A Lexicon of Camping Tips Only the Experts Know – A Falcon Guide, Third Edition (2006)

This book landed in my lap at a pretty good time in my life, when I was just starting to get interested in long-term hiking and camping. The tropics (where I generally reside) are not the most enjoyable place to camp. The ants attack by the billions, the spiders are bigger than your head (though not poisonous), and the humidity makes water-catching an hourly chore. Still, I love to be outdoors, and I hope to become wiser and more efficient with each and every outing. A book like Camping’s Top Secrets has helped me cut some of the nonsense and make the most of my adventures.

This book follows an encyclopedic style, categorizing itself alphabetically by themes. For a taste, I’ll list here Jacobson’s entries for letters A and B: “Anchor, Animals (Bears and Other Beasts), Ax, Baking, Bannock (Camp Bread), Binoculars, Boots, Bottles and Food Tubes, Bugs (Mosquitoes, Flies, No-see-ums, and Ticks), Bush Living (by Charron Chatterton).”

While this book is more fit for someone hitting the Canadian bush—lots of talk about bears, mosquitoes, and cold weather—I found many of his tips and tricks useful and intriguing even for me in the tropics. Jacobson seems a whole lot more willing than I to bust out his sewing machine in order to hand-tailor his tents or boots or bug nets, but he is after all the professional. I’m more interested in making due with what I have around me already, and I’ve not yet seen the need either to purchase the expensive items or to manipulate the cheaper. I’m sure I’ll become more adventurous as my outings progress and I recognize my own unique needs.

As with other “survival-type” books like Survival Hacks by Creek Stewart or Last-Minute Survival Secrets by Joey Green, I really enjoyed the sections on water, fire, and general hacking. Jacobson’s section on water covered such topics as brackish water and organism depths, which was very informative, albeit brief. I also especially appreciated his ideas of insect prevention, which is the one thing that would ever prevent me from going back out into the very green bush long-term.

I’m sure this book is already a bit outdated, considering the advancements in camping technology. Yet humans have been “camping” since the very beginning, so clearly some advice never gets old. It’s in those bits and pieces where a book like shines.

©2018 E.T.

Check Out These Survival-Tip Books:

• The Art of Survival by Cord Christian Troebst (1965)
• Camping’s Top Secrets by Cliff Jacobson (1987)
• Last-Minute Survival Secrets by Joey Green (2015)
• Survival Hacks by Creek Stewart (2016)