For 7 years now I’ve had a tradition to go camping in the first week of the year. This year both C and my wife Maria joined me. Maria isn’t as enthusiastic about camping as C and I are, so both of us where really glad to have her with us. As usual, my older kids had no interest in going camping.

This wasn’t intended to be a hiking trip in any way, but a comfortable car camping trip with lots of goodies. There where a little bit of snow, and temps below freezing. Great weather for hot tent camping in other words.

We drove to Lerike, 20 min drive north of Växjö. There’s a shelter here, a couple of fireplaces and a privy. It’s a designated camp site for the canoe route “Värendsleden”. In the summer it’s a popular little beach, where people arrive both by car, boat and canoe. It way to crowded in summer for my liking though.

For this trip we used the Tentipi Safir 5. It’s a canvas tipi that’s easy to set up, very comfortable and of a very high quality. In my opinion the Safir Tentipis are probably among the best, if not THE best canvas tents out there. I’ve seen a lot of YouTube channels that use other types of canvas tents and most of them seem to be both heavier and more of a hassle to set up.

We also brought the GStove Heat view. It’s my trusty companion to the tipi, and something of a must-have when you’re tipi camping in colder weather. I’ve been hot tent camping for a few years now, and sitting in a t-shirt in a tent warmed by a hot fire in a stove when it’s freezing outside is a really great feeling.

When we arrived we carried our gear from the car to the campsite and begun setting everything up. My wife and C got to start setting up the tipi so that they would learn. After that they played, while I set up the stove and unpacked everything in the tent.

We decided to make a fire in the fire pit outside, and stay there until it got dark. After dark I started up a fire in the stove to have the tipi warmed up for when we decided to get inside.

We made dinner when we got inside the tent. Pepper steaks, Mediterranean rice and fried vegetables and mushrooms. It’s sort of my go-to food when hot tent camping. Easy to make and really tasty.

After dinner we laidd in the tent and played UNO and I made popcorn on the stove for the first time. I thought I’d burn the popcorn, but they where prefect. Since I only had the 750ml pot I had to make two batches to get enough.

Around 21.30 we really needed to put C to sleep, and it didn’t take many seconds for her to fall asleep after she had crawled into her sleeping bag.

Mia and I stayed up a little longer, but finally decided to call it a night. I filled up the stove with large pieces of wood and adjusted the air flow to get a slow burn.

Mia and I shared the Exped Duomat HL LW. She used my Cumulus Panyam 600 while I used my Quilt 450. We where both warm and snug throughout the night.

The next morning the others waited in their sleeping bags for me to get up and get the fire started. The tent was cold, and I quickly got out from the quilt to fire up the prepared kindling and then got back under the quilt to wait for the stove do drive out the cold.

When the tipi was warm and snug again we all got out of our sleeping bags and got ready for breakfast. We had brought the last Karelian Pies and egg butter from Christmas, and we heated them up next to the stove.

After breakfast we let the stove cool down and explored an “island” nearby. It’s not really an island, but since it’s only connected to mainland with a narrow streach of land it becomes an island when the water levels are higher in spring. On the end of the islands therse some sort of homemade shelter made of branches and a very worn and torn plastic tarp. It’s been here for years, and I don’t know if its some kind of Scout shelter or what it is.

When the stove had finally cooled down I got back to our campsite and packed up our camp, while C and Mia played on the island.

It was a short little trip, like most of my trips are nowadays. But it was nice to get away, and I really enjoyed having both C and Mia with me. Someday maybe our older kids will want to join too.