Wild Camping: How To Make It Work

Wild camping is one of those trips which can really test someone. It’s exciting because there’s an element of the unknown involved. An element of danger, even. Whether you’re going into the australian outback, the arctic wastes, or simply up the nearest mountain, there are steps to take to ensure you have a safe, yet fun trip. Wild camping can be a brilliant experience for you and your friends or family, but it has to be treated with respect, especially if you’re going somewhere you have never been before. Before you pack up and set off it’s worth checking out some of the tips below. You may have even thought about some of them but it’s a good exercise to shift your perspective to one of ensuring you have the best trip possible.

Make Sure Your Car Is Ready

A mistake would be to put too much time and effort into getting all of your gear and location right but not thinking about the car. It needs to be fully kitted out and ready for the move. If you’re towing a caravan, or heading out in a truck make sure you’ve got good ground clearance with 4wd rims or something similar. You need to be sure your car can handle the ground. Take spare tyres with the corresponding jack, ensure you take fluids for the car and take a spade to dig out if it gets trapped. You might want to get it serviced by a mechanic first if you’re not too good with cars, just for peace of mind. You may even need to take spare fuel if you’re really going off track and know you won’t have enough to get back to a petrol station before running out. 

Take The Right Tent

If you’re going out into the wilds, you need something solid which won’t easily break. What you usually take to a camping park might not be sturdy enough. This rings true if you’re camping in an open plain. Usually camping parks are in fields, but they’re surrounded by trees or other win blocking items. There’s no such protection on the plain. It could be blown over, ripped, or provide zero insulation. Consider where you’re going and for how long and buy the right tent. Remember, you may need specific anchors depending on the ground. Some may work for icey, while others would apply for clay. Don’t just take the right tent, take the right attachments for it. The same applies to your sleeping bag. What you use for warmer weather simply won’t do for the cold nights in the middle of winter when the temperature drops below freezing. You don’t necessarily need a high end sleeping bag, but you do need a decent one which will keep you warm. 

Check The Weather

Weather makes such a huge difference and you need to double check it before heading off. It could make the difference between sleeping in a bog or a field. If you’ve got everything booked up you might not have a chance, however even if this is the case you would have prepared for the rain or snow. It also impacts the drive. If you’re wild camping off the beaten track, bad snow or rain may mean your car or even caravan won’t get there and you could end up being stranded. There are always variables in the weather and it’s hard to properly predict it, but by checking you’ll at least know what you’re heading into and for how long. You can also be pretty confident if you see a huge storm coming in that you’re not going to want to sleep in the middle of it and can put your trip off to a later date. 

Be Safe

The key to wild camping is to ensure that you stay safe. You need to take things which enable your safety. Make sure you take enough food and water for the duration, and some extra just in case. A good, vetted, first aid kit is always a good idea too and if you’re on medication take more than enough. Make sure you tell people where you’re going and for how long and try to always be contactable. If you’re really going into the sticks make sure you take something like a satellite phone. A good power bank also makes a strong difference. It means you’ll be able to power up your devices for longer. You don’t want to be charging everything off of the car battery either as you may end up draining it, especially if it’s an older one.

3 Trending Foodie Products To Try This Year

Food and drink are quite literally the source of living and contribute directly to our health and wellbeing. The food revolution of the past couple of years has been nothing short of astounding and just when you think you might have seen it all, something else comes along.

Here are 3 trending and organic products that you should try at some point this year if you can:

  • Fermented Foods
  • Alcohol-Free Drinks
  • Hyper-Local Produce

Fermenting food is nothing new and has been around for a long time but is usually associated with alcohol production, but you can eat it. On the flip side, alcohol-free drinks such as gin are making waves right now and supporting local producers is a great idea, but what if your neighbour grew your food, or better still, you grew it yourself?

Fermented Foods

You might be aware of the fermentation process used in alcohol production, but what about fermented food meant for consumption? Sounds icky, right? But fermented food is actually delicious when the process is done properly and is super healthy.

Fermenting organic vegetables such as cabbage for sauerkraut as a condiment or soybeans for miso as a dressing is an excellent alternative way to use such ingredients. But what of the benefits?

In an increasingly health-conscious world, we are always looking for the next thing to boost our wellbeing. Fermented foods have been proven to be excellent probiotics that promote healthy bacteria in the gut that boosts the digestive system while lowering blood pressure, inflammation, and the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Alcohol-Free Drinks

On the opposite side of fermenting foods for health, we have the fermentation for alcohol production. Alcohol has been around since the beginning of civilization at around 5,000 BC and is seen as a staple product in many cultures around the world.

But the dangers of alcohol are well-known, not only the impending doom of alcoholism but heart problems, weight gain, and long-lasting effects such as acid reflux disease and mental issues in some cases. 

Most of us do like to have a little drink, however, but not necessarily to get drunk. The fact is that most alcoholic drinks such as wine, gin, and beer are refreshing and taste great to adults which has caused an industry-wide acknowledgement that maybe alcohol-free beverages should be produced as well.

Zero alcohol beer has been around for a while now, but many established manufacturers such as gin producers, winemakers, and whiskey brewers are all making excellent non-alcoholic spirits. These can be used with mixers such as ginger ale, fruit juices, and even cordials for astonishing safe versions of classic cocktails.

Hyper-Local Produce

The joy of purchasing fresh and organic vegetables from a local producer is something to behold for anyone who loves food. Just knowing exactly where your food comes from and how it is grown puts ease on the mind that you cannot get with supermarket food.

But one growing trend is the use of hyper-local food. This term is traditionally associated with chefs who grow their own produce for their own restaurants such as Raymon Blanc. However, more and more people are beginning to grow their own food.

Gardening for vegetables isn’t as easy as it sounds and it takes great skill, effort, and dedication in order to grow some vegetables that you might take for granted. So, even if you don’t grow yourself, a friend or neighbor might and you should purchase some products from them.

The benefit of this will of course is the taste. There is nothing like the aroma and flavor of a vegetable that was picked from the soil just hours, or even minutes before cooking it.

Is it worth getting professional online dating portraits?

Let’s be honest. If you are actively dating, you are using an online dating app of some sort. You may still pretend that you aren’t if someone asks you directly, but you are. Everyone is using an app or an online dating website to find partners. And there is a ton of different websites to choose from. Tinder is by far the most popular, but RSVP, Bumble, eHarmony, and many others are there to cater for different types of people, different personalities, and different types of relationships.

The profiles that people write on these websites changed a lot over the years. A few years ago most would put a lot of effort into the text of their online dating profile. Many used a copywriter to create a great profile that would attract the most potential partners. I think these days are behind us. Sure, eHarmony of EliteSingles would still emphasize the description of each person, but if you look at Tinder, the most popular app, you will struggle to find a profile that is longer than a paragraph. Often just a sentence or two. Pictures, as they say, tell a thousand words, and it is nowhere more true than on Tinder.

I watched a girl scan their Tinder feed for potential partners, and she spent maybe half a second on a picture they see. Probably even less. I watched her finger swipe left maybe 30 times in a couple of minutes, and not once has she actually read the profile itself. There were actually a couple of pictures she paused for a couple of seconds and proceeded to check other pictures in the profile.

She was clearly not that interested in the wonderful personality of the person she checked, or their likes or dislikes. She liked the photo and that was enough. She said everything else can be worked out later, or on the actual date. Face to face. She said, she wants to find out who the man is, and not who he thinks he is. So the profile is just his own view of himself, and that is always skewed by his own perception of himself.

So, the moral of the story is, if you want a potential partner to pause for a second while scanning dozens of profiles, you need a kick-ass profile photo. What it means is that a selfie against a dirty bathroom mirror would probably not be good enough. You can also put in the same category all the awkwardly posed snapshots, blurry images, and group photos where the viewer has to guess which one of the drunken people is actually you.

I asked Jay, who runs his online dating photography studio in Sydney, what makes a great tinder photo. He says, that the rules are actually very simple. Women want to look beautiful in their pictures and men want to look cool. That’s it, just 1 rule, and it’s pretty much universal. He shot online dating photos on 3 continents and this rule applies here in Australia as well as in Europe and Asia.

If you are naturally cool and beautiful, then a selfie may well be enough. Unfortunately, 99% of us belong to the other category and a little bit of guidance would help a lot. That is when a professional photo session will do the trick. A professional photographer will not make you look like Brad Pitt, but they may help you look your very best. And that is the ultimate goal in getting a good dating photo.

Jay says that even a very small adjustment in the posture can make a huge difference in the final image. The way we stand makes a difference, where we put our hands, where we look, what clothes we wear. All these points add to the final image and a good photographer will help you get that cool look.

Another thing is facial expressions. A little bit of guidance will transform a typical image into a great portrait that you will be happy to post online. Actually, a lot of people now get a portrait session, not just for an online dating profile, but for Facebook and LinkedIn. There is also a group of people who like slightly more risque images, whether for themselves or even for certain dating apps. Check the popularity of boudoir photography. You can use your photos for anything, not just dating. Instagram is another place you can use a few cool shots of yourself.

A portrait shoot is not a huge investment. It may be, however, the best money you spend on your dating profile. To get someone to pause on your picture and maybe even read about your wonderful personality in your profile is worth a little bit of money. If you want to see a few great tinder portraits, you can check his work on Pinterest.