When camping in a Tent, are you team lights on or off?

Having some illumination inside your nylon home can be pretty epic.

But is it really a solid idea to leave those blazing all night while sleeping?

Let’s break it down and go over the pros and cons of tent lighting for overnights so you can decide if letting your tent glow like a beacon is worth it or not.

Reasons You Might Want Your Tent Lit Up Overnight

Why can keeping your tent lit from dusk until dawn on a camping trip be a solid move?

• For one, it just makes it easy to see where you put all your stuff

  • No more playing “find the headlamp” in the pitch black when you need something in the middle of the night

• Tent lighting is also a low-key safety feature if you’ve got little campers along who might need to find the tent door for a whizz break overnight

• Some people just enjoy having a soft glow to read by while cozied up in their sleeping bag (us included)

Whatever your reason is, we can all agree that lit tents look great and are super practical.

Any Downsides?

Of course, camping with the tent glowing like a lantern all night isn’t perfect. There are definitely some drawbacks you need to think about.

No Batteries

Battery life is going to suffer if you leave LED lights, lanterns, or string lights on all night.

If you do so, prepare for some serious juice drain by the next morning, unless you brought a generator for the trip (in which case, maybe just stay home and use your electric blanket?).

Light Leakage

Speaking of the glow, even those tiny tent lights can leak through the nylon walls enough to seriously cramp other campers trying to sleep in tents nearby.

And you know how obnoxious the camper with the all-night tent lantern can be when you’re trying to snooze in the wilderness, right? Don’t be that person!

Impact on Sleep Quality

Science shows that humans just don’t sleep as well with any sort of light on once bedtime hits.

Nobody wants to wake up feeling more exhausted on a camping trip, so make sure you think about this topic in particular.

How to Safely Light Up Your Tent Overnight

You’ve thought long and hard about the cons of having lights in your tent but still want to do it? Great!

The next step is to know how to do it.

The main goal is to use legitimate & safe tent lights without naked flames. If you don’t, you may see your tent catch fire.

Worried? Great.

Here’s what else you need to keep in mind when lighting up your tent overnight:

• Real camping lanterns and LED string lights won’t spontaneously combust and kill you (but take precautions)

• If you leave a lamp or lights too close to the tent walls and it gets crazy hot, the nylon may melt or catch fire

• Having a bit of dim light can be handy for midnight bathroom runs but it still might keep you from hitting that sweet deep sleep if you’re a light sleeper

Camping Lighting and Lightning Storm Risks

Leaving your tent lit up overnight can make things easier in so many ways. But could that send a signal flare to every thunderstorm within 50 miles? Absolutely not.

There’s a lot of noise around this topic, so let’s talk about what makes sense and what doesn’t:

• Despite what you might assume, your glowing nylon palace likely isn’t going to act like a massive lightning magnet

• Science says lightning is attracted to the tallest objects around, rather than lights

• That said, any light emission from your tent can hypothetically act like a low-level conductor that causes atmospheric electrical charges

• While the risk is relatively small, this buildup increases the odds that your tent’s space could be hit by a Lightning bolt jumping between the charged areas

Now before you freak out, we’re talking extremely low overall chances here.

Especially compared to big conductors like radio towers, or if your tent is surrounded by taller trees, those would be way more likely strike zones.

Is Your Tent a Target for a Lightning Strike?

The truth is, your tent and camp setup aren’t any bigger targets for lightning than you are.

Lightning prefers to strike the tallest object around, so unless you pitch your tent right on top of a massive flat plain, the taller trees and radio towers nearby are way more likely to get struck by lightning.

Your tent poles and camp stoves? They don’t really increase your risk at all.

What If I Get Stuck In A Thunderstorm While Camping?

Despite your best efforts, let’s say you misjudged the weather or a freak storm caught you off-guard while camping.

What’s the game plan?

• Get moving as soon as you hear thunder or see lightning strikes occur in the distance

• Start breaking down your tent right away while keeping an eye out for potential shelters

• If there are buildings or enclosed, hard-topped vehicles nearby, head for those shelters immediately, avoiding any tall & isolated objects along the way

• If in a group, spread out several yards apart so if one person does get struck, others won’t be impacted by the electric shock traveling through the ground

• If there’s absolutely no safe shelter around, your next best option is to seek out a low-lying area away from tall objects like trees

No matter what, avoid standing under trees, near poles, or towers, on high ground or open fields, and around bodies of water like lakes or streams, which can conduct electricity at surprising distances.

The Bigger Hazards: Flooding, Winds, and Evacuation Signals

While your tent can attract a lightning strike, there are bigger & more common issues with having your tent lit up in severe weather, such as:

• Any significant rainfall or potential flooding in your area could knock out the circuits on your light sources, leaving you stranded without visibility if you need to evacuate

• High winds and flying debris are other hazards that could easily break tent lights and leave you fumbling in the dark

• If campground staff or forest rangers are trying to signal you with lights or loud messages to take safe shelter, your own tent glow could cause you to miss those vital alerts

So while the lightning-magnet abilities of your tent are a relatively minor concern, the more pressing danger is losing your light sources unexpectedly in emergency scenarios.

Not being able to see or get instructions could put you in way more peril than a potential lightning strike.

Planning Ahead

As with any tent camping situation, the smartest way to handle an impending storm when tent lighting is to plan ahead before you’re stuck under the rain fly:

• Never head into the wilderness without first checking the local weather forecast for your destination

• If there are going to be any chances of storms during your trip, have a solid backup plan ready

• Have an evacuation route mapped out if heavy weather strikes while on site to seek a more secure emergency shelter

• And of course, bring along properly rated weather-proof lighting that won’t fail in a downpour if there’s a need to evacuate

• If you do wind up stuck sheltering in place when a storm rolls through, turn off all tent lighting and avoid using anything with open flames or excessive heat

Nature doesn’t always cooperate with our modern conveniences, like sleeping in a tent with lighting, so we have to be prepared.

Final Thoughts

Whether or not to light up your tent overnight on a camping trip is really a personal choice based on your own sleep needs and no matter what people say online, there’s no definitive right or wrong answer.

At the end of the day, camping is all about relaxing in nature, away from the daily grind. With smart planning and self-awareness, you can find your ideal tent light (or no light) for a solid night’s sleep during your camping trip.

The post Is It Safe To Sleep In A Tent With Lighting? appeared first on Rtivities.