What Not to Take on a Hiking or Camping Trip

There are plenty of guides out there that tell you what you should bring when you go outdoors for a hiking excursion or a camping trip. How many of them inform you of what not to bring, though?

It’s almost as important to know those things that won’t be useful, will make your experience worse or will not be a good idea to take because they can become ruined.

Nice Shoes

We talked about clothes already, but let’s focus on your footwear specifically here. It’s a bad idea to bring your name brand sneakers or any other expensive footwear out on your camping trip.

Not only are those shoes probably a bad fit for the outdoors, but they will likely get scuffed, damaged and dirty while you are on your outdoors adventure. If you don’t want to spend the entire excursion fretting about and cleaning your shoes, then leave the really nice ones at home and take something that is made for roughing it in the wilderness.

Ornamental Blades

There is quite a market these days for decorative knives, but they tend to not be very practical, especially in the context of an outdoors adventure. You should leave the ornamental objects at home and take a functional hunting knife instead. Even a small jack-knife would be more practical than any blade you bought for display purposes. Those blades tend to be poorly suited to carving sticks, digging in the dirt or preparing food.

Junk Food

You will be doing a lot of walking and other physical activity on your trip, in all likelihood, so bringing junk food for quick energy is generally a bad idea. You need more substantial energy, like what you get from protein and complex carbohydrates. Bring foods like nuts, jerky, fruits and other healthy, lean foods that are light in saturated fats and sugars to keep you going for longer.

Any Expensive Accessories

You can also leave behind any very expensive phone, portable gaming devices, jewellery and watches. These items will likely all get dirty or damaged. Think about whether you mind if something you are planning to bring becomes dirty or gets scuffed up a bit. If your answer is yes, then it should stay behind.