Camp Comfortably - With Only What You Can Fit in to a Shoebox!

When you think of camping, do you think of long cramped car rides, and hours of packing gear that you kight not even need? Well fear not, in this Instructable I will show you that it is possible to camp with only what you can fit in to a shoebox. The only things that this excludes are necessities that are too large to fit in to a box (ie. Tent, some clothes, water, and firewood).

Step 1: Things to Pack

Everyone packs different things, but of the necessities that need to be put in the shoebox are;

Food - You need to pack based on what our cooking methods are and any other stipulations that you need to conform to. When I camp, I normally cook over an open fire (or a grill if you are camping somewhere that provides them such as State Parks). If you are going to be cooking like this, I recommend packing tinfoil. You can make a cooking vessel out of it and it doesn't take up as much room as a pan. You may also consider bringing a pot of you plan on making soup.

Clothes - this depends on how long and where you are packing, If you really want to challenge yourself then you can try packing all of your clothes in the box, but I don't because items like sweatshirts take up too much space.

other miscellaneous items - things such as hygiene items, sunglasses, a flashlight, a hammock or any other luxury items.Note - when you are packing like this you need to find the smallest items possible - for example, small tubes of bug spray instead of the large bottles. Individual water flavor packets are conserve more space than bottles of soda or pre-flavored water. Things like this really make a difference when it comes time to try and fit everything in the pack. In the picture above I depicted some of the things that I pack, minus the clothes, water and food.

Things that I forgot to picture but still packed - utensils and hygiene items

Step 2: How to Pack

A good way to start packing us to compile everything that you want to bring, and then when it comes to putting everything in the box, pack the necessities first and then with the rest of the space put in whatever luxury items that you want to bring, until you can't fit anything else. Over time, I've learned that laying everything flat in the box is the most space efficient. First the tinfoil on the bottom of the box, and then everything else flat. When it comes to packing clothes, rolling clothes together in bundles for each day is the most efficient. What I mean by this is to lay all of your clothes for one day on top of each other, and then roll them up like you would a sleeping bag. That way, you don't have to go through your bag digging for each individual clothing item.

At the time of this Instructable, I didn't have my meal plans written out yet, but to illustrate I used frozen pizzas and cereal, as well as some snacks.

Some tips other tips that might help when packing would be
•packing condiments and spices in straws and fusing the ends with a lighter.

• wear your bulkiest clothes for the first day to avoid them taking up massive amounts of space in your bag.

• Looking at the weather is very important, an unnecessary raincoat or unnecessary heavy clothes could really take up a lot of space.

Step 3: Done!

Now that you've seen how easy it is to pack minimally, I hope that you are inspired to go and do it yourself! Good luck with your camping, and if you have any other tips for packing compact or have tried this yourself please comment!