Camping Tarps

To keep the rain and sun out of your camp.

Why buy camping tarps, basically to make your camping trip more enjoyable. The most obvious benefit is protecting you from the rain but we often put a tarp up to protect us from the sun and provide shade during the hot days of summer.

A well sized tarp which allows plenty of room to cover your tent, with extra room for you to sit and have a fire even if the rain is pouring down, will make your camping trip so much more enjoyable!

Camping tarps have evolved in recent years and now don’t just come in the original flat design that we all know, now you can purpose made tarps that are suited specifically to camping or hiking which include tie-down points, guy lines, stakes and come with a carry bag.

There are two main factors when purchasing camp tarps, first the osy (oz per square yard) or gsm (grams per sq. metre) which tell you the quality and thickness of the tarp material and secondly the size or square footage area to suit the purpose; group camping, family camping or some something smaller.

Quality, what to look for?

Check the thickness, most decent quality tarps will have a osy or gsm rating (choose one with a minimum of 6 oz sy), make sure to go for a good heavy duty tarp, and one that uses ripstop material, otherwise you’ll get a couple of years life only and then you’ll be buying one again. Also is the tarp UV protected, the sun is very harsh and will slowly destroy you’re tarp without UV protection.

Basics of tarp setup

When putting your tarp up make sure that if it is going to rain the water will run off and not pool on the tarp, otherwise you’re going to have to constantly clear the water. So spending a little bit of time and brain power to get it right will make sure your tarp setup is hassle free.

Two possible methods are:

- either to string a central rope down the middle of the tarp to act like the ridge of your home, the water drains either side, this can be difficult as you either need very high anchor points (tree) or long steel poles.

- Another option is to have one side higher than the other, a lean-to design, this can also work well be protecting you from the wind (face the low side into the wind).

I recently purchased a camping tarp online from Ebay and saved around 50% off what I would have paid at my local hardware store. So work out exactly what camping tarp you’re after and then check our Ebay ad’s below, hopefully we can save you some money.

 

Camp Tarps Top

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