What kind of gear you need to bring on a camping/hiking trip depends greatly on many factors so allow me to outline my process and accompanying gear before we get into some of the determining factors. The app in the works would ideally geoposition your campsite, the weather and your transport plans to help you develop a packing list.

1. Sleeping: sleeping is the best part of camping because you’re pretty much outside and you probably spent all day exerting yourself so sleep comes easily to an orchestra of forest noises (or children/drunk adults if you so unfortunately find yourself at an RV park). I bring a hammock tent which I pitch about three feet off the ground using tension straps between two trees. My hammock tent has a mosquito net and a rainfly, so it’s three-season friendly and I keep a sleeping bag inside of it for cooler nights. I also clip a solar-powered lamp inside of it for nighttime reading. It takes about five minutes to set up, ten minutes to take down and pack away, and it weighs about three pounds and fits into one of the outer pockets of my trekking pack.
2. Carrying: carrying your things to your site can be a real challenge unless you’re drive-in camping, which is actually my favorite. It still paints the picture of rustic camping without all the blisters and backpack strap rub wounds. However, I do have a trekking pack that can carry all of my necessities should I need it. It’s a North Face 65 liter pack and I can pretty much use it for up to 5 days of trekking and camping if I’m packing very strategically. For now though, with drive-in camping, I mostly just need it to carry my things from my apartment to my car and from my car to the site touchdown space. I’m a big fan of compartmentalizing within a large pack, especially for longer treks, so I have lots of packing cubes and kits and containers. Nothing’s worse than your body wash and shampoo bottles cracking open and opening your bag to a slimy mess. You want all liquids in sealed containers inside of sealed packages inside of your pack.
3. Eating: eating can be a challenge in hiking/camping situations if you’re not driving in. Since I drive in, it’s pretty straightforward. A few days before the trip, I put a ton of 2/3 full water bottles in my freezer to use in my cooler. I usually take some breakfast items (fruit, yogurt, granola) and some sandwich wraps and granola bars for trekking lunch, and then foil packs for dinner. This is usually just vegetables, chicken, and spices in foil to roast over the fire. Another excellent option is to go to your local “ethnic” grocery store and buy some corn husk wrapped tamales, freeze them, and throw them in your cooler. By the time you’re ready to cook them, they’ll the thawed and because their packaging is corn husk, there’s no waste. The more you camp/trek, the better you get at minimizing waste.