Stressed? Unwind with calming, food-focused motorcycle camping videos

Admittedly, YouTube isn’t always the most relaxing place on the internet. Dig around a bit, though, and you’ll find communities of riders taking it easy and enjoying the quiet side of riding. One of my very favorite rabbit holes to visit is a growing trend of overnight campers in Southeast Asia who travel to idyllic forests with saddlebags full of top-shelf camping gear and loads of food. They document the process of setting up the perfect campsite, then pivot to an informal kind of cooking show with all kinds of gourmet meals. I risk insulting them by calling it glamping, or “glamorous camping,” but I call ‘em like I see ‘em.

The best of these videos skip voiceovers, relying on occasional subtitles and quiet music to focus on the experience. I also like to check out the gear they're using to improve my own kit. Here are two nice examples I recently watched to wind down at the end of the day.

The first comes from the prolific Brewok Pengembara channel. This overnighter’s menu features spaghetti carbonara, sardines over rice in a spicy red tomato sauce, and a tidy little camper’s breakfast of spuds, sausage, and eggs. Sign me up. Sardines are a perfect motorcycle camping protein, in my opinion.

The second comes from a channel called CAMP STONE featuring a Bonneville, two campers, and some spam/onion/egg dishes that would put some of my past camp meals to shame. Hand-ground pourover coffee eases them into the following morning.

I wish I could tell you how to find more of these videos besides using YouTube’s related videos tab, but I can’t speak or read a word of Indonesian or Thai. There are some great videos coming out of Japan, too. Hope you find a few moments’ peace chilling out with some campers around the world. I think a short-haul overnighter with an excessive focus on food and neat camping gear is in my near future.