Summer Cooler Safety Tips

Summer Cooler Safety Tips.

By J. E. Davidson

One of the joys of summer is packing a cooler full of yummy foods and beverages and taking off for our favorite picnic or camping spot.

Keeping food, especially meats, fresh and cold in a cooler reduces the risk of harmful bacteria growing in the food and coming back from your delightful outing with a case of food poisoning.

Careful planning and packing beforehand is necessary to avoid contaminating food or allowing it to spoil before it’s eaten.


1. Do Kitchen Preparation Before Your Outing

Washing and cutting meats, fruits, and vegetables before packing them in the cooler can save time and trouble at the picnic or camp site. For instance, if you plan to roast kebabs, cut the necessary foods into chunks ahead of time.

Soups and chili can be made at home, chilled or frozen, then packed in the cooler. This will lessen the risk of cross-contaminating food when you prepare it at the picnic or camp site, and give you more time to relax and enjoy the outdoors!

2. Pack Food In Airtight Containers

Packing meat and produce in separate containers, and not in the store wrappings, will help avoid cross-contamination in the cooler. Use heavy duty freezer bags or plastic food storage containers with secure lids.

3. Freeze Meats For Extended Outings

If you are planning an extended camping trip, freeze the meat before putting it in the cooler. This way the meat will stay cold longer and you reduce the risk of spoilage. Allow food to thaw slowly in the cooler, never at room temperature.

4. Prechill Food and Beverages

All foods and beverages should be prechilled before packing the cooler. Coolers are designed to keep food cold, not necessarily to chill it from room temperature. Prechilled food will make your ice last longer and reduce the risk of spoilage.

5. Use Separate Coolers For Foods and Beverages

Each time the cooler lid is opened, warm air rushes in and cold air rushes out. Providing a separate cooler for beverages will keep your meat and produce colder.



Family Size Insulate Rolling Cooler for Picnic and Camping
6. Ice On Top

Cold travels downward, so place ice or ice packs on top of the food. You may want to wrap flexible gel ice packs around meat for extra protection.

7. Fill Empty Spaces

Pack your coolers as full as possible. If there are empty spaces, fill them with frozen bottles of water or cans of fruit juice concentrate. As the water thaws, you’ll have fresh water to drink, or you can reconstitute the juice.

8. Use the Right Kind of Ice

Ice cubes or chunks can be hard on soft-sided coolers. The sharp edges can cut the lining, and the weight of the contents may pull the cooler out of shape. Choose ice packs instead. Don’t use soft-side coolers on an extended trip, since you will need to replenish the ice and will probably have no way to refreeze gel packs.

9. Keep Your Cooler Cool

Avoid keeping your cooler in a hot car or the bright sun, which will diminish its ability to keep your food safe. Find a shady spot for it while you are picnicking or camping.

10. Don’t Save Unsafe Food

Don’t repack food in the cooler if it has been at temperatures above 40 degrees F for more than an hour. Coolers aren’t designed to rechill food quickly enough to keep it safe to eat.

Using Camping Air Mattress is a Good Idea During Outdoor Camping Trips

Using Camping Air Mattress is a Good Idea During Outdoor Camping Trips.



If you ever took a camping trip and tried sleeping overnight, then you already know how nice it is to sleep on a camping air mattress and waking up in the morning without back pain.

Whether you decide to buy a large camping air mattress or an individual one, you get the same comfort, having only to make sure that it fits in your camping tent.

A lot of single mattresses are just bladders with single chambers, that only elevate the camper from the ground and nothing else.

The problem with this type of mattress is that a simple hole will bring the sleeping camper to the ground.

For this reason, you should pick a mattress with multiple chambers, which lets it stay elevated even if one of the chambers has a hole.


One thing to keep in mind when you go camping is how you will inflate your air mattress.

Some of the campground that you might visit already have a compressor that people can use to inflate a mattress, but plenty don’t have one.

Besides, carrying around a large air mattress to be inflated and then back to your camp site isn’t that easy.

If you have your own foot pump, you can inflate your camping air mattress with ease and there is no need to blow air in it for hours.


Check Vehicle Pumps For Camping Trips

A lot of companies these days sell tire inflators that can be connected to a vehicle plug and these gadgets can also be used on a camping air mattress, inflating it in just a few minutes.

If you own a large camping mattress, then you can buy a 120 volt pump, and plug it in at the camp site where you’re going. If it has electricity of course.

Make sure to check the ground for objects that could make holes in the mattress, before you lay it down, so you don’t have any surprises at night.

Also, remove any large rocks from underneath, as this can make for an uncomfortable night, and don’t place it on plastic either, as it can slide on it.

Ideally, your camping air mattress should have a cloth or flannel coating on one side, as it gives you a better sleep, than if you simply sleep on rubber or plastic.

You should also put some blankets or a sleeping bag on the camping air mattress, so you don’t wake up in the morning with muscle pain.


Inflatable Camping Air Bed Mattress and Sofa

Outdoor Camping Cookwares

Outdoor Camping Cookwares.


 If you’re going camping and you know you’ll have to cook outdoors, you need to take with you some camping cookware, made especially for the purpose that you want to use them for.

Another thing to take into consideration is how easy it is to transport the camping cookware.

If you’re hiking you should probably choose titanium or lightweight aluminum, but if you’re using a trailer or a camper, you can just as well take camping cookware made of stainless steel, as they are more durable.

The number of camping cookware you need to take depends on how big is the group that is travelling and what kind of cooking you plan to do.

For boiling water, stews and soups, a stockpot is needed, and a lot of other cooking is done with a frying pan.

A teakettle or a coffee pot might also be needed if you want to drink something hot.

It’s important to see how durable the camping cookware is before you buy it, as some of the cheaper versions don’t do well when the conditions are more fierce.

If you’re going to do your cooking over an open fire, then you need heavy duty camping cookware, so it’s able to take the heat.



Keeping The Camping Cookware Clean

If you’re going to cook outdoors, you need to always clean the camping cookware when you’re done with it.

You will not have an automatic dishwasher around, so it’s important to clean it yourself.

The non-stick cookware isn’t great for outdoor use, as you want something more durable, and carrying cleaning products with you isn’t very feasible.



You can use hot water and sand instead to clean the camping cookwares.

You can use scouring pads that come with their own soap if you wish, but once you use them you’ll want to throw them away, so they don’t rust in the plastic bag.

With just a wet rag and some sand you can clean the camping cookware and make it ready to be used again.

The first time you use your camping cookware, especially if it’s made out of cast iron, you’ll need to season it properly.

You can do that either by using a light layer, or use some cooking oil and burning it off by heating the cookware. Seasoning new camping cookware will probably be in the instructions that come with them.

Video - Trail Camping Stove Demonstration

Motorcycle Camping Trailers Is The Craze Now

Motorcycle Camping Trailers Is The Craze Now.



Most motorcycle camping trailers aren’t fit for people to sleep in, but you can store all your things in them when you go on the road.

They are light, so they can be towed by a motorcycle, and they can carry all the items you need for a trip, including tents and sleeping bags.

And if you buy bigger motorcycle camping trailers, you will be able to fit a canopy roof, which will keep you safe from rain.

Before motorcycle camping trailers became popular, you had to pray for great weather before going on the road, or on motels to sleep at night. Our days, these trailers are much more stable on the road, so riders can enjoy using them.

The fact is that motorcycle camping trailers that are built right now offer low resistance when it comes to side winds, which makes them more stable. They’re usually three feet wide and six feet long, and while they might not make a motorcycle more stable, at least they don’t make it less stable.



Pop-Up Motorcycle Camping Trailers Provide More Convenience
The bigger motorcycle camping trailers will behave like smaller pop-up trailers, even though they’re not designed as cargo carriers, so they will fold down when you have to tow them and you can set them up easily. They come with metal frames that are collapsible and a soft top, so you can turn them into campers easily.

Their weight is small, around 250 pounds, so an average sized bike can tow them easily. Many motorcycle camping trailers are used as cargo trailers, but the most recent models can offer quite a bit of comfort when you sleep in a campsite. There are even models that offer dressing areas.

What’s great about motorcycle camping trailers is the ease to set up and repack when the trip is over, so they’re great for stops that last just one night. And if you want to wait for a storm to pass, you can do it in them as well.


GARMIN 010-10610-00 Quest Motorcycle Mount

Camping Trailers - The Comfort Of Home While On The Outdoors

Camping Trailers - The Comfort Of Home While On The Outdoors.



 A lot of people prefer to go camping and still enjoy many of the comforts of home, and this is why camping trailers are so popular, more than tents actually.

Camping trailers can be as small as four feet or bigger than twenty feet, and allow you to get the beauty of nature and the comfort of home in the same package.

In addition, you can hook it up to your car and go sightseeing, without worrying that you’re leaving your tent with all your stuff inside.

A great advantage of camping trailers when compared to RV vehicles is that recreational vehicles are quite large and you don’t always have where to park them.

You can’t go with them through a drive through at a fast food or go to an outdoors drive-in movie.

Most campground that give you access to electricity allow you to leave your camping trailers there, not needing a generator or batteries anymore.

Using camping trailers can also mean less money spent, since you don’t have to pay for a hotel or a motel anymore.

Campgrounds that allow you to park in them can be found quite easily and once the morning comes you can continue with your travel, without worrying about checking out or packing bags.



Choosing The Right Camping Trailers To Fit The Family

A lot of people think of camping trailers as vehicles that allow them to go anywhere they want and take their stuff along. But, they’re not just vehicles to carry stuff, they also have tables and beds, stoves for cooking and even small refrigerators. And if you’re somewhere where you have access to a water connection, you can also have a bath and a sink.

Some of the things you should check when picking a camping trailer is to see if it’s the right size for your family. There are the pop-up campers on one side, and there are the ready-to-go units on the other.

If you buy a camping trailer to last you a long time, consider the current size of your family and whether it will grow anymore in the future. If you’re a young couple a two-person camper might be enough now, but once kids arrive, it’s going to be too small.

How many times you intend to use it should also be part of the decision process and the final price that you should pay. And if you’re only going to use it once in a blue moon, you might as well rent a camping trailer instead of buying one.


Kamp-Rite Midget Bushtrekka Bicycle Camper Trailer with Oversize Tent Cot