Camping can be a time of adventure, joy, connecting with nature, and renewing your soul. It can also be a time of chemicals, pesticides, junk food and sugar laden drinks. The great news is, with a little preparation, you can have a wonderful camping experience while improving your health, and coming back rejuvenated and full of life.

Top Healthy Camping Tips

1. Prepare the Day Before: Preparation is truly what will make or break your trip. Prepare the following areas the day before to ensure you will have healthy fuel, healthy protection, and no stress:

• Prep Food: Buy food, cut vegetables, separate into individual meal bags.
• Prep Gear: Don’t forget the cooking tools, headlamps, cups, utensils, and towels.
• Prep Clothes: Keep in mind changes in weather, bug protection, and comfort.
• Prep Natural Personal Care Items: Homemade or natural store bought sunscreen, bug repellent, and hand sanitizer, mouthwash.
• Prep Activity list: Hiking, biking, cards, corn hole, horseshoes, music.

2. Create a Menu: Planning the meals for each day will allow you to prep and organize as much as you can in advance to save time and ensure you have the food you need to stay nourished. Take time to chop tons of veggies to have with each meal, make a big pot of soup, make some banana bread, hard boil eggs, and marinate fish/veggies with olive oil and spices.

• Breakfast: Eggs and veggies, quinoa with sunflower seeds, walnuts, honey, and coconut oil, Soaked oats with almond butter and apples
• Lunch: Tomato avocado quinoa salad with basil olive oil and balsamic. Sprouted tortilla wraps filled with hummus, veggies, beans/turkey/fish, and other fillings of your choice.
• Dinner: Sweet potato black bean chili(cook before and heat up over fire.) Marinated veggies with fish(throw all in foil and set in camp fire to cook)
• Snacks/sides: Fruit, nuts, vegetables with almond butter, hard boiled egg, sweet potato fries. You can also make your own trail mix using a mixture of different nuts, coconut flakes, dried fruit, and cacao nibs.
• Dessert: Baked apples or bananas. (place fruit in foil, top with cinnamon/honey/almond butter and allow to melt and cook over the fire.)

3. Stay Active

• Explore your area: Search for hiking and biking trails, lakes to swim or canoe in, or simply take long walks in the forest.
• Bring your own activities: Bring a Frisbee, play cornhole or horseshoe, toss a baseball or football around, or even set up a slackline between two trees to improve balance and mind body connection.
• Earthing: Walking barefoot on the earth, is scientifically proven to increase antioxidants, reduce inflammation, and improve sleep.

4. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!

• Drinking enough water will keep your energy high, flush out toxins, and control cravings. To remember, try to drink at least 20-30 oz 20 min before each meal and extra during your physical activities.
• Make it fun: Make fun fruit and veggie infused drinks such as strawberry and cucumber water or sparkling water with lime and stevia.

5. Protect your skin naturally: Chemicals in sun screens and bug repellents have been linked to cancer, depression, and sever hormonal disruption. There are natural products on the market that are just as effective as their toxic peers. And, you can even make your own.

• Natural Sunscreen: If you are not going to be baking out in the sun, simply applying the following oils can act as natural sun protection: Carrot Seed Oil: SPF 40, Wheatgerm Oil: SPF 20, Coconut Oil: SPF 8
• Natural Bug Repellent: Fill spray bottle 1/2 full with distilled or boiled water, Add witch hazel to fill almost to the top, then Add 30-50 drops of Cinnamon or tea tree oil.
• Natural Hand Sanitizer: 5-10 drops lavender essential oil, 30 drops tea tree essential oil, 1 Tablespoon witch hazel extract, 8 ounces pure aloe vera gel, ¼ teaspoon Vitamin E oil: Mix well and store in squeezable bottle.