Inside Prepper Camp: Saluda’s charm, real-world gear, and why community matters

We share a ground-level look at Prepper Camp 2025 at Orchard Lake Campground, from a stormy tent setup to smooth power management, standout vendors, and a community vibe that makes learning easy. Along the way we test real gear, explore Saluda, and rethink EDC vs bug‑out priorities.

• Orchard Lake Campground setting and logistics
• EcoFlow Delta II, Renogy solar, and 12‑volt fridge performance
• Food truck choices, timing, and morale
• Saluda’s small-town pace and why it matters
• Bench-side conversation and community takeaways
• 2026 reservations, timing, and Tent City changes
• Garmin inReach Mini 2 tracking and battery notes
• Starlink and campground Wi‑Fi tradeoffs
• Teaser: EDC-first mindset from the bug‑out class

Augason Farms
Support the podcast. Click on my affiliate link and use coupon code PODCASTPREP for 10% discount! 

https://augasonfarms.com?sca_ref=9315862.VpHzogdDNu

Augason Farms
Support the podcast. Click on my affiliate link and use coupon code PODCASTPREP for 10% discount!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening Banter & Episode Plan
• 1:13 Gear Deals: EcoFlow and Augustin Farms
• 3:07 Orchard Lake Campground Overview
• 4:42 What Prepper Camp Offers
• 6:36 Saluda’s Small-Town Vibe
• 9:07 Stormy Setup and Tent City
• 10:46 First Impressions and Vetting
• 13:01 Food Trucks and Midday Rush
• 16:01 Community Feel on the Hill
• 18:46 2026 Dates, Reservations, Tips

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:17

To the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast, where prepping doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. Coming to you from a well-defended off-grid compound high in the mountains. Coming to you from his Florida room in Richmond, Virginia. Neither off-grid nor well-defended, unless you count as chickens and cats, here is your host, Keith.

SPEAKER_00: 0:41

Hey everybody, this is Keith and welcome back to the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast, September 30th, 2025. And this will be one of maybe three podcasts I do on Prepper Camp, my very first prepper camp. I would try to jam it all into one, but I'd probably end up rambling on for about 45 minutes or so. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to go ahead and split this up probably into two or three separate podcasts. Get the administrative stuff out of the way. I noticed today that Ecoflow is having some tremendous pre-prime day sales. I took my Delta II and that 400-watt Renegy solar blanket that worked fantastic. The folks next to me had a Delta II as well and another small device. It kind of looked like a Jackery. I don't recall the name, but it was Orange. That's why it reminded me of a Jackery. But just quickly, the EcoFlow Delta Pro is$1,400, which is more than half off. The EcoFlow Delta Pro extra battery is also$400,$1,400, and that's right about half off. So I am kind of torn. I don't know if I want to get another Delta Pro and then get the bridge to run$240 or get the extra battery. So that'll give me my original Delta Pro and two batteries, which brings me up to about 13 kilowatts, is a lot for what I'm doing. It runs my garage, it runs the chicken coops. So I'm kind of torn. I haven't decided which one I'm going to get, but I haven't seen these prices this low since I started doing research and since I purchased my first Delta Pro three, three and a half years ago. Another quick shameless plug about Augustin Farms, part of the affiliate program. I'll put the link in the show notes. Podcast prep at checkout to get an additional 10% off your order. And they have some incredible sales going on. Earlier this month, they did a lot of September's Preparedness Month. So that's how they branded them. And I think we'll have one or two days left in September. But just yesterday they added a bunch of additional sales. So do me a favor, go over and head over there, check them out. If you like what you see, please use the affiliate link. If not, that's cool too. But they've got some great, great prices on some of their products right now. Okay, all of the administrative stuff is out of the way. Let me talk to you about Orchard Lake Campground. This is a family-owned campground, open April through November. RV sites, tent sites, cabins, kid-friendly stuff to do, swimming, fishing, hiking, and it's not like one of the large commercial campgrounds, nothing against KOA and Jelly Stone and all those, but the scenery is beautiful and it's just a very relaxed vibe that the whole area gives off. And prepper camp takes place here three full days. So it's a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for the classes. And this particular year was September 26, 27, 28. Over 75 vendors, 64 classes. They had movies, live music, prizes. You can get a three-day pass. It's non-refundable, but it's transferable. So in the event something happens and you can't make it, give your ticket to somebody else. To pay for your camping, that's separate from prepper camp. You can make your reservations. If you're going to make your reservations, make them early. Now the dates for prepper camp 26 have not come out yet, but I assume it's going to be late in September next year. However, you can now make your reservations at Orchard Lake Campground if you want to try to get a spot reserved for next year. So give them a call or go to the website. There's all sorts of details. I suggest you do it sooner than later. So let me tell you about the town of Saluda. It was very misty, very foggy. And it's Saluda's in the foothill of the Appalachians, and it's just the tiny, a tiny gem of a town. Population of about 800. I'm not even sure if they have a stoplight. Little quirky shops, mom and pop restaurants, that unhurried southern charm, just right straight out of like the Andy Griffiths show. So if Mayberry had a zip code or if Mayberry was a real town, then it would definitely be a town like Saluda. So I rolled in Thursday afternoon, gray skies, spitting rain. So I got checked in, ended up in Tent City, where I had my reservation. And the sites, the little tent city sites, are not super close to each other. And you have plenty of room for your tent, plenty of room to spread out. And I met my neighbors on both sides, great folks, talked with them several times over the weekend. But I barely got my tent set up, the whole campsite set up, and then it just cut loose. There was a river of water running under my Jeep and running down through the rest of the tent city. But you know, it was prepper camp and nobody complained about the rain because we were all there to have a good time. And if you properly prepared for the weather, you knew what was coming and it wasn't going to be a big deal at all. So that's Thursday night. Friday morning, the weather broke much more clear. Whipped up a little breakfast at camp, eggs, bacon, coffee, sausage. And then a little bit after nine, I went ahead and headed towards the event itself. So here's my first impression quality from top to bottom. Rick and Jane Austen, who run Prepper Camp, it's this is their baby. 12 years running now. They vet every single speaker, vendor, food truck person. The vendors are top quality, no cheap knockoffs, no cheap imports, just solid gear for folks who know what they want. The food was fantastic. So right inside the prepper camp perimeter, I guess, where the vendors start, was a large tent, and just think like carnival food. Burgers, footlongs, corn dogs, chicken fingers, and up on the hill, there was a I call it a dessert truck with banana pudding. Fantastic. So Saturday, after I had breakfast, I had a milkshake, I had banana pudding, and I didn't eat until later on, and that's when I had a corndog and some chicken fingers. There's another food truck up there that's like Hispanic and pananas, tacos, everything under the sun. I didn't get a chance to eat there because between classes, they take like a lunch break. All the classes stop, and a lot of people drive in. There are some people who stay at the campground, don't get me wrong, but a lot of people drive in and they'll either run back to their car if they had a cooler. But a lot of people just go up to the food trucks and get in line because the food is just that good. And then also up on the hill next to the dessert truck and the Hispanic food truck was like a deli truck. And I just got so busy I didn't even get a chance to check out the deli truck. But I hope they're there next year because I'm definitely gonna try them out. There was a food truck trailer down among the vendors towards the back that had some of the best coffee, smoothie. I had a strawberry milkshake that was absolutely a 10 out of 10. So this is all woven in and it just gives a very family-like vibe, a family-like reunion type of situation, because many of these people have been here before. They're seeing each other for the first time in a year. So it's just a very chill, non-judgmental, a bunch of like-minded people, and it just is so low-key, there's no stress. And as I was coming back from lunch, the days just melt into each other. Friday coming back from lunch, there's a little park bench that sits on top of the hill that overlooks all of prepper camp. The vendors, the parking lot, and I don't know how many tents, six, eight tents, where all the speakers are. And there was a young lady sitting on the park bench. And I walked up to her and I couldn't resist. I said, ma'am, you've got the best seat in the house. And she waved me over. She says, Well, why don't you share the park bench with me? So I sat down and like turned into like a half-hour, 45-minute conversation. Her husband was in a class, and I guess he was asking questions after the class ended, which a lot of people do. And we just sat there and just BSed about all sorts of things where we're from, where we live now, what we used to do, what we do now. And then we talked about prepping. We talked about some storage hacks and some storage issues, the type of the area they live in, the type of neighborhood, and just how nice it is. And it was just really, really nice. It's like we had known each other for a long time. It was just a very comfortable conversation. And I know that may sound kind of silly, but in a world of echo chambers and people living and working in silos, it was a real, genuine conversation. So if self-reliance is your jam, mark your calendars for prepper camp 2026. Again, the dates are not locked in, but we're looking at late September. Same place, Orchard Lake Campground in Saluda, North Carolina. You can go you can just Google Prepper Camp. I think the folks at the campground office said the tickets go on sale. I think I heard her say Black Friday, but don't quote me on that. But do go to their website, make a reservation now. I know the people that stayed there this year, they have first dibs on their spot next year. So if they had an RV spot this year, they have the opportunity to make the reservation now and say, Oh, I'm Mr. Jones, I want my RV spot. Mrs. Smith, I want the same tent spot, not tent city, the same tent spot that I had this past year. So it's kind of nice that you get you get first dibs on getting your same type of spot. So I have already made my reservation and requested a tent spot. The reason I requested a tent spot is that the area of tent city this year very soon will be RV spots. So I really don't know where or if there's gonna be a tent city for 2026. I don't have any inside information, but I think of the popularity, there's gonna have to be a tent city somewhere because if they're not already sold out now, as far as the reserve spots for RVs and tent spots, it's gonna be sold out very, very soon. And then with 10 city, it comes as a first come, first served basis. So if you guys have any questions about prepper camp, you can reach me at practical preppodcast at gmail.com. Again, I'm on the Twitters, Common Sense Practical Prepper or Prep underscore Podcast is the official handle. Before I forget, I did bring my in-reach mini to. I did set it to ping my location every 10 minutes and make a wave point on a map. And I did share that map with a couple different folks, and they replied back to me saying that it was working. And then when I look at the map, you can basically see everywhere that I went. I had it set for 10 minutes and I went to 20 minutes. The battery did fantastic. I have a family member over in the EU, and they went hiking over the weekend, and they also turned on their in-reach mini too and shared their map with me, and it worked flawlessly. I could see the change of elevation, how fast this person or how slow this person was walking. They shared the grade. It was like a 53% grade at one point. They're getting ready for a much more difficult hike here very soon. And this was kind of a shakedown hike for a lot of their equipment that they had purchased. So the Delta II did fantastic. I had it hooked up to the 12-volt fridge, an Ice Co 12-volt fridge. And the thing about the fridge, I made sure that I took about 10 bottles of water two days before I left. I put them in my freezer. I then transferred those frozen bottles to the fridge. I plugged the fridge in to the cigarette lighter plug in my Jeep, but it barely ran because I told the fridge to, I think I had the temperature in the in the Jeep all the way up there like 42 degrees to keep everything cold but not frozen. However, with the frozen water and the insulation in this little 12-volt fridge, it kept things a little bit cooler than that. When I left Sunday, three of those bottles were still solid ice. So I gave my little 12-volt fridge a head start. It didn't have to work as hard. And it was in the tent when it kicked on for the five or 10 minutes that it needed to get back down to temperature. It was only pulling about 57 watts. And that barely touched the Delta II. The 400 watt Renegy solar blanket did fantastic. Even in the rain, it was pulling between 30 and 50 watts. When the sun hit it, I was in, I was in between a bunch of trees, but when the sun hit it, I was getting about 225, 235. And it wasn't the best angle because it just kind of lays flat on the ground, but it did more than I needed it to do for the particular setup that I had. Now I had other items I did not plug in my laptop. I did bring the Starlink. The Starlink was fantastic. I had that on for a day and messed around with it, and it did great. Now, where I was in Tent City, there is Wi-Fi there in the campground, but we were, I picked up maybe one or two bars of the Wi-Fi, but it was enough that if I needed to check my email or make a video call, I was able to do that without any huge issues. Again, I stayed off social media for a reason. And of course, if you listened to the last podcast, you realize what happened once I stopped to get gas and found out that all hell was breaking loose. All right, folks, in the next edition of my Prepper Camp 2025 recap, I'll talk about the classes that I went to on Friday and Saturday, the people that I met. The drone class was fantastic. The bug out bag. Wait till you hear about the bug out bag class. This young lady who taught this, and here's the little teaser: each speaker, instructor gets an hour. And once your hour's up, everybody has 15 minutes to get to their next class. It's perfect timing. Everything's so close, you can run to the potty and grab yourself a soda or one of those fantastic milkshakes and then head to your next class. Her bug out bag class, almost at the hour mark, she had just started talking about her bug out bag itself. For most of the class, she went through her EDC or her everyday carry on what she just carries on her person. And she's about five foot nothing, and she carries a wallet, and she takes out this wallet, and it took her 20 minutes to go through everything. She goes, Oh, here's some fishing line. Oh, and look at this. And here's a bandage. Oh, here's, and I'm like, where is this like the everlasting wallet? Where is it? It's like a bag of holding in Dungeons and Dragons. Where is she getting all this stuff? And she just went into her pocket. Here's a flashlight. Here's a here's a pocket knife. And at the very end, she just started getting into her bag. And to me, that was fantastic. I'm thinking, you just did an hour on the stuff you have on your person and in your pockets. Who cares about the bug out bag? I was just totally mesmerized on the fact that she took about 45 minutes and didn't even get to the bag. All the stuff that she carried. And the great thing about it was, and I think, let me see if I can do this, do this some justice. She said, What good is my bug out bag? Or what good is my bag and my car if I don't have the items on me that will allow me to get to my bag? And it's just one of those things where you're like, that makes sense. What good is your bag if you don't have the items on you to help you get to your bag? But I'll go into more about that class and the Mestastic class, the butchering class, the drone class, class that Rick taught on living off grid, and then Jane, I think hers was like homestead reality. And also, it was just, it was an absolutely fantastic time. I'll tell you about some people I met and some things that I purchased. All right, folks, again, thanks for stopping by. I appreciate all the emails. I appreciate all the downloads. The episode I did on Run Hide Fight quickly becoming one of the more popular episodes. And then the one I did as soon as I got home Sunday night about the situations in North Carolina and Michigan also is trending to be one of the more popular podcasts. All right, folks, and as always, be safe out there. Take care of one another, and until next time.

SPEAKER_01: 18:47

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