nice another thing you want is a shovel this is really really really useful I just started carrying a shovel about a year ago when I wish I would have had it initially when I first got on the road it's just you run into stuff to where you need a shovel it's great for putting out a fire because you can just you can just you know dig down in the soil throw it on the fire arms as any coals going to you never ever ever want to abandon camp but the fires assault hot coals that's how far forest fires get started so I'd recommend a shovel for sure and then the last night just you know a simple camp sure then you can take this and put it right here and then when you're done you know use it when you when you get to camp you guys drop your tailgate grab your quick items gear set up and you're good to go so those are the six different components real quick we'll run through them one more time you want to have a sleeping setup you want to have a cooking setup you want to go ahead and have a hygiene station you want to have storage and then you also want to have the power set up and then the quick grab so it's all six right there so that's what I found it makes truck camping or vehicle camping really comfortable if you get on the road full time just be prepared that you'll be tweaking your setup you know just figure out what works best for you but once you get it out in it makes it really efficient and really fun and I just recommend everybody to minimize all your gear only carry what you need because you don't want to have all of your storage space or any open space just cluttered with a bunch of gear because it'll drive you crazy so minimize all your stuff and utilize those six components when thinking about hitting the road either part-time or full-time and it'll be awesome you'll have a good time so thanks for watching and shoot me a comment below in the comment section if you have any questions at all I'll do my best to answer for you thanks

Channel: Off-Grid Backcountry Adventures

Views: 587,750

Keywords: Truck camping, how to truck camp, overlanding, full time overlanding, tacoma truck camping, platform bed, platform bed truck camping, colorado truck camping, vehicle camping, Brian Galyon, Colorado Backcountry Adventures, Off Grid Living, Minimalist, Minimalism, Toyota Tacoma

Id: NUFyVUvLnSU

Length: 15min 32sec (932 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2017