Most people ask: How do I keep my kids busy while camping? Well, there are tens of things to do when camping with family.
Children get bored easily, and so will you especially when it rains and you have to stay cooped up in your tent.
Here, we will bring you 15 exciting activities that you can do for fun when camping. These range from camping activities at night, camping activities for adults and even camping activities for preschoolers.
Here is a brief look at some of the activities:
Table of Contents
What are some camping activities to engage in?
These are many. In fact, you should never have a boring moment when you are in your tent or in your campsite.
Whether you are doing dispersed camping in a national forest or organized camping in a campground, you will love these activities.
1. Making a fire without lighter or matchsticks
I bet you never thought of this as a game, did you now?
However, going Stone Age style and trying to make a fire by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, or knocking a rock against each other is very interesting.
Well, to tell you the truth, you might never succeed, but it will be a lot of fun all the same. Knowing how to make a fire with sticks is a skill that you can pass on to your children.
2. Tell stories at night
If you have a fire pit, sit around the fire at night and swap stories. I guess this also means that you have to keep your gadgets away. Time for junior to learn how to tell a story!
Give everyone a chance to tell their story. Even the deaf and the blind have a story to tell, as the Desiderata poem tells us.
3. Cooking
Assuming you have brought your camping cookware and stove, prepare meals and drinks together. Everyone gets an opportunity to do something.
Some can collect the wood to make a fire, others can peel potatoes or something and others can do the dishes. This sort of collective effort keeps families together.
Read this article to see no –cook camping foods to carry with you if you do not fancy cooking.
4. Identify flora and fauna
To make this even more fun, you will need to do one thing – buy a book that records the flora and fauna of the place where you will be camping.
You can then engage the kids in having fun and biology lessons at the same time. When you see a bird, you go to the book and try to identify it. The same applies for insects, plants and other wildlife.
This is one of the camping activities in the day. You will love it a lot!
5. Time to keep a journal
This is simple. OK, it may not be a good idea for camping activities for preschoolers, but for children who can write, let them do it.
In fact, they should start on the journal right from home, you know, the moment when they were preparing to go camping.
Many outdoor blogs have been started this way. In future, they might want to document their camping adventures on a blog.
6. Shoot videos
Everyone has a camera today either on their drone or their mobile gadgets. You can even start a family camping channel that you can run on YouTube later. Get the children engaged in capturing video and photo footage of the surroundings.
At the same time, bring a pair or two of binoculars so that you can watch wildlife and birds from afar.
7. Hiking
There is no greater joy than getting out there on the trails as you fill your lungs with fresh air. Remember to pack your kids hiking boots.
Find an easy trail where the entire family can have fun walking, talking, chasing butterflies and admiring wildflowers.
8. Fishing
Lake or river fishing is a very enjoyable activities if the campground has the facilities. Not only do you get to catch your own dinner or lunch, but you have crazy fun when doing it.
If this is your thing, find the best campgrounds with fishing such as Yampa River State Park in Colorado, Lake Bob Sandlin State Park in Texas, Lake Scott State Park in Kansas and many others spread all over the nation.
You can find more on this site.
You will need a permit to fish, so pay for that in advance.
9. Playing Indoor games
If you brought a board game, you can play it when you get holed in the tent by rain or bad weather. One of the popular camping games is the Trekking The National Parks that you can buy on amazon.com.
There are many more games, including card games for camping.
If you don’t have money to buy such games, you can make your DIY camping games.
10. Orienteering Games
Turn your kids into boy and girl scouts by getting them maps and compasses and sending them to find various landmarks.
This will also be a good test for you to see how well you can follow directions.
11. Other games
There are tens other games. For example, if you are camping on the beach, play volleyball, football and others. Geocaching is also a very popular game with many camping families. You can also teach the children how to find water in camping.
Conclusion
There are so many things to do when camping with family. You can also improvise on many activities, make DIY items and many more. You should never have one boring moment when you are camping.