What are your fun family activites while camping?
I thought I would ask this question two fold… What are your family camping traditions? And what activities do you find yourself doing the most with younger children?
Forum Discussion
- We camped on Halloween this year with a group of friends as our kids are getting to old for trick or treating. We took pumpkins and had a carving contest. The kids loved it and didn't even ask about candy. Cornhole and smores are always a hit.
If you know anyone with a movie projector you could have a movie on the lawn. Always brings the neighboring sites in for a visit. - Our kids are now 13,12,9 but they love to ride bikes, hike, fish, swim, have water gun fights, corn hole, and any type of crafts.
Traditions for us we always make smores and doughnuts. We don't buy doughnuts at home only when we go camping so they love to wake up the first morning and eat doughnuts. We also always find a local place and get pizza (either pick up or they deliver right to our site). I enjoy getting the pizza because it means I don't have to cook. - I so enjoyed reading all the replies to OP, brought back a flood of memories. We too did many of the things mentioned. Seems like we didn't really have to entertain them much, they made friends easily with other campers, we always had bikes along and just about always had our car-top boat as well.
One thing I didn't see mentioned; seemed we were often on water, lakes or Puget Sound, so I always had my wife's late grandfathers hand powered drill and wood bits and we would make the most incredible wooden boats from drift wood mostly. I always tried to build the boats simple, only a couple nails would be needed, maybe a little string. Sails would be made with leaves, ballast would be a rock. I'd make a boat, then my kids would create one and then neighbor campers would built them. We'd cast them off with out-going tides or winds, or down a river.
Sometimes we would find them back the next day on a beach hike. My kids were kind of sad to let them go, even though it may have been as simple as a piece of bark with a branch sticking out of it.
All the best and Happy New Year. Hans - Rookie Rver :C here! Super Soaker water guns.......
- When my children talk about what they did camping they most enjoyed picking wild strawberries and huckleberries. And eating them as they went along, Canoeing and building a raft. Floating little plastic boast down a stream and running along the bank to reach them before the got to the lake. Walking all around lakes including thru the streams into the lake. And building Hobbit caves with things we picked up in the woods.Collecting dead and downed wood which you can do in Michigan state parks.
- Ladderball is a must for us
- We love going Geocaching. We ride our bikes, do some walking around, and enjoy our canoe if there is a nice lake. :C
- Rookie Rver :C here! Water gun fights and water ballon fights. Those two seem to get everyone (18 months to 80yrs old) involved.....and especially if the weather is nice.
- Our kids are now 49 and 50 and the things they remember most are, are you ready for this?, the educational things. We tent camped and took part in Ranger/Naturalist Programs, historic sites, and seeing whats beside the road. They of course loved getting to their cousins home in coastal Oregon and going berry picking, fern diving, bee whipping and exploring the coastal forests. Swimming both in the ocean and lakes, rivers and streams. At their cousins we would turn them loose after breakfast and not see them until hunger brought them home. Aunt Eula had pretty strict kitchen hours and if the kitchen was closed it was either do without, make your own or go pick it off the vine.
Today it's the DGKs turn. The cousins are grown and scattered around, live in more regimented areas and don't have vast achrage to explore so it's local, state and federal parks for their playgrounds. The DW and I can't do the tent thing anymore so to make things interesting at meal times my lovly DW has made up special names for mudane meals, Grand Canyon Supreme is original Hamburger helper. I don't cook as much as I would like over the campfire but were try to do meals that way. Card games to fill rainy afternoons, a few (15 min each) episodes of ALF (you older folks will remember that) and outings on the sand or in the forest and exploring the desert.
And of course all those things the parks have available in the form of hikes, ecology studies, crafts, over twenty Jr Ranger programs and nightime Ranger led fireside talks. The best thing for the kids who are now 11 and 12 is being turned loose with almost no restrictions. We keep them away from real danger but let them extend their reach almost into danger. Our only real restriction is stay in touch using the FRS walki-talki's. Last year they found lots of banana slugs up in Washington. DGD loved the stories of her mom and auntie being tought to tie dandylion stems around the slugs and swinging them overhead and seeing how far they could throw them. They don't go that far, but the DGD had six of them on her hand and arm.
We,ve been as far East as DeSmet SD to the Ingalls homestead as far North as the Arctic Circle for the Summer Solstice (a fly drive camping trip) and as far South as the Galapagos (fly cruise). And their favorite is the PNW Coast. Nothing like gathering driftwood and making a cafe or hut or...
Well that's my story and I sticking to it.
DOD (from Doggy Dog cartoon series, Dear Old Dad, now Granddude) - My girls (age 2 5 7) can honestly just play in the dirt for hours! :) They love looking for animals and collecting supplies (twigs and such) for the fire...
One you could look up is www.letterboxing.org It is similar to geocaching but uses landmarks and clues instead of gps. Generally most areas have them in forest preserves and parks and such. Also instead of "stuff" in the box it is usually a hand carved stamp. You stamp your own logbook and then sign the one in the box. My kids each have their own book and handcarved stamp and love the "hunt"...
