Heading into the Highlands very soon and will be hoping to do a fair amount of wild camping. I’ve done it before but not for as long a time as I plan to be away this time.
I’m wondering how folk here plan their trips with practicalities in mind –
hygiene: personal, cooking.
food: what you take, how you store it, prepare it
comforts (I like a pillow), contingencies,

And anything else that I can’t think of off the top of my head right now.

hygiene: small flannel and roll top back to keep it in if damp. Use if for washing up etc.

Small trowel for poo-hole, and toilet paper in a sealed sandwich bag.
http://backpackinglight.co.uk/product151.asp?PageID=101

Dry foods, usually pasta based ready meals from supermarket. Anything that just requires boiling water & a simmer usually.
And flapjacks

Pillow, I use an exped roll top bag with some spare clothes stuffed in it.

I always carry a water filter too – so much easier than liters and liters of water!

I don’t waste my time boiling/simmering food, it also uses loads of fuel too. I rehydrate my food in a ‘Pour and Store’ bag, placed inside a DIY pot cosy (made from foil-backed bubble wrap). Couscous is ideal, pour hot water on, place in pot cosy and wait a minute or two. I then put a pouch of ‘Tuna with a Twist’ on top. If you’re only using hot water to re-heat things you haven’t much washing up to do either.

MYOG pouch in background.

Some links with a lot of answers to your questions:
My Bike and Kit Setup
Bike and Bivi
Bear Bones Bikepacking
MTBR Bikepacking

Hygiene?? As already explained a flannell..

Food? No point eating crap food to save a couple of grammes in weight IMHO.. You’re there to enjoy it after all..

I take these: Boil in the bag meals.

Pillow?? I just roll up my down jacket.

This is all going to end in tears, have you seen Call of the Wild, just don’t eat any bad berries!

Top tip….super noodles, tasty, cooked in seconds and weigh nada.

top tip 2

Go to the pub for dinner and after a beer or two, enquire as to the availability of a bed for the night

Hi guys,

good advice so far… based on my cycle / hiking tours across canada / iceland x2 and a lot in the uk i would suggest the following :

my first tip – go light ! I store stuff in resealable sandwich bags too – useful things to have around. Lighter / penknife as well

Use clothes as a pillow – use a decent camp mattress – if a thermarest – take a way to repair it -take a head torch / ear plugs – small plastic trowel for poo burying – hand sanitiser gel / hand wipes and a small flannel for hygiene

2nd a water filter and I use couscous / noodles a lot with something to flavour / provide protein – usually fish / tuna / cheese – I rate sporks too and kit made by MSR

highly recommend something for blisters and taking insect repellant and a tick removal tool too.

enjoy

paul

Recently been improving fuel efficiency by getting my pasta water to a rolling boil, dumping pasta in, returning to boil then turning gas off and putting the lid on. Seems to cook almost as fast without burning ten minutes worth of gas. Likewise I cut up some broccoli and give it the same treatment, before using the heated broccoli water for my pasta. Finally chucking some pesto and pre-cooked (at home) pancetta. I end up eating better in the tent than I do at home!

I do also like the Mountain House dehydrated meals but they’re pricey, maybe for a one or two night trip I’d use them.

Water filters? Hand sanitising gel? FFS you are talking about the wettest, cleanest place in Britain here! Just wash in the burn and drink it and you’ll be fine.

Nobody has really mentioned the biggest issue when camping in Scotland – MIDGES. Take a DEET repellent, some mossie coils to burn upwind of the tent when you’ve got to have the flap open, a small can of insecticide for spraying the tent before you close the zip, a head torch and a big fat book to read while locked in your tent as the Caledonian Luftwaffe are marauding outside, and an old plastic pee bottle so you don’t need to go outside, which means opening the flap and admitting more midges.

Try to pitch somewhere high up with a decent breeze and keep away from damp, still, shady places.

This advice is from one who has aborted quite a few Scottish camping holidays just because of the midges.

Take a canoe!

I wear contact lenses, so hand hygiene is really important – I carry a wee pack of sterilising hand wipes for this purpose.

Otherwise, as above – spare clothes in a bag for pillow.

For breakfast, I carry a pre-made porridge mix – oats, milk powder and sugar already mixed in a sealed bag, just boil up for breakfast.

Wash pots in the burn, just give a good scrub.

I’ve never, ever filtered or otherwise purified water in the highlands and don’t intend to start.

I always cook noodles when wild camping, light to carry and only take a few minutes to cook.

Those are some extreme anti-midge measures! 😯

I’d rather take my chances with a quick midge-ey dash outside for a pee than have to share my warm tent with a bottle of p1sh… Wouldn’t fancy spraying the inside of my tent with insecticide either, or using DEET for that matter.

Definite +1 for midge coils though, we spent a whole weekend commenting on how miraculous it was that the dense clouds of midgies outside our circle of tents wasn’t descending for a feast, forgetting of course that we had several coils on the go at once.

Also, don’t be too proud to bothy, if there’s one nearby it can be a sociable and midge free night!

oh suggest you watch ‘dog soldiers’ the night before you go….

and ‘wrong turn’…

+1 for pour and store freezer bag cooking, no washing up, saves loads of gas. Get a lhoon for eating out of the bag. Bag up all your food before you go and write the amount of water required on the front. I just use my wooly hat instead of a pot cosy.

on this years WRT I had –

cous cous + small pouch of olives
vegan shepards pie (tvp + veg + pack of smash)
emergency noodles

enough whisky or rum to get you to sleep 🙂

Trowel + freezer bag of toilet paper
a few antiseptic hand wipes

That myog pouch/cosey in the pic up there.

Shouldn’t the foil side be on the inside.

Some great advice there folks. Thanks. Never bothered about water filtration in Scotland. I was thinking that half my trailer load will be food so there’s some good ideas there to save space/weight.

We don’t talk about the ‘toilet bottle’.

Oh, and I’ve somehow never bothied before. Want to give it a try this trip. 13th – any recommendations Torridon and northwards. (this may be cross posting across current threads).

MSP – Member

That myog pouch/cosey in the pic up there.

Shouldn’t the foil side be on the inside.

Ha, it’s got foil on both sides of the bubblewrap!