Camping Trips with the Family

by Anders Yerst

One of the fondest childhood memories I have are camping with my dad. My dad and I would grab our tent, sleeping bags and fishing poles and head down to a local lake for a weekend. Camping can be a wonderful activity for the entire family. It can also become a huge calamity if you are not prepared or don~t know what to expect.

If you are not experienced at camping then it might be best to start with a commercial campground. These campgrounds are often listed in the yellow pages. The costs of these campgrounds is often nominal and they usually have showers, bathrooms, electrical hookups, running water nearby , fire pits and a camp store for any necessities that you may have forgotten. Established commercial campgrounds also often have activities for the entire family including swimming pools, hiking trails, paddle boats and fishing lakes. Although most of these campgrounds are set up for campers they almost at always have tent sites as well.

Once you get some experience with camping you may then decide that you want to rough it out in the woods on your own.

Regardless of where you decide to go camping it is very important that you are prepared. Here's a list of some things you should consider to make sure that you're prepared for an enjoyable camping trip.


Camping inventory

1. Tent. There are a wide selection of tents available in various sizes from two-person tents to larger family sizes. You may consider getting the children their own tent because they will enjoy having their own space.

2. Sleeping bags and an air mattress if you don't want to sleep on the ground.

3. Matches.

4. Cookware. Cooking on an open fire will probably not be good for your best cookware so you might want to bring older pots and pans or consider buying a camping cookware set. Think ahead about foods that will be easy to cook on a fire.

5. Remember that you'll be cooking on an opened fire and so you'll need to bring some old cookware.

6. First aid kit. This is a given.

7. Water for drinking

8. Whether you go camping at an established commercial campground or out in the middle of nowhere make sure that you bring trash bags so you can leave the area just as you found it.

With a little careful planning your family camping trip can be a lot of fun for the whole family.

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Anders Yerst is the webmaster and owner of Webau Camping which is an excellent place to find camping links, resources and articles. For more information go to: http://www.webaucamping.com/