Keep Your Gear Dry When Camping With This Genius Hack

Nothing is more annoying than checking the weather and seeing clear skies on the forecast only to head out for a nice weekend camping and get hit with pop-up showers. Camping in the rain — whether you're in a tent, RV, or trailer — can be a beautiful experience, but it can also quickly turn miserable if your stuff gets wet. Luckily, there's an easy way to keep a lot of your gear safe and dry and all you need is a trash bag. 

In fact, trash bags are a great camping tool because they are waterproof and can easily protect any range of objects without the need to spend anywhere from $10 to $75 on a dry bag. If you are tent camping in the rain, the best way to protect your gear is to line the inside of your backpack or duffle bag with a trash bag. This way, if your bag gets wet during a rainstorm (either from a leak you didn't see or via water that soaked through the tent floor) your clothes and electronics will still be dry. 

If you are camping in an RV or trailer, then you may not need to protect your bag from the rain, but you can still protect the inside of your camper and keep it clean and dry by removing any wet garments when you enter and placing them in a trash bag for safekeeping. This way you can prevent your wet clothes from dripping all over the inside of your vehicle until the rain stops and you can hang them up outside.

Speaking of wet clothes, if you forgot your rain jacket, you can also use a trash bag to keep yourself dry by making a DIY poncho. This can be easily done by cutting a hole for your head in the bottom of the bag and then cutting two holes for the arms into the sides. Then, simply slip the bag on and your clothes will stay mostly dry should you need to run out into the rain to tie down some gear when the wind picks up.

And that's not where the usefulness of trash bags on a rainy day ends. In fact, if you only plan on camping for a few days and have a small stash of firewood, you can easily stow your wood inside one or two trash bags to keep it nice and dry during a storm. If you have a larger pile of wood to protect, you can cut open a trash bag and cover the top of your pile with it while leaving the sides open (this is the recommended way to cover firewood to prevent rot from built-up moisture). Just make sure to tie your trash bag covering in place with rope, bungee cords, or straps of some kind so that the plastic doesn't blow away leaving your wood fully exposed.

And last of all, when the storm is finally over and you want to go outside to enjoy that beautiful post-rain sunset, you can bring a trash bag with you and lay it over any wet lawn chairs to keep yourself dry while you enjoy the view.