Surf Camping Is Even Better With These Six Essentials

The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.

Dunno about you, but late summer always gets me thinking of surf camping. The weather is fantastic, the mosquitos are mostly gone, and south swells are wrapping into points and reefs all over the west coast. Waking up to the smell of last night’s campfire, a crisp morning chill softening with the first light of the sun, brewing up a pot of coffee and listening for the sound of a swell filling in overnight — that’s the good stuff right there. Memory-making stuff.

See? I bet you’re excited already.

And here’s the thing: You don’t need an overbuilt overlanding rig to enjoy surf camping. Lord knows they dominate social media and how-to camping videos, but really, whatever vehicle you have right now is a perfectly good camper. A Prius, an aging Honda Fit, a standard pickup, a family hauling RAV-4, or a plucky Subaru, pretty much anything will do, as long as you have a thoughtful camp setup.

Pacific Adventure Works Hideaway Sleeping Platform

That’s where the Pacific Adventure Works Hideaway Sleeping Platform comes in. This thing is genius. If you have a pickup, finding a sleeping platform solution is easy. You can just toss a camp cot back there for maximum efficiency, or you can DIY up a wood platform with plywood and 2” x 6”s. But what about crossovers and SUVs with funky, angled cargo areas? The Hideaway can turn most of these into cozy camping nooks with a fun, simple trick.

The legs telescope to make a level sleeping area on an uneven surface. If you can fold the backseats of your rig flat, or near flat, you can adjust the Hideaway’s legs to make the sleep surface nice and level. Front to back and side to side. This is also great if you want to sleep outside the vehicle on the ground, but the ground surface isn’t level (in good weather, this is my preferred setup).

Depending on how high you extend the legs, there’s plenty of room for storage beneath the platform too.

Made with anodized aluminum legs and slats, with rugged Cordura fabric coating the topper, the Hideaway feels rugged enough to last many happy years of camping, but it’s light enough for anyone to carry around and stores easily by simply disassembling the platform legs. The topper is composed of slats, similar to modern bed frames, and it rolls into a burrito for super easy storage.

They make a single, for one person, a double, for two, and an XL that is great in pickups.

You’ll need an air mattress or foam pad to go on the topper but other than that, this is a clever, self-contained sleeping platform that in years past would have required you building yourself.

Speaking of an air mattress, we’d go with the Exped Megamat 10 . It’s thick, durable, and unbelievably comfortable. That one fits just fine on the Hideaway Single, and Exped has sizes that fit the larger Hideaway platforms too.

Plus, it’s made in Santa Cruz, California, a quick bike ride from Pleasure Point, and owned by about the nicest surfer you’ll ever meet.

That platform is a great base to make car camping as comfy and cozy as possible. Here are a few more camp goodies we love that can make the difference between camping in comfort and roughing it, uncomfortably.

More Surf Camping Essentials

Nomadix Puffer Blanket
A blanket with snaps so you can turn it into a poncho or a cloak, that’s water-resistant, sand-resistant, and that stuffs down to the size of a loaf of sourdough? Yes please. That’s the Puffer from Nomadix. Made with synthetic fill, not down, it can get a little damp and still provide warmth. Plus, the polyester shell isn’t as slippery as what many down quilts use, so they tend to stay on when you roll around. Shop Now

NEMO Helio Pressure Shower
Simply fill up the 2.9 gallon tank with water and leave it to warm in the sun all morning. When you come back to camp from your first session of the day, you have a warm shower. The Helio is pressurized with a foot pump and provides solid water pressure, not just a dribble like most gravity-fed camp showers. Plus, it packs down nice and small when not in use. Shop Now

Camp Chef Everest 2X Stove
This is, simply put, the best two-burner stove I’ve used. It’s powerful (each burner pumps out 20,000 BTUs), has precise flame control, is well-made, fairly light, and sleek enough to stash in small crevices in your car. Shop Now

Coleman Cross Rocker Chair
If your camp chair doesn’t rock, replace it. Don’t know why, but there’s just something crucial about a rocking chair at camp. This rocker from Coleman is fairly priced, very comfortable, folds up small enough, and is ideal when kicking back, literally, at the campfire after a long day. Shop Now

Coleman Premium Dual Fuel Lantern
And while we’re talking Coleman, consider an old-school gas-powered lantern rather than a battery-powered plastic lamp that dominates the camping scene these days. The Coleman will last the rest of your life, with a little maintenance and care, you can fix it if it breaks, and the light from these things is so much warmer and more pleasant than a battery-powered lantern. Sure, you have to fill it with fuel (white gas preferred) but the slight fussiness of that is more than made up for by the warm glow and comforting hiss from a gas lantern. They’ve been around for 100 years for a reason. Shop Now

Related: Nikwax Wetsuit Refresher Might Be the Most Sustainable Wetsuit Move You Can Make

Related: Seven Reef Safe Sunscreens We Love