Everybody loves camping, but nobody loves to sleep in a cold tent! Since it’s hard to find a supply of electricity out in the wild, are there ways to keep a tent warm without it? Yes, there are!
You can keep a tent warm by relying on your own body heat. That means using a mylar blanket, a foam mat, or just some simple exercises. You can also carry heat into your tent with a hot water bottle, hot rocks, or by lighting a candle. Don’t forget! You can even cuddle to share body heat, as well.
To make the most of those methods, you must understand how each of them works. Don’t worry! In the next few sections, you’re going to learn everything you need to know to keep your tent warm and toasty during your next camping trip. Since you won’t have to rely on electricity, you’ll have much more flexibility when choosing where to set up your tent. Let’s get started!
Rely On Your Own Body Heat
Our bodies generate a lot of heat, but that heat often dissipates into the surrounding environment. To keep our tents warm, we just have to learn how to harness the natural heat already coming off our bodies.
Use A Mylar Blanket
One popular option among campers is to use what’s called a ‘mylar’ blanket. You may already know what this is, just by a different name. People commonly call it a ‘space blanket’ because of its reflective material.
The idea of using a mylar blanket is pretty straightforward. When you wrap it around yourself with just a little bit of an air buffer between your body and the blanket, it traps the heat that your body radiates.
When you do this throughout the night, it’s an effective way to keep yourself warm without relying on an electric heater.
Lay On A Foam Mat
Campers often forget that the material they lay on also plays a significant role in how warm their tent is, especially at night. Foam is an excellent material for this purpose because it absorbs and retains plenty of your body heat as you lay on the mat.
In simpler terms, your body warms up the foam mat by passing onto it your body heat. Simultaneously, the foam mat also returns the favor by retaining some of that heat and giving it back onto you.
Do Some Simple Exercises
This method is a little bit counter-intuitive. When you’re feeling cold in a tent, your natural instinct is to move as little as possible. That’s your body’s way of saving up energy.
Believe it or not, you should do the complete opposite if you want to stay warm in your tent!
Remember: physical activity raises your body temperature, and that’s an excellent way to warm up your tent very quickly.
Suppose you’re in your tent and you start to feel the temperature get a little too cold for comfort. Start doing a few basic exercises like pushups, squats, and lunges for a minute or two, and see how you feel afterwards.
Your body will raise its temperature, and when you combine that with other methods mentioned in this article, you’ll be able to use that heat to keep your tent warm the all-natural, non-electric way!
Bring Heat Into Your Tent
Making the most of your natural body heat is an excellent way to keep your tent warm without electricity. Still, you can improve the comfort of your tent even more by bringing heat inside!
What I mean by this is by using things like a hot water bottle, hot rocks, or even a candle.
Let me explain!
Use A Hot Water Bottle
Hot water bottles are pretty straightforward. While you’re sitting around the campfire cooking your dinner or making coffee, you can make it a point to boil some hot water as well. That will help you later when you use it to fill up your hot water bottle(s) to take with you into the tent.
Suppose you’re not familiar with hot water bottles. Basically, it’s a soft rubber bottle or container that you can use to keep yourself warm. When you fill it up with hot water, the heat moves through the rubber and onto your hands or whichever part of your body you press it against.
Naturally, there is one downside to this method. Hot water bottles gradually lose their heat. So, if you go to bed hugging a hot water bottle, it may end up becoming cold overnight.
Use Hot Rocks
Hot rocks or hot stones are also a popular option for campers wanting to stay warm. Just as how you might use hot water (in a hot water bottle) to bring heat into your tent, you’ll be using heated rocks to do the same.
Still, there is one drawback to this method that’s somewhat similar to the hot water bottle. After a few hours, the heat from the rocks dissipates, and they’re no longer helpful in keeping your tent warm.
Thankfully, campers have come up with a few creative tricks to make hot rocks last longer! Once you’ve heated those rocks nicely, you can insulate those rocks with a few layers of aluminum foil. Whenever you feel that the stones are not warm anymore, you can peel off one layer of that foil, and there will be more heat for you to enjoy, trapped in the air between those layers.
Of course, you’ll want to be careful to avoid injury to your hands or damage to your tent. Hot rocks should sit in a pan with a board underneath to ensure that the heat doesn’t burn the ground in your tent.
Light A Candle
Last but not least, you can also bring heat into your tent by lighting a candle. But wait! We’re not talking about lighting a candle and just sticking it somewhere in your tent. Not only is that highly dangerous, but it’s also an ineffective way of heating your tent.
Instead, you can purchase candle heaters for camping! There are several types on the market these days, each promising to provide your tent with heat using nothing more than a candle.
Plus, candle heaters are designed with camping safety in mind. So, not only will you get the heat you need, but you can also sleep well knowing you’re doing it in the safest way possible.
Wrapping It Up (Literally)
Bonus Tip: Cuddle!
What’s the best way to keep your tent warm for absolutely free without electricity?
Cuddling!
When you cuddle, you and your partner will both generate plenty of body heat to pass to the other person. Recreational campers like you and I aren’t the only ones that can benefit from this method of staying warm.
Even in the military, soldiers camping out in the harshest winter conditions also understand the effectiveness of sharing body heat with one another this way. If cuddling works for them, surely it’ll do an excellent job at keeping you warm in your tent overnight!
Don’t worry if you’re camping solo, though. You could also bring your pet dog along with you for the same reason. Cuddling with your dog will keep your pet warm while they return the favor simultaneously.
