What do people most often forget when camping?

A warm enough sleeping mat, spare dry socks, a rubbish bag and a headtorch with working batteries. Cold ground and wet feet end more trips than anything else.

What R-value sleeping mat do I need?

Around R2 for summer, R4 or more for shoulder season, and R5 plus for frozen ground. Stacking a cheap foam mat under an inflatable adds roughly R2.

Do you need to filter water at a campground with taps?

Carry treatment regardless. Seasonal taps get shut off, wells get contamination advisories, and tablets weigh nothing.

What should you not sleep in while camping?

The clothes you wore all day. They hold moisture, which conducts heat away from you all night. Keep a dedicated dry sleep layer.

Camping and outdoors

The camping checklist that actually matters

Most camping checklists are inventories written by shops. This one is ordered by what ruins a trip when it is missing, which is a different list and a shorter one. Get the first two groups right and a forgotten spatula is a funny story rather than a problem.

A tent pitched in a forest clearing at dusk with warm light inside — The gear that matters is the gear that keeps you warm, dry and fed. Photo: Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Sleep, because this is what people get wrong

Nobody has ever cut a trip short over a bad meal. They cut it short because they were cold at 3am. Almost always the culprit is not the sleeping bag, it is the mat: the ground pulls heat out of you far faster than the air does.

Sleeping mat with a real R-value. Around R2 for summer, R4 or higher for shoulder season and cold ground. A foam mat under an air mat works and costs almost nothing.
Sleeping bag rated below your expected low, not at it. Comfort ratings are optimistic and the number on the bag is usually a survival rating.
A warm hat. Absurdly effective, weighs nothing.
Dry base layers kept only for sleeping. Never sleep in what you hiked in.
Earplugs and an eye mask if you value your sanity at a busy campground.

Stay dry, stay warm

Rain jacket, and rain trousers if there is any chance of a wet day. Cotton is the fabric that gets people into trouble because it stops insulating the moment it is wet.
A tarp, which is the single highest value item per gram in camping: shelter to cook under, somewhere to sit out a shower, an extra ground sheet.
Spare dry socks, more than you think.
A repair kit that is really just duct tape wrapped around a water bottle, a few zip ties and a needle.

Light, water, fire

Headtorch per person, plus spare batteries. Phone torches die exactly when you need them.
Water treatment: a filter or tablets, even at a site with taps, because taps get shut off.
Two ways to start a fire, stored separately. A lighter fails when wet and matches fail when crushed.
More fuel than the trip needs. Canisters lose efficiency in cold and you cannot judge what is left by shaking one.

The genuinely forgotten list

A rubbish bag, and a second one for wet or dirty gear.
Something to sit on. A chair or a foam pad transforms an evening. There are some super lightweight options
A tiny amount of cash for firewood, showers and honesty boxes.
Printed copies of your reservation and directions. The last kilometre to a campground is very often where the signal ends. See Save a guide for offline.
A means of hanging or storing food correctly, which is not optional in bear country. See Bear country without the drama.

Gear and conditions

Common questions

What do people most often forget when camping?: A warm enough sleeping mat, spare dry socks, a rubbish bag and a headtorch with working batteries. Cold ground and wet feet end more trips than anything else.
What R-value sleeping mat do I need?: Around R2 for summer, R4 or more for shoulder season, and R5 plus for frozen ground. Stacking a cheap foam mat under an inflatable adds roughly R2.
Do you need to filter water at a campground with taps?: Carry treatment regardless. Seasonal taps get shut off, wells get contamination advisories, and tablets weigh nothing.
What should you not sleep in while camping?: The clothes you wore all day. They hold moisture, which conducts heat away from you all night. Keep a dedicated dry sleep layer.

Tip

Keep this list as a reusable packing note on the trip in Treader, and it will be there next season instead of being reconstructed from memory in a car park.