Several friends recently have asked for my thoughts on camping and how to make it feasible when one has young kids. Many other people are far more experienced campers and have much more systematic setups, but I’ll share a bit of what we do. Hopefully you can glean what’s helpful and ignore the rest.

To start with a bit of context, our family does an occasional one night car camping trip, a few two-night camping or backpacking trips, and an annual 2-3week long car camping trip (with a backpacking trip sandwiched in there somewhere).

My biggest piece of advice is keep things simple. Camping involves loading, unloading, setting up, and watching your busy kids and… don’t feel like you have to do everything perfectly. Give yourself permission to do what works for your family.

This post assumes that you are camping at a campground with bathrooms and a site with a picnic table.

Basic things you may need for camping:

  • tent
  • sleeping bags
  • sleeping pads
  • food
  • way to prepare, cook, and serve the food.
  • clothes
  • water

Tent: Each family has their own style. Some families have a mega tent. We use smaller tent(s) so we can use them for backpacking as well as car camping. When car camping, we often set up two tents — one for everyone to sleep in (since we’re not okay with the boys sleeping in their own tent in bear country yet) and one to hold clothes bags/serve as a changing room for the boys. Our main tents are small enough that we can simply shake them upside down to get the dirt out of them at the end of camping trip.

Update: it’s two years later and the boys sleep in their own tent right next to ours.

We have a laundry basket that holds the footprint for under the tent, the lantern, matches, whisk broom, 5 gallon water bladder, towel/mat for by the tent door, propane for the lantern and the cookstove… That basket is permanently packed and stored with the camping stuff. The entire basket gets loaded into the van.

We also have a smaller tote (slightly bigger than a shoebox) that has our headlamps, toilet paper, hammer, extra tent pegs, batteries, bug repellent, sunscreen, first aid kit, and hand sanitizer in it. (BTW, hand sanitzer and/or rubbing alcohol is great for getting tree sap off of hands…)

Clothes: We have cloth duffle bags handcrafted by grandmother – a unique bag fabric for each person to keep them easily distinguishable. We also have a mesh dirty clothes bag or two that dirty clothes get shoved into until laundry day. We layer a lot here in our state. Evenings and mornings are cool and days are warm. I pack a roomy fleece layer for kids that can fit over their everyday clothes, but no pajamas. At night, we change them into their clothes for the next day and then put a fleece layer over their every-day clothes. Then they’re instantly ready to go the next morning. And I can pull off the fleece layers as the day gets warm.

Trying to simplify packing kids clothes?
I line up the kids duffle bags and toss in a pair of pants, shirt, socks, and underpants for each day. And a fleece top and bottom. And an extra jacket/sweatshirt if the weather requires it. And a backup pair of sandals/shoes for when the first pair gets soaked in a lake.

Sleeping bags: Each person has a sleeping bag and pillow. There’s not really an easy way to simplify this. We do have smaller pillows (not full size) for the kids that go on camping trips to save space.

Sleeping pads: Ours are 1.5″ self-inflating, rollable sleeping pads. The boys have the lighter weight foam ones. We all sleep better with them. For babies and little kids, we make a bedroll out of fleece blankets for them to sleep on/under. Just don’t overheat them — babies can stay much warmer than one would anticipate. I’ve given my <2yr olds heat rash more often than they’ve gotten cold. We typically pack extra fleece blankets (one per boy) to toss over the boys’ sleeping bags later on cold nights.

Food: This is where I keep it simple, but this is where each family may differ dramatically. My key is: what are the simple meals you prepare at home and how can you easily take them with you? Think of shelf-stable foods or of things you can prepare ahead of time, freeze, put in the ice chest and just thaw/heat. Or let yourself grab some convenience foods if it works for your family: diced, precooked chicken, shelf-stable bacon, tuna packets, pre-flavored rice or pasta sides.

To simplify the packing, I have a “Kitchen tote” that has all my camping kitchen needs in it. Two cook pans, a flexible cutting board, spatula, knife, plates, bowls, cups, silverware, can opener, towels, washcloth, matches, salt/pepper/lemon pepper, cooking oil, small container of Dawn, package of wipes for small hands, hand sanitizer, small trash bags/plastic grocery bag… When we go camping, I just pack that tote — no preparation needed. We do all of our cooking on a Coleman propane stove (stored atop the kitchen tote) since we often have a fire/burn ban in effect at our campgrounds. And who wants to start up a fire to cook over when the kids are hungry NOW?

I also keep a duffle bag with shelf-stable food stored in it all summer long. Ritz crackers, summer sausage, granola bars, goldfish, trail mix, tuna cans, chicken cans, pasta sides, oatmeal packets, peanut butter-premixed-with-honey (the only time we use that)…. all our favorite convenience foods are already to go when we decide to go camping. I only have to think through and gather the freezer/fridge things. If I think we might have a camping trip coming up, I’ll make sure I freeze some meal leftovers to have on hand for an easy heat-it-up camping meal.

We use our water bottles all the time, so I just have to make sure that they are filled and in the van. And fill the 5 gallon water bladder if there won’t be water at the campsite.

Random hacks:

  • My favorite kitchen tool is a miniature spatula that I use to scrape down all the dishes before we wash them.
  • I love to serve things in bowls because it can easier for kids to eat out of bowls AND it’s easier to wash bowls in a the wash pot (which is also one of the cook pots).
  • I use the same pots (that nest for easy packing) for cooking and for dish-washing. So I use one (usually the one I cooked the meal in) for wash water and one for rinse water. Many of our campsites don’t allow soap to be used, so I only use a tiny amount or non at all.
  • Use a small piece of flannel (dries fastest after you’re done) or super lightweight wash cloth to wash the bowls off with hot water, rinse, and lay on a towel to dry/be dried.
  • After the final meal of the trip, I just stack the dishes in a plastic bag and take them home to wash them thoroughly there.
  • Baby wipes save the day for faces, hands, and other small messes. I never attempt bathing kids until we get home.
  • My kids have long, lightweight cotton pants (instead of shorts) that they wear in almost any weather. Keeps them less bug-eaten and their skin cleaner (and the sleeping bags too).
  • Fruits and veggies often keep fairly well — consider tossing in some onions and peppers, slicing and cooking them down, adding some canned, diced chicken and fajita seasoning, and wrapping in tortiallas or serving over rice/quinoa for a real-food meal.

What a SUPER simple three-day/two night meal plan might look like for us:

Arrive in the afternoon. Day 1 Supper: frozen taco soup tossed in a pot on the cookstove. Heat it up. Serve with crackers (or tortilla chips if you’re good about not crunching them while packing).
Day 2 Breakfast: oatmeal packets and apples/bananas
Day 2 Lunch: chicken and cheese quesadillas (tortillas, shredded cheese, can of chicken)
Day 2 Supper: Knorr/Lipton Pasta Sides and a can of chicken.
Day 3 Breakfast: granola bars/oatmeal/peanut butter-honey-tortilla rollups.
Day 3 Lunch: summer sausage, cheese slices, Ritz crackers (also easy to take on a hike)
Note: for this meal plan, I only need a small, personal size or even soft-sided ice chest/lunch bag.

More ambitious meal plan (but still not too crazy):
Day 1 Supper: frozen taco soup w/ tortilla chips
Day 2 Breakfast: Biscuits (made before the trip) and sausage gravy (Brown the sausage before the trip and add the flour and freeze. Morning of: dump the sausage mixture in a pot and add shelf-stable milk and stir til it thickens. Serve over the biscuits.)
Day 2 Lunch: meat/cheese/tortilla rollups Or peanut butter/honey/tortilla rollups for the littles.
Day 2 Supper: hotdogs (frozen and stored in the ice chest) and wrapped in tortillas (instead of squishy buns) and finger veggies/chips
Day 3 Breakfast: Scrambled eggs and sausage (Dice pre-cooked sausage and mix with raw scrambled egg mixture in advance and freeze. Store in ice chest. Morning of: dump in oiled pot and cook.)
Day 3 Lunch: Summer sausage/cheese/crackers

These thoughts are incomplete and based on our camping basics. I’d love to hear what works for you too!