FeatherSticks · Skills
Going Solo: Solo Camping Safety and Tips for Hiking Alone
Alone in the woods, nobody notices your mistake. Plan for that.
Quick facts
- Time
- 30 minutes of extra planning per trip, plus skill practice beforehand
- Difficulty
- Medium – the skills are simple, the discipline is the hard part
- Best for
- Solo hikers, solo bushcraft overnighters, people whose friends are never free
- You need
- Trip plan, a reliable contact, charged phone, paper map, first aid kit, whistle
What you need
- Written trip plan with a briefed contact
- Phone with offline maps, power bank and cable
- Paper map and compass
- Whistle on the shoulder strap and a headlamp
- First aid kit you can open with one hand
- Warm spare layer, hat and emergency foil blanket
- Satellite messenger or PLB for remote areas
Step by step
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1 Leave a plan and a check-in time
Write route, camp, return time and alarm time on one page. Give it to someone who knows exactly what to do if you do not check in.
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2 Choose a conservative route
Pick terrain you know, with phone signal and bail-out paths to a road. Camp out of sight, away from dead trees and rising water.
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3 Learn the core skills first
Navigation, first aid, fire and shelter should be routine before your first solo night, practised close to home.
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4 Carry power, maps and a backup
Full phone, power bank, offline maps, a paper map and compass, a whistle and a headlamp. Far from signal, consider a satellite messenger or PLB.
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5 Manage tool and fire risk
Work slowly, keep the first aid kit in reach, keep fires small with water ready, and skip tasks that need a second person.
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6 Use the STOP rule
When unsure, lost or hurt: stop, think, observe, plan. Two things going wrong is your signal to turn back.
Common mistakes
- Telling someone “I am going to the woods” without a route, a camp location, a return time or an alarm time.
- A contact who does not know what to do, or waits “a bit longer” after the alarm time.
- Choosing a new, remote area with no signal for the first solo trip.
- Relying on one phone with half a battery and no paper map.
- Felling trees, splitting with an axe or crossing a fast river alone.
- Sharing a live location publicly or posting the camp spot while still there.
- Pushing on after the turnaround time because the camp “must be close”.