How do I pray while hiking or camping?

The whole earth is a place of prayer

The Prophet ﷺ said the earth has been made a place of prayer and a means of purification for his community, so wherever prayer time reaches you, you pray there (Sahih al-Bukhari 335). A forest clearing, a rock on a summit or the grass beside your tent all work. Pick a spot that is free of animal droppings and reasonably flat. A towel, jacket or foam pad can serve as a mat, but you don't strictly need one. See Do I need a prayer mat to pray?

Wudu with little water

Water is precious on the trail, but wudu needs much less than people think: a small bottle is enough if you wash each part once. If you're wearing hiking socks or boots you put on after wudu, you can wipe over them instead of washing your feet; see Do I have to take off my socks every time I make wudu? If you truly have no water, or you need what you have for drinking, do tayammum with clean earth or stone:

Step-by-step: How do I do tayammum?

Finding the qibla and the time

• Qibla: download offline maps or a qibla app before you lose signal, or use the sun, a compass or the stars. See How do I find the qibla without an app? If you try your best and turn out to be a little off, your prayer is still valid.
• Times: save a prayer timetable for the area offline. In general, Dhuhr starts just after the sun passes its highest point, Asr in the mid-afternoon, and Maghrib right after sunset.

Shortening and combining

A day hike near home is not travel, so you pray as normal. A camping trip far from home is a different case: most scholars count a journey of roughly 80 km (about 50 miles) or more as travel, which allows you to shorten four-unit prayers to two and, in the view of the Shafi'i and Hanbali schools, combine Dhuhr with Asr and Maghrib with Isha. The Hanafi school allows shortening but only combines at Hajj. If your group is on the move, you can pray voluntary prayers while walking or riding, but obligatory prayers should be prayed standing on the ground unless you can't.