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Who loves camping?! We do! We have been camping with the kids since they were little, staying all over the Lake District, and further afield too.
We’ve stayed in pop up tents, bell tents, a motorhome and more recently a touring caravan and we’ve learned a LOT along the way (mostly by making mistakes!).
Imagine this: you’ve arrived at a small campsite in the middle of the Lake District. It’s a Friday evening and you’ve been at work/school all week. You’re desperate for a meal, a sit down and a relax. You have 3 young children, who are tired because it’s Friday but they are HYPED about this camping trip.
You unpack the tent and begin to lay it out, ready to put it up. You’re super glad at this point you have a bell tent because you find them easy and quick to get up. You’ve set it out and then you go to get the pegs, so you can out one next to each rope.
But…you can’t see them. You ask your partner – they can’t see them either. And then the despair slowly descends as you both realise at the same time that neither of you packed the pegs….
All the while this is going on, your children are getting livelier and livelier, and now they’re saying that they’re hungry. The evening at this point is not going the way you planned…
This is a true story, and it happened to us. It was not our finest moment! Luckily for us, some other people on the campsite helped us out, with spare tent pegs and a mallet to hammer them in.
But it made us realise we needed to plan better, and so, over time we have compiled The List. The List is now used for every camping trip, and can be refined and updated but must ALWAYS be followed when we’re packing for a trip. We’ve tried to manage without it, we think we can remember what we need, but we ALWAYS forget at least one important thing.
So now, we stick to the list, again and again, and everything runs smoothly (well, the packing part of the trips, anyway!).
So with all our years of trial and error, we now have an Ultimate Checklist to share with you, tried and tested by Lake District with Kids.
The Essentials
- The List itself – always essential.
- Phone and charger. If you’re not hooking up to electricity, it’s worth taking a power bank
- Toilet rolls
- Lamps/fairy lights
- Torch/headtorch
- Bin liners
- Tables – picnic table and coffee table
- Camping chairs – ours are ancient and on their last legs, so I’ve got my eye on these chairs for an upgrade later this year.
- Trugs – these are invaluable. Put that them at the entrance of the tent, campervan or caravan for shoes, and gear that you need to grab easily when you’re going outside. We use these flexible trugs, and have them ready to go at all times!
Essential Personal Care
- First Aid Kit – including plasters (especially graze plasters), bite cream, antiseptic, and calpol. You can create your own or buy ready made kits.
- Sun cream
- Wipes
- Toothbrushes and toothpaste
- Tick remover: we upgraded to this tick removal set recently and we’ve had success with removing quite a few ticks – the joys!
- Hand gel
- If you’re wild camping – a trowel!
Sleeping
- Tent – the choice is standard or bell tent. For standard tents, the choice is then airbeam or poles. Everyone has their favourites, ours was a bell tent from Glawning. For standard tents, there is a massive selection on display at most Go Outdoors stores.
- Mallet
- Beds. Airbed or SIM (self inflating mattress) are popular for tents. We also had a camping bunk bed for the boys when we were in the bell tent, it was a space saver and great fun!
- Bedding – this will probably be a sleeping bag and pillow for tent camping, and possibly a duvet, sheets and pillows for campervans/caravans.
- Accessories – depending on whether you’re a minimalist or maximalist camper, you can go as far as you want with this! In our bell tent we always had a giant rug down to cover the floor, and a big storage box that doubled as a seat. Other ideas are camping cupboards, and camping kitchen units.
Clothes
- Washing line and pegs. this washing line
- Waterproof coat
- Pyjamas
- Onesie
- Fleeces
- T shirts
- Trousers or leggings
- Socks – more socks than you think you’ll ever need
- Underwear
- Hats – sunhat/woolly hat (delete as appropriate) (or maybe take both for the Lake District).
Shoes
- Crocs – these are campsite staples for us. Super easy to get on and off as you go in and out of your tent/van.
- Wellies – because it’s the Lake District.
- Walking boots – this depends on what your plans are, but if they involve a Lake District family walk you might want your walking boots.
- Water shoes – again this depends on your plans, but water shoes can be really useful for lake days. We buy our water shoes from Decathlon, but they are widely available.
Cooking and Eating
- Flasks
- Cups
- Plates and bowls
- Stove/barbecue and utensils
- Picnic blanket
- Cool box – consider whether you want an electric or non-electric cool box, depending on your style of camping. We have both, and our electric cool box has worked well on longer camping trips.
- Chopping board
- Pans
- Washing up liquid and dishcloths
- Tea towels
- Matches
- Good chopping knife
- Washing up bowl – consider a collapsible bowl to save space
- Skewers – we love using reusable skewers for our toasted marshmallows!
Entertainment
- Buckets and spades (if you’re near some sand, obviously)
- Bats and balls – ours isn’t available now but it’s very similar to this set.
- Boules: this is our favourite family game as it suits everyone. This is the boules set we have, we actually have 2 sets and keep one in the caravan so we never forget it!
- Indoor games for when the weather isn’t great, or for after a great day out. We love Dobble, Top Trumps, Uno and Wild Unicorn!
- Backlit kindle – I’ve included this as I am generally the last person awake and having a backlit kindle means I don’t annoy anyone else. I got this kindle Paperwhite for my 40th birthday and it’s honestly one of my favourite gifts I’ve ever received!
That’s our list! I hope it’s helpful. Do you take anything else? Is there something you think I should add? Let me know.
Happy Camping!
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