Hiking is everyone’s favorite experience. Whether you are planning for a relaxing night alone under the stars or a family trip into the wild. It remains a unique and exciting way to spend your holiday and break the daily routine.
When you are hiking, you try to prepare everything and be ready for any emergencies that might happen. Survival skills are a gift that not all of us have, some people have no problem surviving in the great mysterious outdoors or even during a nuclear fallout, but others should read the following hiking hacks to improve their survival skills.
These creative hiking hacks will help you, whether you’re planning for long multi-night backpacking trips or just short day trips.
You probably want to have everything you need in your backpack and at the same time making it as lightweight as possible. You will also need to protect yourself from bugs and create a comfortable and good campfire, in addition to many other things.
These 10 survival hiking hacks are perfect for all people who like spending their time outdoors, especially when it comes to avoiding common hiking mistakes and enjoying a problem-free adventure.
1. Make Your Own DIY Fire Starters
It is not easy to start a fire especially if it is your first time into the wild. When you bring DIY fire starters on your trek, it will make life easier. A paper towel, cotton balls, a plastic bag, and Vaseline are the essential things that will help you.
Put some Vaseline on the cotton balls, and then place them in the plastic bag. You need to create as many as you can to have enough for your whole hiking holiday. Each ball will burn for more than three minutes, which will help you save time and energy.
2. Use Empty Pill Bottles as Small First Aid Kits
First aid kit is essential for your hiking trip. But sometimes there is no space in your backpack, especially if you are using the everyday first aid kit. The empty pill bottle is the perfect small first aid kit for you that saves a lot of space.
You can fit a couple of cotton balls in the bottle in addition to a small tube of antiseptic ointment, a few bandages, and an alcohol pad. This is useful for a short hiking trek.
3. Use Plastic Bags to Protect Important Items
Getting your important items wet remains a possibility even if your backpack is waterproof. To avoid ruining your electronic devices and your cell phone, it’s better to keep them inside small plastic bags.
Plastic bags are practical and can keep all your devices and other stuff safe. They also can be used as a protection layer against moisture.
4. Mark Your Road with a Trail Tape
Sometimes when you are hiking, you won’t be able to remember your trail since it’s not well-marked. Using a brightly colored biodegradable trail tape to mark your road will certainly make life in the wild easier.
Even if you go hiking in the winter when roads are covered in snow, the tape remains useful since you can still be able to see it.
5. To Keep Mosquitoes Away, Face Your Tent into the Wind
Mosquitoes become a terrible source of discomfort as soon as they get into your tent. If you try to sleep deeply after a long day of hiking in the mountains, they will just prevent that.
So try to face your tent into the wind to stop mosquitoes from gathering at the entrance of it. This practical hack will make your hiking trip more comfortable.
6. Remove Ticks with a Tape
Ticks can be super frightening for many people, especially when you desperately try to remove them while they suck your leg blood. Don’t panic, duct tape can be an effective solution for such annoying situations.
Rip off a piece of the duct tape, put it directly on the tick, and pull. If the tick has not bitten you yet, this trick will be effectively useful. But if that small annoying bug had already started sucking your blood, it’s better to use tooth tweezers to get rid of it.
7. Create a Lightweight Spice Kit
When you go hiking, you need to eat flavored meals that make the trip more enjoyable. To make that possible, create a portable lightweight spice kit.
It will be very practical without adding a lot of weight to your backpack. Put some of your selected spices into small plastic straws, tape the ends of the straws and put them in an empty M&Ms or Tic Tac box.
8. Create Your Own Lantern
During the dark nights of your hiking trip, you will absolutely need a bright lantern to see what’s going on around you. With only a bottle of clear water and a flashlight, you can create a simple DIY lantern.
All you need to do is to direct the light to the bottom of the bottle and the dark night will be brighter than ever.
9. Use Dry Tea Bags to Get Rid of Bad Odors
Smelly hiking boots can be very annoying especially when you spend the whole day wearing them. To remove the bad odor easily, put three or four tea bags inside the boots.
If you leave the tea bags in the boots the whole night, the odor will completely disappear in the morning.
10. Know the Poisonous Plants
Poisonous plants can be everywhere. Hikers commonly have skin blisters when they touch one by accident.
To make your trip safer and free of dangerous incidents, it’s better to make enough research about the most common poisonous plants that you may come across during your trip.
If you have an idea about those poisonous plants and what they look like before you go hiking, you will be able to avoid any possible contact with them during your trek.
