we are going camping for a week and do not have a fridge to take plus we cant afford to buy one what do you think we should do....buy food as and when, like meat for the bbq etc its ok for a weekend just taking a cool back with ice blocks but not for a week??
When we first started camping we couldnt afford a fridge either, We took a cool bag with ice pcks. Just buy 1 pint of milk and replace every couple of days, and the food ect.. there will always be some sort of shop near by. Most sites we have been to have re-frozen our packs overnight to.
thats nice of them for doing that my mum has said if i get one i should have a 3way if ever we went and had not electric hook up but can also be used with gas but they are expensive so just trying to find a way round it for just the first trip.
We use an electric cool box which plugs into the car when travelling and into the mains with a mains adaptor when on siteand it works well enough to keep things cool. They are far cheaper than a fridge, Aldi had them on offer last week for about £30 bargin.
I don't use a fridge. Tend to get stuff as and when - Coffee mate instesd of milk for the OH , croissants for breakfast ,all options if can not get hold of milk , but as previously stated , most campsites have a shop , or are near one .
no electric hook up for his one, but i may just get stuff as and when will take the stuff that doesnot not keeping cool and will take a normal cool bag and see if anyone will freeze the packs for me.
I often take a couple of meals/ingredients frozen with me. Then, as they thaw, we can eat them. Works for the first couple of days whilst you're finding out what shops are around. Also, I often have tins of things like chick peas and kidney beans with me, so that if the worst comes to the worst I can knock up a vegetable curry.
we usually buy as and when needed, only ever taken a coolbox.
why not freeze a carton of milk to use in the coolbox instead of the iceblocks? that way your milk will be fresh and unfrozen by the second day, and all other items in there would have been at cold temperature.
We take a 12v coolbox, with just milk plus frozen steaks etc to start, then replenish as we go. Plus refreezing the packs if the site has the facility, and plugging it in to the car when we're off for the day. Works well for us.
If we go EHU we'll get a 240 to 12v converter and run it all day. With it running it keeps the contents well cool, butter etc stays hard.
There's a joke there somewhere...but best leave it.
When funds are short it is often so much cheaper to buy things in bulk at your normal supermarket rather than rely on nearby campsite shops. If you are keen on BBQing then buy the packs of meat and repack them in 'meal' bundles so that you are not rifling through lots of packaging for each meal. The frozen things then remain cool and undisturbed.
UHT milk is great for camping if you don't mind compromising a little on the taste. Because it's sterilised, rather than just pasteurised, it keeps unopened without refrigeration, but it also keeps a lot better once it's opened too.
In fact I don't always bother with a cool bag and getting packs refrozen. I open a carton of UHT in the morning for breakfast, close up the lid on the pourer and just find a shady place for it. I've never had one go bad, even on hot days.
freeze bottles of water instead of ice blocks (unless you buy the big chunky ones) as the cheap ones are so thin, they are pretty useless, as when they defrost you end up with more plastic(the outside of ice block) than ice which actually increases the temperature in your cool box! so if you cant afford decent ice packs use big bottles- less plastic!
smees idea of freezing the milk is good too- but take one just chilled too for the first day, incase the other hasnt defrosted intime
also i have found that simply tying food in 3 plastic bags- creating air around the item in layers keeps food just as cold as a cheap cool box/bag.
also remember cold air falls so put the coldest or frozen items at the top to keep the rest cold- not at the bottom as so many people do!
also try to keep your box/bag full as spaces warm it up, and dont add warm items to the box, only cold. Try to close it quickly when opening it!
i actually drink UHT all the time now but i only like it cold if not in a hot drink, get skimmed if you drink semi as its a lot thicker. (candia brand is the best- tastes most like fresh milk to me)
Back in ye olden days to keep milk, beer, or any bottles cool stand in a stream or flowing water. If no stream available bucket of cold water,, change water when it starts to warm up.
Freeze what you can before you go hopefully your site will have a ice pack refreezing service. if not bags of ice from the nearest supermarket, Remember to take the coolbag to the supermarket or by the time you get back to the tent all you will have is a bag of water.
We took a 2pint carton of milk and froze it for a couple of days. We also froze a 2litre bottle of water and went camping over a really hot weekend. Kept the coolbox in the shade as much as possible. Coolbox kept the fresh milk, butter, juice and meats cold all weekend. Water was still semi-frozen on the sunday as we packed up.
Just did 8 nights in france with only small coolbox. We rotated the icepacks, so one was in the campsite freezer and one in our box, then swapped them over every morning (our coolbox is only small so one big flat ice pack was fine). Some campsites are free to freeze your blocks some are not so worth checking. We bought milk every 2-3 days and ate cooked meat like ham and cheese in a couple of days. It was quite cool outside at night anyway so I was more concerned about keeping the temp down in the days hence putting the ice block in a morning, however you could swap them over every twelve hours and use a fresh one before bed too. Next time I would take more tinned stuff too like beans, tuna etc. really we only use the coolbox for butter, milk, cheese, yoghurt, sometimes some ham, and we cook fresh meat as we buy it.
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Topic: advice please
