Family Camping – Seven Great Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Camping Holiday

Camping is such a great way to spend time with the family. The excitement of spending quality time together in the open air really does wonders for strengthening those family bonds.

Children love camping. It is such an adventure for them, especially if they are involved (or sometimes just think that they are) in making decisions and helping out with general everyday tasks.

In my experience, family camping is great fun if you plan ahead. If the kids get bored and you have no ideas on what to do, you’re in trouble!

Here are seven tips to help make family camping more fun.

1) Find a campsite with a play area

It’s not always the quality of the play area that’s important. The play area is the central “meeting point” that attracts all the children in a campsite. Before you know it, your children will be happy to spend their hours playing at the play area with their new found friends.

2) Take books, games and writing materials

This is a good way to slow things down in the hour before bedtime.

3) Bad weather entertainment

Ensure that you have enough things to keep your children occupied during bad weather. My experience is that bad weather is a opportunity to spend quality time with the family doing things that you would never normally do, such as playing cards, taking turns to read through a joke book (yes, we have done this and it was a memorable moment in our camping lives!)

4) Fun with cooking

Be creative with your cooking and involve the children in preparing the food. The internet is a great source of ideas for fun things to cook and eat when outdoors.

5) Involve the kids with everyday jobs

Children love to feel that they are helping out and positively contributing to things. Get them to hold the tent poles when setting up the tent, for example. Simple things like this will get them really excited and put them in a good frame of mind for the rest of the trip.

6) Plan a treasure hunt

Whilst the children are playing at the play area, sit down, take a look around and identify 10 places visible from your tent that you can describe in the form of a clue. Write each clue on paper and hide each one in turn at one of the areas you have identified.

You will be able to sit down, relax and watch your children having the time of their lives working out the clues and moving from one place to the next.

Remember…

More clues equals more time to relax for you…

More difficult clues equals even more to relax for you…

Make the clues too difficult equals less time to relax for you, because the children will be coming back to you for help

7) Find things to do off the campsite

Ideally, there will be enough to do on site. However, it is worth looking for other things to do further a field, should the weather take a turn for the worse, for example.

If your children love the beach, look for a campsite near a beach – obvious really, but a bit of planning will reap dividends.