There is a lot of attention put on the preparation for your camping trip, or how to get the most out of your camping trip once you arrive at the campground. You can browse though popular online camping forums and other camping related sites for a wealth of information covering these topics. But an often overlooked, but vitally important piece of advice to put in use is how to properly break camp, or basically pickup your things and go.

Pack Your Gear

This is an obvious one, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve left personal belongings behind or went to a campsite and found previous campers belongings. Walk the entire camp area making sure you have packed up everything you brought. A golden rule of camping is to leave the campsite exactly how it was when you first arrived. And a little tip I’ve learned over the years, bring an extra suit case or garbage bag to store your dirty clothes in. This keeps them separate from any clean clothes you might have left over.

Cooler check

Now is a good time to throw at anything you don’t want to keep for the ride home. Also, drain out any water that might remain in the cooler and replenish it with ice.

Pickup the trash

As stated before, leave the campsite exactly how it was when you arrived. Or to put it more bluntly, leave no trace! This is a must follow rule for many environmental reasons as well as just being courteous to other campers and campground owners.

Smother the fire

Always douse the campfire again before leaving. Even if it appears to be out, throw water or dirt on it again. An easy way to do this is to just dump any remaining water from the cooler onto the campfire. A large number of forest fires have started due to campfire that was thought to be extinguished.

Final walk around

And, of course, do one final walk around to make sure nothing was missed.