A Pool Noodle Can Help Protect You Against An Unexpected Camping Danger
There are plenty of things to worry about when first setting up camp from ensuring that your food stays safe to eat to keeping bugs out of your tent. However, one thing that you probably don't worry about until it nails you right in the shin is your tent lines. If you are camping in a busy area like some of the most visited campsites in the United States, then people constantly tripping over your tent lines is not only dangerous but can also uproot the lines causing you to have to constantly re-stake them. This can get quite tiring, especially when all you want to do is relax and enjoy the view.
Luckily, there's a simple solution — the humble pool noodle. Yes, that cheap summertime foam toy is a great way to both protect your lines and make them more visible. This is an especially good idea if you are camping with kids because, as one Redditor put it, pool noodles can "prevent children from clotheslining themselves." It's also a great idea for music festivals or other festival-like situations where many people will be walking around at night possibly inebriated and not necessarily looking for tent lines.
How to use pool noodles to make tent lines safer
The first step is to get your pool noodles. If you don't already have some you can head to your local outdoor store or supermarket to buy them. Since the goal of this hack is to make your tent lines more visible, if possible, you should opt for a bright color like pink, orange, yellow, or green. If you buy pool noodles with a hole in the center, you can simply slip the noodles over your tent lines before you stake them into the ground. If you get the pool noodles with no central hole, you can cut lengthwise down the noodles about halfway through and then slip the cut noodles onto your already staked tent lines. Either way works just as well.
To make your tent lines more visible at night, one Pinterest user recommended adding some reflective tape. You can also attach a glow stick to your tent lines along with the pool noodle to help light it up at night for any passersby. With this hack, you will never take a tent line to the shin again and can camp in peace knowing that no one is going to trip over your tent. Fun fact: you can also similarly use pool noodles to protect your fishing poles while traveling.