How to set up a hammock like a pro

Hammock camping is the ultimate, funnest, most adventurous camping experience that outdoor explorers and enthusiast could have. It’s the perfect choice for every outdoor endeavor, making your backpack lighter, saving up space and making it a lot easier to set up a shelter for the night.

However, despite hammock camping being a rather straightforward and intuitive way of camping, it still is absolutely vital to know how to set you hammock properly in order to have the coziest sleep and the best, more regenerating rest.

Se here is a quick and easy guide to how to set up a hammock like a pro.

How to set up a hammock properly and have the best sleep

Let’s start from the basics: to have the ultimate hammock camping experience you don’t start from your hammock. You start from trees: two, to be precise. This is exactly the reason why Madera Outdoors plants two trees for every hammock purchased.

Of course, the reason is not just so that people can set up hammocks, but actually to help areas of the Planet where the lack of trees, due to deforestation and human intervention, is causing environmental destruction and social difficulties. By planting trees together with Madera’s planting partner Trees.org in countries like Uganda, Senegal, Kenya, Tanzania and Cameroon, farming families are provided with sustainable sources of food, livestock fodder, fuel and forest products that they can consume or sell in nearby markets.

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So for the ultimate hammock camping adventure you, first of all, need a healthy, strong, wild Planet. And two trees.

These two trees should be between 3 and 5 meters distant from each other, and of course have a strong structure that can support your weight. This means they should have a diameter of at least 15cm, and no dead trees of course!

Once you spotted the two fellas that can work for you, you want to make sure there’s nothing that might fall on you from above: no funny branches, no animal nests, no insects - and so on.

When attaching your hammock to the trees, this should be at your own head height: use your hammock straps and suspension cords in generale to tie the hammock to the trunk.

Now, the hammock should be right in the middle between the two trees and should not be closer to one or the other. This is very important in order to distribute the weight properly and allow both trees and hammock to work well together and guarantee the best sleep.

By hanging the hammock on the trees at your head height, the height of the lower point of the hammock should result in about chair height. Unless you deliberately choose to hang your hammock very high, this will allow you to get in and out the hammock comfortably. Otherwise, make sure you know how to reach it and how to get off. Otherwise, your resting time could turn into a nightmare, especially if you have to get up in the middle of the night for a quick pee ;)

By chair height we intend about half a meter from the ground. Starting by this component, you can work out all the rest. To have your hammock at this kind of height is very convenient also for all the other camping activities: it will serve you like a chair, indeed, where you can even host another one or two people. It can be a relaxing spot for zero days and, in general, the easy access will make it more comfortable and practical.

When setting up a hammock, always remember that the flatter the angle of your hang, the greater the force applied to the suspension. Translated, it means you want to make sure to leave enough slack to avoid breakages and too much stress on the gear. Also, flat hammocks are not comfortable for sleeping, as they don’t adapt to your spine properly.

If you want the ultimate hammock hang, you can even turn to Apps: there’s plenty of hammock hang calculators that will help you work out the perfect angle for your hammock, so you can make sure to really obtain the perfect result.