10 Hacks That Make Camping With Kids Easier

Make a water lamp

While a small flashlight might help you find your way to the bathroom and back, it can be tricky to navigate a tent with a narrow beam of light. Grab a full water bottle and wrap a headlamp around it with the light facing in. Voila, you’ve got a camp lantern that will fill your tent with a comforting glow. 

Bring along a simple nature guide

Pick up a Pacific Northwest nature book for kids or local bird guide and let the kids look up plants and animals as you sit at your camp site or hike through the woods. Turn it into a scavenger hunt and see how many flowers from the book they can find, or how many birds they can identify by lunch time. Education and entertainment: win-win!

Roll up those clothes

Nothing makes a tent feel chaotic more quickly than piles of clothes thrown everywhere. Bring order to the chaos by rolling up outfits when you pack, so all your kids need to do it pick up a roll and they are good to go. Start by lying down a pair of pants and put socks, undies and a shirt on top. Roll everything up together, secure it with a rubber band and toss it in their bag. In the morning, tell your kids to grab a roll and they will be all set for the day. No more hunting through bags for socks. Genius! 

Make a hand-washing station

Camping is about getting up close and personal with the great outdoors, but all that dirt requires a lot of hand-washing, so set up your own hand-wash station. Not only will you save on back-and-forths to the bathroom, but the kids might also even want to wash their hands! Check out Making Memories With Your Kids for instructions.

Keep snacks safe from critters

The last thing you want at a campsite is open snack boxes that will surely attract critters. Try this ingenious idea from Stockpiling Moms that uses upcycled creamer containers for the small snacks kids like to munch on. 

Make a lanyard with cleaning supplies 

Carrying all of those little containers of shampoo and conditioner to the camp showers can be a balancing act (who hasn’t dropped the soap?). Attach each family member’s supplies to a lanyard, and then hang it over the shower head to keep it all off of the floor. This post on the Pop Up Princess blog shows you how to make your own.

Make mess-free s’mores

Camping just isn’t camping without gooey s’mores. But roasting marshmallows over an open flame doesn’t work very well with little ones. This genius alternative from Frugal Coupon Living is a cinch to make and a lot less messy to eat.

Make the forest floor a little comfier

Tent camping can be uncomfortable — especially at bedtime. Pad the tent floor with interlocking foam squares and you add a layer of softness under the sleeping bag and keep the cold from seeping in. Great for crawlers, too!

Make dinner in a single foil packet

Kids love to cook on a campfire but you want to keep things easy and clean. When it comes to campfire fire cooking, kitchen foil is your friend. You may have made foil-packet hamburgers at scout camp, but these foil-packet meals from Fresh off the Grid take campfire cooking up a level.

Relax your expectations

Taking your kids camping can be exciting, and lots of parents are eager to pass on traditions and have visions of a perfect family vacation. While you might want to go on a hike every day at dawn, be sure to remember that your children's idea of fun might look different. Forcing an activity that they do not want to do, never ends well.

Did you spend the whole morning watching your kid dig a hole with a stick at your campsite? Or spend hours throwing stones in a nearby stream? Relaxing your expectations will help you enjoy these simple moments watching your child explore and enjoy the natural world. And really, isn’t that what camping is all about?