Have you ever wanted to go camping but not want to sleep on the ground?  Well that is exactly why you’d love hammock camping! Here’s a quick tutorial where I’ll teach you the basic steps of hanging a hammock for sleeping outside.

There are a few things that you will need:

  • A hammock
  • two trees or posts at least 10 ft (3.5 m) apart
  • Tree straps or approved strings from a place that sells hammocks. Never just use string or rope.  We don’t want to damage any trees.
  • Clips for holding hammock
  • Sleeping bag
  • pillow

Optional Items:

  • Hammock Underquilt
  • Tarp
  • Bug net

Getting Started Hammock Camping

After you have your items, start to scout for a location.  Ideally you want trees that are at least 10 ft (3.5 m) apart and 8 inches (21 cm) diameter. For this example, we are using the poles we have in our backyard that we put in for hammocks.

Once you have found your spot for hanging, you will want to attach the straps to the trees.  The tree straps shown have a loop on one end.  you wrap it around the tree and pull through the loop.  Do this to the other side as well.

The tree straps also have multiple loops on them for attaching the hammock.  Everything uses tension for securing.  It’s pretty neat!

Once the straps are in place take out your hammock.  This hammock is in it’s own bag.

If your hammock has a clip on each end, go to one of your trees and clip the end to one of the loops on the strap as shown.

Next, you want to figure out how high of the ground you want to be. You will probably have to adjust the other end a few times before finding the right height. You don’t want your hammock to be higher than 18 in (36 cm) off of the ground.  That could put too much stress on the straps.

Once you find the right height you can put in your sleeping bag and pillow and call it a night!

We even have a carry bag for our hammock and straps:

Now if you want to be more advanced, you can add a tarp to shelter you from the rain and the morning dew.

I’m not going to get too much into that in this post, but here are some examples of what hammocks with tarps look like:

I hope that you enjoyed learning about hammocks. Send us a photo on social media of your hammock and tag it #IGGPPCamp!