There are few things like getting out for a weekend of camping. Connecting to the great outdoors and leaving the busy hectic pace of your everyday life behind you is something that many people greatly look forward to.

What’s more is that if you plan your camping adventure wisely, you can actually do your fitness proud as well. Many of the activities that you do while camping can burn a great deal of calories, so help whip you into shape quickly.

Let’s look at some of these good calorie burners so you know where to focus your efforts.

Hiking

The first of the activities you’ll want to try out is hiking. If you are looking for a massive calorie burner, this would be it. Especially if you are camping in a mountainous region and choose to take one of the trails that are offered there.

Bring along a couple of hiking poles and you’ll up your calorie burn even further. The great thing about this is that because you are climbing those hills, you can strengthen your quads, hamstrings, glutes, as well as your core all while burning fat quickly.

Expect to burn around 450 calories per hour of hiking that you do.

Building A Fire

As the sun sets, you might find yourself getting ready to start up a campfire. Here’s another chance to take your calorie burn to the next level. Chopping wood is a great way to strengthen your entire upper body and core, and will even bring your lower body into play slightly as well.

This fat blasting activity can torch 400-500 calories per hour depending on how vigorously you do it.

Over the course of your camping trip, this could really add up.

Fishing

Fishing is another fun activity many people take part in while camping and while you aren’t moving a whole lot while waiting for the catch, once you have a fish on your line, you’ll be moving frantically to get it in.

Standing by the edge of the river/lake fishing will burn around 130-180 calories per hour, which if you go out for five to six hours, will add up.

Swimming

Finally, if it’s a warm day and you decide to jump into the lack and go for a swim, you’ll be getting a full body workout while burning calories quickly. If you are swimming quite rapidly, you can expect to burn around 400-600 calories per hour, depending on your body weight.

Also don’t forget that you can also do other water sport activities such as tubing or water skiing, both of which will keep you active while on your holiday.

So don’t think that just because you are going away for the weekend, you can’t include fitness as part of your trip. It’s definitely possible to burn off some of those camping goodies you eat while possibly even making some improvements to your fitness level as well.

[Image via Getty]