Ever wish you could take a shower on a camping trip? Well you can, and it's super easy. Check out these Solar Showers from Advanced Elements. They come in many sizes and also in a PVC free version. It's a five gallon bag, so you'd probably need a tree. If you are going to hang this in a privacy shelter, I wouldn't go past the three gallon, they're heavy! Even with the 2.5 gallon bag, it's heavy too and holds more water than it appears to hold, you get a couple of good showers out of that.
These are well made solar showers. The beefy handle at the top makes them easy to maneuver and you just pull down on the shower head to get it to work, simple as can be. It has a large reservoir valve making it easy to fill--this is important, you might be at an awkward spigot and you don't want to be fumbling around spilling water all over yourself. Some of them come with little mesh pockets and mirrors depending on the size you get.
All you do is place the shower in the sun, preferably on a warm rock to help absorb the heat, there are small solar panels on the bags to speed up the process. You can pour hot water from your camp stove into the shower on days the sun didn't warm it up, or you didn't have time to leave it out long enough. I ended up with a cold shower because I put the shower out too late in the day for it to work. I could have put some hot water in there, but somehow the spectacular view mitigated any cold I felt. The kids thought it was very cool and got excited over the tiny shower head, they couldn't believe they were showering outside. We used the Grand Trunk Dunny Shelter with this and it was perfect.
I think these showers are awesome for camping, and also for emergency preparedness. If your plumbing doesn't work, which can happen sometimes during a good hurricane or broken water lines, it's nice to know you can still bathe. I won't go (car) camping again without one. Find them HERE.
