In this episode of the Primitive Camping & Bushcraft podcast, host Chris Speir breaks down the pros and cons of two popular camping shelter options: tents and hammocks. Chris discusses various tent types and hammock configurations and provides practical tips for choosing the best shelter based on your camping needs, location, and weather conditions.
Episode Overview: In this episode, Chris Speir dives into one of the most crucial decisions for any camping trip—whether to use a tent or a hammock. He explores the advantages and disadvantages of both, from the traditional and highly customizable tent options to the simplicity and comfort of hammocks. Chris shares personal experiences, discusses different types of tents (including military canvas tents and tunnel tents), and explains the importance of weight and practicality, particularly in primitive camping scenarios.
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Featured Equipment:
Upcoming Episodes: Chris teases future episodes focusing on advanced camping shelters and knot-tying techniques for tarp setups. He’ll dive into the specifics of knots like the Prussic Knot, trucker’s hitch, and setting up ridge lines for optimal shelter configurations.
Call to Action: If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on your podcast platform, give it a thumbs-up, and check out Chris's book, Primitive Camping & Bushcraft, for more in-depth knowledge and practical tips.
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Subscribe & Share: Don’t forget to subscribe to the Primitive Camping & Bushcraft podcast for more outdoor survival tips, gear reviews, and bushcraft techniques!
[Music]
Welcome back to the Primitive Camping in
Bushcraft podcast. My name is Chris Speir
and I'm going to be your guide to
enjoying the great
outdoors. So today we're going to
be diving into an important decision for
any camp... what type of
shelter to use, tents or
hammocks. So with me, if you followed
along with anything that I
do or say here lately, you'll
know that which one I choose. So this
episode right here is not
going to be extremely overly
cumbersome or extremely long, but let's
go ahead and dive right in.
So first off we got tents.
Tents are the traditional camping
shelter. They have been for years and you
know a lot of people
when they think of camping they visualize
a tent next to a fire
by a little lake and
serene pictures and you know most people
do. And I mean think
about the the podcast, the the
artwork for this podcast you know is like
a serene picture with a
little tent off to the
left hand side. But you know tents are
always going to be visualized and the
first thing people think
of whenever they're camping. They've been
used forever. They've been
used for all the way back
and almost the beginning of time we've
used some kind of tents as
a shelter. You know there's
different types of tents like tents come
in all kinds of shapes and
sizes and basically they're
there it's up to your personal preference
what kind you like. This
day in age you got the one man
bivvy tent, you got the tunnel tent,
you've got the big tin man
tent, you've got the the Coleman
camping tents, you got the canvas tents,
the militaries use tents for all the wars
and they've made entire bases out of
tents and you know tents
have always been used and they
will always be used and they will always
be that visual that you
pull up whenever you think of
camping and it's just the way it's going
to be. So most people
visualize camping the first thing
that comes to their mind is a tent. Tents
are just like all other
gear on the market today.
They vary depending on preference. Newer
tents are incredibly
lightweight and versatile
but you still want to choose the best
option for your knees. Large
quote-unquote family tents can
be extremely heavy and are not very fun
to carry on a primitive
camping trip deep into the woods
but they are nice and roomy and they have
plenty of room for anybody and everybody.
So in the little program that I do where
I mentor boys, I mentor
fatherless boys and we do is we
set up a tent and we'll have a tent for
them and the mentors and all
the boys choose to sleep in
there and just cut up all night long
until finally I'm like that's enough go
to sleep you know but
these tents are roomy, they have a lot of
room, you can stand up in
them without hitting your
head. Tents come in all kinds of shapes
and sizes. A small
two-person tent gives the average
person plenty of room to lie down. You
can sleep comfortably and
you can store your gear.
Now recently I was given a tent by a
company to show and I don't
have it with me here to show off
for the people watching the video but it
was a tunnel tent and I was
like what is a tunnel tent?
And so I started putting it together and
getting it ready for a
camping trip and so I was going to
test it out and we got out there and
started putting it
together. You had this little tent
with this little other cover that comes
out and extended past it
and then you put this little
floor down and you have plenty of room
for all your gear. They had
a sleeping section then they
had a gear section and it was pretty cool
but tents are just never
have been my thing. You got
family tents that offer all kinds of
roominess but they're
extremely heavy and when it comes to
hiking if you're going to hike into the
woods a family-sized tent
that you get at Walmart like a
10 man or eight man or something like
that is not practical. It's
just it's not it's not going to
work. You know a small two-person tent is
easy to carry and it
provides sufficient space for you to
put your gear and keep your gear from
getting soaked away in the
woods and whenever you're
heading out there anyway. You know, Arty
Adventures they have
specialized tents that keep them from
you know wind and keeps the wind out and
keeps all their gear in
there safe and all that stuff and
you know it's just tents are always going
to be the one thing that
people think about whenever
they head out into the woods. Now you got
these single person tents
and they're like oversized
mummy sleeping bags and I don't care for
these because I do have
moments where if I get warm I
wake up and I'm kind of claustrophobic
you know and it's just
that is the way it is you know
like they're lightweight and they're but
they're real pricey and
the standard two they're more
they're more pricey than the standard
two-person tent and these
little mummy tents are I mean I
guess they're pretty cool if you're into
that sort of thing they have
room for you to put your gear
and stuff like that in there as well but
you know when it comes to
tents I'm just I am not the tent
guy. Now they're they got canvas tents
and when you're talking about the
military like I was a
little while ago you know canvas tents
although they are heavy
they they're very durable and
they're great for making like a base
camp. I watched let's see Buckeye
Bushcraft and old boy did a
a tent I believe his tent was oh Jake I
believe his tent was canvas
tent you know and he stayed
out there for like 20 some odd days or
something till this massive
storm come through and it was
gone but yeah it was pretty cool stuff
but you know canvas tents
are they were used during
you know the Vietnam and you know World
War II and World War I and
all these wars they've used
canvas tents now they have different
specialized materials that
they use like whenever I got out
in the military we used to have the what
they call emeds emergency
medical shelters whatever
and these things were like
they were components so you have one they
you could put them
together and it's kind of like a
Lego block you had this Lego block which
is your base layer comes
with this amount of equipment
and you have 10 or 20 guys on a team they
come out they put this up
and they can have this whole
tent installed in eight hours six hours
something I forget the time
frame but you put them together
then they had add-ons where as each
individual group comes in
they put these tents together and
it makes an entire hospital out of these
tents and they were called
Alaska tents they're pretty
cool they had an arch on them they had a
cover on them they had
insulators and you can put insulation
in there and and these tents were pretty
cool they had a big old floor that you
put in up underneath
there and when it rains outside it goes
up underneath they had
drains they I mean these
tents had it all and I think they use
them for different things as
well but you know they've had
these tents these Alaska shelters what
they call them I believe and
these things been used for a
while and all the way the Gulf War all
the way up to a present day and I don't
know I mean I retired
10 years ago they probably got something
new by now but who knows
the these canvas tents they're
heavy you're not going to take them with
you in a backpack and so
when it comes down to primitive
camping like we've been discussing it's
it comes down to weight
really it comes down to what you
want to hike into the woods what you want
to bring with you now if
you're taking a boat or an ATV
or something of the sort and you're
trying to get down river to a place for
you to camp that's fine
you know bring whatever kind of camp you
want bring whatever kind
of tents you want it's the
same thing when we was talking about gear
was talking about grills
if you want to bring a big
old grill you know and you you're taking
an ATV or a horse or you
know something that is going to
convey like a conveyance is going to
convey your stuff from one place to the
other that's perfectly
fine go ahead and do it I have more power
to you I've done it I will
bring all kinds of stuff with
me in the boat that I wouldn't bring if I
was just hiking you know
that's typical I'm going to
go down in the woods and you know I get
out in the water and I go down in the
woods about a mile or
two and if not more and I will pull over
on the bank and I will then
walk several hundred yards
from the water or whatever and I will set
up my tent set up my not
well set up my shelter not my
tent set up my shelter I hardly ever use
a tent if you haven't
noticed now some of these tents
that they have they like oil cloth tents
and stuff I was it one
Tigris has some different tents
all these other tents have you know like
they can accommodate wood
burning stoves that offer warmth
and cooking and give you all kinds of
that capacity inside
your tent now standard tents
are not going a little small one man
tents are not going to have
a stove or a warm stove or
anything like that to keep you warm so
you know these things are
key factors in what kind of
tent you want to do and like I said you
know these are durable
base camps and if you're going
to go somewhere and you're hiking in
several 15-20 miles and then from there
you're going to hike in
and hunt you're going to have a base camp
somewhere and these tents
are perfect for the base camp
so so
tarp and rain protection adding a tarp
over your tent can provide
extra rain protection and keep
mud out even if the tent is already
waterproof and I've seen this
a bunch of times you will have
a tarp under the bottom of your tent you
know and then you have a
tarp above your tent and
keeping the rain and everything away but
tents and cold weather
can produce condensation and
that's not ideal if you have sensitive
equipment like cameras and
stuff like that condensation
electronics and stuff like that
condensation it actually in it
contributes to the growth of mold
and it actually is bad for electronics
because that condensation
can get in there and whenever
you get in the cold or whatnot it can it
can ruin it render it
useless so you know let's move and
change gears now that we talked about
tents let's go over and swing over and
let's talk about some
hammocks all right hammocks are you know
I realize I realize all right before
y'all start eating me up
I realize that hammocks are not going to
be four season camping gear
items you know and I realize
that because you know down here I could
use it for three and a
half seasons out of the year
but there's a couple like a one or two
months stretch that you
know hammocks going to be
miserable to camp in because it's going
to be freezing cold I get
it I understand it and I've
done it and I have all kinds of under
quilts and stuff like that
too but when I head out into the
woods I usually camp with a hammock
because it's simplicity it
is 100 the easiest way just
plop plop set up put your tarp over top
of it you're done you have
a shelter system ready made
and then you know we'll get into the
tarps above here in a bit
you know but it's simple it's
comfortable and since you know I'm not
keen to sleeping on the
ground with getting my you know
I'll wake up I'll sleep on the ground and
I'll wake up feeling like
oh my god all this I'll have
things hurting that I didn't even know I
had and that's that's the
problem with me sleeping on the
ground that's why I choose to sleep on
the hammock for some reason
sleeping on the ground kills my
back it doesn't matter if I have a if I
have a good mat or a good
air mattress it just I wake up
all stiff as a board and my back's
killing me every time I sleep on the
ground when I get out
into the woods so I choose to sleep on
the hammock now what I
have found here recently
and I don't have it nearby but what I
found recently is the the
the lay flat hammocks and
those are pretty cool and you get your
lay flat hammock you put it
on there it was pretty cool I
did enjoy that that was a good night's
sleep I laid flat I was
comfortable the only thing was
hot and I just did recently did a review
on that it's the night cat
lay flat hammock and it was
on my youtube channel I did a whole
review on that and I did a
camping trip where I kayaked
overnight down the river y'all can check
that out on my youtube
channel but that was that's it that
I mean hammocks are my way to go so when
you get down to hammocks
you're going to want to put some
kind of tarp over your hammock and so
they're the best way to do
that would be an a-frame or
diamond fly you know some of your
hammocks have bug nets some
of them you know have their own
ridgelines that you have to put up and
stuff for the bug nets and
and such like that but you know
you compare a hammock with a shelter
configuration like a-frame or diamond fly
and you know that is
going to keep all the weather off of you
you can actually lower it
down where it will keep the wind
it'll deflect the wind and then you can
lower I mean raise it up
where it just keeps the rain
in the summertime what I did is I kind of
made like a modified lean
tube to where it come down
on one side and then it has a slope ridge
on the front and I do that
because it allows the air to
come in whenever I'm sleeping in a bug
net because it doesn't matter if it's in
August and you got a
bug net you're not going to sleep with a
sheath or a blanket or
anything like that but you will
you will suffocate the death in there
even with a bug net if
there's not enough airflow
you can be down by the water when you're
kayaking and you have that
wind hitting you in the face
and constantly blowing because there's
nothing to stop it on the
water but as soon as you get on
the bank up into the woods then you're
going to have all kinds of
stale stagnant wind no wind you
know so you know most of the time when
you have a hammock you're
going to want to have a bug net
and most hammocks now are have bug nets
built into them so when
we're talking about tents
most of the tents have a tarp that go on
the top of it and underneath there they
have the bug netting
and so that keeps all the mosquitoes and
all these other little bugs out but and
then same thing with
the hammocks hammocks do the same thing
they have bug nets that you
hook up on a ridge line just
under where you're putting your tarp and
so whenever you you get
your bugs your bug net
ready to go you climb up in there you
don't feel like you're suffocating
because the ridge line
is holding it up now when you're cold
weather camping these these
things are pretty cool because
they they have under quills now a lot of
people be like look they you
know you're adding stuff too
uh you're adding stuff to this now and
then you're adding weight to my backpack
but no no not really
because an under quilt is extremely
lightweight and it really
does help in whenever you cold
weather so remember earlier when i talked
about how you can camp out
here three and a half out
of four seasons well with a under quilt
you can actually camp all
year round in a hammock now
another what i've done with an under
quilt before and i camped out where it
was like you know in
the teens is i'll put the under quilt on
and then i'll have a wool blanket
underneath my back you
know i'm laying down on a wool blanket
and then i'll cover up in a
wool blanket and that will keep
you nice and toasty and most of the night
i had to take the wool blanket
on top of me off a little bit
just to cool off because it started
getting a little too warm but a wool
blanket with an under
quilt is an amazing thing under quilts
you know in colder weather and under
quilt is an essential
for keeping warm while sleeping in a
hammock if you don't have an
under quilt in cold weather
while you're sleeping in a hammock that
that you're going to be zapped that it's
going to take all the
warmth out of you that air is going to
flow right up under you
what's it called induction
uh conviction something like that and i
forget the word it's in here somewhere
but it is uh going to actually zap all
the cold air or the warmth
out of you same thing with
sleeping on the ground in a tent if
you're sleeping on the ground and it's
kind of cool outside and
you're not uh sleeping on a air mattress
or some kind of insulative
mattress or pad you know that
that ground is going to suck all the
warmth out of you and you're
going you're going to freeze to
death so you know sleeping position you
when you're in a hammock you
want to lie diagonally in your
hammock and that's going to eliminate
most of the curve that people find
uncomfortable so if you if
you lay down in your hammock and you're
you're laying diagonally
it's going to take some of that
banana bow out you know a lot of people
like i don't like living
sleeping in a hammock because
it it it really makes me feel like a
banana well if you if you
lace a caddy cornered like that it's
going to actually eliminate that curve so
comparing tents to hammocks all right
protection from the elements both tents
and hammocks when
paired with a proper shelter
configuration provide equal protection
from the elements so if you
are if you're out there with a
tent you put a you put a tarp over your
tent you know it will
actually help keep it even more you
can use a tent without a tarp over it
absolutely but you put a tarp
over it you know and it will
actually be better for you in the long
run and the same thing with
you know the key difference is
that tents can be staked to the ground
while hammocks rely on
guidelines for tension so you
know your state your tent is going to be
staked to the ground and
your hammock is just going to
have guidelines holding your tarp to the
ground so hammock
shelters you have to like i just
mentioned use guidelines and they help
stretch your shelter wider
or narrower depending on the
weather so the typical guidelines are
about six feet long using
overhand loop knots which i like
to use or uh bunt line hits to secure
them you know i i typically
use overhand loop knots because
i know when i'm attached to a tarp that
is going to be attached to
that thing permanently and not
permanently but it's semi-permanently
i'll have it on there and it'll stay on
that tarp and then the
guidelines i'll be able to make
tensioners which is going to hold my tarp
in the area that it needs
to so let's talk about knots so i i use
an overhand loop knot to
attach one end to my tarp
and then the other end i use i'll put to
a stake and i'll use a bunt
line hitch or you know something
a taut line hitch or something like that
to actually you know
secure my my fly over my hammock
and then for a tight secure guy line i
use a prussic knot with a
toggle so on my guidelines
you know i will put a not my guidelines
my ridgelines i'm sorry
on my ridgelines i will use
a prussic knot with a toggle to hold my
tarp to that that ridge line
and then my guidelines i will
actually use overhand loop knot and then
a taut line hitch you know
and that will hold that thing
down and keep it in the configuration at
which i want to keep now
when we get out into the woods
there are some things that we're going to
have to know you know both
tents and hammocks have their
advantages and challenges the right
choice depends on your personal
preference and the camping
conditions you want to you want to really
decide which one you like
my brother cannot stand a
hammock i cannot stand a tent i will
sleep in a tent if i got to but he will
not sleep in a hammock
he can't do it so we're going to get into
the next episodes here
we're going to get into
deeper and more advanced camping shelters
so let's go into that
and the next one i believe
we're going to start going into more
knots and i mentioned the prussic knot
and the guidelines and
and the ridge lines and stuff so i
believe in the next
episode we're going to actually
show you tell you how to make these knots
how to use these to set
these up for your tarp shelters
for your your your tents now coming up in
a couple episodes after
that we're actually going
to go step by step and you can follow
along in the book parameter
camping and bushcraft but we're
going to go step by step how to make
certain shelters out of the
tarp that you brought with
you into the woods and we're going to use
these knots that we're
talking about to do this and i
have clear demonstrations in here how to
make the prussic knot and how to use
toggles and also how
to make guidelines how to make trucker's
hitches and stuff like that so we're
going to go over that
step by step coming up here soon so if
you're interested in
learning more make sure you go by
and pick up a copy of the parameter
camping and bushcraft book is available
on all major retailers
you know and especially amazon so if
you're interested in that
and if you're watching on
youtube i should have a link in the
description for the book same thing with
the show notes for the
podcast and i hope you all found this uh
somewhat helpful if you did
go ahead and hit that like
button go ahead and leave a rating for
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let me know how well
it's going let me a comment
and let me know what's going on and what
you think so uh all right
next time we're going to
get into some more advanced techniques
and i will see you then
thank you so much for joining me
god bless you