There is nothing like the great outdoors. The way the crisp and clean air feels as it fills your lungs is refreshing. The peaceful and relaxing sounds of birds chirping, a babbling brook, and your gentle footsteps falling on the soft dirt, are the ultimate destressors. You feel free in nature, deep in the woods with no sign of civilization. Camping among pine trees, with the stars freckling the sky never gets old. You learned to love the great outdoors as a kid and that love has grown with you.

Now it is your turn to share the beauty of nature with your kiddos. You want them to appreciate the outdoors and everything it has to offer. Whether you have taken them on camping trips before or are planning your first one, you want to make sure it is perfect, anything less may ruin camping and nature for them.

While you can’t plan for weather or the unexpected, you can make sure you are prepared. There are several essentials items to bring when you go camping with your children that will make the experience so much better. In this blog, we are going to go over a few of those items!

Campfire Equipment

One of the most exciting part of camping for children is that fact that they get to help build a fire out in the open. How often do they get to sit by a fire that isn’t behind glass? While you are likely to be able to find some firewood in the forest near your campsite, it may be a good idea to bring some dry wood along with you, just in case. Remember, you can’t prepare for the weather and if it rains, you may have a hard time starting a fire with wet wood. You also want to bring matches or a lighter with a long neck, making it easier to light the kindle in the middle.

S’mores

What goes with campfires? S’mores of course! S’more are and always will be a camping tradition. They are a must, especially when your kids are involved. If they agree to go camping with you, they will likely be expecting s’mores. Graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate — the three ingredients to the perfect camping trip. If you want to really wow your kiddos, bring some peanut butter cups along to trade out for the chocolate! They will love this exciting new s’mores style. One other thing you want to be sure to pack with you is the marshmallow roasting sticks! While your kids may enjoy roughing it and sticking a dirt covered branch in their marshmallow, the roasting sticks may be the better choice.

Games and Entertainment

If your children are young, they may not enjoy a nature hike as much as you. While short walks to the stream or to a cool lookout spot may be doable, you will likely not be hiking enough to take up the entire day. If this is the case, you will want to be sure to bring enough games and other forms of entertainment. Yard games are a great choice including cornhole, a football, water guns, card games, and other simple sources of entertainment like this could make the camping trip more fun for your children. If you are camping by a lake be sure to bring swimsuits, towels, pool floats, and even a fishing pole.

Bring a stereo and play your favorite music and have a family dance party around the campfire. If you want to make sure your kids get a true camping experience make sure they leave electronics at home. You don’t want them playing video games, looking at their cell phones, or watching a movie while they should be enjoying nature. Another fun way to get them out and about while camping is to get each of your children a disposable camera and allowing them to take pictures of whatever they want. When you get back home you can get them developed and enjoy the camping trip all over again.

Stories

Stories around the campfire are fun for everyone. Whether you tell your kiddos about your first camping experience or you get your best scary story ready, this will be a fun and entertaining thing to do at night. Depending on your children’s ages, a scary story is something that is fun and exciting and associated with camping. Of course you don’t want to scare your young kiddos, or you won’t be sleeping all night.

Go around the campfire and allow your children to tell stories of their own. You can even play the game where you go around and each person says a sentence to create a story. This is hard if you aren’t creative, but luckily the youngsters have a wild imagination. If you are a musical family, bring a guitar. Strumming and singing around the campfire may seem like something for a cheesy movie, but nobody complains when they are actually part of this great campfire activity.

Telescope

One of the best parts of nature is the amount of stars you can see with the naked eye. Your kids will likely be amazed at the freckled sky. To make this experience even more memorable for them, bring a telescope. It doesn’t have to be a super fancy telescope, just a simple one will do. Ask friends or neighbors or invest in one yourself, you never know when it will come in handy. Your children will love seeing the stars at night anyways, but when you bring a telescope into the mix, well that is a game changer.

Cleaning Supplies

Kids are messy. That is a simple fact of life. While you are supposed to be dirty and rugged when you go camping, becoming one with nature and not caring how much dirt is caked on your feet before climbing into bed, your kids are a different story. Not only will their sleeping bags be full of dirt, but they will also be sticky with marshmallow goo. Bring things to help keep your kids as clean as possible during the camping trip, or at least before they climb into your new tent. Wet wipes, hand sanitizer, and a hand and foot cleaning station can help keep everything a tad bit cleaner. Get a bucket or small tub and fill it with water, keep it by the tent with a chair and towel and have your children wash and dry their feet before stepping into the tent. It may seem pointless, but you will be grateful in the long run.

Lantern

Kids are as clumsy are they are messy, and many of them are scared of the dark, especially when in the woods. Making sure you have a lantern that will help them see the way and avoid tripping over rocks and stumps will help you avoid a lot of stubbed toes and scared children. Your old lantern may do the trick, but if you haven’t used it in a while and didn’t test it before heading up to the camping grounds, you may be unpleasantly surprised to find that the batteries have corroded and ruined the lantern.

Don’t let this happen to you. The Solar LED Lantern from Advanced Power is the way to go. This lantern can run for 11 hours on the low setting and four hours on the high setting. With a high-quality solar panel that can charge the lantern in three and a half hours, you will never have to worry about the dark campsite again! This eco-friendly lantern can also charge phones and other devices as well, which comes in handy if ever there was an emergency. To up your camping game, add this to your camping supplies. Your kids will be glad when they don’t have to walk to their tent alone in the dark. Plus, kids are fascinated by solar panels!

There are many things that you need to remember when going camping, especially with your children. You don’t want to make their first experience miserable because you weren’t fully prepared. Don’t forget the tent, extra blankets, food, water, and of course, the solar powered lantern. Advanced Power is proud to supply solar powered equipment that helps the environment and improves your camping trip. Learn more about our company today to see how we are making a difference! Contact us with any questions you may have, we are always happy to help.