Family Camping Set-up Made Easy – Here are some common questions and tips!

When starting your family camping set-up, where should the family tent or camper go?

If you choose a paid campground, you might not have any options as far as tent/camper placement. Some organized campgrounds have the land divided into sites – there’s a pre-determined place for your tent/camper and a parking spot for your vehicle. But some campgrounds will let you pay for a spot in an open area, where you can choose your spot just like you can on BLM lands.

When you have a choice, first look for shade options. If possible, place your tent/camper in a position which receives some morning shade – children tend to awaken at the first sign of dawn, but having that shade can sometimes fool them, and you’ll get a little more sleep.

Once you have a spot chosen, decide what to do with your children during the family camping set-up. For toddlers or younger, I’d suggest leaving them in their car seats. Older kids can often entertain themselves with various plastic toys or other camping activities. For both tents and campers, you need a nice, level area, though we’ve made do on slopes before. We have the process of setting up the tent down to minutes -- always bring along extra stakes or long nails (you can get these at any home improvement store – look for the largest, strongest nails they have). Other than extra stakes, you’ll also need a hammer. If you have a camper, you’ll need some kind of blocks to brace the wheels.

How can we use our vehicle for family camping set-up?

If you’re camping on open land or at a campground which doesn’t provide firewood, before you settle in, go on a wood-scouting mission. We have a truck which we always take camping – the guys go out and find fallen logs and toss them in the back of the truck. Don’t forget some kind of protective hand wear and an axe/saw. As they do this, we get the kids to find twigs and small branches and make a pile – our kids love this part!

After you’ve gathered firewood, use your vehicle to hold equipment – such as your water cooler. We like to back our truck near to our tent and open the gate. The cooler is handy there, and we also keep the wipes next to it so we can clean up as soon as we are ready to enter the tent. Sometimes we’ll put the stove here, as well – it just depends if we have room for our kitchen or not. We store our food cooler beneath the tailgate at night, so that the sun doesn’t hit it first thing in the morning.

How do you make a fire pit?

This is one of the final steps in family camping set-up. When camping outside an organized campground or on open land, you’ll have to figure out your own fire pit. Begin by searching for good sized rocks. One thing to do as you research family camping sites is to consider whether or not you might need to bring your own shovel to dig a small pit. Some people even bring along concrete blocks to place around the pit.

Newspaper is good for getting the flame going – but you can also use Fritos or any corn chip with high oil content (if you’re in a fix). They work, but it takes a little longer. After the newspaper, stack on twigs, making a teepee-shape. As those begin to catch, then you can add the larger logs. I’m lucky that my husband is an expert fire maker – there’s nothing like the smell of a campfire as the stars begin to appear in the sky!

Miscellaneous Family Camping Set-up Tips

Next comes the food-related family camping set-up. As we generally eat dinner soon after arriving at our camping site, this makes a nice transition between arriving, setting up, and nighttime activities. I usually use this time to get the porta-potty where it needs to be, as well; then we put the chairs around the fire pit (which usually sports a nice, warm fire by then), and we settle down for our first family camping meal.