Cold Weather Camping and Why You Should Try It

Cold weather camping. Sounds unpleasant, right? But what if it's not?

First of all, I'm Matt. I'm a 20 year old male and this is my first Steemit post. I am happy to meet you all.
One thing about me is I love adventures, and trying new things every now and then. 3-4 months ago, I joined my university's scouts team and I went on my first camp as a scout. It's pretty cold where I live, so I was scared of the experience but I loved it, and I honestly recommend it to everyone. But its pretty dangerous to go alone, so take this information before you head out.

First things first, choose your camping site. Your camping site in cold weather needs to be someplace where winds do not reach you, because winds in cold weather=absolute torture. So you need to choose a place surrounded by hills or trees.
After you choose your place, your basic necessities as a human being: Food, water and shelter.

You can just bring water from home. Food can also be brought but I recommend getting ingredients, not ready food (they can go bad or go cold) and a pot to cook in. Also a teapot to heat water in is really useful.

For shelter, you can just bring tents, but that's just boring isn't it? How about making a shelter out of wood, survivor style, yeah that sounds good.
For your shelter you will need wood, rope and leaves. To gather wood, simply go to a place where you can pick straight pieces off the ground. If you need to cut down a tree, make sure it is dry. You don't want to cut down a live tree! Gathering wood in cold weather is the best, because from all that action, your body heats up and you feel really warm.
After you've gathered you wood, time to build your shelter. You can do almost any shape you want, but first, clear the area in which you are building. Then, use your rope to tie your pieces together and create a structure which you can live in. You are literally building your house for the night, isn't that amazing?!
Once you have created your base structure, you can put leaves on the sides and on the roof to make walls. Garbage bags to cover the structure work really well before putting leaves. I recommend it.
And voila! You have your shelter. Just light a fire next to it and feed it your remaining wood. Its the best part of camping in my opinion: Maintaining your fire.
You can then relax in front of the fire, read a book or chat with your friends! Cook your food, boil your water and make tea/coffee, and when you get tired, grab your sleeping bag and sleep in your shelter!

Being in cold weather has its benefits, but most importantly, it'll make you appreciate life in a city more! When I got back, I was so thankful for apartmens and heating.
But it obviously has its cons too. You need to dress accordingly, get moisturizing cream so your skin doesn't crack, and have a phone handy in case anything goes wrong.

Here is our shelter that me and my friends built:

There are many other types of shelters, but we built this one because it was easier, but even this took 5-6 hours to build!

I hope this article inspires to you try cold weather camping or in camping in general! But of course, if you want to try it, read up on tips and how-to's too. It can be dangerous to camp, so make sure you know everything first before heading out.

Thanks for reading and good camping!