One night outside

There is a version of camping that requires a car, a fortnight and a plan. This is the other one: out on Saturday, back on Sunday, carrying it on your back. It needs less than people think and it fails on fewer points.

The tent is the obvious half and the one where weight decides everything. A lightweight backpacking tent is the difference between a walk with a tent and a walk about the tent, and under a certain weight it stops being the thing you plan around. This is the size that goes in a rucksack rather than on top of one.

The mat is the half nobody budgets for and the half that decides whether anybody sleeps. An insulated inflatable mat is not padding, it is insulation: the ground takes heat all night whatever the sleeping bag is rated for, and a thin mat is why people come back saying they were cold.

Boots are the one item worth having before the trip rather than for it. Waterproof trekking boots need a few ordinary walks in them first, and anybody who has broken a pair in on the day itself has learned exactly why. Buy early, wear them to the shops.

Then two things about morning. An insulated food flask filled the night before means breakfast happens without lighting anything, which on a cold morning is the difference between leaving at eight and leaving at ten.

And the smallest item here. A bottle carrier on a strap takes the water off your hands and off the top of the pack, which sounds like nothing until the third hour, when it is the only thing you can reach without stopping.