Make Beach Time More Enjoyable with These Beach Hacks
Pinterest is filled with amazing Beach Hack ideas, from keeping sand away from your items with a fitted sheet, to freezing aloe cubes to cure sunburn. But here are some other simple solutions for pesky beach issues to help make your beach time more enjoyable.
Issue #1: Rising Tides. This happens to all of us at some point or another. We head to the beach on a crowded day and the only spot available is one right by the water. But we forgot to look up the tide chart, so we don’t know if we’ll have to move our stuff if the tide is coming in.
Solution: Tape a tide chart to the inside of your cell phone cover. While you can always go online to check a tidal chart, save your phone charge and eye strain and tape a small chart to the inside of your cell phone cover. If you don’t have access to a chart that’s small enough to fit, take a screen shot of an online tidal chart and save it in a folder on your phone for easy access. We like the physical chart in the cell phone cover because we’d rather save our battery life for taking photos or ordering beach delivery.
Issue #2: Getting the sand off. Let’s face it – at the beach, sand is inevitable. Shore towns with boardwalks often have foot rinses to get the sand off your feet or lower legs, but not always. While you can rinse your feet in the ocean, once you travel across the sand you’re even more sandy than when you began. And on windy days, that sand can also attach itself to other body parts, like thighs, arms or torsos. You can try to wipe it off with a towel, but that doesn’t always work either, especially when you’ve lathered yourself up with sunscreen.
Solution: Baby powder. This hack is pretty popular for a good reason – it works. We don’t know how, just that it does. Simply sprinkle baby powder on your affected body part and wipe away. Voila! No more sand. The only issue with this hack is the potential impact on the ecosystem, so we would suggest applying the baby powder over a towel and then shaking it out over a trashcan.
Issue #3: Protecting cell phones from sand. There are products on the market designed to keep your cell phone safe, but the problem comes in for people with larger cell phones, such as the iPhone Plus line. Often, the expensive plastic sleeves just aren’t big enough to house larger phones.
Solution: Sandwich Baggies. Cheap, readily available, reusable and simple. With a baggie, you can still activate touchscreen functions, make phone calls and hear music and notifications. We would just suggest that you keep your phone in the baggie so that it doesn’t blow away and get into the ocean – baggies are not good for our ocean friends!
Issue #4: Keeping water cold. Sure, you can lug a cooler with ice to keep your drinks cool, but why do that when perhaps all you want is a bottle of water? Yet on a hot day, a bottle of water is going to heat up pretty quickly.
Solution: Just take ice. You can prolong the coolness of your drink simply by filling a glass bottle or other insulated container with ice and letting nature do it’s thing. Eventually, the ice will melt into cold, refreshing water. Another trick is to take a frozen bottle of water to the beach and drink it as it melts. However, there have been some health risks associated with this so you may just wish to fill a glass with water and freeze that.
Issue #5: Hiding valuables. It’s a hot summer day and you need to get in the water to cool off. But you have a cell phone, cash, credit cards and other small valuables that you want to keep safe. How do you best hide them to keep them out of sight of potential opportunists?
Solution: Hide them in common containers. Most would-be thieves aren’t going to go after sunscreen or foot containers, so hiding your valuables in such common containers is a no-brainer. An empty game box makes a great hiding place for your cell phone and keeps it out of the sun. And a hollowed Chapstick tube is a great place to roll up your bills and keep them out of sight.
For more beach hack ideas, visit our Pinterest page.
