The Simple Pool Noodle Hack That Will Keep Your Tent Safe While You Camp

You've spent months picking the perfect national park for your next outdoor adventure. You planned your perfect road trip route across the U.S. to reach the campsite. You've packed up your essentials to make your camping trip as quick and easy as possible. After a little struggle, you manage to get your brand-new tent up. Almost immediately, a kid running by trips over the guyline, sending her sprawling and yanking one of your stakes out of the ground. The solution? Run your tent line through pool noodles so it's noticeable.

As frustrating as it is that people seem to be constantly tripping over them, especially after nightfall, you need guylines on your tent. And, as tempting as it may be to eliminate these little tripwires from crowded campsites, they really are necessary for keeping your tent upright, especially when it's pouring or there's heavy wind. All you can do is make them as visible as possible to avoid accidents — and what's more visible than a big colorful foam tube?

Pool noodles are polyethylene foam tubes that float in water, which makes them the perfect toy for swimmers to use to stay afloat. They're also brightly colored. This makes them fun for kids to run around with on beach days but also makes them very noticeable, which is exactly what you need for this hack. Someone could easily miss a thin, black cord pulled taut across a campsite, but they probably won't miss a bright, yellow foam tube floating in the air. Even if they do somehow manage to run into it anyway, at least it's squishy!

As demonstrated on the TikTok channel WhereWeWild, adding pool noodles to your tent lines could not be simpler. All you need to do is thread the guyline through the hole that's already in the noodles before you pull them taut and stake them down. The noodles might get a little dirty from being exposed to the elements during your camping trip, but if you give them a rinse-off afterward, they should still be ready to float around in the pool with you after your trip.

You might think after years of camping we would learn not to trip over the guylines on our tents, but those little cords are tricky. Whether you're trying to unload the van with your arms full of blankets or sneaking out to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, it seems like these wires are designed to trip you up. Luckily, if you can't get your hands on pool noodles, there are a lot of other solutions that innovative campers have come up with to make the tent lines more noticable.

If you want to buy a specialized product, there are reflective cords and light up stakes that will help, especially at night. For a DIY version, you can loop glow sticks around the stakes. This might make your campsite feel like a rave, but should keep anyone from getting tripped. For a really festive option, you can even get pennant string flags and string them up with the guy lines.