During the fall season, many families who love the open air usually schedule camping trips as a chance to enjoy the great outdoors while being surrounded by family and away from the disturbance of strangers.
Everyone wants their family to have fun while camping together so it’s important to put together a list of activities with which to keep the family busy and entertained while camping.
Here is all the fun stuff you can do while camping and all the important things you should know before taking your family on a camping trip this fall.
Choosing a Campsite and making a reservation
How much fun you have while camping, will depend on the campsite you visit. If you’re going fall camping in New York or any other metropolitan area, there’s a good chance your city has beautiful campsites where you can make a reservation. It’s a good idea to make this reservation on time so that all the spots are not snagged up by the time you’re ready to go camping.
You may explore the websites of different campsites and choose the one that suits your taste. Many campers love to choose campsites with lots of deciduous trees and foliage to not only heighten the camping experience but make a great background for better family photos.
Asides from visiting websites, you can also gather a lot of important information about different campsites by calling up your local ranger stations and requesting information about the area where you intend to camp. These stations are usually able to give the most up-to-date information about the best campgrounds, foliage conditions, and hiking information.
Setting Up Camp
Setting up a camp is one frequently underrated activity that the entire family can enjoy during camping. Instead of one parent or sibling doing the entire work, get the entire family involved in the tent building, setting up the picnic table, and unpacking anything else you’ve brought along. You can have the children running the smaller errands while the older ones lift the heavier load. This way your entire camp is set up while there’s still daylight. Once your tent is up, here are other activities to enjoy.
- Hiking: Make sure you choose a campsite with a good hike trail so that you and your family can enjoy a hike during your camping adventure.
- Build a Campfire: This is a must-do activity for family campers. After building the fire, your family can sit around the fire roasting marsh mellows and s’mores, telling stories, and playing games such as truth or dare.
- Enjoy some tent time: You can enjoy some semi-indoor time while outdoors by cuddling up in your large family tent and reading a book, telling stories, playing cards, etc.
- Play Hide and Seek: There will probably be more than enough hiding space in your campground, so it will be the perfect place for a family game of hide and seek.
- Bike riding: You can enjoy the space around the camp grounds by riding around on bikes with the entire family.
- Apple or strawberry picking: If there are fruit orchards around your campsite, you can plan a fruit-picking trip while camping. Apples and strawberries are especially easy to pick.
- Other sporting activities: The list of sporting activities to enjoy while camping is endless. Try a simple soccer game, spike ball, frisbee, volleyball, etc.
Choose a Camping Vehicle
Before your camping trip, check that you have the right vehicle to convey your entire family to the camping ground. You don’t want to find out on D-day that your family SUV turned out to be too small or fragile to convey everyone and their camping gear to the campsite.
Find out if you’ll need to rent an RV or a campervan. These types of vehicles are known for their added comfort and protection, and never forget all the extra space for the whole family to relax while on route to the campsite.
Get Some Fall Camping Gear
Due to constantly changing weather, you may need different camping gear in the fall than you did in the other seasons of the year. Here are a few camping gears you should consider getting especially for the fall season.
- Camping Tent: Choosing a family camping tent for the fall season is serious business. You should get one that is waterproof in case it rains, and since you’re camping with family, get a tent with extra space for times when the entire family ever has to hang out in a single tent for some activities.
- Sleeping bags
- Camp chairs
- Sleeping pads
- Extra blankets
- Camp stove
- Materials to start a fire
- String lights
