Here are a few more tips about what I use and what I’ve learned about tents and camping.
By guest blogger Jen.

Wenzel tent
Susie posted my first blog about camping tips on The Canary Report a few weeks ago: Camping tips for people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. I got feedback and am here adding some further insight and tips.
A friend with mold illness and MCS has gone camping, and writes me the first week: “I love the meadow I am in… I feel so very good there… so happy… I literally wake up all through the night just to breathe in the magnificent air… it is clean, so very clean and pure. I can feel it in my lungs and body… I forgot how clean air is supposed to smell and feel.I could heal here…”
This is the point, isn’t it? We’ve forgotten the magnificence of beautiful, clean air, our birthright, air so good we want to wake up just to breathe it in deeply before going back to sleep. We are living in a very unnatural way, imo. And if a person with mold illness and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is in a tough situation, they will 1) feel very depressed, by virtue of the toxic chemicals they are being exposed to actually physiologically affecting their brain function and 2) feel very sick, and really not believe they could get so much better… fear and disbelief are two barriers.
Another friend with mold illness and MCS/Electromagnetic Frequency Sensitivity (EMF), who has been on the road in search of safe housing for about a year now (unable to find any yet, even so-called MCS-safe housing advertised as such to our community), and often as not sleeping in his car, writes, “Your Northface idea was spot on! I bought one… I can’t believe how I am tolerating the tent… it is really not too smelly! Thank you!!!! A visiting MCS friend was so impressed she went out and bought one too!” Until then he was convinced he could not tolerate a tent. I had recommended the Northface backpacking tent with all mesh uncoated walls (the Flint).
This is very encouraging—and yet, I also heard from EI’s saying they could not find a safe tent, that they had tents they had tried to offgas for years and could not tolerate a tent and that was that. They were either staying in unsafe housing and remaining very sick, or sleeping in their vehicles. This is not always such a good idea. The possibility of contamination or mold is higher, if you sleep in your vehicle. You are going to have to maintain complete purity of your clothes, make sure to keep windows open with mosquito netting or your moisture and body heat could possibly get high enough to create mold in the ventilation system. A tent can be cleaned with soap and water. A vehicle is not so easy to clean, it’s a big job, but if you’re living in your vehicle some folks recommend at least a monthly thorough cleaning. You can’t use a space heater in a car but a very low watt infrared heater can be used with care in a tent. There are all kinds of issues with sleeping in a vehicle, especially if it’s parked in the wilderness, including critters wanting to sleep in there too… and a vehicle also generally has more toxic chemicals than a good tent anyway.
Safe Sleeping
Northface tent with mesh walls, or Mystical on a Wenzel pad, or bake and air out the Wenzel tent.
I want to report that Kristin used Mystical (a product that many people with Environmental Illness like, but we have no idea what is in it in terms of MSDS, so I’ve never used it) and soaked her Wenzel tent and it was fume-free after that.

Northface
Here’s the NorthfaceI have. It sets up in about two minutes literally.
I should note the rainfly may bother some, and might need to be baked out, but it’s pretty good as rainflies go. Obviously if you’re just going to sleep in the mesh the weather needs to be decent—with a good sleeping bag you could probably go down to the 40’s at night comfortably. Otherwise you are going to have to use a rainfly so you can keep in warmth.
If a rainfly really bothers you until it’s well baked out, or you want to sleep with the mesh in good weather but it rains occasionally, set up an a-line version of the silnylon tarp I mentioned in the last post. These tarps cost about $80, made by Equinox. Once again, nylon in general is a pretty good material as it doesn’t fume much. To set up an a-line tarp, you will need to string a nylon line between two trees, hang the tarp over it, and fasten the tarp. Here is one typical Youtube tutorial:
For those who don’t want to spend the money on a silynylon tarp, which scrunches up small when traveling, a walmart tarp does just as well, you just need to air it out first for a while.
There are other northface mesh tents as well. Big Agnes makes several too but I found them much more smelly than Northface. Even REI’s quarter and half dome are smellier though they are very nice tents (these are mesh tents).
Safe Potty

Folding toilet
Some EI’s said, “Well I can’t go camping because I can’t use campground bathrooms. I would get sick and be incapacitated.”
You don’t have to use campground bathrooms.
When a bathroom is stinky, I use an inert, hard plastic folding loo that folds up small, unfolds easily, and carries up to a 300 pound person. Reliance Products Fold-To-Go Collapsible Portable Toilet. I use it because it folds up small. If you are just going to use it quickly in your tent (with the rainfly on, or if you are in a private area), then I find that two regular black hefty garbage bags work fine. I use two just in case. Then tie them and dump them in the dump or garbage.
If you are going to use it longer, for instance setting up a privacy shelter and using the loo over a few days, you can also buy Cleanwaste WAG BAG Waste Bags – Package of 12.
Each degradable kit contains a WAG BAG waste bag, zip-close storage bag, toilet paper and hand wipe Disposal bags contain Poo Powder™ which quickly turns waste into a stable gel for easy transport and safe disposal Uses odor neutralizers, not perfumes, to eliminate unpleasant odors; decay catalyst initiates decomposition Environmentally friendly, landfill-approved WAG BAG waste bags can be disposed of in trash with regular garbage. Permitted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for use.
There are other portable toilets as well, such as a bucket, or if you can’t tolerate plastic, Texspro makes a folding steel loo. Another option is Store-A-Potty 72-Hour Emergency Toilet which when not being used as a toilet can be used as a bucket to wash clothes, or to store stuff in.
Privacy Shelter

Privy
There are all kinds of privacy shelters for your portable toilet. I wanted one that folded up really small. There is a cheap one on Amazon. I got a more expensive one that has pockets in which you can put sandbags or bricks, to hold it down if it’s a windy day. This is what I got: Outback Porta Privy. It folds up very small into a flat round case. It doesn’t smell horrible, it isn’t perfect either, may need some baking and airing if you’re super sensitive, then again, you’re only going to be in it for a short time. On the other hand, it is just polyester or nylon, not vinyl, so it isn’t really smelly.
Showers and Safe Washing
So, now you have a place to sleep and a toilet. What about staying clean?
One person also said they couldn’t use regular campground water because of chlorine (some are chlorinated, some are not, depending.) I prefer a filtered shower, but can handle regular water. Again your level of sensitivity will predict your needs.
Another person said spot bathing with a gallon of water in a bucket was her preferred method but she found it so exhausting she could not do it very often.
So here is my recommendation for the water sensitive—buy some filtered water (if you refill a gallon jug at Walmart or at other supermarkets, it’s about 35-37 cents a gallon. If you’re super sensitive to plastic and can’t possibly have water that was in plastic at all, then get yourself some glass jugs), and take a shower every few days, or filter water from your campsite if you have water and or water and electric. Two gallons is enough to take a nice shower the way I am going to explain it. A shower every few days, and a sponge bath the other days should be enough to keep you clean. Especially if you are sleeping in a tent, not your vehicle.

MSR Miniworks
For backup, or if you can’t get to Walmart or the supermarket to get the refill machine super purified, ozonated, reverse osmosis water (it’s good quality water), then get an MSR Filter, made by Cascade Designs, praised by campers everywhere. “MiniWorks EX microfilter is the worldwide best-selling microfilter, delivering long-lasting, field-maintainable water filtration in demanding environments. Engineered for frequent and heavy use, it utilizes our workhorse Marathon™ EX carbon/ceramic element to ensure clean, reliable and taste-free water.”
Okay, now you’ve got water. How do you take a shower?

Dromedary
Get a 10 liter MSR Dromedary bag. That’s 2 ½ gallons, and it’s black nylon with a food grade coating inside. You might not want to store water for days, but you will probably be able to tolerate a shower after the water has been in there a few hours. That is, if you want a hot shower. Because you just set it out in the sun, and since it’s black, the water will warm up quickly. In fact, water can get so hot as to burn you if you leave it out too long, so test the water before your shower. This bag is very tolerable right out of the box. It is so resilient it will last decades, supposedly. It also folds up small when not in use.
You will get the shower attachment as well. Any online place (campor, REI and other outlets) sells this dromedary bag in various sizes and the shower attachment as well. It can also be used to pour water in to do your dishes, other washing, or you can also get a smaller one as a hot water bottle. You’ll need to hang the bag from a tree, or a hook, or hold it up in your privacy shelter while sitting on your portable loo bucket inside, or a chair or stool.
So. You have a safe tent, safe shower, safe toilet, and safe water.
A final note: Safe Laundry
I do have a portable wonder washer and a portable countertop spin dryer. But over time I’ve just taken to simmering clothes in a large enamel Le Creuset pot (I don’t like stainless steel at all. It just isn’t high quality enough not to leach the metals into the water, and I can’t stand it). The pot is also useful for boiling new clothes that need to be detoxxed. A five minute simmer to clean clothes, then dump the water, and put in fresh clean water, with fresh lemon juice. That’s all I use.
If stuff is really dirty, then I will handwash with some Biokleen detergent (unscented). Generally, though, detergents tend to stay in clothes so I only do that every few weeks. If clothes get really grotty (one person said, her clothes got grotty living outside and made her look like a disenfranchised homeless person) I detox new clothes. I have a bunch of Maggie’s Organics tops, shorts, and cotton pants, and American Apparel sweats and hoodies as these detox pretty easily. If something gets really gross, I take a few sunny days when I have time, and detox a few new outfits. It does take time, but not that much “effort”—and then I just use a nylon laundry line that costs $2.99 at walmart, hang between trees, and sun dry. Nothing smells as good as clothes simmered in good water, with a lemon juice rinse, and sun dried. Once you have clothes that smell so good you like to bury your nose in them, you won’t really want to use detergents and washers.
Safe Energy
I will do another post later on energy. If you are off grid, you need solar. I have been advised about a folding solar panel and a nontoxic marine battery, but haven’t bought or tried them yet, so will advise later on. Generators are generally too smelly (gasoline) for people with Environmental Illness. And going off grid will allow you to get to really good, healing wilderness with very low EMF. Even those of us who do not consciously think we are EMF, will find it amazing how kinks melt out of the body and how deeply relaxed you may feel in low EMF wilderness. Then you will realize there is a low-level EMF reaction going on constantly, stimulating and overstimulating you in ways you had never suspected. What happens is the body gets used to it, and filters it out as “noise”—not useful information. But it affects us all nonetheless.


















