Hammock Camping Done Right: Tips and Required Gear

Hey survivalists, Malcolm here, Survival Know-How, and today we're talking about hammock camping. We're going to go over some of the pros and cons of hammock camping, going to go over all the different gear that you actually need to successfully hammock camp, and then I'm going to set everything up and show you how all the pieces fit together. Stay tuned. So a lot of people have this misconception about hammock camping that all you really need to do it is just a hammock. And in some sense that may be true, but I'd say 90% of the time that's not the case. You need more than just a hammock. A hammock might do in ideal conditions. If it's the middle of the summer and it's not raining and it's dry out and it's warm, maybe you get away with just a hammock. But in most conditions, you're going to need a lot more than a hammock. But I'm going to go over all that gear, but let's start with a hammock. What I use is just a simple nylon hammock, right? There's a bunch of companies making these. This one's made by E&O. You get these real cheap, 60 bucks. They're really compact, they're really lightweight. They're pretty comfortable. I think they're durable enough. I've never had any issues with them tearing or anything. They usually come with a pouch built into the hammock. So this one's made by E&O. It's got some carabiners built right into the nylon fabric. This is their single nest. I got to be honest, I kind of wish I would have gotten their double nest, which is supposed to be a double person hammock and a little wider. Because this one, when I'm in the hammock, it kind of constrains you a bit. So I do kind of wish that I would have gotten the double nest, which I imagine would give me a little bit more arm room. So some of the pros to this is that they're pretty comfortable, I think. They're very lightweight, very easy to set up. The cons to the nylon hammocks, though, is that this is paper thin. This is probably thinner than paper. So the issue that you run into is, let's say it's windy out. Your bare back is on this hammock. When there's a gust of wind, it just, all that heat just gets sucked right out of you. So this provides almost no insulation from the elements whatsoever. And since you're raised up above the ground, you have the wind going below you, around you, on top of you. So that's kind of the major concern with these nylon hammocks. So they do make hammocks that are thicker than this. And you can definitely invest in that and they cost a little bit more money, have a little bit more weight, a little bit bigger. But if you're just starting out, a simple nylon hammock will definitely do the job. And there's other items that you can buy to address the issue of the cold and of the wind blowing underneath the hammock. So another item that I recommend is actually hammock straps. So these are also provided by E&O. And you may be saying to yourself, man, I got paracord. What do I need straps for? Well, first off, you don't want to use paracord for setting up a hammock because the paracord, it's very easy to stretch it that direction. If you set up a hammock using paracord, you're going to wake up with the hammock sagging and almost touching the ground. I can almost guarantee it. So what these straps are is they're just some very tough straps that easily wrap around a tree and then provide you with different levels of hooks for you to hook your hammock into. So this is the hammock strap I was talking about before. As you can see, it easily just wraps around a tree and it's got these loops built into it. So if I wanted to adjust the height of my hammock, you know, on the fly I can. If I wanted to adjust where on the tree these loops are, all I have to do is loosen it up and then pull it tight. And I have never had these things slip on me. These hammock straps, they're really easy to set up. I really enjoy having these. Again, these are by E&O. So of course you're also going to need a sleeping bag to go along with everything. Obviously if you're in cold temperatures, you want a nice winter sleeping bag. If you're in summertime, you know, you can get away with something else. You're pretty flexible in your sleeping bag, but you're going to need a sleeping bag along with everything else. So the next item I want to talk about is an underquilt. So remember how before I said that the nylon is very thin and you will freeze your butt off because of that wind blows right underneath it and just sucks all your heat away. Well, an underquilt looks to prevent that and it's exactly what it says. It's a quilt that actually goes underneath of your hammock. So they have underquilts and then they also have overquilts. An overquilt goes over top of you, but you lose more heat underneath of you than you do over top. So an underquilt is really the direction that you want to go. So this one is made by Outdoor Vitals and this is kind of interesting because this can actually be used as a sleeping bag as well as a pod system. So this one, you can have it just as an underquilt or you can actually zip it up and it'll completely enclose you as kind of a pod going all the way around your hammock. So it'll kind of acts as an overquilt and an underquilt. So this is pretty much how I would go about setting up my hammock system. I've got my cheap nylon hammock here, I've got my sleeping bag here, and then I have an underquilt that's going to protect me from losing body heat underneath of the hammock. Now this underquilt is actually sagging down a few inches below my hammock to create an air gap there and that air is going to get heated up by my body's temperature and it's just going to stay there as an insulating barrier. What's interesting about this underquilt is, so it acts as an underquilt, but it also comes with a zipper here on both ends and what I can actually do is fully zip this up completely around myself and it goes from being just an underquilt to a full on pod system that fully encloses me, which is really neat, and it comes with a drawstring on the end here so I could, if I wanted to, really cinch this up around my face if the temperature really demanded something like that. I've actually got an entire video reviewing this product if you guys want to find out more about it and if you go and check out that video, I've also got a giveaway where I'm giving away one of these Outdoor Vitals underquilts, so go check that out. So the last item you're really going to need if you're hammock camping is going to be a tarp, you know, just in case it starts raining or if there's any debris or anything that falls off the trees, you know, you want a nice tarp above you to protect you from that. Now a tarp will protect you from the rain, but it also helps insulate you, believe it or not, especially how you can set up the tarp in different configurations, but if you set it up nice and close to you, it'll help keep that air in that space warm and help you keep you warm overall. You can also set the tarp up to help prevent the wind from blowing over top of you or under you as well. So a good tarp is definitely something that you're going to need. So I want to talk a bit more about the tarp that I use. The one I use is from Hennessy Hammocks, it's like an octagonal tarp thing, I'll have a link to it in the description, but I love this tarp. This is not the usual setup that I would do, right? This is only like half set up just so you can really see into the camp. If it's cold weather, like I said before, I would have this kind of in a teepee shape coming down. Again, another option you can have is kind of a teepee shape down like that and have these kind of come out straight or even up a bit and that way you can have a nice campfire here and it'll kind of reflect that heat back into you. So this tarp, one thing I love about this tarp is that it actually comes with all the string that you need to lash it up built right into it. It has these pockets and right in there you can store all the string that you need. It's quite a bit, it's probably like 15-20 feet of string that comes with it for you to tie it up. That's a big plus in my book. I find that very convenient, very easy. So I definitely recommend this Hennessy hammock tarp. So there's obviously a lot of different ways that you can actually attach your tarp to the tree. I'm going to show you guys the technique that I use. What I like to do is take this string, you wrap it around, then you wrap it around itself one time and then you pull it back in the opposite direction and wrap around the tree again. All right, so now I don't really know the name of this knot. I'm not great at knot names. I just know what a knot looks like and then I can remember how to tie it. I think it might be a double hitch, but it's a slide knot. So let's see, you come around here, then you go over the string on this side, so you go over the string here, you come back through here and you're going to create a little gap right in here and that's where you're going to pull this guy through. And now you cinch it all up and what you essentially did is that you created a loop here. And then the two strings are going through that loop. So now you can slide this loop, right? This allows you to easily adjust, well you have to fiddle with it a little bit, but you can easily adjust where this cinches on the rope. And it's a simple knot, but I mean, I've never really had this thing slide anywhere and it makes it really easy if you want to adjust your location on the tree, you can move that up or down and you can kind of just kind of finagle it like that. And the simple knot will slide and you can tighten or loosen up your tarp, no problem. So that's pretty much everything that you're really going to need to set up a good hammock sleeping system. So we have a tarp to go over you. We have an underquilt to go underneath your hammock. We have your sleeping bag. We have the straps for the tarp for the hammock and then we have the actual hammock itself. So as you can see, it is definitely more than a lot of people think. All right, guys, I think we've run through everything that you're really going to need to successfully do hammock camping right. If you want to be comfortable, you want to be dry, you want to be warm, you know, these are all the items that you're really going to need. It's not as simple as just grabbing a hammock and running out in the woods, you know, there's a few more things that you're going to need. But I love hammock camping. I don't think I'm ever going to go back to regular tent camping. The biggest selling point for me is I've got a bad back. I'm an old man now. And this hammock, man, it feels great on my back. I love it. It feels so much better than sleeping on the ground. Even if I've got the most expensive mat, this is so much better by far. And also, you know, you can just kind of chill out and hang out in the hammock. You know, it's a it's a free chair as well as a sleeping system, which I really love. So that's it. As I said before, I have links to all these items of all the gear here in the description below. If you want to check out the gear that I use. And I've also got a video over here just reviewing the Outdoor Vital sleeping system. Real interesting system. Very high quality. Outdoor Vital is a cool company. Go check out their websites if you haven't before. They're pretty interesting. And I'm also doing a giveaway of one of these Outdoor Vital sleep systems over on that video. So definitely go check that out and learn more about that.