- Try to find sites away from bathrooms, laundry facilities, etc. Secluded can be good, though sometimes this means more trees and outdoor mold from fallen leaves and pine needles. Some people are very sensitive to outdoor mold; others do not have trouble unless the plume is worse than just fallen-leaf mold.
- Plan to leave campgrounds during busy holidays. This might be especially important if you have MCS as well as mold illness, or trouble with smoke, etc. Sometimes other campers bring mold, too, of course.
- Some countries, like the USA, have national lands where camping is allowed short-term. Call local authorities for details. We often ended up in the beautiful national forest, dry camping, during holidays.
- Try solar cooking.
(Crust-less Quiche in my solar Hot Pot.)
For those with MCS, the materials of this solar cooker are so great—all baked-on enamel metal, metal panels, and glass. Solar Hot Pot I made a PDF of most of my recipes, found here: Recipes for the Solar Hot Pot Here is my page with my 50 original recipes and other blog posts at the bottom. Solar Cooking in South Dakota
- Consider new, clean metal trash cans of all sizes. Look at this cutie. 🙂 Miniature Trash Can Okay, maybe this one is more practical. 4 gallon steel can For those with MCS, metal does not off-gas like plastic does. It protects what is inside from everything if tightly sealed. In a humid climate, just make sure the inside of it does not gather humidity or get condensation inside. Some of them are waterproof, and we used to keep one outside for dry dirty laundry. This is especially helpful if clothes get contaminated and cannot be washed right away. (Tip: anchor it down during windy storms or you may have wet clothes everywhere after the storm. Don’t ask me how I know. LOL) However, trash cans do not stack well like plastic bins do, and like one might need in a cargo van situation, etc. We would keep ours outside and then just stow in the RV when moving to a new campsite.
- Try to keep your sense of humor. I know, it is very, very hard sometimes. One time when the sun was not out enough to power our solar cooker during a time of dry camping, the kids and I decided to be silly:
How to Heat a Hot Dog with no Electricity or Fire or Sun
- Put hot dog on car antennae and wait for lightning.
- Sit on hot dog for an hour. Or put in armpit.
- Plug hot dog into car battery.
- Stick hot dog in car engine and drive around for 30 minutes.
- Rub two hot dogs together really fast.
(We ate cold sandwiches instead. 🙂 )
- Buy this book. Excellent tips for living on the road and food planning as well as designing a cargo van conversion. Camp Like a Girl
- Remind yourself you are an adventurer. You might have begun this journey to avoid mold and get better, but it takes courage to do this long term, it may be similar to people who were nomads in former decades for many reasons, and nature often provides beautiful scenery or unusual adventures. Many like to take and share photographs. Here is one of my favorites while I was camping.
Christa Upton Black Hills Picture Books Edgemont, SD 57735
