If you spend any time in the backcountry a big focus should be on staying healthy with good hygiene practices. I’m going to share my thoughts on what works for me, honed over several months on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). 

My Key Takes

• Prioritize water safety: Avoid stagnant water and always filter/purify questionable sources.
• Maintain hand hygiene: Use hand sanitizer and soap, especially after bathroom breaks
• Prevent illness: Avoid touching your face, sterilize dishes before cooking, and be mindful of norovirus risks in high-traffic areas.
• Pack essential hygiene items: Include a toothbrush, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, soap, bidet, and water filter/purification.
• Avoid unnecessary items: Skip deodorant and wet wipes

Let’s get real. If you’re out hiking and camping in the backcountry, you’re going to have to embrace the fact that you’re going to end up smelling pretty bad.

I know this from experience. Having spent over four months last year walking and cycling from Mexico to Canada, only stopping off for a shower once every few days when on the trail, I’d really feel for the people who’d pick me up whenever I’d be hitchhiking into the nearest town from a trailhead. On occasions where myself and a few others had been hitching at the same time, I’ve even seen drivers ask whether they can roll the windows down. Say no more. 

Smelly doesn’t necessarily equate to unhygienic, though. Whenever I’m out on a backcountry camping trip for a few days at a time, I’ll quite happily accept the fact that I’m going to smell a little worse for wear at the end of it – but I do so while adhering to a number of practices I’ve adopted over the years which both help prevent me from getting sick and also ensure that I’m not harming the environment around me. I’ve been hiking and camping in the backcountry for many years, have always followed these practices – and have never gotten sick (apart from a bout of food poisoning from a gas station restaurant a mile or so from the trail).

There are also a few small items I’d recommend taking which can help no end with maintaining good hygiene in the backcountry. Even I, as a pretty ultralight hiker, never leave for a backcountry trip without these – and I’ve listed them all in this article.

My Backcountry Hygiene Practices 

When possible, try to avoid collecting water from standing/stagnant sources. These can be a hotbed for all sorts of nasty waterborne parasites like giardia. I’ve never contracted giardia before, but a dear hiker friend of mine did while hiking the Continental Divide Trail a couple of years ago – and ended up so weak that he had to resort to renting a motel room for nearly an entire week to rest (alongside being prescribed a bunch of medications to help recover). 

When sources like the one in the photo above are my only option when collecting water in the backcountry, I filter and purify my water with a Sawyer Squeeze and the requisite number of Aquamira drops.

Stay at least 200ft away from water sources when digging a cathole to ensure that you’re not going to contaminate any water sources by visiting the bathroom.

Avoid touching your face and eyes to help reduce your risk of hand-to-mouth transmission of harmful bacteria. Infection is a really nasty experience in the backcountry – I once developed food poisoning symptoms a few hours after leaving a trailhead and ended up  having a really rough night.

On a related note, always carry hand sanitizer and use it after every cathole dig to help reduce your risk of hand-to-mouth transmission of bacteria and help reduce the possibility of infection. 

Even better, carry a tiny bottle of Dr Bronner’s liquid soap with you, as alcohol-based hand sanitizers aren’t effective against Norovirus. 

When washing your hands in the backcountry, don’t do it directly in a water source. This could contaminate it with any harmful bacteria you might have on your hands after doing your business. Instead, put a little squirt of Dr Bronner’s soap on your hands away from a water source (as the chemicals soap itself would also contaminate the water source), pour a little water on your hands from your water bottle, and continue as normal with the process – letting your hands air dry at the end. 

Boil dishes before cooking. When I’m cooking on a backpacking stove, there’s always a possibility that my washing up from the previous use (usually done in the dark the night before) might not have been as effective as I’d thought. When I’m cooking a meal, then, I tend to boil water first and use this water to sterilize my spoon and the pot itself. I leave it for 30 seconds or so before putting the meal in; ensuring that any harmful bacteria has been completely obliterated before the cooking process actually begins.

Try to avoid camping in areas where there might be a high risk of norovirus. Backcountry shelters and toilets can be a hotspot for norovirus to spread; and there’s a shelter up in Washington on the Pacific Crest Trail which I avoided on my thru-hike last year for this very reason. 

Don’t wear your hiking socks to sleep – bring specific socks to sleep in. By rewarding yourself at the end of the day with some dry socks to sleep in, you’re also helping to avoid any nastiness that could result from having your feet constantly enclosed in your crusty, sweaty and (depending on whether you’ve recently accidentally walked through a muddy bog, puddle, or river) damp hiking socks. 

If you’re using a backcountry bidet instead of toilet paper (which I do), carry a smaller bottle to use only with the bidet; don’t use your regular water bottles. Though the bidet isn’t in direct contact with the area in question (see below for more on using a bidet), using your regular bottle for this purpose does, clearly, bring with it a whole host of cross-contamination issues that you’ll want to avoid.

What’s In My Backcountry Hygiene Kit?

I pack my backcountry hygiene kit in a 1L ziplock bag along with my first aid kit – and store it in the front pocket of my backpack so it’s always easily accessible if I need it in a hurry. 

Personal Hygiene

• Manual toothbrush
• Travel-sized toothpaste (you can find these in most grocery stores)
• 200ml Hand Sanitzer (60% alcohol)
• Dr Bronner’s Liquid Soap (also used to clean cooking pot)
• Culoclean Bidet (more on this below) and Kula Cloth

Food Hygiene

• Small sponge to clean cooking pot at night
• Dr Bronner’s Liquid Soap (the same bottle as listed above)

Injury hygiene

• Polysporin / Neosporin ointment (standard 0.5oz tube)
• Gauze pads

Additional Items

• Sunscreen (I get through one travel-sized UPF 30+ Banana Boat Sport in about two days)
• UPF 50+ Lip Balm (the little yellow Burt’s Bees one is always my preference)
• Water filter and/or purification method. I’ve always found the Sawyer Squeeze (the regular size, not the mini or micro) to be a great filter option – and Aquamira drops are something I always carry in case I need to purify water from disgusting stagnant sources. 

Though these don’t really fit into the categories of your backcountry hygiene kit or first aid, they’re important daily items to help you stave off potential illness or harm.

The smallest of these items (like the lip balm or travel-sized sunscreen) I carry either in the shoulder pockets of my backpack or in my fanny pack. I don’t use a backpack with hipbelt pockets, but if you do, this is a great place to store these items as well. 

What is a Backcountry Bidet?

For a much more hygienic and Leave No Trace-friendly replacement to TP, I choose to use a CuloClean backcountry bidet (which is tiny, weighs very little and attaches very easily to most store-bought water bottles) paired with a Kula Cloth to dry myself.

With this method, you’re washing the area in question with great force every time you do your business, and then patting yourself dry with an obsessively-designed anti-microbial cloth. 

I actually had the chance to hear the founder of Kula Cloth talk at PCT Days (an annual hiking festival celebrating the Pacific Crest Trail held in Cascade Locks, Oregon) last year, and hearing the intricate detail and time she’d taken to create a product with materials that are both friendly to your body and the environment you’re walking through was absolutely astonishing. Though the Kula Cloth is designed primarily as a pee rag, using even a tiny bidet provides enough water power to render the area completely clean – so I choose to use one to pat myself down after using the bidet. No chafing, no problem.

Chris, our CEO, tested out the water flow and ease of use of two backcountry bidets and here are his pics and comments:

What I Don’t Take Into The Backcountry

Deodorant

Yup, this includes traditional deodorant sprays, roll-on, or those eco-friendly ones.

As I mentioned earlier, if you’re out in the backcountry for a few days, you’ll inevitably come back smelling a little worse for wear – and attempting to mask it with deodorant really doesn’t work that well. 

Carrying deodorant isn’t going to make you any more hygienic – it’s just going to be an extra weight (and space filler) inside your backpack that you don’t really need. 

Wet Wipes

These are a big no-no in the outdoors. Sure, they might feel really refreshing when wiping, but they take years to biodegrade if accidentally left behind (remember to always pack in what you pack out).

Looking for ideas on what to take on your next backcountry adventure? Check out our Backpacking Essentials Checklist.