A Camping Rug Can Help Keep Your Tent Cleaner, Your Gear Organized, and It Creates a Place to Eat, Play, or Kick Back with the Kids

One of our favorite things about one of our favorite tents is the screened-in vestibule it offers. Not only does the vestibule offer some breezy but bug-free space to hang out (AKA hide out) once the kids are down, but it also helps keep the interior of the tent much cleaner. When we shed our dusty or muddy boots, our sweaty shorts or damp trunks, and can shake the rainwater off our jackets outside the tent, the rest of our stuff – especially our sleeping bags – that’s within stays cleaner.

The problem? The vestibule itself gets pretty trashed pretty fast, collecting dust and gravel and pine needles and such and often requiring a heavy cleanout after the camping trip. The solution? Now we always place a rugged camping carpet outside the tent. It can do the dirty work for us, like providing a spot to shed boots and jackets and such, and then we can enjoy a cleaner vestibule and an even more pristine tent interior.

And to clean a camping carpet, often all that’s needed is a good shake.

Our Decathlon Quechua Outdoor Camping Rug is usually deployed by the tent and used as a gear and apparel staging area as noted, but that’s hardly all you can use a camping carpet for. Its large 67” by 83” surface creates ample room for picnicking, and because it’s waterproof you can even unroll it on sodden grass, wet sand, or right on the mud. When not used for eating, it creates a good place to lie down and relax or for the kids to play. And when rolled out under a tent, it can add a bit of insulation against cold ground or help ensure no water finds its way up into your tent from damp earth.

In a pinch, you could also use the Quechua camp carpet as a blanket for some added warmth or as a very impromptu rain shelter. And you can unroll it anywhere you want, by the way, from the backyard to the basement to the park – no campsite is actually required. After any involved (which is to say dirty) use you wash the rug in a washing machine, or you can just hose the thing off, let it dry, and get on with your day.