How to Sleep Better While Camping

You put in the miles exploring, you’re exhausted, set up camp and doze off for a bit then find yourself awake unable to fall back sleep. Nothing feels right. Then you start getting restless to get out of the tent and start your day but it’s probably 2am. Sound familiar?

Great camp sleep can be elusive. Being tired is often not enough to ensure solid, restorative sleep.

Obviously, a comfortable pillow setup that doesn’t slide way is important. But this isn’t an ad for Pillow Strap. There are many little things you can do for a great night of sleep that doesn’t involve buying new gear. We do many of these every night, and they can make a difference.

Site cleanup and the lay test before you pitch your tent

Before you pitch your tent, clear what you can, such as sticks, pine cones, small rocks, etc. If you are at an established campsite, the best places to camp, this should be a short task but still necessary.

Check the slope of the ground too as it’s rarely perfect at even the best campsites. You want to aim for your head uphill and your feet downhill. If your head is downhill even slightly it can cause headaches. Sleeping across the slope is worse than either, because you will have that feeling of rolling downhill all night and probably wake up lying on the mesh of your tent door. If the hill slope is a little more downhill than you'd prefer, empty your backpack and place it under your sleeping pad to prop up your feet.

To figure all this out we suggest doing a lie down test. Lie down in the direction you plan to sleep. If you have a tent footprint, throw this down and lie on top of it, otherwise embrace the dirt. Lie on your back and roll onto both sides. A few moments here tells you if you will be comfortable with the angle. If you almost fall asleep and don’t want to get up, it's probably perfect!

Sometimes the spot is perfect except for that one root popping up or a rock embedded in the ground. When you have to pitch over one of those, position your tent so the offending rock or root is not under your hips or shoulders. Those are the two parts of your body where you will feel the discomfort the most if you roll onto your side.

Don't overinflate your sleeping pad and pillow

The most important function of your sleeping pad is insulation from the ground. The ground pulls heat from your body faster than air does. So always have something insulating under you, even in summer.

Once that's covered, if you have an inflatable pad, how much you inflate it makes a huge difference in comfort. Many people blow the pad up to the max, and intuitively that makes sense. However, when you lie on a super inflated pad there is very little give. A sleeping pad with too much air in it won't let your hips sink, so your spine stays bent unnaturally all night, not much better than just lying on the ground. For side sleepers this can be especially uncomfortable.

Try different inflation levels to see what works best. Figure out the optimum inflation by filling it all the way, then lie down on your side and let air out in short bursts. Stop when your hip or shoulder is almost touching the ground. It's usually less air than you'd guess. Back sleepers can have a little firmer pad, since your weight is spread across the pad instead of being concentrated on one hip and one shoulder.

There's a limit to this in colder conditions. Don't let out so much air that you can feel the ground. If your hips are feeling cold, you may need to add some air back or use a winter pad when the ground is colder. Pads with a higher R-value, around 5+, give good flexibility for adjusting inflation.

Same idea applies to your pillow. Find the inflation amount that works best for you. Too much air and the pillow will have almost no give, kind of the opposite of your pillows at home. If you need more height or want more softness, this is where Pillow Strap can come in handy by allowing you to layer a puffy or folded shirt on top of your pillow to give it more of that feel of your pillow at home.

Skip the camp nap

There is nothing that feels nicer than kicking off your shoes and having a nap under a tree at camp. It feels well-deserved, but it borrows from your night’s sleep time. Think about that quick nap after work then not being able to fall asleep later. Power through and crawl in the sleeping bag right at dusk.

For winter camping when the days are shorter it’s helpful to try to stay up for a few hours after dark to not get restless in the tent.

Eat well and pee before bed

Food and water intake is our body's fuel. Digestion makes heat, and being cold is what often wakes people up. Sometimes, after being in the sun all day long, a light dinner feels fine, but inevitably you'll wake up in the middle of the night, cold and hungry, with your food hanging and inaccessible.

Eat a full meal with a balance of protein, carbs, and fat, and drink plenty of water with dinner. Don’t forget to make sure to pee right before you get in the sleeping bag, even if you don't feel like you have to. Your body spends energy keeping that liquid at temperature, and the alternative is making that same trip later in the cooler temps when you'd rather be sleeping.

Change into dry sleep clothes

Carry something dry to sleep in and only wear it at night. A base layer, dry socks, and a hat if it's cold. Whatever you hiked in holds more moisture than you realize, and damp clothes will keep you just cool enough to stay awake.

Some nights you may not be bothered, especially the first one when everything is still clean and dry. But three days in, or after a day of hiking in the rain, changing into something dry is one of the better parts of the evening. It feels like a backcountry self-care moment.

Use red light on headlamp and keep the screen off

Once the sun goes down, use your headlamp on red or the lowest setting you can get away with, and stay off your phone. Set alarms, check digital maps, plan the next day and do any other phone tasks earlier in the evening rather than right before bed. A bright screen pointed at your face is the fastest way to convince your body it’s still daytime. It also wrecks your night vision. If you need to use your phone, dim the screen brightness to the lowest setting you can and turn on the “Night Shift / Night Light / Eye Comfort” setting. This dims the blue wavelength which would otherwise suppress melatonin.

Sleep with an eye mask

This is the one you probably won't see on those serious ultra lighter suggestions or gear-heavy packing lists because eye masks feel very froofy and posh. However, there is that full moon's light through the tent, your tent mate's headlamp at 2am as they are off to pee, campground lights, or even sunrise when you just want an extra hour. Light gets in and wakes you up. We’ve both slept in eye masks for about ten years now, on the trail and at home. We call them "night times." They are amazing, but whatever you do, NEVER use one for a quick afternoon nap. That's how you end up with your sleep schedule set to a different hemisphere.

In cooler weather an eye mask also keeps your eyelids from getting cold. In our experience cold eyes make you worried about being cold when you fall asleep or wake up.

Ear plugs for noise

Wind on the fly, rain, a snoring tent mate, car doors in a campground, the bird that starts up at 4am can all keep from falling into a deep sleep. If sound wakes you easily, ear plugs weigh nothing and solve most of it. Keep them in your tent's side pocket as part of your setup routine, just in case. When something wakes you and it's a sound you recognize as safe, you can reach into that pocket and get them in without ever fully waking up.

We would suggest not using them in bear country. We carry them on every trip but avoid using them when the animals outside are large enough that we'd want to know when one comes around camp. Same goes for solo nights in unfamiliar places, or in precarious mountain areas where the weather can get exponentially worse. It's a tool for the right nights in the right environment, not a default.

 

We all want to be the person who falls asleep the second their head hits the pillow and sleeps straight through till morning. Hopefully a few of these tips take away the discomforts and distractions that get in the way, so you can close your eyes, melt into dream land, and wake up ready for the next day's adventure.