How to Pack Your Vehicle for Camping Festival

Lately I’ve been writing more and more about camping festivals and the things you need, what to expect, and how to get use out of packaging supplies, cardboard boxes, and other packing materials in general.

Today’s little piece on festivals and packing is dedicated to getting your vehicle packed right. And I mean to say this not just in a Tetris perspective of getting things packed perfectly and preserving as much space as possible, but also as a forewarning of where to pack stuff that may be prohibited within the campgrounds.

While I’m not saying I’m a fan of a lot of those things that shouldn’t be allowed, I’m just being conscious that people are going to bring what they want no matter what, so I’d rather you be safe and smart about it than cocksure that you’ll get in without being searched.

First off, the best advice I can give if loading a truck bed or the back of a van is to put in your big items first. This includes your EZ Up canopies, your tents, your sleeping bags, cots, coolers, and anything else that’s large enough to warrant going in first. This makes it so that you can fit in smaller items like your packaging supplies, toilet paper, chips, clothes, and backpacks where needed after you’ve got the huge things in. You can try to be as perfect as you want piecing things together, but if you don’t account for getting the larger, flatter, square and round objects in on the ground first, it’ll be a hell of a time messing with it later.

The other thing to consider is your beverage stash. Soft drink is a good choice here. It would be even better to have arrangements to extract juice from the pulpy fruits. You can have this arrangement for more than one person, but if you for some reason feel like you must bring more, your friends are not going to mind at all. However, maintaining freshness of the juices is a matter to be taken care of. All I can say is don’t overdo it, buy only plastic or aluminum bottles and cans, and steer clear of glass entirely. If you have glass bottles, you’re sure to have your entire vehicle searched.